Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes

Rose Joan Blondell learned many things growing up as a child of vaudeville.  She learned to make friends easily, to fit in, and to adapt to ever changing surroundings and circumstances. She learned how to tend to a crew, learn her lines and enhance the performances of others. She learned to smile on cue and to place the act before everything else.  Most importantly she learned discipline, hard work and perseverance.  The one thing she wasn’t taught was how to value herself, her gifts, and her own feelings.  And that is a lesson lost that cost her much personal happiness.

Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes gives us a chronological accounting of the actor’s life.  Beautifully researched, it benefits tremendously from the full cooperation of her surviving relatives, including her children.  It was her son who suggested that such a book be considered.  He approached author Matthew Kennedy as the two were working on another project.  It is a gift that he did so.

With James Cagney in Blonde Crazy

Blondell and Ann Dvorak in Three on a Match

with fied Barbara Stanwyck in Night Nurse

Remember My Forgotten Man

As expected the most compelling section is the first third when Blondell is working frantically and furiously at Warner Brothers.  Her swift climb towards being an invaluable player in the studio’s talented stable make for heady reading.  She arrives in Hollywood almost simultaneously with the advent of talking pictures with a young Jimmy Cagney, both fresh off a Broadway play that lands on the screen with the racy title of Sinner’s Holiday.  While compelling in their debuts, Cagney’s magnetism is undeniable.  The studio recognizes their hot property for what he is and quickly places him in starring vehicles with compensation to match.  Cagney achieves this with some savvy and negotiation.  Blondell’s compensation doesn’t achieve his, nor is she given those starring roles; her negotiation skill and representation is weaker and she is frequently used to bolster others’ work or enliven sagging pictures. Nevertheless, her presence in tight, rapid-fire pre-Code films is almost unmatched.  It is only those women that truly reached the upper tier, such as Barbara Stanwyck, a friend of Blondell’s, that have greater presence.  Some of the most memorable films of the era such as Night Nurse, Three on a Match, Blonde Crazy and the Busby Berkley musicals Dames and Gold Diggers of 1933 would be unrecognizable without Blondell’s presence.  The latter’s finale number, Remember My Forgotten Man, with Blondell as its centerpiece, is arguably the most significant musical sequence of the Great Depression.  The actress herself was taken aback by the critical and public response to its social significance.  She was working so fast its impact had eluded her.

In a life filled with contradictions, Blondell frequently referred to herself as a workhorse, many times denigrating her own accomplishments while struggling for the recognition and roles she rightfully deserved.  Toddling onto the stage at fourteen months, she entered vaudeville as a regular in her parent’s act at the age of three.  The Blondell’s travelled the globe, rarely stopping to establish roots, a pattern Blondell found difficult to break. She longed for a house and home yet this was sometimes as elusive as the roles she sought.  When Blondell found personal stability, she used this security to bolster her career, seeking and taking risks that then undermined her domestic happiness. This strategy of zig-zagging from coast to coast, seeking substantial roles, was ill-tolerated by the men in her life who married a people-pleasing petite blonde and somehow ended up with a real woman with needs.  Husbands George Barnes, Dick Powell and Mike Todd ranged from distant and controlling to financially irresponsible and emotionally and physically abusive.  Blondell only achieved marital bliss intermittently and fleetingly.  Professional success similarly had its rich yet transient moments.  Her finances followed her marriages and her performances, rising and falling with their shifting fates.

As Aunt Sissy in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, with Peggy Ann Garner

Blondell was nominated for an Academy Award for The Blue Veil, however one of her most memorable performances of her post-Warner years was that of Aunt Sissy in Elia Kazan’s adaptation of the best-selling novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  It was her favorite role. Yet some of her best moments were left on the cutting room floor due to their adult nature and the restrictions of the Production Code, an editorial necessity she found upsetting.  If she is remembered by some as the matronly former star who cameos in Grease it may be because she is only one of a handful of women whose career lasted her entire adult life; she worked almost continually. And while she tended to scoff and discount her own artistic needs, her drive to pursue roles appears to have been motivated by more than money.  Blondell trusted her talents to provide for her but ached for more; she craved fulfillment on a personal and professional level.  She ultimately gave up dating but continued to work, even while seriously ill, until the age of 73, when she succumbed to leukemia.

