MovieChat Forums > The Apartment (1960) Discussion > The profanity in "The Apartment"

The profanity in "The Apartment"

posted 9 years ago by Frequency270
3 replies | jump to latest

There appears to be some undetermined (for me, at least) edge in which movies didn't curse at all, or alternately threw in one "damn" or "hell" for the entire movie. This is the oldest movie that I've noticed that had multiple curse words.

While I'm sure this isn't the first American movie (and I'm using American movies as my barometer) to use multiple swear words through its course, I'm curious when did the trend start for language being less cautious. Is there a pin-point for language, such as Peeping Tom being the first post WWII movie with nudity?

Damion Crowley
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[–] RobbieCalifornia 9 years ago

I've read that Robert Altman's MASH was maybe the first film to use the f-word. Around the beginning of the 70's.

I remember being in a theater as a kid at a re-release of Gone With the Wind. When Clark Gable said "Frankly my dear I don't give a damn", the audience gasped, then laughed. It was a big deal, him saying "damn". Unbelieveable by today's standards.

[–] nocomputer1962 9 years ago

The 1943 comedy The More the Merrier features a running gag in which Charles Coburn's character quotes Adm. Farragut's line "Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!" I guess it was a way of using a historic quote as a way of tweaking the censors of the time.

[–] stevekaczynski 9 years ago

In the original Pygmalion, I believe Eliza's use of "bloody" was deemed sufficiently shocking but by My Fair Lady in 1964, this had been upgraded to "move your bloomin' arse!"

"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."