Coffee and Noir: FEMALE ON THE BEACH
every instance of coffee in noir: 036
You learn a lot about a noir character by their coffee: sugar? cream? more whiskey than caffeine?
I’m cataloging every noir scene where coffee plays a role — rote and ritual, soul-dark or cream and sugar, served from dingy diners to shiny penthouses.
Coffee is often an element of ‘meet cute,’ but in noir it can be more a ‘meet disdainful.’ Female on the Beach (much to its detriment) is half noir, half melodrama, but it understands how to use coffee in this way.
“How do you like your coffee? “
”Alone.”
Lynn Markham (Joan Crawford) wakes up her first morning in her new beachside house to find local gigilo Drummond Hall (Jeff Chandler) making himself quite at home, making coffee and toast to boot.
He claims he’s the only one who can make the percolator work just right, and follows that suggestiveness by showing his hands off demonstrating where the bottom of the kettle is broken.
Coffee is referenced a few more times — Lynn tells Jeff she’s figured out the wonky percolator just fine on her own thankyouverymuch, and later 'jokes' "I'll beat you if you don't make us some coffee." (One of the least egregious lines about abuse in a film rife with them.)
But mostly, it’s about this scene. In a script with plenty of euphemisms — one of Drummond’s exes snipes about him ‘mooring in Lynn Markham’s dock’ — coffee is how Drummond and Lynn meet. It serves as an excuse to break into someone’s house, to spend more time, to push your case.
I wouldn’t take any of Drummond’s other dating tips, but do consider how a percolator can be handy way to show off your best assets.
