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One thing I think is overlooked with regard to Freddie is the reason for his strong reaction to Doris. She shouldn’t have had as much impact upon him as she did, at least with what little is offered on-screen toward illuminating their connection. But one thing seems clear: he impulsively relents in his animal-like selfishness, encouraging her to go to Norway and promising her to meet him later. I believe this was a flash of decency in his life that meant more to him than the girl herself; some critics interpret this as Quell rejecting her or getting cold feet at the last minute, but I see it as his attempt to preserve something beautiful. Playing by the score of his arrested, nasty personality, he would have taken her away for a few days, ruined some of her opportunities (including Norway), fucked her, and abandoned her when he grew bored or restless. Instead, there is this remarkable scene of restraint at the screen window which has a romantic flourish that can’t be found elsewhere in his life. When he becomes livid during the session between him and Clark at the mere mention of “Doris,” I think he is trying to protect that single moment of decency rather than the honor of a particular girl, or the cherished memory of a beloved woman. She is sixteen, after all, and somewhat of a cipher, perhaps an unfinished personality that allows this personal symbolism to rest more easily.

And this is the reason that Quell doesn’t return fire with the secret that Elizabeth tried to put the make on him. (This puzzled me at the time of my first viewing; I assumed he would just lash out with this information, and he didn’t.) He could have easily flattened Clark (not to mention Dodd) with this revelation, but he mysteriously keeps the secret. (There is some suggestion in the camerawork at the time of the filrtation that the son-in-law already suspects her overture to infidelity, but it remains a tacit betrayal.) Why would a grotesquely crude character like Quell hold back? Nowhere else does he practice this kind of discretion. I think it’s because he is forced by the talismanic mention of “Doris” to measure his present response against the honorable gesture he made with Doris years earlier. And in addition, during a “process” that resorts to cruelty, he has triumphed by not playing along. Which, of course, is ironic, given that Dodd regards him as an unfinished “animal” most in need of the treatments offered by his quasi-science.

But I'm glad they used a pussy as the cover.