I got started on the imagery, because of a sound I heard while going through the film with headphones. The scene is "Herb and Dan take a walk" as discussed much earlier on the forum. "Film Syncs" makes note of a high pitched sound effect. It is faint, and sounds a bit like a fire siren starting at the top pitch, then descending. Musically, I'd guess you'd call it a descending glissando; and I think it's supposed to create a sinking feeling in your stomach.

The are 4 times the sound occurs: 1) When Dan sees the "Entrance" + arrow sign on the Winkies window; 2) Just before Dan sees the bum; 3) When Betty & Rita first go to the Winkies and we see a close up of the "Entrance" + arrow sign; 4) When Joe starts to laugh at Diane, before the camera swings outdoors for one last look at the bum. So, that must be some special "Entrance" sign!


The words "Use Front Door" are penned in above the word ENTRANCE. Note the baseball catcher "Mr. Official Zesto."

It was "Siku" who pointed out the negative space/positive space image of the two faces or the vase. Here I was seeing the grayish blob as some kind of "white-out." But then I see it is a zepplin sized phallus trying to "give it" to poor Mr. Official Zesto in the rear. Are we also supposed to see two choices of either the arrow phallus entering via the front door or the blob phallus entering via the back door? I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure Mr. Official Zesto is really "catching it." Is Betty or Diane in the early days, the Zestful one?
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The whole sequence from the point of hiding Rita's money to the end of the pay phone call to the police station is quite rich in images. We cut from the silent handshake shown below (we will trust each other about the money)...

to the shot of the Mr. Official Zesto getting it. Then we see the reflections of Betty and Rita walking to the pay phone.

Note the white narcissus flowers are carefully placed in the frame throughout the this shot. Then we see Betty dialing the pay phone in the next shot.

We see 1 Stop; 2 Listen; 3 Deposit; and No Coin Needed SOS. Or 1 - 2 - 3 - 4=SOS.

I've already discussed the phallic images a bit and 123-SOS is a pretty clear progression for Diane in the film. The reflections of Betty and Rita are suggestive of their dreamlike or unreal nature. Also note that the sleeping position of Rita is the mirror image of the corpse or Diane sleeping (dead) in the real world. What about the white narcissus?

At the risk of "catching it" myself from Blu or CTYankee, are the flowers a reference to "The lady of the camellias" or the story of Margurite Gautier, a.k.a. Camille? I just finished watching the 1936 George Cukor version of Camille with Garbo and Robert Taylor. I was thrilled to see that the Special Features of the disk contains the entire 1921 silent version of Camille, created by Nazimova and Natasha Rambova, starring Valentino. This silent version begins by asking us to imagine Camille set not in 1850, but in modern times 1921.

I was not familiar with the story of Camille until seeing the films, but I always took note of Adam and his director's assistant always being careful to pronounce cah-MEE-lah instead of the usual Camilla.

Enrico, you are definitely onto something with Cukor's Camille generally in connection with MD. I spent a bit of time looking at it before. I'm short of time now, but I will repost some stuff that I posted elsewhere in the next couple of days when I have time to dig it out.

In the meantime, here's a snippet: