Who's Been Sleeping in my Bed?

Elizabeth Montgomery shines as Samantha on the popular 1950’s “Bewitched.” One step backward in time she played Mellisa Morris on “Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?” A versatile actress, she embodies real emotion and a distinctly different persona (than Samantha and wicked counter part Sabrina) as Mellisa. However, while Montgomery may seem a good reason to watch “Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?”, it isn’t.

The movie has a lousy plot, is unrealistic, corny (which not all old dramas are), has bad acting (which many old dramas do), is SEXIST, and has a poor ending which reinforces sexist themes.

Mellisa Morris (Montgomery) plays an art teacher soon to wed her fiancé Jason Steel (Dean Martin) an actor suffering from cold feet. His days are filled entertaining the wives of his poker buddy pals. These women’s husbands aren’t giving them attention, so they seek it from Jason, cooking for, dancing with, massaging, and seducing him. Morris tries to win her husband back by pretending to marry someone else.

The events of the plot are sparse: man evades marriage; wife tries to win the man with commitment issues back; man gets angry; wife cries; and all is well.

Most of the cast in the film can’t act, displaying the mechanical acting of early Hollywood films. The leading man, Dean Martin, and Morris’s best friend, Stella (Carol Burnett), give poor performances. Burnett’s amateur performance was surprising considering her reputation as a professional comedic actress.

Even though the film is a comedy, it unintentionally makes a joke out of professions (by being unrealistic). Mellisa and Stella ride around in a car plotting to win Jason back (as if these two professionals have all the free time to carryout an elaborate hoax during a work day). Jason goes to a friend psychologist who is eager to turn Jason into a client (which is an unethical behavior as a psychologist). The psychologist eagerly looks at his watch, sits at a desk distancing himself from Jason, and then sedates Jason with a needle injection before beginning talk therapy. It’s absolutely ridiculous, unethical behavior for a therapist. And lastly, acting is mocked in a scene where Jason plays his doctor role carrying out a surgery. Jason’s director stands by saying it is an award-winning scene, even though the actors aren’t saying or doing much.

But the WORST thing about the movie is it shamefully promotes gender role stereotypes. When Mellisa finds out that her husband to be has been spending all his free time with affectionate women, how does she address the issue? BY TRYING TO WIN HIM BACK BY TRAPPING HIM INTO MARRIAGE! There is no punishment for his actions, and she rewards him by taking up all the shameful, submissive female roles that the wives tried on Jason. She spoon feeds him a sweet dish, dances seductively for him while wearing a sexy outfit, and massages him.

Women are shown as seductresses who use their sexuality to get their only need in life: men. The women in the movie are constantly chasing men, while men are shown as disinterested in relationships. Jason sees a bachelor livelihood as the way out. The men spend their free time playing poker and ignoring their wives.

The subtext of the movie script is that marriage and real romantic relationships between men and women are a trap. In a scene where the psychologist lays down and begins unloading his marriage problems onto the secretary, marriage is shown as prescribing psychosis.

The plot rides out as an unwieldy train heading for disastrous crash, as viewers hope it won’t derail. It does.

The movie ends with Mellisa throwing herself on the bed, crying. Her life is over since she can’t have Jason [who doesn’t even really want to marry her] who she needs for a feeling of completion. Again, another gender stereotype, that women are supposed to use tears to get what they want and men use forcefulness. His machisimo saves the day as he aggressively drags Mellisa off the bed and forcefully kisses her.

After spending all his free time with married women, Jason is rewarded when his fiancé uses a “feminine,” submissive, tactic to seduce her husband. Then, again, he receives a final positive reinforcement for his bad behavior when he wins back his wife. The viewer can only hope that this isn’t the end of the movie, but it is. The real issue is ignored: if it’s such hard work just to get these two together, then how is their marriage going to play out? Jason isn’t ready to be married, and he probably never will be. He has commitment issues, and they’re not going to go away with marriage.

If this movie was a hard, satiric piece about sexist roles, then it might have some merit, but it isn’t.