Incest in Kings Row
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Shady characters permeate this film, but they can be easily forgotten under the thick melodrama that sweeps you into the storyline. Perhaps the most disturbing character to me was Dr. Tower. I mean, really, who is this guy? From the beginning I could detect a kind of strange dynamic between Cassie and her father. After she and Parris swim together as children, she says that if her father finds out shes been swimming with Parris, he would “take a switch” to her. At first I thought maybe he was strict about her coming straight home from school or something, but as soon as I heard about the mother staying in the home all of the time, it became more clear. Cassies mother was not insane or ill but a victim of a possessive man.
By confining his wife and daughter to the home, he isolated himself, making himself unknown to anyone else in the town. As in every small town people talked in Kings Row, and Dr. Tower avoided a lot of this gossip by not allowing anyone into or out of his home. Even at Cassies birthday party, the guests were all outside, and when Parris enters the house to thank Dr. Tower, he is quickly shooed away to go home.
Did anyone else think of Forrest Gump here? I had to think of Forrest and Jenny as children and how much their interactions were like that of Cassie and Parris. Both little girls had dark and deep secrets: they were victims of incest. Cassie is pulled out of school and is not allowed to leave the house. She is timid, skiddish, and cannot look Parris in the eye when he visits their home. Dr. Tower would like us to believe that she has gone insane, as he claims his wife was, and even Parris buys this. I almost wanted to scream when Parris says, “He mustve known about us,” commenting on Dr. Tower murdering his daughter and committing