Sunday, December 06, 2009

Code or divorce law?

I was watching Some Like It Hot, and the guy who manages to get engaged to the millionaire says that his plan is not to tell the millionaire he's really a man until "Like right after the ceremony. Then we get a quick annulment, he makes a nice little settlement on me and I keep getting those alimony checks every month."

Could you get alimony from an annulled marriage in the 1950s? Or were they not allowed to say "divorce" in the movies?

Or was it just a flawed plan to start with?

3 comments:

Ashwin said...

I doubt you can get alimony from an annulled marriage in the 50s but then I'm not a lawyer. It's just a fictional thing anyway; anything could have been unrealistic as long the audience was entertained.

Dharma Seeker said...

Maybe the assumption is the millionaire would pay to keep a scandal away? Like Tiger Woods? Or maybe it was just more common because so many women in that era didn't work to support themselves? I do love that film!

impudent strumpet said...

This page seems to suggest that the Hays Code prohibited mentioning divorce. I also seem to recall that in the early days of same-sex marriage, same-sex divorce wasn't yet legally possible, so all of this points to an annulment rather than a divorce. But then there's the question of why they chose the word "alimony"?