CACTUS FLOWER

CACTUS FLOWER

Spoiler Alert

Since my last few entries were on movies with serious topics, I decided to spend the next couple of weeks discussing films that have a lighter note.  I’m starting by looking at Cactus Flower which came out in 1969 this week then recapping it’s 2011 remake, Just Go With It, next week.  One of my beliefs as a Sociologist is that popular culture can reflect the social milieu.  In the case of the movie Cactus Flower, we can look at what the creators thought about relationships in the late 1960s.  The story revolves around four main characters, Toni (Goldie Hawn), a twenty-one year old who works in a record store, Julian Winston (Walter Matthau), her married forty-something boyfriend who is a Fifth Avenue dentist, Stephanie Dickenson (Ingrid Bergman), Julian’s thirty-something nurse and office manager, and Toni’s new neighbor, Igor Sullivan (Rick Lenz), an unpublished play write whose father pays his rent.  


The movie opens with a teary-eyed Toni walking out of her old brownstone apartment building to mail a letter.  Back inside she stares sadly at an uneaten meal on a fully set table in the small one-bedroom apartment that has a tiny kitchenette and bed.  It looks as though someone didn’t show up for dinner.  She blows out the pilot light on the miniature gas stove, closes all the windows, and lays down on her bed.  Above her sits the picture of middle-aged man.  A young man, Igor, steps from his apartment into the hall, smells gas coming from Toni’s apartment, and finding he can’t open her door, slips out of his window to see if he can get in from there.  When he finds her window locked, he breaks the glass; inside he discovers that Toni is unconscious.  He turns off the stove, opens the windows and door, then begins giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.  As she awakens, she wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him.  He asks why she wanted to die, and Toni explains that her boyfriend, Julian, who is married and has three kids, cancelled their one-year anniversary celebration to be with his wife.   She goes on to say that Julian is a Fifth Avenue dentist whom she met at Stereo Heaven where she works; originally when he asked her out, her plan was just to have a fling, but when he admitted that he was married, she realized he was the most honest person she had ever met and fell in love.  Suddenly, she remembers that she mailed a suicide note to Julian’s office and asks Igor to call and say that she is okay.


Meanwhile, at the dentist’s office, Julian is fixing a tooth for Harvey Greenfield, an unemployed actor who never pays his bill.  Julian says that he missed his one-year anniversary with Toni the night before to go out with a stewardess, but he felt guilty and didn’t enjoy himself.  His original intent was to have a fling with the much younger woman; to avoid entanglements, he even told her he had a wife and three young children although he’s never been married.  Despite his best efforts, however, Julian has fallen in love.  Out in the vestibule, the ringing phone is answered by the dentist’s nurse, Stephanie Dickenson, whom Julian describes as efficient but cold as an iceberg.  Stephanie has worked there for ten years but the only items she has on her desk are a stack of mail and a small plain cactus in a pot.  When she begins opening the mail, she finds Toni’s suicide note and gives it to Julian.  He reads it, cancels the rest of his appointments, and rushes to Toni’s apartment where he finds her sitting at the table eating breakfast.  Julian tells her he loves her and that he will marry her.  When she reminds him that he is already married, he says that his wife wants a divorce more than he does.  Instead of simply accepting the proposal, however, Toni insists on meeting the wife.


Since he doesn’t really have a wife, Julian is in a bad position.  He goes back to the office and invites Stephanie out for a drink.  She is surprised.  Although attractive, she doesn’t get much attention from men because her shapeless white uniform makes her look matronly.  Instead, she spends most of her time at the office taking care of Julian as if she’s his wife.  She brings in chicken and egg salad sandwiches for him, makes his patients pay their bills, and orders his clothes.  She even puts up with Senor Sanchez, a married man who is one of Julian’s patients, hitting on her.  A lonely woman, Stephanie lives with her sister, brother-in-law, their two kids, and the dog, Max, that she takes for his walks.  She has never been married, does not have a boyfriend, and her only companion when she goes on vacation is the dog.  Therefore, she is delighted by Julian’s invitation and accepts immediately.


Stephanie changes into street clothes, which are much more flattering than her uniform, and they go out to a local bar.  While they sit drinking, Julian asks her to pretend to be his wife just long enough to go by Toni’s work and convince her that she, Stephanie, wants to get divorced.  Accusing Julian of being nice just to use her, Stephanie refuses and walks out.  The next day, however, she brings her nephews to town, and after telling them to wait in the ice cream store across the street, goes into the record store and introduces herself to Toni as Julian’s wife, Mrs. Winston.  She assures Toni that she wants the divorce and leaves.  At first Toni is relieved, but when she sees Stephanie with the children, she feels guilty and tells Julian that she is having doubts.  His response is that it’s nothing to worry about because he and his wife barely even know each other.  Then Toni begins to question Julian about the ages of his children because his oldest son is supposed to be eight, but the boy with Stephanie looked about twelve. Julian admits that the boy was born a couple of years before he and his wife married, and Toni becomes even more upset thinking how much Julian’s wife must have loved him to have had a child with him out of wedlock. She tells Julian that he needs to find his wife a boyfriend so she won’t be alone, to which Julian replies that his wife already has someone.  Rather than being mollified, however, Toni insists on meeting the man to be sure he is suitable.  This puts Julian in the unenviable position of having to find a fake beau for his fake wife.
  

