Jane Fonda in Tall Story (1960)
June Ryder is a new student at Custer College, which is most renowned for its boys’ basketball team, although it also has a high academic standing that can rival that of any of the more famous colleges on the west coast. June’s reason for being there: to become a “Mrs.”, most specifically Mrs. Ray Blent, he a science major and the star player on the basketball team. Ray is not naturally gifted as a basketball player, but uses science to be able to figure out how to play the perfect game. Ray’s interest in basketball is just a byproduct of his primary interest in the sciences and learning in general. June doesn’t care who knows what she’s doing except Ray. All of June’s activities at the college are in this singular goal, which first entails Ray even noticing her and knowing who she is. She discovers that the way to do it is not through the traditional means of the beauty parlor or the kitchen, but rather the classroom. Three people who do know what June is up to are new Ethics professor Leo Sullivan, his wife Myra Sullivan, and longtime General Sciences professor Charles Osman, the professors who don’t much like but accept that June is using their classrooms as a matrimonial service. June’s ploy does eventually get Ray to notice her as a woman. But a happy ending for Ray, and Ray with June, is in jeopardy when he receives anonymous bribes to throw an upcoming important game against a visiting team from Russia, the Sputniks. Ethical and academically bright Ray, who is a schnook when it comes to street smarts, has to decide what to do, his plan which inadvertently involves Professor Sullivan, who in the process becomes the most despised man on campus.
