In “How to Marry a Millionaire” from 1953 there is a scene where two characters are talking about a third who couldn’t make it “because he was at a Republican Rally last night”. When Betty Grable remarks “this is an odd place for a convention!” the two men chuckle at her ostensible naivety.
Googling “Republican rally” left me none the wiser, is this a bit of slang that’s been lost to the ages?
Where does this conversation take place?
Never mind, I found it here in this transcript, almost halfway down:
This is the scene as described in Wikipedia:
Meanwhile, Loco becomes acquainted with a grumpy businessman (Fred Clark). He is married, but she agrees to go with him to his lodge in Maine, mistakenly thinking she’s going to meet a bunch of Elks Club members. When they arrive, Loco is disappointed to find that the businessman was hoping to have an affair with her and set them up in a dingy lodge instead of the glamorous one she was expecting. She attempts to leave but unfortunately has to stay due to the trains not able to come till the next day.
I think the “Republican rally” was just that, but a small-town affair where the men boozed it up and had to sleep it off the next day (it was the Eisenhower era, after all). Loco was obviously picturing something else, based on the convention she had “attended” earlier, probably looking for a man to snare.
The third party was the son of the regular driver, no one special.
I saw the movie once, a long time ago.
I’ve seen this movie more times than I can count.
Loco is having an entirely different conversation than the two men (she often is) and her statement is a non-sequitur.
Brewster met Loco at a party - he invited her away for the weekend to his “lodge” in the country. Loco had assumed that it was an Elks Lodge (or Moose Lodge or whatever). Brewster (who’s married and middle aged) meant his actual cabin in the middle of nowhere where no one would find out what he was up to. Brewster is desperate to keep this affair secret. They take the train from NY to Maine. At the train station in Maine, instead of getting picked up by the normal driver (who is presumably also a middle-aged, married man who would understand what Brewster was doing and keep his mouth shut) they’re picked up by his son. Hence the “where’s your father?” “Republican rally” conversation. It was a literal Republican rally in a small town in the middle of nowhere where men would have gotten together and drunk too much.
Loco has not paid any attention to that conversation at all. She is looking at her surroundings and not seeing any real town, not to mention not seeing any Elks/Moose/Oddfellows/Rotarians/what-have-you. And she’s very confused as to why some group would choose to have a convention in Maine rather than somewhere in a larger city.
Yes to all the above.
It’s worth remembering that Eisenhower was an enormously popular president. He was twice elected in a landslide, and the film was released exactly one year after he won in 1952.
It’s entirely natural that the men in a small town in New England (many of them probably WWII vets) would have a rally to celebrate either Eisenhower’s election or the first anniversary of it.
“Republican rally” absolutely would not have had the negative connotation some might attach to it today.
I’m piping up to say that Rory Calhoun in those days was quite special. Quite special, indeed.
So the son of the regular driver was the forest ranger Loco ended up marrying? That I did not remember. :smack:
Always with the standing and walking.
Thanks all! I think I may have been overthinking this scene. It just felt like there was a joke I was missing.
And yes, many “always standing and walking!” jokes were made when Rory Calhoun’s name appeared in the credits 