On 11/6 the following appeared in a memo responding to the query on morally ambiguous women in film: > > An excellent (and unusual) example is WITHNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION > (1957). In that work, Christine (Marlene Dietrich) is willing to do what > is needed to get what she wants, moral or immoral much as i like agatha c. in general, and laughton and "witness" in particular, it seems to me almost a classic example of the kind of total lack of moral nuance that has made movies beneath contempt to so many . . . christine is willing to do whatever is necessary to serve the one good in her life to which she is totally, unambiguously, even heroically, but--the movie leaves no doubt--quite stupidly committed, and that good is, of course, a man . . . that the man in this case is as unidimensional as the woman might be relevant to a discussion of sexism in the film, but hardly to a discussion of moral ambiguity and nuance . . . even the glorious laughton--who could thrill by simply reading from the bronx telelphone directory, as he occasionally did on the old ed sullivan show--is about as morally ambiguous as superman the woman who seems bad but turns out to be good [christine, gilda] like the noir vamp who seems good but turns out to be fatally bad [the sirens, pandora, and a slew of stanwyck characters] are simply staples of our common generic heritage, formulaic expressions of the same old but far from worn out sexual ideology . . . . . . but before this thread turns into a rope which threatends to strangle thought, i'd value it if someone--the original enquiring mind or anyone else--could provide a provisional or working definition of moral ambiguity . . . the term clearly means too much to too many mike frank ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]