"Carnal Knowledge (1971)   A moment—not a scene, really, but a scene-stealer—that i'll always remember is in Carnal Knowledge. Jack Nicholson, the lucky bastard, is on a date with Ann-Margret. Nicholson plays a certified public accountant who also happens to be a certified pussy bandit, and Ann-Margret is...Ann-Margret. On the date, they do not even have precious little to talk about...they have absolutely nothing to talk about. But Jack's thoughts are our thoughts; his eyes are on the prize, just where ours are, too. As they wine and dine, he offers, just for the sake of some first-date gratuitous touching, to read Ann-Margret's palm.   A-M (I, like millions of others, had been deeply moved years before by her teenage titty-shaking work in Bye Bye Birdie) puts her arms together so that Jack can gain access to her hand. When she shifts, the Earth stops, because in doing so, she forms one of the most awe-inspiring, majestic, stupendous cleavages ever to bubble up on the silver screen. I will never forget it, because I was a teenager when I saw it. The movie had been out for a year already, and the theater was mostly empty. But when A-M formed that wonderful canyon (""Go ahead, jump in,"" it beckons, and the viewer is tempted, Sherlock Jr.-style, to make the attempt), a combination gasp-and-sigh rose in unison from every male in that theater, the sort of gasp you hear when O. J. Simpson or Robert Durst is acquitted, the sort of sigh you let out when a friend—but not you—wins $10 million in the lottery.   Carnal Knowledge, despite those few seconds, is not a cheery movie. If that were the only movie you ever saw that depicted the arc of a man's sexual life, you would think that we're all MCI and Enron. The depressing truths about love, marriage, and sex in the movie went way, way over my feverishly lusting, bedazzled, long-haired teenage head. It was only years later, when I saw the movie again, that I got it. But even then, the cleavage was still good.—Ted Heller"
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