Samtagious!

Jenny Bowman (Judy Garland) & David Donne (Dirk Bogarde)
I Could Go on Singing, 1963 -[IMDB link]

Jenny gets stupendously drunk, trips and injures her ankle. She’s taken to the hospital and her lover, who is a doctor, is called in to see her:

“No more coffee, I couldn’t take any more coffee. You’d have to feed me through the veins, I’m full to the brim with it. I’m full to the brim with the whole world.”         “Have you come to take me home?” she asks pitifully.

“No, I’ve come to take you to the theater.” he replies.

“Oh no you haven’t. I’m not going back there again–not going back there ever, ever, ever again.” she cries.

“They are waiting.” he says.

“I don’t care if they’re fasting. Give them their money back and tell them to come back next fall.”

“Jenny, its a sellout.” he says.

“I’m always a sellout.”

“You promised.” he replies.

“The hell with them. I can’t be spread so thin. I’m just one person. I don’t want to be rolled out like pastry so that everyone has a nice big bite of me. I’m just me. I belong to me. I can do whatever I damn well please and no one can ask any questions.” she says.

“You know the last is not true.” he soberly replies.

“. . . and thats final! Its just not worth all the deaths that I have to die” she says.

“You have a show to do,” he reminds her. “You’re going to do it and I’m going to see that you do.”

“You think you can make me sing? You can get me there, but you can make me sing? I sing for myself. I sing what I want to, whenever I want to–just for me. I sing for my own pleasure. I’ll do whatever I damn well want. You understand that?” she retorts.

“I understand that. Just hang on to that.” he says gently.

She sobers instantly. her voice fills with desperation. “I’ve hung on to every bit of rubbish in life there is and thrown away the good bits. Can you tell me why I do that?” she asks.

and just before the scene ends she tells him “There’s an old saying: When you go onstage, you don’t feel any pain; and when the lights hit you, you don’t feel anything . . . Its a stinking lie.”

*Ed. Note: Yes Jenny, I get it, I really and truly do.

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