If you’ve ever spent an inordinate amount of time pausing and rewinding the scene in Married to the Mob (1988) where Michelle Pfeiffer’s character Angela de Marco looks through the want-ads while riding the city bus…well, then you and I have a lot in common.
As I’ve gone on about many times before, Married to the Mob is one of my all-time favorites, a movie so comforting that I usually watch it a few times every year. There’s something about the lighthearted, sweet, yet slyly subversive tone Jonathan Demme strikes that makes it the very definition of a movie I want to revisit and just luxuriate inside that world. It’s easily in my top five Michelle performances and I never tire of watching her perfect blend of humor and heart.
It sure doesn’t hurt either that Michelle looks impossibly beautiful in every frame. Demme framed Michelle’s face so expertly that every closeup invited us deep inside Angela’s heart and soul. Between her heavenly eyes and luscious lips like sugar, Michelle mesmerizes in every scene.
Take the bus scene. As eccentric FBI agent and love interest Mike Downey (played masterfully by Matthew Modine) is tailing Angela to get information on her connections to a notorious mobster, Michelle is absolutely hypnotic. Check out the entire scene here—including Modine doing his own stunt work!
Holy smokes, she’s absolutely jaw dropping here, as she seductively holds the pen cap between her salaciously pursed lips while highlighting job openings in the paper. For me, this scene has always been as hot or hotter than most scenes that are explicitly sexual in content. No wonder Mike falls madly in love (I mean, besides how adorable and sweet Angela is, of course)!
I’d love to know, did the script call for Angela to seductively hold the pen cap between her salaciously pursed lips? Or did Demme request it? Or did Michelle just do it because she’s so hot she can’t help but make the most basic, unsexy acts as insanely sexy as possible? While possibly some combination of these, I tend to think Michelle just can’t help herself—hotness just oozes out of her pores!
I watched this scene a few dozen times today for…research…yeah, research. And let me tell you, research was never so fun or, uh, stimulating. Ahem. I’ll see myself out now.
Watching this scene is the only time in my life that I’ve ever wanted to be a pen. I definitely think this moment was all down to Michelle, the girl can’t help it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This so perfectly sums up that scene! Wish I’d written it!
LikeLiked by 1 person