Joan Blondell with husband Dick Powell

This well-researched biography covers all phases of this actor’s busy and tumultuous life, almost so much so that the larger arcs are elusive.  Her marriage to Dick Powell lasts eight years but the ups and downs and moves are so frequent, and the intermingling of professional and personal so complex, that the longevity is almost lost.  This is the most significant intimate relationship in Blondell’s life.  Powell is the father of her two children, with her eldest being adopted by him in the early happy years.  Yet this aspect of the book is a minor quibble and perhaps unavoidable given its sweep. It is enriched by numerous interviews, archival research, family memories and haunting recollections.

Blondell’s story spans much of the twentieth century and carries within it the tremendously complex changes occurring in the entertainment industry. Blondell adapts and sashays these changes with skill and sacrifice, working in not only vaudeville and movies, but theater, radio, summer stock and television. Consequently, she is sometimes missing from home for months at a time yet is a devoted mother; many times her children travel with her. More often, her struggles and heartaches, both professional and personal, are due to male attitudes than her own choices; as a woman I ached for her.  When she died I cried.  Through it all she retained the generosity of spirit that made her an audience favorite.

I knew Joan Blondell was something special when I was a small child.  Sitting on the floor staring up at the television screen, watching Here Come the Brides, I took notice when she was introduced in the opening credits with her own solo title card, “and Joan Blondell as Lottie”.  She was charming and warm, still beautiful but comfortingly maternal.  She was the proverbial heart of gold in that series but she was more.  She radiated something unmistakable, the charisma of a movie star, a Hollywood survivor.  When Blondell appeared, she owned the screen.  I tuned in week after week not just for teen heartthrob Bobby Sherman but for her.  Her warmth was something I sorely needed in my life and I adored her for it.  Imbued with the same spirit, this rendering of Blondell’s life is highly recommended.

This post is the fifth in the 2017 Summer Reading Challenge hosted by Raquel Stecher of Out of the Past.  For more book reviews please check her blog throughout the summer!!

 

Sophia Loren: Movie Star Italian Style

“Sophia Loren, aside from being extremely beautiful physically, is one of the most exciting, witty women on this planet.”

Tippi Hendren, costar in A Countess from Hong Kong

Sophia Loren did two notorious things in her life.  The first was to have a romance with Cary Grant, one that elicited a proposal of marriage.  She declined, leaving him in despair.  The second scandal is more significant.  Loren carried on a long-time affair with married producer Carlo Ponti, one that led to an eventual marriage with admirable longevity but was nonetheless quite shocking in its time.  Loren met Ponti when she was only fourteen years old.  He was twenty-two years her senior. Initially he provided her with professional advice and friendship but it didn’t take long for their relationship to blossom into romance.  Divorce was not yet legal in Italy and Rome was having none of their liaison.  Hollywood provided a welcome refuge and Mexico a ‘legal’ means of marrying,yet one that branded Ponti a bigamist in his home country.  The couple opted to become French citizens, with the Italian producer finally obtaining an elusive divorce, allowing for their longed-for marriage.  The addition of children, and later grandchildren, only made it that much sweeter.

Loren and Marcello Mastroianni in Marriage Italian Style (1964)

Loren and Gregory Peck in Arabesque (1966)

Loren and Grant in The Pride and the Passion (1957)

If Loren had any further dalliances with her co-stars, a stunning array of men that included Gregory Peck, Clark Gable, William Holden, Peter Sellers and Richard Burton, among others, she hasn’t breathed a word of it. However such speculation seems doubtful.  Her lifelong love affair with Ponti appears to be one of several constants in her life, the others being her creativity, her love of family, and the simple joi de vivre of being Sophia Loren.

