Today I watched the movie LIZZIE. It's from 1957 and it's THE THREE FACES OF EVE before THE THREE FACES OF EVE and maybe even better.

Johnny Mathis has a small role in the movie. He plays “the piano singer”, which is pretty much just himself. He sings a couple of songs, including one of his big hits, “It’s Not for Me to Say”, but has no spoken lines. He sings beautifully and looks very young and handsome.

I had the thought, watching and listening to him, of what his effect might have been in the late '50s and early '60s. I imagine little teenage girls, prim, proper, conservative, god-fearing All-American little girls, and I'm wondering --actually, I'm assuming -- that some of those little girls, maybe many, many of them, had some seriously warm and “improper” thoughts about Johnny Mathis. In the '50s these weren’t just improper, they were dangerous. But I’ll betcha there was lots of sighing and mooning over this dark dreamboat. 

But I wonder if they were thoughts that any self-respecting 1957 girl would have shared with even a best friend? I wonder.

Maybe I'm evil personified but I find myself quite amused by this. I get the same giggly feeling from considering these bent taboos that I get whenever one of those holier-than-thou religious leaders is caught up in some indecent or even pervy scandal. Call me names, but I just revel in the hypocrisy.

I hope those teenage girls became moms and grandmas and never, never got over gorgeous, silky-voiced Johnny Mathis.