THE GIRL IN LOVERS’ LANE (1959; d. Charles R. Rondeau, w. Jo Heims)

In nighttime railway yard (crepuscular point of transport on way to destiny), delinquents (usual 25-yr-olds subbing for teens the past-date psychological issue coming forth 2B resolved) chase 3rd boy (linking device à la detached cars), who tosses wallet into car (he source of psychic riches) picked up by obscure rail rider (dream-material hitching ride on psyche, aka complex) before getting KO’d (mind’s sudden fall into sleep) + loaded onto train (remotely engineered thrust of consciousness) as titles run (prologue psychological predisposition for dream action to follow: abduction o/t Self onto unexpected path as result of violent intervention on original plans – fem scrw’s archaic loss of treasured masculine agency).

Danny Winslow wakes to hangsome hobo (somebody's fantasy of "attractive" rootless psychic material coming to consciousness + drawing personality to next destination; cf distaff Heims creation Breezy + canine Rondeau Littlest Hobo) Bix Dugan (faceless shadowy prolog figure acquiring identity/clarity), who gibes him on injury ("You got a weak jaw. They hardly touched ya": dream-project to toughen self thru association w/ confident loner) + dogs him about $ ("You wanna take it from me?" phallic competition, everyone jockeying for contents of his "wallet"), then proposes partnership ("I’d just like someone to go w/" explicit homophilia underlying relationship, root of later ostracization + Bix’s pathological shutting down of fem suitors), complaining "At my age I got 2B a mother" (not father?: his project to gain familiarity w/ own fem qualities); hop off + hitch truck to Sherman (abandoning predestined course for anything-goes unconscious) – "a nice little town" (JUMP CUT to buttshakin’ dancer: steppingstone to heterosexuality after rough finish to boyhood ’'philia) – where shy diner clerk Carrie Anders (climactic subject of title, film’s stated goal leaving behind of dependent fem i.d.) sings boy-blues to dancer pal Peggy (assertive fem sexuality, this side of slut; Bix to Carrie’s Danny) when enters village idiot (extraneous part of self ego seeking to shake)-cum-handyman (of some function to psyche nevertheless) Jesse, who puts her on edge (threat of sexuality in general + male drive in particular), + hoboboys B+D (on Peg’s "love will come along" cue, she Eros calling emotional needs into being).

Relief sodajerk Pete arrives w/ prostitute Sadie (disfavored of owner Pa Anders: Carrie’s non-sanctioned sexual being, way beyond Peggy; no Ma her lack of mature erotic self-img), who takes eye to Danny (desire locating vagrant object of enrichment) while Bix hits on Carrie (two wanderers split aspects of Jesse ie Carrie’s ambiguous feelings about impending "relations", as PeggySadie = herself) then splits up Danny + Sadie (his similarly ambivalent attitude twd heterosexuality [+ wmn in general: "she’s a direct descendant o/t black widow spider"], replayed again+again thru’out) + proposes he + D get room together (nc), where he makes another play for loot in wallet (nc); at pool hall, D draws attention by breaking a 50 (everyone noticing his huge wad), thugs dogging pair at pinball machine (Bix preferring to bat balls by self) + leaving w/ threat to meet outside (wmn’s fantasy of violent male world projection of conflict w/i re own animus [lost "masculine" agency, returned in fever of dream]; competition for wallet also sexual paranoia re vagina), rumble in alley (mental cubbyhole + sex’l paranoia, again [as tho climactic violation inevitable – or already occurred]) taking place of Carrie date (Bix’s need 1st to resolve male issues, alley à la "back way" for he + Dan), after which D tells B backstory (cigarette after sex: running from parents’ breakup [splitting of fe/male Carrie’s break from own archaic masc self ("regressive masculinity"), setting animus adrift in psyche; also shattering D’s sexual self-img ("2 people seemed like 1," film similar quest to restore wholeness) à la C’s absent ma – marriage, as own i.d., "19 yrs’ waste of time"], lawyer dad giving him dough [rationality his saving grace]) + Bix tucks him in (coded homosexuality more writer’s naivete re how men behave, acting like girls bc product of girl’s imagination), own dad giving him "lots of things – mostly a fist in the face" (violence currency in his [+ film’s] world, again w/ no mention of ma).

