The Hot Spot (1990)

In director Dennis Hopper's contemporary erotic thriller and neo-noir - its themes were adultery, jealousy, robbery, blackmail, betrayal, and murder, with double-crossing twists and turns. Everything played out within a double love-triangle amongst a trio of shady and scheming characters in a steamy and hot-house atmosphere. The R-rated film (due to abundant nudity from stars Virginia Madsen and Jennifer Connelly) featured a musical score and soundtrack by Jack Nitzsche with original performances by trumpet-playing Miles Davis and blues singer John Lee Hooker, and others.

The intriguing, leisurely-told tale was based on Charles Williams' 1952 tawdry and pulpy novel "Hell Hath No Fury," adapted in 1959 by Williams and later revised and updated by credited co-scripter Nona Tyson (and uncredited Hopper and Mike Figgis). It premiered exclusively in its first-run on the Showtime cable-TV channel. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a financially-failing film. On a budget of $13 million, it only grossed $1.3 million.

Filmed mostly on location in the 'hothouse atmosphere" of a rural town in the Austin, Texas area (on location in Taylor, TX), the themes of the film were emphasized by its taglines on posters:

• "Film Noir Like You've Never Seen"
• "Safe is Never Sex. It's Dangerous"
• "Desire and Obsession...Love and Lust, Passion and Pain...Somewhere between them all lies THE HOT SPOT"

• during the film's opening title credits, Harry Madox (Don Johnson, fresh off TV's "Miami Vice" from 1984-1989), a handsome 36 year-old scheming drifter, slick loner and restless womanizer, stood next to his black 1959 two-door Studebaker Silver Hawk parked by the side of the road in a hot desert area of Texas [Note: The opening sequence was shot on I-20's Monahans (TX) Sandhills State Park about a 6 hour drive west of the Austin area.]; he also stopped at a railway crossing for another cigarette
• he proceeded to drive into the sun-baked town of Landers, TX to fill up his tank; the female attendant (Margaret Bowman) recommended a local "hot spot" as the only place in town that sold beer before noon - "The Yellow Rose" bar; he sauntered inside, where the joint was playing tunes including Billy Squier's "The Stroke"; Harry watched a large-hatted Texan cowboy stuffing tips into the G-string of a topless dancer-stripper (Kimberly Ireland), and a second table dancer (Shannon Quinlan) before leaving
• Harry wandered over to the nearby Harshaw Motors car lot on the main street that was advertising for a used car-dealer salesman; the smooth-talking Harry entered into a casual conversation with a potential buyer named Mr. Haynes (George Haynes) who was walking off, and convincingly offered him a "deal" on one of the vehicles with a low monthly payment; inside the office, owner George Harshaw (Jerry Hardin) and his tobacco-chewing salesman Lon Gulick (Charles Martin Smith) were flabbergasted to watch the slick and cocky stranger close the deal and sell the vehicle

Harshaw Motors ("We Finance")

(l to r): George Harshaw and Salesman Lon Gulick

Harry's First Day at Work

• Harry checked into the local Landmark Inn, and the next morning (with the temperature gauge reading 90 degrees), the opportunistic womanizer drove into the Harshaw Motors parking area; Harshaw (who had been instantly impressed by Harry's selling abilities) had hired him, but Harry promptly rejected the offer, complaining about the lack of a straight commission; but then, he impulsively changed his mind after an up-and-down glance at the dealership's troubled, but sweet, wholesome and soft-spoken 19 year-old brunette Gloria Harper (future Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly), the office secretary-bookkeeper
• Harry's first "errand" was to drive Gloria out to the shack-residence of "deadbeat" Frank Sutton (William Sadler), to repossess his newly-purchased green LTD on the first of the month; inside the run-down, empty residence, Harry noticed two recently-processed enlarged B/W photos of a young naked girl - an indication of Sutton's sleazy character

