
Long-lasting star personas generally manage to contain their share of contradictions, or to put it differently: they allow both conservative and progressive meanings… Day’s career can be seen historically as embodying the conservative in the Warner Bros. via Flickrīut was there more to these seemingly shallow plots than meets the eye? Could the movies have managed to do two things at the same time? The film scholar Dennis Bingham, writing for Cinema Journal in 2006, seems to think so:

Her image in these movies was often seen as “goody two shoes,” a woman who wanted to be married before hopping into bed-a plot that failed to work as the sixties unfolded and cultural views on sexual morality shifted. These later movies are often called her “sex comedies,” but the joke is that no one was having any, much to the chagrin of whatever leading man was trying to seduce Day. They didn’t give me the same feeling of female freedom. Perhaps that’s why I never fully embraced her later movies, like Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back, and Send Me No Flowers, all with Rock Hudson, which are better known. I knew then, as a very young girl, that I liked Day’s spunky, can-do personality and jaunty independence, though I doubt I would have been able to put that into words. Was there more to these seemingly shallow plots than meets the eye? Could the movies have managed to do two things at the same time?
MOLLY HASKELL MOVIE
The movie ends, predictably enough for an early 1950s musical, with a double wedding.
MOLLY HASKELL HOW TO
The two appear to be the only single women in town, and become roommates and fast friends, with Katie ostensibly teaching Jane how to appear more feminine, part of a plan to woo her secret love. There is also a story of friendship between Jane and Katie, a woman who comes to town impersonating a famous entertainer. There is a love story between Jane and Bill Hickok, played by Howard Keel. The Deadwood men offer her a certain amount of respect, grudging though it may be. Essentially, she is a stark contrast to every other woman in the film. She laughs and talks as loudly as she wants.

She wears buckskin pants and a jacket, which frequently causes others to mistake her for a man.

In Calamity Jane, however, Day carries a gun, firing it at will, even inside the local saloon (where she orders sarsaparilla, but in a tough voice that belies the fact that she’s ordering a soft drink). Many people consider Day to be an inoffensive girl next door-virginal, blonde, perhaps a little boring.
