“On the face of it, her suspicion
that Paul had acted as her “pander” by leaving her with his lecherous employer
seems patently unjust. Clearly he had told her to get into Prokosch’s two-seat
sports car because he did not want to appear foolishly, uxoriously jealous in
the producer’s eyes; and we can only assume he is telling the truth when he
says his arrival at Prokosch’s house was delayed by a taxi accident. Still,
underneath the unfairness of her (implicit) accusation is a legitimate
complaint: he would not have acted so cavalierly if he were not also a little
bored with her, and willing to take her for granted. Certainly he is not
particularly interested in what she has to say about the minutiae of
domesticity: the drapes, lunch with her mother. All this he takes in as a tax
paid for marrying a beautiful but undereducated younger woman. Her claims to
possessing a mind (when she reads aloud from the Fritz Lang interview book in
the tub) only irritate him, and he becomes significantly most enraged when she has the audacity to criticize him
for filching other men’s ideas (after he proposes going to a movie for
screenwriting inspiration).”