Harry and Gloria At Sutton's Ramshackle Shack

• Gloria suggested that Sutton could be found at a nearby spring out back, and ventured on foot to meet up with him; upon her almost immediate return, she told the dubious Harry that she had acquired his monthly payment; moments later, however, Sutton drove up in his custom-made dune buggy and asked: "You folks lookin' for me?"; he called Gloria over and she discreetly whispered to him: ("I need to talk to you..."); Harry then watched a second time as Gloria nervously spoke privately to Sutton about what seemed to be a personal matter: ("l'll take care of this thing like l always do...") - he replied: ("I think I can live with that"); on their drive back into town, Harry impulsively kissed Gloria, but she was cold and unresponsive: ("That was about as much fun as kissin' a passed-out drunk"); she apologized for lying to him about initially seeing Sutton at the spring; when he asked if Sutton was a relative of hers, he noticed that she was on the verge of tears and he apologetically comforted her: "OK, kid. Maybe I got it wrong"
• in town, they passed a fire that had broken out in a hamburger joint across the street from the Landers State Bank; Gloria deceitfully told her boss that Sutton had given her his monthly payment; during his lunch hour, Harry entered the bank to open a new account, and happened to notice that it was completely unguarded; a blind black man customer named Uncle Mort (John Hawker) also entered and spoke briefly with Harry; the sole person in the bank emerged from the rest-room holding a girlie magazine (JUGGS) - it was the befuddled owner Julian Ward (Jack Nance); Harry recognized him as the big-hatted tipper he had seen at the strip-club; Ward mentioned that all of his male bank employees were volunteer firemen tending to the fire, and that the bank's video surveillance equipment was improperly installed and not currently functional; Harry was struck by Ward's comment: "Lucky you wasn't a bank robber!"

Harry Entering Vacated Landers State Bank in Town

Blind Uncle Mort - Another Customer in Bank

Befuddled Bank Owner Julian Ward (Jack Nance)

• back at the car dealership at around 2 pm after lunch, Harry was introduced to his new boss' wife; the sultry Dolly Harshaw (Virginia Madsen in a sizzling, vampish performance as a Lana Turner-like femme fatale seductress) was applying makeup and inspecting Harry just before driving into the used-car lot in her pink 1959 Series '62 Cadillac open convertible; clearly, she was the hot-blooded, bored, trampy, predatory and opportunistic, sinful blonde wife of the used car-lot owner, who introduced herself to Harry: "I'm his wife. You must be the new salesman"; she requested help from Harry to help her unload the contents of her car trunk (papers and clothes) at a nearby charity office; before leaving the lot with her, Harry noticed Gloria standing on the outdoor porch - with distinctive shoes decorated with wooden fruit located at the start of her long slender legs; Dolly was immediately jealous and snapped: "l have a pair of shoes like those. I ought to wear 'em more often. They seem to be more effective than I remembered" [Note: This would become an important future plot point - that both of Harry's female flings in the film had similar shoes.]
• as Harry carried heavy items into an upstairs floor thrift store in the downtown area, Dolly drawled to Harry that her husband had a fragile heart: ("He's had two heart attacks already"); he paused momentarily to gaze out the window at the bank diagonally across the street, as he ambitiously dreamed about his next big score; back in her car, she then suggestively asked - and then answered her own question: "So, whatcha gonna do in our town?...Well, there are only two things to do around here. You got a TV?"; when Harry replied: "Nope," she added: "Well, now you're down to one. Lotsa luck!"
• during a Saturday workday at the car-lot with the boss away, Harry was working a shift with chatty fellow employee Lon; he learned that George's shameless, younger trophy wife Dolly had met her future husband on a hunting trip: ("He always said that she just sort of happened"); Harry glibly commented: "Well, the smart thing would've been to get the hell out of there and let her happen to somebody else"; Mrs. Harshaw phoned while in a red silk robe and shaving her legs - and asked Harry for a "teensy-weensy favor"; she summoned him to bring her husband's hunting cap to the house - it was a flimsy excuse given the fact that her husband was out-of-town on a fishing trip
• upon his arrival at her two-story mansion, Dolly showed off George's wood-lined study with stuffed animals, including a mountain lion trophy that had once stalked him (like she was stalking him - "Bang! Bang!"); she then offered mai tais at the outdoor bar; with innuendo sex-laden dialogue, the two again wise-cracked about the lack of excitement in town; when Harry asked about her nosy, across-the-street elderly neighbor Mrs. Gross (Edith Mills) who had spied on him with binoculars, Dolly answered pointedly: "What do you think of the view?"; Dolly checked up on his trip to the house: "Oh, I meant to ask you - about findin' me. Did I give you the right directions?"; he quipped: "I could find it in the dark"; she was uncertain: "Are you sure?" - prompting him to grab and kiss her; she ordered her "bad boy" to leave, knowing that the "bitch" Mrs. Gross would be checking up on them; at the front door as he looked up at her on the stairway landing above him - she dismissed him in front of a growling bear: "I'm goin' to bed. You can let yourself out"
• on the way back to the lot, in a convenience store, Harry caught Gloria browsing at a display of "silly" romance novels; he offered to buy Gloria a cool refreshing soda; in a booth, he apologized for kissing her earlier and admitted: "My life's just been a succession of jams over floozies of one kind or another. l forget how to treat a real lady"; realizing how beautiful and youthfully innocent she was, in contrast to Dolly, he offered that they "start over, make friends" with a handshake; he accompanied her for a short walk home to her residence; on the way, Gloria briefly mentioned that she had been orphaned as a young girl, and her slightly older foster-sister (her 'best friend') had died ("It was a bad time"); as they said goodbye, he told her she was "very pretty"

