Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

ifeelbetterer:

words-writ-in-starlight replied to your post: leupagus replied to your post: …

Wait, what the FUCK was that movie?

OK STORY TIME

So my mom hated all Bobby Darin/Sandra Dee films on like a bedrock second-wave feminism principle. She hated the color pink, she hated barbies, she hated anything that was too “girly.” But she ESPECIALLY hated Sandra Dee movies based, I think, on the abundance of frills and pink.

So NO ONE believed her about this “imaginary” movie she was SO SURE existed where Sandra Dee uses a dog training manual to make Bobby Darin into the best husband. She could never remember much about the film beyond that and a vivid description of the final scene in which Sandra Dee comes home and finds Bobby Darrin literally down on all fours with his leash in his mouth, coming out of the doghouse he has built in their apartment.

WE LAUGHED AT HER EVERY TIME IT CAME UP. WE. LAUGHED.

But then my sister went through this old films phase where she, like, learned all these ways of hunting down copies of films no one else could get. (I have never questioned this power and y’all don’t really get how magical it was back in the day before youtube and streaming and itunes and whatnot, but she had CONNECTIONS. I think she had an In at TCM?)

But yeah so for a birthday present, my sister tries to hunt down this film based only on the dog training thing.

BOOM. IT EXISTS. 

This is the movie.

It turns out the dog training manual is only one of the plotlines? If I remember correctly, there’s also a question of whether Sandra Dee’s Italian or Boston ancestry is dominant and that they switch? And there’s like a music cue and she goes, “BOSTON COLD” and then like cold shoulders Bobby Darin until he pleases her in some way? And she does indeed get a dog training manual and she does indeed use it on him? And he is unaware and I think it turns out that it makes their marriage, like, the envy of all around them. Only then he finds the manual and is butthurt that she would use a dog training manual on him and they almost split, but then he realizes he is the subbiest sub ever that he really loves her or whatever and does the final scene where she comes back to apologize but he has the dog leash and is willing to be her pet forever and ever amen.

That is my summary and my mom gloated FOR YEARS.