Marilyn From The 22nd Row

When Jerry admits to Mae, early in the movie, that he has fallen in love with her, she concludes that Jerry wants to marry her (he never actually proposes) but dismisses the idea as silly and wrong. Although Jerry disagrees, Mae admits: I wouldn’t make a good wife for you. I’m one of those women who are never satisfied. That being the case, why does Mae change her mind and propose to Jerry? Her admission that it would be nice, married to someone like Jerry, with whom she would be safe, a man who could give her a place to rest, a man who doesn’t have a mean thought in his head and doesn’t hate women, does not completely explain her change of heart. Does desperation make it easy for her to ignore her admission: I’d be bad for you. Believe me, somehow I’d hurt you. She correctly advises Jerry: Find yourself someone who likes pushing a baby carriage and shopping and changing the curtains on the window. Her change of heart happens after her ugly encounter with Earl in the beach side bar. She knew then that Earl was the wrong man; but as harsh as their interaction was, Mae’s attraction to Earl remained unabated, her attraction to what Peggy called his energy, fifties code for his powerful sexuality. Mae even tells Earl: You impress me as a man who needs a new suit of clothes or a new love affair. But he doesn’t know which. While Earl generates a powerful desire in Mae, he also generates a powerful fear. She fears Earl’s anger, his misogyny and his narcissism. Her desire to escape, to get away from Earl motivates her rather left-handed marriage proposal, her businesslike agreement to marry Jerry if he still wants to marry her.

Before her unromantic marriage proposal, Mae assessed Earl thusly: I’m fed up with Earl … He’s fine for a ride on a roller coaster, but I’m tired of roller coasters. But is she telling the truth; is she really fed up, really tired of roller coasters? Or, had Mae already concluded that Earl would be fine for a sexual thrill, a ride on a roller coaster, even if she married Jerry. No doubt. Unfortunately, though, Jerry did not hear what amounts to Mae’s confession. Certainly, a woman as intelligent and worldly as Mae knew that a man as ingenuous and as trusting as Jerry would interpret try to make you happy as will make you happy and certainly Mae knew Jerry would expect adherence to their wedding vows, forsaking all others till death do they part. I suggest that Mae never intended to be faithful to Jerry and I offer as proof, Mae’s admission to Earl when she realizes that she’s made a mistake and that she’s deceived herself all along. What she says is nothing less than confessional:

How many times have I told myself … nothing counted but me. My disappointments. My unhappiness. I married Jerry, moved into his house, used his money and had his child and yet … yet I was never his wife. You’re someone’s wife when you belong to them. I never belonged to anybody … I said to the world: this is what I am. Take me or leave me so that it was always on my terms that they had to accept me. But it was a trick. Don’t you see Earl? It was a trick to avoid the responsibility of belonging to someone.

In a less sophisticated manner than Mae, Joe posits to Peggy a similar assessment of marital commitment:

That ring on your finger; what did you put it there for, a decoration? Listen to me, blondie. The woman I marry, she don’t take me on a wait and see basis … In my book, marriage is a two-way proposition: you’re just as much responsible as I am. So that little eye is gonna roam, if what you think is Joe’s alright until something better comes along, honey you better take another street car.

Belonging to someone means making a one-hundred percent commitment, no equivocations. Joe realizes that if Peggy equivocates, then their marriage is doomed. Contained within any equivocation is an excuse for the faithlessness of husband or wife: it has the inevitability of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is difficult to deny one’s need to maintain and difficult to relinquish one’s sense of power, sense of control and sense of freedom; but Mae realizes that she never actually committed to Jerry; she never actually married Jerry. It’s an odd paradox, relinquishing one’s self to another in order to obtain real fulfillment, something Mae never did with Jerry. As a result, adultery was easy for her. If Clash By Night presents an overarching theme, the need for total commitment in marriage is that theme.

Some reviewers excuse Mae’s adulterous behavior because she never made a declaration of everlasting love to Jerry; but if Mae had professed an everlasting love, would her adulterous behavior then be inexcusable or even unforgivable?

Along with his many symbols, metaphors and his visual poetry, Lang effectively compares and contrasts his characters: Jerry with Earl, Mae with Peggy and Mae with Earl.

A weary and cynical woman, Mae has returned home because home is where you come when you run out of places. Her circumstances have forced her to move into her deceased mother’s bedroom, a resignation to domesticity, Fritz Lang suggests, and a return to the life-style she once rejected. Peggy, on the other hand, is young: she is just twenty years old. Peggy is also fiercely independent, wants a Cadillac, a symbol of wealth, and a trailer so she can just go over the whole country seeing places, an overt expression of her desire to be free. Peggy rejects Joe’s contention that her role is to have kids; and she hasn’t married Joe because … I hate people bossing me. You marry a fella, the first thing he does is boss you. Peggy seems to be rejecting the nineteen-fifty’s post war dictum regarding a woman’s role in society: she must be a wife and a mother, a house-wife, a cook and a maid. Mae also rejected that precept once; but life has all but beaten her. For Peggy, according to Mae, miracles can still happen. For Peggy, the future awaits so her big ideas can still be realized. For Mae, her big ideas have ended with small results.

The contrasts drawn between Earl and Jerry are just as stark as the ones drawn between Mae and Peggy. Earl is complex while Jerry, even according to Earl, is a simple man. Earl is angry and dissatisfied while Jerry is happy and content. Earl trusts no one but Jerry trusts everyone. Jerry, the fisherman, who draws his living from the natural world, the sea, is to be seen, in the context of this movie, as the good and decent man while Earl, the projectionist, who makes his living with a machine that projects unrealistic fantasies, is to be seen, not necessarily as totally evil, but less inclined to goodness or decency.

Early in the movie, when Jerry and Mae are on board his fishing boat, Lang positions the camera above Mae as she descends a ladder and looks up, directly at the camera. Later, Lang employs a similar camera set-up as Earl drunkenly climbs the back stairs of the D’Amato’s home. He, too, looks up, directly at the camera. A visual analogy and statement has been made: Mae and Earl are virtually the same. Earl recognizes their sameness. You’re like me, he tells Mae; A dash of Tabasco or the meat tastes flat. Earl also seems to know that Mae is not really the wifely type. Can’t see you doing it, he says; Hanging out the family wash. Ironically, Mae did exactly that earlier in the movie as Peggy watched. Earl also bemoans his lost youth and the dreams he once had: You know, they used to call me the king fish of Buckman County. I had zip, class, pep, a future. But that was far away and long ago … I’m just a barge floating down the river. Both Earl and Mae are adrift.