Harry Proposing to Start Over as "Friends" with Gloria in a Convenience Store Soda Fountain

• later that same evening on his first weekend in town, Harry returned to the Harshaw mansion to carry through on his philandering by initiating an affair with Dolly; he entered through the back patio door, proceeded upstairs, and found her eagerly expecting him in bed during her husband's hunting trip absence; she was reclining on her bed under a full-length photograph of herself naked in bed; she playfully aimed a gun at his head, but then seduced Harry by kneeling in front of him and offering him oral sex
• afterwards, the two cuddled in bed - smoking, drinking heavily and conversing: (Dolly: "You know, Harry. We're a lot alike, you and me. 'Cos we got these hard, hard outsides. But inside..." Harry: "...we're hard, hard, hard"); after a short while, he seemed bored and implied that she was just another troubled tramp: "I don't know what the hell I'm doin' here....What's my batting average always been for stayin' out of trouble when it's baited with this much tramp? Even zero"; he didn't regard his insult directed at her as "just a little love play" and she ordered him out

Harry's Second Visit to Dolly's Place In the Evening For Sex

• on his way back to his hotel later that night, Harry cased the area around the Landers State Bank, contemplating how he might pull off a bank job; in his room, he tinkered with a ticking alarm clock and an ignition device, and also briefly visited "The Yellow Rose" strip club to watch the topless stage and table dancers, to the tune of Hank Williams Jr.'s "Love MD"; as he walked by his place of work, the door of the parked car on display in the lot popped open, and Dolly showed off her decorated-shoes similar to Gloria's to entice him: ("l always wanted to be put up on a pedestal"); she invited him into the back seat of the car, and offered herself: ("Wanna look at mine? You can come up real close and get a real good look"); after he provided her with oral sex, she shared a cigarette with him and quipped: "That was more fun than eatin' cotton candy barefoot"; Harry realized that their sexual escapade had been witnessed by Frank Sutton
• across the street from the bank in the empty building across from the bank, Harry set up his incendiary device to activate at 12:20 pm the next day to create distracting circumstances; during the hot afternoon in broad daylight, a second fire erupted as expected, and he observed a fire truck with the bank employees racing to fight the fire; he slipped inside the bank through a side entrance, caused a water leak in the rest-room, covered up a whimpering Ward from behind with a blanket and tied him up inside a toilet stall, and demanded the bank vault's combination; after robbing the vault and other drawers, he carefully and quietly circumvented Uncle Mort who had entered the front door before depositing the bundled money inside his car's trunk; and then after joining the curious bystanders across the street, he looked up at the burning building and noticed a drunk trapped on an upper floor - he felt compelled to heroically race inside and rescue the man; before dusk, he buried the cash in the ground in a remote wooded area outside of town

