The Chapman Report (1962)

In George Cukor's trashy romantic melodrama and campy soap-opera, based upon Irving Wallace's best-selling novel - and inspired by the infamous Kinsey Report sex survey, with the tagline: "The personal story behind a sex survey...":

• one of the film's posters described in detail the four female protagonists - surburban Los Angeles women, all involved in a survey-study on intimate sexual behavior:
  (1) MRS. KATHLEEN BALLARD/BARCLAY (Jane Fonda), 26, widowed, sense of dignity and poise. War-hero husband. Perfect marriage, she says. Obviously lying. Case History #9436J.
  (2) MRS. NAOMI SHIELDS (Claire Bloom), 29, divorced, compulsive self-hate for extra-marital relationships. Needs help. Case History #8327R.
  (3) MRS. SARA GARNELL (Shelley Winters), 34, married twelve years, devoted wife and mother of two. Admits there is another man. Case History #3721B.
  (4) MRS. TERESA HARNISH (Glynis Johns), very intellectual and very romantic. Thinks of her marriage as modern and enlightened. Case History #4791M.
• the problems of the four upper middle-class females included emotional and sexual frigidity, suicidal depression, nymphomania, alcoholism, and promiscuous adultery
• the interview-researchers: Dr. Chapman (Andrew Duggan) and research assistant Paul Radford (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.)
• the flashbacked scene of hopelessly-'frigid' Kathleen who had experienced serious marital issues with her frustrated ex-husband Boy Barclay (John Baer): "I've been patient, two years patient, two long cold years!...You've got to face the facts" - he called her "a woman of ice, that's you!...that's what's known as being frigid. You Kathleen, were born a frigid woman. There's nothing you can do about it"; she backed away after he left and kept asserting: "No, I'm not, oh, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, you're wrong, I'm not!"
• the non-face-to-face interview scene of Paul Radford asking background questions about father-fixated, widowed Kathleen's adolescence - she was partially hidden behind a screen: ("Did you engage in heavy petting?...Casual petting?...Kissing?... Then in your teens, you generally resisted the physical advances of young men?); she became more and more agitated when asked about her physical relationship with her ex-husband Boy, who died two years earlier: ("Did you enjoy the physical relationship with your husband?" - she answered: "Very much. (pause) Isn't that normal? I'm no different than anybody else. Why do you have to put so much emphasis on physical love? I-I mean, why, why do have to keep asking all these sickening details? Can't you just ask me about love? I'm trying! I can't! I can't!") - and she prematurely excused herself from the interview room
• the bedroom scene of divorced and lonely Naomi, in a sheer full-length black nightgown, seductively propositioning the handsome water delivery man, Bob Jensen (Chad Everett), after he asked: "You live here alone?" - but he was scared off after a few kisses when she begged: "Leave me alone, go away. Please go away!"
• the convincing scene of Naomi sexually approached by her womanizing, sleazy, jazz-musician neighbor Wash Dillon (Corey Allen) when she invited him into her place after he gave her misdelivered mail - and then later, she was gang-raped by his drunken friends during a party (mostly seen off-screen); with a torn dress and bruised and bloody body, she was left outside her house (where she was found the next morning by Kathleen); after being brought inside her house, Naomi demanded a "scalding hot" bath to wash everything away, and took a swig of alcohol

Naomi's Seductions and Gang Rape

• the troubled, unstable and testy Naomi's interview scenes with Radford, when she was behind a privacy screen and asserted: "I like your voice. How old are you?...Nobody ever touched me unless I wanted them to. I did it for love. I did it because I wanted to...This screen is a nuisance. I like to face the man I'm talking to" - she walked around the screen to look at her interviewer and speak directly ("With your experience in this kind of work, can you tell by just looking at me? Can you tell what a woman's like by just looking at her?...I mean about what you call I suppose, her 'appetite'...Well, look at me, it must show") - and then kept moving back and forth, as she admitted her desperate and obsessive nymphomania, promiscuity, and profound unhappiness for many years: ("I really wanted him (her husband) but I wanted everyone else too...Anyway, I wasn't very happy. Maybe I never will be, I don't know. You were right just now. Don't go giving me any cheap advice about seeing a psychiatrist..the thing I learned is that analysis is no substitute for guts... a woman - you don't know what it's like to need love and not to have it, at least not to have what you need") - later that night, she returned home, and in her bedroom suicidally overdosed on gin and pills
• the beach scene of arts-oriented, Teresa's first flirtatious encounter with skimpy swim-suited, football-playing beach bum Ed Kraski (Ty Hardin) (she was mostly impressed by his physique: "What a magnificent animal!...Well, look at him showing off his muscles....Look at those long legs. I wonder what sort of girl goes out with him....I suspect one of those cover girls you see riding on the surfboards...You know, he could be quite attractive....He's the kind of man who needs, who needs a woman to help him, a woman who's better than he is, a woman with taste, a woman who's aware of the beauty - not me, but somebody like me"); so impressed with his perfect body, she made a proposition to him (while riding with him in a carnival monorail-bubble-car) to pose as her model, to be paid $20 for each session: ("I must capture that on canvas...paint...I hope you consent")
• the hilarious posing scene the next evening in his place - she described her desire to replicate the classical Greek statue of Myron the discus thrower with his positioning: "Inspired by your body, I feel that I can surpass Myron the Greek. Assume the position...You know, the discus throwers were in the nude, like all the Greek Olympians, and that's how I'd like you to pose... In the classical tradition, now if you'll get disrobed, I'll be getting ready" - she claimed he was shy because of "false modesty" - and stated: "After all, this is for art!"; he only stripped down to his tight underwear, and then she openly admitted her sexual desires for him: ("The first time I saw you, I fought the feeling inside of me. I knew that I was enamoured of you, foolishly so. And women in love are foolish. And now, I just want your love. Do you want to kiss me yet? (pause) Kiss me, Eddie! You might enjoy it" - she was soon overwhelmed by his aggressive behavior and kisses ("I can't breathe, Ed!") and was forced to fight him off ("Things like this should take time. You can't just toss me about like a football"); she rejected his advances and rushed off with disheveled clothes, as he yelled after her: "You can paint me any time of the week. Hey, I don't even know your name!"
• the inappropriate (and unethical) romantic relationship slowly established between Kathleen and Radford; ultimately by film's end, Radford proposed to Kathleen and she accepted, but still thought of herself as 'frigid' and undeserving - he insistently told her: "You're not the first woman to be afraid - to find the physical act repellent. And you didn't invent that fear. The fear was obviously brought on because Boy was insensitive. But are you comparing him with me? Do you think I'd chance it if I weren't sure? You've got to break away from all this, from your father. You can't go on being Daddy's little girl" - she told him she loved him and kissed him
• the film's ending (added due to pressure from the Catholic League of Decency) - Dr. Chapman and Radford analyzed the data from their interview questions - Chapman announced that most American women (and their marriages) were happy and sexually normal, athough the four highlighted cases seemed to be exceptions to the rule: "I found that within a percentage point, good marriages to bad were the same in Boston, New York, Chicago. But the bad ones are so vivid, we lose sight of the fact that the vast majority falls right into this column - 'Happily Married Women, and Men'"