Next night, Bix + Carrie (plus Danny the sequential [unified] ego) take moonlight stroll by pond (Eden, where new worlds created) + C laments not wearing yellow dress w/ ruffles Bix requested (she fashioning the agent who will fashion ideal wmn out of her), they dancing to croaking frogs (natural intimacy, as of self w/ self; cf Peg’s jukebox dance w/ D that morning) before B recoils from kiss (nc; ostensibly to resist "reason he brought her there": reconstructing Eden by not despoiling it/her); back at diner, Pete needles him about Danny "being w/" Sadie (threat to masculine purity too, or to their "special" relationship?) + he hits bordello (house of heterosexuality), where bathing hooker (Bix "in the wrong room") tries to kiss him (unsuccessfully, again; "I don’t know what room I’m in now" confusion over orientation), he finally locating Sadie + Danny (too late: hetero otherself already having crossed bridge à la scout) just as she picks his pocket (1st – other than him – to get hands on his wad), he allowing her $5 (value of hetero'y to him) before hauling D home.

Pa offers boys job (reward for Danny’s becoming man – + Bix’s attempted rescue; wonder how he’d feel about his daughter?) and Carrie+Bix take daylight park walk (nature coming to light after previous night's events) where she catches sleeve on branch (metaphoric loss of virginity à la premonitory dream) + he shoots her down after another kiss (shadowed by specter of aberrant sexuality Jesse), coming home to find pa home early + drunk from bachelor party (accumulation of initiation imgry/events portending characters’ own real), shunned by Bix (à la romantic revulsion; reminder of alky dad, equation of love + inebriation/abuse unconscious element resisting coming to consciousness), he confessing to Danny back home (again, relating like wmn) how he hit dad back (fighting maturity, railway life limbo of protracted adolescence) + gave him heart attack (convulsion w/i; "wished him dead" social/personal desire to end cycle of violent masculinity aka patriarchy); at double-date picnic w/ Dan + Peg (forces of heterosexuality marshalling by Edenic pool), homesick Dan drawn to train (retreat from developmental journey), that night B scaring Jesse off (eternal threat o/t "bkwd" atavistic impulse) + later decking him (J return o/t father-aggressor he hasn’t completely killed).

At closing time (mind shutting down in preparation for deep unconscious action to play out), Carrie leaves w/ promise of surprise for Bix (revelation drama leading up to, as signified by title) + Dan announces exeunt on 10:30 truck outta town (cf Heims’ Devil’s Hand’s meeting at that time, similarly portending disaster), Bix telling C he dsn’t know what he wants (to go w/Dan or stay w/ her: choosing fe/male partner) as they split up + she makes for pond (in Lovers’ Lane, she on way to title-predetermined destination, ie becoming what she always was), where Jesse assaults her (loss of innocence at hands of self-interested world, natural setting à la part o/t plan) + Bix finds her soon after (death of hetero love interest, he also learned dream-agent whose job it is to witness troubling scene/imgry for Self: death/resolution of her old self on meeting wide world awaiting), her scream rending Lane (unity of fe/male aspect lost to maturity/"becoming wmn"); onlooker finds her in his arms (mistaken – het – i.d.) + Sheriff hauls him in (return of both conscious authority + societal strictures; town peaceful for 20 yrs before his arrival: his approximate life span, calamity expression of own interior upset), anticipating lynching (peace only repressed tensions aka Jesse), jailed B sad he didn't notice her yellow ruffled dress (appeal of girl/s).

Danny overhears gas-station talk (similar fillin’ station to diner; masculine predominance here v. there mvmt twd both full-fledged male i.d. + retreat from possibilities of fem identification) about Bix’s mixup + returns (to alley scene of male-bonding juvi asskicking) to find him getting whupped by Pa Anders + friends (shoe on other foot, getting beat-up in turn by adult/hood), then pounds confession out of Jesse (achieving upper hand over dysfunction), who killed her trying to muffle her screams (complex arisen from stifling grief released on B’s discovery); at Sheriff’s (conscious station + mature control over masculinity), calls his "celebrity" dad (lawyer aka ratiocinating consciousness itself [à la similar upholder of justice Sheriff]; plaudits the self honoring/getting right w/ adult self-img) + tells him he’s "bringing home a friend" (which some wd read as girlfriend; here, the self made whole following similarly rending separation as divorce), Bix stopping by pond (last farewell to "feminine" youth, her echoed "I love the rings when they hit the water" resonance of both her death + knowing him, finding also comfort in acquiescing to fate) before Dan urges "C'mon. We’re going home" (to reconstruct masc img once unmet desire to "know" mother-feminine [figure left for dead in title location i/t heart] resolved thru similarly deprived Carrie; he also being laid to rest, "home" residence w/i scrw after putting him/animus-adventurer to test).