THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER at IMDBFirst of all, I like Jane Russell (although not all of her politics). I've especially liked her since I read an anecdote from Lee Server in his biography of Robert Mitchum. On the set of one of the films Mitchum and Russell appeared in, Russell was being interviewed by a writer for one of the big movie magazines. The reporter had heard that Jane and her husband were quite religious folk and was having trouble justifying that in his mind with Ms. Russell's lusty screen image. When asked about it, the great Jane just looked at him and smiled. "Hey, buddy," she told him, "Christians have big breasts, too."
The earthy Ms. Russell is the best thing about THE REVOLT OF MAMIE STOVER. Despite having a name sounding like someone who manufactures candy, Mamie Stover is one of those prostitutes who are cinematically euphemistically called "dance hall girls". At the opening of the film, our heroine is being escorted out of San Francisco by the police (as a native San Franciscan, I can't imagine what you have to do to get kicked out of that town). She meets well-to-do writer Richard Egan on the ship headed for Honolulu. He takes what he says is a writer's interest in her story and after a short shipboard affair, Egan is met at the dock by his respectable girlfriend played by Joan Leslie.
Mamie heads for her new job at the "dance hall" run by a bleached blond and butch Agnes Moorehead and her sidekick, sadistic sleazeball Michael Pate. Mamie and the writer meet periodically and things develop, interrupted suddenly by the attack on Pearl Harbor, the aftermath of which Mamie finds as a money making opportunity.
Worth seeing for the technicolor, Jane Russell, and Agnes Moorehead's brief but unforgettable performance.
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