Movie Time: The Rat Race

It's....Movie Time!!

Today's post is about a drama film from 1960 co-starring Tony Curtis and Debbie Reynolds as struggling young entertainers and Pittsburgh, PA starring as New York City.

Welcome to... The Rat Race.   

Taking the bus from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to New York City, jazz saxophonist Pete Hammond Jr. is optimistic he's gonna be a star!

New York City has other plans.  

Pete goes to an audition to join a jazz band but the audition is just a con to seperate him from his saxophone. (For the record, we learn from dialogue that the theft of Pete's sax occurred on August 4th. Hey, that's tomorrow!)   

At least Pete has somewhere to live for the moment but the room he's rented is only available because the current resident is being evicted.  

Peggy Brown, model, actor and dancer, is jaded and cynical after years of barely surviving in this cruel city that is stingy with work in model, acting and dancing.  She's forced to earn money as a taxi dancer at a sleezy dance hall owned by also sleezy Nellie Miller (Don Rickles in a rare dramatic role.)   

Peter takes pity on Peggy and suggests they share the apartment. It's a tight space and people will talk but damned if she has another alternative.  

Eventually Pete gets a legitimate job offer to play sax but he has no saxophone.  Peggy turns to Miller for a loan so she can get Pete a sax.  

So Peggy gives Pete a saxophone so he can take his paying gig. He's a bit suspicious on how Peggy was able to precure this instrument but she assures him it's all good with no strings attached.

Of course, there's no strings attached. The saxophone is a wind instrument, not a...  

Never mind, I get it.  

But Nellie Miller gets impatient for Peggy to pay back the loan. Alone in his office, Nellie strips Peggy of her dress and shoes to make his point that he owns her. 

Then Nellie threatens to disfigure Peggy in a heinous and violent attack. Pete shows up just in time to stop Nellie from asaulting Peggy and Pete buys off Nellie with all the money he earned from his gig as well as his wristwatch and the sax.   

Uh oh! We're running out of movie so let's get this over with.

Pete tells Peggy he loves her.

Peggy tells Pete she loves him.

They kiss and we have reached...

The End. 

OK, the ending is the standard issue male and female leads profess their love for each other because by God they must fall in love. It may seem hokey and contrived but damn, we need a happy ending. The Rat Race is one relentlessly grim movie. 

The preceding summary glosses over what we see Pete and Peggy endure. Murphy's Law is in overdrive with these two as whatever can go wrong most assuredly goes wrong and in the worst way possible. 

If you only know Debbie Reynolds from lighter fare (such as Singin' In the Rain), her performance in The Rat Race is a revelation as the grimly cynical Peggy Brown. This is a character who has been repeatedly beaten down by life with no reason to expect it will ever get better. And Debbie Reynolds makes Peggy feel like someone very real.  

And Don Rickles plays an insulting scumbucket who is NOT meant to be funny.  He is a revolting slimebag even before he threatens to cut Peggy's face.  

And let's give a shout out to Pittsburgh PA for it's stand out performance as New York City, the city that never sleeps and does not give a crap if you live or die.