Ah, Rhonda! Fleming, that is. She will always be my ultimate screen sex goddess, no disrespect to the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Dorothy Dandridge or Halle Berry.
It was Fleming who gave America the sexiest moment an American actress ever provided on the silver screen, and she did it without removing one stitch of clothing. Heck, she didn’t show as much as a bare ankle. But more on that later.
What prompts these memories was a Rhonda Fleming movie-thon that ran Saturday night on Turner Classic Movies. Thank heavens for TCM, which provides viewers with showings of classic American (and some foreign) films that were made as far back as the 1910s.
Many of the films reflect an America that once was, an America that wasn’t as obsessed with sex as it is today. An America where a Rhonda Fleming could provide the ultimate sexy moment while fully clothed.
The movie-thon started with the film noir classic “Out of the Past,” in which Fleming played a supporting role. Then it was the little-known 1964 Fleming flick — filmed in Brazil — called “Instant Love”. A 1956 crime drama called “While the City Sleeps” was next, followed by the Bob Hope-Fleming comedy “Alias Jesse James”.
“Gun Glory,” a Western starring Fleming and Stewart Granger, rounded out the evening. Not shown — but shown previously on TCM — was the 1957 oater “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral,” in which Fleming co-starred with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. In one short scene from this John Sturges classic, Fleming gave her breathtakingly sexy moment.
Fleming played Laura Denbow, a female gambler who comes to Marshal Wyatt Earp’s town to play cards with the menfolk. It’s clear that Earp — played by Lancaster — has a hankering for Denbow, but he busts her hump about playing cards with men anyway. He locks her up for “disturbing the peace.”
After being convinced by Doc Holiday (Douglas) and others that he’s made a mistake, Earp frees Denbow. She walks out of her cell and passes Earp, who’s sitting at his desk. Denbow stands at the door to the jail and just waits.
“Marshal,” Denbow says.
Earp looks up, and realizing he has little other choice, rises from his seat and opens the door for Denbow.
Now THAT is darned sexy. With one word, Denbow said a mouthful, and what she said was this:
“I’m a woman, and demand to be treated like one, and with respect. I know you’re going to open this door for me; you know you’re going to open this door for me. And you know that I know that you know.”
Maybe this will be dismissed at the ranting of a conservative old fogy who once quipped that he was on the losing side of the sexual revolution. Well, I AM a conservative old fogy, and these days I’m actually HAPPY that I was on the losing side of the sexual revolution.
But the year before Fleming gave us the film world’s sexiest moment, President Eisenhower ran for re-election against Sen. Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. The race pitted a World War II hero against a man of undisputed intellectual brilliance.
Fifty-five years later, we have the spectacle of an America obsessed with the sexual habits, mores and life of Herman Cain, who’s since dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination. But Americans in 1956 would have rejected Cain once he showed he didn’t know the difference between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They’d have had little use for the likes of Bill “Cigar Boy” Clinton either.
Once a society ratchets down its standards for sexual conduct, other standards might get ratcheted down with it.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
