A cute line in an old movie...

Sometimes I watch old movies - those black and white ones from another age - and sometimes I'm pleasantly amused by how they reference spanking.

One recent example is "Three On A Match" - a pre-code 1932 movie with a disjointed plot. A flop at the time, today it's mostly remembered for featuring some young actors everyone's heard of - Bette Davis, Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, and Humphrey Bogart to name a few.

Focusing on three women, the film starts when they're in school, with child actresses playing the roles and showing that they don't change. A girl that later goes to reform before becoming a show girl hangs upside down to show off her bloomers and smokes cigarettes with boys, that sort of thing.

Anyway, there's a classroom scene where the teach tells the class Smart Alex:
"I'd like to be your mother for just about two minutes."

No, it's not her openly saying "I'd like to give you a good spanking" but everyone hearing that knew what she meant.

The response? "I'll speak to father about that." - showing that either he didn't understand or he understood or he's such a Smart Alex that he's taunting her. Or maybe he was okay with her having charge of him long enough to spank him, or maybe showing his classmates that he didn't think he had anything to fear from a spanking that only lasted two minutes, or maybe his dad plays around (a graduation scene shows that he has both parents).

Basically it was a minor point of dialogue that caught my ear, something the movie never touched on again as there were only a handful of scenes before the school age actors were replaced with adult ones and there was absolutely no spanking in the movie, but it shows how common spanking once was.


Edited to add:
I'm not the only whose ear was caught by those lines. The exchange was recorded on IMDB at https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023590/characters/nm0002768?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t27
The quote doesn't say what he's doing, but he's loudly sharpening a pencil with a knife (or whittling - it's hard to tell) while the teacher is trying to teach.


Miss Blazer : Willie Goldberg, will you be quiet?

[Louder]

Miss Blazer : Willie Goldberg!

[Frustrated]

Miss Blazer : Oh, I'd like to be your mother for just about two minutes!

Willie Goldberg : [Sarcastically] I'll speak to father about that.

That's intriguing.
Very true, Goodgulf, spankings were once a lot more common.
Here's an idea, write a story where the teacher actually does give him that spanking she hinted at. A good smacking never killed anyone and does clear the air.
Miss Blazer, eh? ;)

From Charade (1963):

Cary Grant: How would you like a good spanking?

Audrey Hepburn: How would you like a punch in the nose?

Neither follows through, more's the pity. The thought of Cary, blood still dripping from his nose, vigorously spanking the lovely Audrey across his lap, is utterly delicious....

One of my favourite snatches of movie dialogue comes in Ernst Lubitsch's classic comedy Trouble in Paradise (1934). Herbert Marshall, suave man-about-town and jewel thief, applies for the post of secretary to a rich young widow, played by the delicious Kay Francis.

Finding her affairs in a total muddle, he tells her, "Madame, if I were your father, I should give you a good spanking - purely in a business way, of course." Francis: "And if you were my secretary?" Marshall (firmly): "The same!" Francis (shooting him a look of sheer erotic delight): "You're hired!" Fadeout, alas.

In the movie The Giant Claw (1957) a low budget '50s monster movie a mathematician, Sally, played by Mara Corday is talking to an army man about a test pilot Mitch (Jeff Morrow)

Army guy: Mitch kinda makes his own rules.

Sally: So does a 3 year old child, until his mother spanks him.

Mitch (on the radio): Mother oh mother, I'm willing if you are.

In "Blondie Hits the Jackpot" (1949) there's a scene near the end when the teenage girl who's been a brat throughout the movie comes to their house. She asks to speak to Blondie privately in the kitchen, and then admits that her lack of a mother has kept her from getting the spankings she knows she deserves.

It then cuts back to the living room where Dagwood is talking with their two kids. Suddenly they start hearing wallops and yelps from the kitchen. Then Blondie lays on an extra loud whack that really makes the girl howl. Their daughter cringes and then comments to Dagwood "ouch; I felt that one from here!" So obviously they're used to being on the receiving end from Mom.

And of course the Brigitte Bardot movie And God Created Woman the line "if I were your father or husband I'd give you a good spanking." Imagine sex kitten Bardot getting soundly spanked in one of the scenes when she is sunbathing nude, or is wearing a bikini!

There is a movie I believe the title is "Tank" James Garner is in it. A well known character actor plays the sheriff but I can't think of his name. Another well known female actress who played one of the later girls on "Threes Company" is strapped by the sheriff on her bare bottom in "Tank" I think three strokes if I remember correctly. Wished I could remember names better but I'm sure it comes up with google. The strapping scene is definitely worth a look.

As long as we are discussing spanking in old classics, I first noticed it in 1934 classic It Happened One Night. It was done in a comedic way and I found cute.

If someone is interested to know more about spankings in movies, I guess this will help: Spanking in Movies

Though some links are dead but you can view most of them. I hope this discussion will continue.

Sadly it looks as if the chross blog on which Spanking in the Movies appears has gone very quiet - no new posts since February. I sent him an email some weeks ago, but no reply as yet. Hope all is ok with him