Entering the Bank

Joining Bystanders in the Crowd Across the Street

After a Heroic Rescue of a Drunk Man in the Blaze

• while engaged in an on-going highly-sexualized affair with Dolly, he also began a more serious relationship with the younger Gloria; they went on a picnic to a secluded body of water for a swim; on the shore, she surprised him with a cake to celebrate her own 19th birthday; when he learned her age, she asked: "You look disappointed. Did you want me to be older?" but he assured her: "No, of course not. That'd be stupid, wouldn't it?"; at almost half his age, she smiled as she gave the "poor old man" a piece of cake to keep up his strength; after walking her home, he told her: "Happy birthday, Junior" and they warmly kissed each other
• as he turned to drive way in his car, Harry was hauled in for questioning by the Sheriff (Barry Corbin), Deputy Buck (Virgil Frye) and Deputy Tate (Leon Rippy) - he became a prime suspect for the town's bank robbery; Harry had been seen in the bank during the first fire, when he briefly talked to Uncle Mort; Harry was pressured by the Sheriff to return the stolen money since all the bills were marked and therefore he couldn't even spend the loot; Harry was locked up in jail for the night; the next morning, Uncle Mort strangely claimed to recognize Harry's sounds: ("He got a kind of a bleep, like a tea kettle")
• an opportune, well-timed phone call from Galveston to the Sheriff came to Harry's rescue from jail; Dolly's husband claimed that Dolly had vowed to him that Harry had been at the fire the entire time; due to Harry's on-going affair with Dolly, she conveniently provided him with an alibi (perjured) for his exact whereabouts at the time of the fire and the bank heist - she claimed that she had seen him getting out of his car on the street just after the fire started
• once Harry was released, he returned to his parked car outside Gloria's residence, where she was relieved to learn about his release; he offered to drive her to work, but then Sutton suddenly appeared and harrassed Gloria by calling her aside to join him on a walk and discuss "a personal matter"; back at work, Harry learned about "deadbeat" Sutton's background from Lon: "I think he used to work for Harshaw. I think he was gonna put in a pool or somethin', but I never did hear any more about that deal" - it was a clue that Dolly had known Sutton for a long time
• after testifying on Harry's behalf and clearing him, Dolly had returned from Galveston and was anxiously phoning the car dealership to speak to Harry and set up another date; on the phone with Harry while again shaving her legs, she was upset and jealous that Harry seemed more romantically interested in Gloria: ("Been havin' a good time watchin' that little girl?"); Dolly invited him to join up with her at an abandoned sawmill at 10 pm that evening; when Harry declined, she referred to how she had helped him, and used her leverage (and threats of blackmail and recanting her testimony) to pressure him into seeing her and to become further involved in their affair: "Wasn't that lucky I saw you there the other day at the fire? Just supposin' I had missed ya"
• once he arrived, he found her reclined in the back seat of her convertible; she slapped him when he urged them to have quickie sex and then leave; she continued to pressure him by threatening to change her alibi: ("Who's on top this time?"); she removed her halter top, skirt and panties, and then dove into the water; he stripped down and joined her and as they embraced, she jealously teased him: "You thought you could leave me for that Sunday-School kid. Thought you could leave me for her. You see? You do like me, don't you?"; the conniving Dolly wasn't dissuaded from his many rejections
• after cavorting around in the water, they both entered the sawmill where Dolly emphasized: "I always get what I want, Harry"; she mentioned how she didn't care for her husband: "Never mind him. He got everything he paid for"; she also hinted that he was having chest pains, and a recent diagnosis revealed that he had a weak-heart and required an operation; she added that her husband could possibly die - if she had her way: "Anything at all too excitin' will just kill him"; Harry realized the deadly implication that she was making, and she even begged for Harry's help: "You've gotta help me, Harry. I can't be left alone. Help me, Harry," but he refused: "I won't have anything to do with it"; Dolly even threatened to cause a miscarriage if she became pregnant with his child and boasted ("l've done it before"); she jumped off the top platform of the sawmill to demonstrate how she'd kill her unborn child, and then climbed back up to him: ("It's not the falling down, honey. It's the climb back up"); he kissed the "lousy little witch" before they both tumbled off the platform and made love in the sawdust below
• in town, Harry contemplated leaving as he stood at the local train station and looked down the tracks
• during another picnic and swim with Gloria at the small body of water, she provided Harry with more details about her troubled orphaned past; she told how the girl that she had grown up with had killed herself, due to the menacing hillbilly in town - the unscrupulous, sleazy and seedy backwoodsman Frank Sutton; Gloria explained how Sutton threatened the blackmailing revelation of Irene's lesbian affair with a former teacher -- causing her sister Irene to commit suicide: "The one that died...She killed herself...And Sutton drove her to it. He did it. She was my sister, Harry. I really loved her"
• in a stunning flashback sequence, they went skinny-dipping together (it was the same location where Gloria and Harry enjoyed swimming) as Gloria continued: "She finally told me. She'd been havin' an affair with a woman who was a teacher of ours, and they'd been meetin' in Houston. Somehow Sutton found out. He seems to know what people's weaknesses are. And he was blackmailin' her"; Sutton was shown taking incriminating sexual pictures of Gloria with her sister Irene Davey (Debra Cole); with the skinny-dipping photos of the two of them, Sutton threatened to spread rumors of other sexual improprieties when they were young girls if he wasn't paid to keep quiet: "He had real pictures now. And what had we been doin' in that bedroom we shared when we were girls"
• after Irene's suicide, Sutton continued to blackmail and extort Gloria; she had been embezzling money from her workplace ($500 each time) to pay Frank off, to prevent him from publicizing the nude photos of her with Irene; however, now she was ready to quit the many pay-offs and admit her guilt to her embezzled employer Harshaw
• to defend Gloria, that evening, Harry drove to Frank's shack to rough him up for blackmailing her over the nude photos for over a year; before Sutton showed up, Harry emptied Sutton's rack of guns of their ammunition, put on heavy gloves, and then ordered Sutton to lay off Gloria; he backed up his words by relentlessly pummeling Sutton with multiple punches, he left after wrapping Sutton's clothesline of naked pictures around his neck
• later in the evening, Dolly confronted Harry in the strip bar concerned about how serious he was becoming with Gloria; when Harry refused to give up Gloria, she became very spiteful and jealously enraged: ("If you think you're gonna ditch me for that saccharin little candy-ass, you've got another thing comin'"); Dolly suggested that he might regret having met her: ("You're gonna wish to Christ you never laid eyes on me"), and returned home where she found her husband George heavily drinking and smoking
• Dolly deliberately intended to cause her husband George's death with a heart-attack from over-excitement, by luring him up to her bedroom that evening to rub night cream into her shoulders; Dolly confessed to her betrayed husband that she was "a bad wife," but now would be "very, very bad" by tying him down on the bed for a "game" of S&M bondage; she also confessed to a heavy sexual affair with Harry: ("Guess what? All these things I'm doin' to you, I've done to your boy, Harry Madox, down at the sawmill, over and over again"); she engaged in energetic and vigorous sex with her elderly husband to literally over-stimulate him: ("I'm f--kin' you to death, George") - she sent him with a lethal heart-attack to the hospital (off-screen)