Man of La Mancha (1972)

The Key (1958)

Sophia Loren: Movie Star Italian Style by Cindy De La Hoz conveys this joy for living nicely.  A photographic journey through the actor’s life and movies, it stuns with literally hundreds of gorgeous photos, the majority in the glorious technicolor of many of her films.  A breezy biography fills in the specifics of Loren’s life beginning with childhood struggles of living in war-torn Italy and continuing to the present day.  Almost two-thirds of this coffee table worthy book consists of a synopsis of each of her films, providing the Loren aficionado with a comprehensive compendium of her work.  This is especially helpful as many of her films, even those that have been translated from the original Italian, remain in limited distribution.  Her most familiar Hollywood successes are highlighted too including Houseboat, It Happened in Naples, Arabesque and The Millionairess.

Two Women (1960)

Yet Loren differs from many of her Hollywood peers due to her significant contribution to Italian cinema.  For her portrayal of a mother trapped in WWII Italy in a gritty, heartbreaking turn in Two Women (1960), she became the first actor to win an Oscar for a foreign language performance.  She has won five special Golden Globes, mostly for World Film Favorite. Her partnership with fellow countryman Marcello Mastroianni was the kind of rare collaboration that is seen only with the likes of Tracy and Hepburn, Powell and Loy, and Allen and Keaton.  The duo made an impressive seventeen movies together, working with Italian luminaries such as director Vittorio de Sica and producer Ponti, lifting Italian filmmaking to new heights of popularity and artistry. She is considered Italy’s most celebrated female actor of all time.

With Mastroianni in Sunflower (1970)

Truly an international movie star, Loren is known for her staggering beauty, yet she has an acting legacy that spans over six decades.  That this is not widely known in not the fault of the star but rather the overwhelming seductiveness of her presentation and the breadth of her film catalogue, one that crosses continents.  Loren is an iconic sex symbol, an actor whose curvaceous presence signifies sexual nuance and allure the moment she enters a scene. Her statuesque beauty perfectly fit her debut era, one marked by swing dresses that celebrated the female form.  Just as America was tiring of the blonde bombshell, along came Loren, with an exotic mystique enhanced by big brown almond eyes and voluptuous lips and hips.

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963)

If there is one quibble with the book it is that it ends too soon.  Loren is described as possessing incredible warmth, vitality and an enduring presence that is rare among female performers who too often are not permitted to age gracefully or choose to bow out of their own accord. One hungers for more of Sophia the woman, the survivor. What is clear is that her apparent pragmatism, emotional stability and business acumen are additional assets that have contributed to her longevity and her mystique.

Loren remains riveting when attending red carpet events. She has shown a remarkable ability to retain her beauty and to age with stunning grace.  The many quotes from Sophia regarding her life philosophies, experiences in filmmaker and from those who have worked with her are a treat in this new work.  The book ends with a final quote from Loren speaking to a belief that has served her well:

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love.  When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.”

She may yet gift us with future endeavors springing from her own overflowing creative spirit.

De La Hoz’s new pictorial biography is a glorious introduction for newcomers to Loren’s life and career that should also prove satisfying to devoted fans due to its respectful treatment and multitude of photographs.  It is a worthy addition to the field and to any film lover’s collection. I am quite pleased to add it to mine.

Thank you to Running Press/Turner Classic Movies for providing me with an advance review copy of this lovely book. It is available for Pre-Order through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Shop TCM or your favorite bookseller.  This book will be available on September 26, 2017 in Hardcover or E-Book.

This post is the fourth in the 2017 Summer Reading Challenge hosted by Raquel Stecher of Out of the Past.  For more book reviews please check her blog throughout the summer!!

Loren in her teens and turning heads

 

Gentleman: The William Powell Story

William Powell in a publicity photo from My Man Godfrey

Few of the legendary movies stars of the first half of this century were personally capable of equaling the glittering images they projected with the help of studio publicists and the roles they played on the silver screen. William Powell was a notable exception to that rule.