Not having anyone else to ask, Julian approaches Harvey who agrees on the condition that Julian fix his real girlfriend’s teeth for free.  The deal is agreed on, and that evening Harvey escorts Stephanie to a nightclub where Julian and Toni are already waiting.  The three older characters look out of place in a crowd that consists of people in their twenties dancing to contemporary music and wearing mod clothes.  When Toni sees Stephanie slip Harvey money that Julian has given her to pay for their drinks, she decides he isn’t good enough to be Stephanie’s boyfriend and intervenes, telling Harvey to go away.  Feeling bad for Stephanie, she asks Julian to take his wife home.  He agrees reluctantly and, once they are in the car, her insults her by saying that she defeminizes herself.  The next morning, worried that Toni will suspect he spent the night with “his wife”, Julian shows up at the record store with a gift box.  She opens it hoping that it’s a pair of leather pants; she is noticeably disappointed to find a mink stole with a card that reads, “As ever, Julian”, instead.  Unaware that she doesn’t like his gift, he leaves; as soon as he’s gone, Tonie decides to send the mink with the card to Stephanie in care of Julian’s office.


When the package arrives, Stephanie opens it and reads the card.  Thinking that Julian has given her the mink stole, she puts it on, thrilled.  When she thanks him, however, he becomes angry and tells her she is little more than an old maid.  In her defense, Stephanie compares herself to her cactus which, even though dowdy most of the time, occasionally blooms.  To prove her point, she accepts Senor Sanchez’s invitation to a ball.  That night after the gala, she shows up at the nightclub on the arm of her date wearing a beautiful evening gown, sporting a flattering hairdo, and wrapped in the mink stole.  Toni, Julian, and Igor, whom Toni has invited along, are there and Igor, taken with Stephanie’s beauty, asks her to dance.  She accepts and, while they are dancing, Harvey and his girlfriend arrive.  Toni, obviously jealous, notes that, on top of having a husband, Julian’s wife also has three admirers.  She insists on leaving, and Julian, who is also jealous, agrees.  When they get outside, however, he finds that his car has been towed, so Toni takes off leaving him standing alone on the sidewalk.  


The next morning, Stephanie is dropped off at work by a cab, still wearing her evening clothes.  When Julian arrives, also by cab, and sees her, he asks why she’s dressed that way.  She tells him that she spent the night partying and going to the beach with Igor.  As she rushes to her desk, delighted to see that her cactus has bloomed, Julian begins to criticize her, stating she is too old to be dating young men and staying out all night.  She retorts that she is having fun for the first time in her life and is not going to stop.  They throw jibes back and forth, like a married couple, until Stephanie finally states that she wants a divorce, grabs her things, and walks out.


Back at the apartment building, Toni and Igor are having a similar argument, with Toni giving Igor the third degree about what happened between him and Stephanie the night before.  Her attitude toward Julian’s wife has gone from feeling sorry for the woman to insinuating that she is a slut.  Then Stephanie comes by to tell Toni who she really is and reveal that Julian has never been married.  After she leaves, Julian comes over to break the bad news that his wife has decided she doesn’t want the divorce, after all.  Realizing that he will never be honest with her, Toni decides to tell a lie of her own and “confesses” that she’s been seeing Igor.  As if on cue, Igor comes in through the window wearing nothing but a towel and Julian walks out.  Toni realizes that she really does love Igor; she kisses him and invites him to dinner.  Julian, who has returned to the office, is sleeping in his dental chair when Stephanie comes in to get her flowering cactus and awakens him.  He informs her that he and Toni have split up and that he’s actually relieved the relationship is over.  He hesitates a moment, then tells Stephanie that he wants to kiss her; she says if he does, she expects him to marry her.  He doesn’t object.  


Even though Walter Matthau has quite a few funny lines and Goldie Hawn is cute as can be, it is hard to tell exactly how well this movie reflects changing relationships in the late 60’s.  Although Toni claims to stand up for herself, she is easily manipulated by Julian.  Stephanie is also vulnerable to men, only metaphorically blooming like her cactus when they pay attention to her.  There is also the issue of age; the story seems to suggest that couples should only consist of people from the same cohort.  Finally, there is all the talk about honesty.  Toni’s position is she can only love a man who is honest, but this makes her a something of a hypocrite considering she sees nothing wrong with dating a man who is lying to his wife to be with her.  Likewise, Stephanie is dishonest with both Julian and herself; she pretends she is at the office for her job when, in truth, she really is there to be with him.  In fact, the most honest person in the movie is Harvey, who is faithful to his girlfriend and up front about being a lousy credit risk.  


Next week, it will be interesting to see what the remake Just Go With It does with the relationship theme forty-two years later.  Until then enjoy a flick…or two.