Arson? Biting somebody?

John Sargent: You threw a lighted match into the wastebasket?
Lee Leander: Well I wasn't aiming for the spittoon.
John Sargent: You know that's called arson?
Lee Leander: No! I thought that was when you bit somebody!


The scene in which that exchange takes place is the one in which Barbara Stanwyck's character deliberately throws a lighted match into a wastebasket filled with paper, which lights on fire, and in turn creates a diversion which allowed her and Fred MacMurray's character to flee their "captivity" at the hands of the country bumpkin judge and citizen-policeman.

After they've fled, MacMurray is rather stunned at the audacity of Stanwyck doing such a bold stunt as that, and, as a lawyer, he feels compelled to remind her that she has essentially just committed the crime of arson - small though that fire may have been, he points out that the wastebasket fire could by now have engulfed that entire house. So he says to her, "You know that's called arson?" in a rather ironic tone, like she really even needs to be told. Her reply is a playfully sarcastic one, in which she obviously knows that her little fire really could be considered arson, but she feigns ignorance by saying "No! - I thought that [arson] was when you bit somebody!" I mean, she knows full well it was arson but she doesn't really care that it qualifies as the crime of arson - afterall, it got them off the hook, right?

In short, they're both kind of teasing each other, but I think Stanwyck was being more of a tease than MacMurray, who was really impressed with her firestarting audacity. All in all a great scene in a great movie.




"I've always tried to teach you two things. First: never let them see you bleed. Second: Always have an escape plan." - Q

she's coy.



Season's Greetings!