William Powell was a private man.  He was a public figure and yet a complex, private man.  Therefore the task before biographer Charles Francisco was a challenging one.  Certainly there were plenty of stories in popular Hollywood magazines of the era, tabloid features and interviews, but views into his private life were limited.  He married three times and fathered one child, a son, who tragically committed suicide in 1968.  Aside from his third wife, these significant figures had long departed and there is no indication that wife Diana Lewis chose to reveal the private man. His closest friends, who included Richard Barthelmess and Ronald Colman, had long departed; he outlived almost all of them but Myrna Loy.  In fact Powell himself died during Francisco’s research.  Yet the author has done a remarkable job in giving us a solid sense of William Powell, the essence of the man and of his life; it was one filled with satisfying successes, occasional frustrations and sometimes all too public tragedies.

 

 

Carole Lombard and William Powell marry

Bill and Carole at home

 

 

With fiancee Jean Harlow

Grieving at Harlow’s funeral

Famously, Powell married and divorced Carole Lombard, then became engaged to Jean Harlow, remaining so until her death at age twenty-six.  He grieved openly at her funeral, flanked by his mother and a studio attaché for support.  Her death ushered in a period of struggle for Powell.  Shortly after this profoundly difficult loss he was faced with another crisis, rectal cancer.  Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer softened the blow for the public, citing his long absence from the screen as due to colon cancer, relating few details; the actor was one of the first patients to undergo treatment with implanted radium.  This combination of blows – the death of Harlow, two surgeries and a lengthy recovery – perhaps deprived us of additional films that might have added to his legacy.  His absence took him into middle-age and some unfortunate type-casting.

 

 

Bill and Myrna in The Thin Man

As Nick and Nora Charles

 

Powell became a comedic success with The Thin Man, the role for which he is perhaps best remembered.  Its popularity led to further Thin Man films, six in total, and while he certainly enjoyed the role, and was surely grateful for its gifts, he knew he was capable of much more.  Happily he was later able to show his range in several highly successful and still memorable films, namely Life with Father, How to Marry a Millionaire and finally Mister Roberts.  Portraying the wise and weary ‘Doc’ in the latter put Powell among a new generation of actors and before new audiences.  Yet the on-location shoot tired him and he chose to bow out, departing from the screen at the age of 62.  He eventually left this world for good thirty years later. In doing so he left behind a sweeping body of work that starts in the silent era, polishes many pre-Codes and ultimately enchants in some of the most enduring romantic comedies of the thirties and forties.

 

 

With Kay Francis in Behind the Make-Up

With Ann Harding in Double Harness

With Jean Arthur in the Ex-Mrs Bradford

With Hedy Lamarr in The Heavenly Body

If you are a fan of Powell’s, as I am, this book is one to search out and find. The tone is warm and measured, never salacious or engaging in sordid speculation, despite Powell’s romancing and co-starring with some of the most beautiful and sought after women of the early days of Hollywood. Francisco treats his subject, and the numerous Hollywood luminaries and fellow players he encounters, with respect and admiration, pulling from available files, newspaper and magazine articles, archives and Powell’s own writings. In doing so he constructs a portrait of a man who was far from perfect but generally well-intended and truly the gentleman that he hoped to be.  Known as a movie star, he was first an actor and an absolute master of his craft.

I was sad to reach this book’s end for to do so was to leave behind a life well-lived.  Powell is painted as a man who didn’t always have the answers but who sure as hell tried to find them.  This was a lovely, satisfying and moving book. I highly recommend it.

Gentleman: The William Powell Story includes a filmography and two sections of black and white photographs. It is book-ended by a prologue and epilogue, with the first and last paragraphs shared here, suitably opening and closing this review.

Perhaps Myrna Loy, who co-starred with most of the movie legends, described Bill Powell best.  She said, “There’s just nobody like him, and there’s never been anybody quite like him.”  Unfortunately, in the course of contemporary film, we may never see his like again.

This post is the third in the 2017 Summer Reading Challenge hosted by Raquel Stecher of Out of the Past.  For more book reviews please check her blog throughout the summer! This book is available through Amazon and other used and vintage booksellers.

