Baby Doll (1956)

Baby Doll: Sometimes, big shot, you don't seem to give me credit for very much intelligence at all. I've been to school in my life - and I'm a magazine reader!

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Silva Vacarro: I find you different this evening in some way.
Baby Doll: Never mind that.
Silva Vacarro: Grown up suddenly.
Baby Doll: I feel cool and rested for the first time in my life.

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Baby Doll: Small dogs have a loud bark.
Archie Lee Meighan: No one is going to whistle at any woman of mine.
Baby Doll: You take an awful lot for granted when you say mine. I came to you today for protection. What did I get? Slapped, sent home. Now, I'm telling you the agreement between us is over.

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When the film was released in 1956, it was enormously controversial for its extremely risqué subject matter. The Legion of Decency condemned the film for its "carnal suggestiveness". Francis Cardinal Spellman condemned the film in a stunning attack from the pulpit of St. Patrick's Cathedral two days before the film opened, saying that the film had been "responsibly judged to be evil in concept" and was certain that it would "exert an immoral and corrupting influence on those who see it", and exhorted all Catholics to refrain from patronizing the film "under pain of sin". Cardinal Spellman's condemnation of the film led to the Legion of Decency's first-ever nationwide boycott of an American-made film produced by a major studio. All over the country, almost 20 million Catholics protested the film and picketed theaters that showed it. The Catholic boycott nearly killed the film; it was cancelled by 77% of theaters scheduled to show it, and it only made a meager $600,000 at the box office. The film was also condemned by Time Magazine, which called it the dirtiest American-made motion picture that had ever been legally exhibited. Surprisingly, despite the film's sordid elements, the Production Code Administration gave it a seal of approval, but only after nearly a year of arguments. This was one of many examples of how the lax attitude of new Code official