Dolly to Harry: Threatening Him to Leave Gloria

Luring Husband George to Her Bedroom

On Top of George Bound in Bed, Overstimulating and Killing Him

• the next day, with bruises and a swollen face, Sutton arrived at the car lot and gave an excuse for his looks: "Don't pay no mind to the way my face looks. I fell out of bed"; he demanded that Harry provide him with the fancy Lincoln on the lot, as a trade-in on his repo car - plus money to leave town; during a test drive, Harry told him to shove off and reacted with passionate incredulity: "You fall out of bed one more time and the cockroaches'll start talkin' to you"; Sutton threatened that if the car and money weren't ready to be picked up by Monday, he would report that he witnessed Harry's whereabouts during the fire and bank robbery [Note: As revealed later, it was a false threat - he wasn't even in town to witness the event]
• Sutton left after demanding another $500 from Gloria in her office; Harry stressed to Gloria that she must end her payments to him: ("Gloria, don't you even think about givin' it to him. Blackmailers are all the goddamn same. Each buy is the last until the next one... Whatever you do, don't pay him. Do you understand me? Don't pay him")
• in a heavy rainstorm that night, Harry was determined to avoid suspicion and further efforts by Sutton to continue blackmailing him AND Gloria; he dug up one bag of the stolen bank heist money and planted some of it in Sutton's car glove-compartment to frame him; as he approached and entered Sutton's shack, he heard sexual moans and squealing as he caught Frank having sex with a woman; from the bed, Sutton fired a shot at him as the woman fled out the door, screaming: "My God, my face!"; Harry knocked out Sutton as the female drove off and left behind her shoes with a wooden fruit decoration; Harry suspected that Gloria had brought the "sick bastard" another payment when he noticed a payment envelope with $500 dollars on the bed

Fleeing Female: "My God, my face!"