Death Becomes Her: The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933)

A Universal Pictures Production ~ Director: James Whale, Screenplay by: William Anthony McGuire, based on a story by Ladislas Fodor, Art Director: Charles D. Hall,  Costume Designer: Sadly, uncredited

A kiss is just a kiss.  Or is it?

“How did it begin?”

“With a kiss.”

“It always does. But what kind of a kiss?”

“A kiss before the mirror”

James Whale’s smart suspense drama The Kiss Before the Mirror plays with the idea of passion as a sinister force leading to infidelity, insanity, and murder.  It initially attempts to mark a distinction between a murder justified by rage and betrayal, and one committed through planning and premeditation.  In the end it concludes there really is no difference.  Even crimes of passion have their small moments of irrational  premeditation.

An idyllic scene of a beautiful woman in a garden opens the film.  She is meeting her lover, an attractive man who appears smitten, devoted. The air is sweet with promise as they exchange words in anticipation of their time together.  She is seen through the glass disrobing, but the tone changes.  In the dusky twilight, her husband has followed her through the trees and flowers.  He approaches the veiled entryway, hesitates and then shoots her repeatedly through the shattering panes.

 

 

The murderer’s lawyer is a close friend and is prepared to defend him.  He is puzzled by this horrific crime.  He hears the man’s confession and returns home.  Troubled, he reclines in his wife’s boudoir. She pulls a sheer curtain and then sits to do her face.  The attorney struggles to comprehend his friend’s actions, relaying the initial circumstances to his wife.  As he raises his finger the camera follows in a sweeping shot, circling the intimate space, and stopping where his wife sits facing the mirror at her dressing table.  The audience is enveloped in his perspective, sees his wife as he sees her, feels his hurt as she angrily chastises him for kissing her before the mirror. He is re-imagining the killer’s confession. Suddenly he views her dressing and departure with new eyes; she is preparing for a liaison.  Following her he finds his fears are confirmed.  She has taken a lover.  Humiliated, he contemplates clearing his friend as a means of preemptively establishing his own defense, and considers his own crime of passion.

photo credit: Pre-Code.com

The Kiss Before the Mirror is an early stylish Noir filled with shadows in lamplight, dark insinuations and a tragic aura.  Yet it also has a bit of pre-Code playfulness and dark humor. The dialogue is clever and displays the love for a verbal quip that characterizes many early talking films.  The dual nature of passion is a theme repeatedly touched upon; that which creates love can also destroy those who fall victim to its false perceptions.

The lawyer, Paul, played elegantly by Frank Morgan, is confidently seeking a meeting with his distraught and confessing client Walter, a somewhat overwrought Paul Lukas.  He passes by a barred jail cell and exchanges words with another prisoner, Bill:

“You’ll be out of here soon.”

” I have been out.  I broke out.  Killed the wife and her boyfriend.  Now I’m in for good.”

“That’s too bad.”

” Too bad nothin’.  I’m happy.  Wondering where that woman was all the time used to drive me crazy.”

“Well you know where she is now.”

“I know where I hope she is.”

Women tend to get a bit of a rough treatment here.  Their vanity it seems makes them prone to seduction and an excess of time in front of mirrors.  And there are plenty of those here too.  Characters speak to one another while reflected, their images seeming to mock as they betray and tease one another.  The defendant’s wife’s mirror is adorned with a gilded cupid.  Another cupid sits haughtily upon a mantle. Women it seems are too often guided by Cupid’s whims.

Yet there is a strong female in the bunch too.  Paul has an office manager Hilda, depicted as cynically pragmatic but also ambiguously sexual by a smart Jean Dixon.  She seems to float above the proceedings, amused and yet solemn too.  She introduces herself to the prosecutor as a newcomer to Paul’s team:

“This is my first case.”

“Are you interested in it?”

“A woman has been killed.  That interests me quite a bit.”

Paul interjects, smiling, “for some strange reason, women don’t like being killed.”

A puzzled Paul walks with her after they leave the public prosecutor’s office.

“I can’t understand it.  He adored his wife.”

“He proved that by killing her.”

