The Rose with Many a Thorn

Say hello to the Turkish actress Türkan Soray.

She plays the title role in the 1961 movie Dikenli Gül (Thorny Rose), directed by Arsavir Alyanak.

Gül‘s a pickpocket, and the first thing she does in the film is to rob a wedding party. But she’s not a very good pickpocket, because the victims notice their cash is missing before she even gets out of sight, and a cop is swiftly summoned and gives chase. She’s also not the most efficient of escapers, because her route eventually takes her on a one-way course up a jetty. It’s her good fortune that there’s a boat at the other end where she can take refuge. It’s a moot point whether she is also lucky that it belongs to the writer Fuat, played by Orhan Günsiray.

The luck lies in the fact that he’s not only willing to hide her under a tarpaulin when the law arrives, but also welcomes her into his home as a guest. The misfortune happens when he catches her stealing his possessions, and, rather than just throw her out, picks her up for a spanking,

then carries her over to the couch and puts her across his knee so that he can do the job properly:

It’s not a perfect spanking, partly because the OTK positioning is botched,

and partly because he takes pity on her before he gets very far, and ends early – for which she proves rather ungrateful. But let’ s cut him some slack, because he is going to fall in love with her and wean her from her criminal ways, so that the film ends with the prospect of another wedding, only this time with a former thief as the bride.

Here’s the film:

There are two sequels to this. Two years later, in 1963, Türkan Soray played another naughty girl title character in the comedy Çapkın Kız, and duly got another spanking, which you can read about here. And eleven years later, in 1972, Arsavir Alyanak remade Dikenli Gül in color under the title Gönül Hirsizi (Love Thief), with some changes but the spanking scene present and correct and even better the second time around; you can read about it here.

Acknowledgement: Many thanks to Dean for drawing my attention to this film.