Left-Behind Decorative Shoes

Sutton Shot Dead in the Chest

• to rub in the idea that Gloria had been having sex with him, Harry listened as Sutton confirmed his fears by delivering a misleading line about the female's identity: ("She ain't half bad for a girl that goes both ways, you know?"); the two engaged in a second physical struggle while wrestling for Sutton's gun, and Harry shot and killed him
• Harry set up the crime scene to divert attention away from himself -- (1) he made Sutton's death appear to be a self-inflicted gun-shot suicide, after pouring alcohol down his throat, (2), he planted some of the stolen bank money in Sutton's shack, and (3) he disposed of the left-behind shoes (falsely believing that they might be Gloria's shoes) by throwing them in a body of water
• the next day at the dealership, the Sheriff connected Sutton's death and his recent interest in purchasing a new Lincoln vehicle to the stolen bank cash (and bill numbers) found in his shack; after the Sheriff's apology to Harry for earlier accusations, Harry was told that he was eligible for the $25,000 reward for allegedly 'solving' the bank crime; now that Harry was totally cleared, he divulged his immediate intention to Gloria in her office - to whisk her off to the Caribbean to be married - he proposed: ("Just you and me and a wedding ring"); she concurred: "Yeah. l'll go"
• however, the grateful widow Dolly phoned Harry at the car dealership with news from the hospital that her husband had died: "You might say he died in the saddle"; she summoned him to meet with her immediately about her newly-acquired ownership of her husband's car business: "I was wonderin' if you might be free to come over and discuss it as soon as possible?" but he refused and told her: "I'm outta here!"; separately, Dolly also called Gloria in her Finance Office, who agreed to meet with her to discuss "a few things"; she insisted to Harry that she had to clear her conscience: ("I have to be clear with the past"); Harry reluctantly agreed to drive Gloria to the Harshaw mansion, but vowed to her that they would still be leaving for the Caribbean afterwards ("Nothing anybody's gonna do is gonna stop us")
• before Harry and Gloria entered the Harshaw mansion for a show-down with the femme fatale, Gloria also admitted that she had disobeyed him and paid Sutton another $500 before his death; Harry noticed two things that tipped him off to the fact that Dolly was the one having sex with Sutton in his shack - (1) the decorated wooden fruit shoes on Gloria's feet, and (2) Dolly's fresh cheek scar (and her lies that she and George had both fallen down the stairs at the hospital)
• the double-crossing, devious, teary-eyed Dolly explained how she would proceed with the business, and not sell out; she presented Harry with a copy of a signed and certified letter (the original was with her attorney) that would reveal - in the event of her death - incriminating information; Harry was asked to read the letter; he quickly scanned the contents of the letter that clearly stated: (1) Harry set fire to the building and robbed the bank, (2) Gloria embezzled dealership money to pay off blackmailer Sutton, and (3) Harry staged the suicidal-murder of Sutton
• Dolly lied and blamed knowing about Gloria's embezzlement through Harry, who had presumably in her scenario betrayed Gloria by engaging in their secret affair; Dolly assured Gloria that George would have forgiven her for stealing funds from the business and she wouldn't face charges; she also promised that Gloria could keep her car-dealership job (to repay the business' stolen funds over time)
• Dolly had maneuvered Gloria's emotions, implying that she had been so wronged that she had to drop her relationship with Harry (and cancel their Caribbean plans); the heart-broken and devastated Gloria refused a ride back to the dealership with Harry after hearing about his "betrayal"
• once Gloria walked off, Harry acknowledged to Dolly that Sutton had absolutely nothing on him: ("Sutton didn't know. He wasn't even at the fire"); Harry denounced Dolly for working with Sutton all along: "You told him. It was you!"; the innocent-sounding Dolly thought she had now succeeded in pressuring Harry to be with her, as she licked the envelope shut with the letter inside: "You'll have to beg now. You had your chance. Now l'm gonna enjoy hearin' you beg me to marry you. See, you have to look after me, Harry. Something might happen to me"; he agreed: "Yes. Something might"; he attempted to choke Dolly to death for her manipulations

Dolly to Harry: "You have to look after me"

Harry Threatening to Choke Dolly - But Then He Relented

Dolly to Harry: "Kiss me"

• but then, he relented and realized he had been trapped and ensnared by her, and he was forced to kiss her: (Dolly: "You see, Harry? Then kiss me, Harry. Kiss me"); they laughed in each other's arms
• he was resigned to be with her as she drove them away from the hot and steamy Texas town in her Pink Cadillac convertible - conversing in voice over:

Harry: "In this life, you gotta take what you want."
Dolly: "I always get what I want, Harry."
Harry: "Yes, indeed. I've found my level. And I'm livin' it."