1950s

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1950s
The Road to Bali
Here’s one of the later of the Bob Hope/Bing Crosby “Road” movies—slight on plot, heavy on jokes and repartee between the two principals. Typical for comedies, Vassar’s a punchline, here implying that all the girls are worth ogling. (Bob Hope also has another Vassar joke from 1940's The Ghost Breakers. This one's better.)


Mogambo
More big stars talking about Vassar: Ava Gardner and Clark Gable. Vassar is here used to mean someone prim, proper and well-mannered.


Trouble Along the Way
This was an unusual John Wayne film. He plays a former football star who takes a job at a seminary coaching their football team. Vassar here is used as a stand-in for “girls school” as he takes a swipe at how lousy the team is. A very similar joke can be found in Brother Rat and a Baby.
Thanks to Prof. Denise Whalen for the tip.

Lady in the Dark
This was a live presentation from the very early days of television of the same Weill/Gershwin musical we have elsewhere in the collection (from 1944, starring Ginger Rogers and in the movie Star! with Julie Andrews). Ann Sothern plays Liza, and she sings the “The Saga of Jenny,” which contains the great, sexually forward lyric (especially for its original date in the early 40s!) about Vassar girls. The setting is a dream sequence, of a trial conducted by a circus.


Scandal Sheet
A noir potboiler, based on Samuel Fuller's The Dark Page; this clip is toward the beginning and sets Vassar as a character point for reporter/feature writer Donna Reed (not in the scene), as ace reporter John Derek discusses with his boss, Broderick Crawford.


April in Paris
In a lesser light MGM musical from 1952, Ray Bolger inexplicably has caught the romantic attention of both Doris Day's earthy chorus girl and a longstanding fiancee whose father is the Secretary of State.
Thanks to RJ Dorn for the tip.


Goodbye, My Fancy
A late-career Joan Crawford vehicle finds spunky congresswoman heading back to her alma mater for an honorary degree (alas, not Vassar, but it's mentioned in this early scene).


Sabrina
Here’s another well-known one, with great actors in the scene. It’s interesting in that it’s an early evocation of sexuality at Vassar--just kissing, but still.


That's My Boy
Jerry Lewis in college, meeting a saleslady that Dean Martin has his eye on.


No Questions Asked
Obscure noir written by a young Sidney Sheldon, this scene has our heroine being threatened by a smartmouth mobster who knows his colleges.


Burns & Allen TV Show
This is really a fun one, from the mid-’50s TV show of George Burns and Gracie Allen. Gracie’s airheadedness was always on display for comic effect. Here she goes to a banquet for their friend Harry’s alumni club. It’s interesting here for Vassar to be used sarcastically—taking it as understood that Vassar girls are smart. (Or maybe it’s not sarcastic and they were implying Vassar girls are stupid?)
Thanks to Carl Wolf ’81 for the tip.

Susan Slept Here
This light comedy from 1954 puts Hollywood screenwriter Dick Powell in charge of a delinquent Debbie Reynolds. As their relationship becomes somewhat romantic, complications ensue and his friends attempt to break them up.  The movie is narrated by an Oscar statuette.


Daddy Long Legs
A slight, later Astaire musical. In this scene, he’s chaperoning a dance at a girls’ prep school, and meets a rather athletic young lady.


A Hatful of Rain
The Vassar joke in this 1957 film about a young man hooked on drugs is almost impossible to hear; pay attention to the man in the left background, with the pipe—his complaint about the football players' performance makes a bit of a gendered complaint.

The Bachelor Party
This Paddy Chayevsky-penned drama from his own television play finds a young married accountant at a bachelor party and struggling to remain faithful. He's here trying to encourage Carolyn Jones (best known as Morticia Addams) to go upstairs with him at a Greenwich Village party.

Girls Town
I could only find this turkey of a movie when it got the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment so you’ll have to excuse the snarky comments and the frame around the movie. This was a juvenile-delinquent movie, a common theme in the 1950s—with a little twist in that this one was about bad girls. In our scene, the nun who runs the reformatory Girls Town jokes with a cop about her charges.
Thanks to Jason Marin ’96 for the tip.

The Best of Everything
Fans of Mad Men might enjoy this melodrama from 1959 that features some scenes of women in a Manhattan skyscraper office building, as many design elements are precisely the same. Our scene is interesting to see that it would be assumed a very capable secretary would have gone to a high-end women’s college.
Thanks to Janine Utell and Angela David Beatty ’93 for the tip.

Some Like it Hot
This is perhaps the most well-known reference of all, which is surprising since it’s not really that interesting a scene. (But a great movie!) Many people seem to feel that Marilyn Monroe’s character is a Vassar girl, but as you’ll see she’s only pretending to be such to impress Tony Curtis—who in turn is pretending to be wealthy to impress her.


The Last Hurrah
This Spencer Tracy film based on an Edwin O'Connor novel tracks a powerful New England mayor in his election campaign. Aware of the coming effects of television and radio in how people understand politics, he asks his sportswriter nephew for some help. The Vassar line is a bit hard to hear -- it's at 0:41. 



Alfred Hitchcock Presents
The famous anthology series brings us a dark tale where callow Brad wants to cut off his ex-girlfriend Leslie so he can marry Janice. Leslie has some other ideas about the situation, including a few unkind things to say about Janice. 

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
A nice pairing with Leave It to Beaver, as another early family sitcom. This is fun as well since Nancy Kulp, best known for her portrayal of Vassar graduate Jane Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies, is also here a decade earlier, also as a Vassar graduate now chairing the ladies' auxiliary for their town.


Continue to:
Page One: 1920s & 1930s
Page Two: 1940s
Page Four: 1960s
Page Five: 1970s
Page Six: 1980s
Page Seven: 1990s
Page Eight: 2000–2002
Page Nine: 2003–2005
Page Ten: 2006–2009
Page Eleven: 2010–2012
Page Twelve: 2013–2015
Page Thirteen: 2016–2019
Page Fourteen: 2020–2022
Page Fifteen: 2023–

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