Later, Paul’s wife, Maria,  is inquisitive about her choices:

“You’re a funny creature.  What are you, a lawyer or a new kind of woman?”

 “By day I’m a lawyer. By night well…you might be surprised.”

 “Why don’t you get married?”

 “Well, being single has its points – at least no one will ever murder me.”

Marriage is portrayed as a risky game with the potential for deceit and a deadly outcome for infidelity. The line between love and hate can be a thin one indeed.

The screenplay’s dry gallows humor is reminiscent of Hitchcock; it finds charm in the even the deadliest of proceedings and marriage a fertile playground for exploring the dark side of wedded bliss.

Paul’s young, beautiful wife is played by Nancy Carroll, a sensuous Kewpie doll enjoying a double life. She admires and loves her husband but she loves to play too. There’s a phone that’s always ringing, suspicious outings, an air of guilt and deception. It is only when she begins to suspect that her husband is wise to her that she tries, unsuccessfully, to ditch her lover.  Later when Paul begins to reject her and refuses her kiss she suspects he may find a way to not only leave her but mimic his friend in murder.  She drapes herself in fox-tails as they proceed to leave their home for the trial and notes the strain the case is causing him.

 “Oh promise me when all of this is over you’ll go away on a vacation.”

 “Go away…?  That’s not a bad idea.  Will you come with me?”

 “It’ll be best if I stay here.”

 “Alone?”

 “Naturally.”

 “And will you remain true and in love?” he asks, epectantly.

 “Yes,” she smiles sweetly.

She is almost believable. Perhaps she is being sincere in her own way, with what really matters.  But then the phone rings. Again. And Paul knows the truth. Just before he leaves he pockets a gun.  Paul’s feelings of pain and rage spill over in a courtroom scene. His client’s defense: momentary insanity induced by jealousy.  An acquittal for Walter would mean an acquittal for himself.

The film has a weary wizened character, Schultz, an additional assistant to Paul.  An aging alcoholic, he occasionally spouts wisdom disguised as nonsense.  His presence speaks to Paul’s big heart as he’s hired the has-been attorney despite his downward slide.  He delivers a telling line: Is there or is there not, freedom of the will? Disturbingly, the jury has its own ideas, our attorney thankfully another. Ultimately, he chooses to shatter his illusions and the looking glass, kissing before a broken mirror.

Whale makes the most of his Viennese setting, gorgeous art deco sets, and prison dungeons borrowed from his earlier Frankenstein.  He is assisted by cinematographer Karl Freund who plays with dark and light, mirrors and reflections, shattered glass and perspectives.  Morgan is quite good in the lead, intelligent and thoughtful, thoroughly convincing as an accomplished lawyer, anguished by the actions of his younger wife.  Nancy Carroll is a treat, tempering her flirtatiousness with warmth and dimension, and Jean Dixon even more so as the subversively tailored associate.  Gloria Stuart is showcased in the ethereal early scene in the garden, a specialty of Whale’s, and her lover is nicely played by a young and handsome Walter Pidgeon.

Recommended for Whale, the sophistication and you know, murder.

This post is a part of the ‘Till Death Us Do Part: To Love, Honor…and Murder blogathon hosted by the lovely Theresa Brown over at CineMaven’s Essays from the Couch. For more please click the image below:

Notes and Extras

• Kiss started out as a play by Ladislas Fodor, a Hungarian playwright, was translated and then developed into a screenplay. So it’s tough to blame Whale for its rather tough stance on women and marriage as a source of all things heartbreaking and deceitful.  Or assign credit for its clever conversation.
• Perhaps the witty dialogue shouldn’t come as a surprise. Fodor was the author of the story that later became a pre-Code favorite of mine, Jewel Robbery.  He continued to write professionally until his death in the seventies, primarily for movies and later television, much of the time in Germany.  After a promising start he mostly ends up in Bad B Movie-land.
• This film was one of numerous collaborations between producer Carl Laemmle Jr. and director James Whale, the most famous being their classic Universal horror films of the thirties. Laemmle the younger was a busy man in 1933, producing twenty-three films including another favorite of mine, the pre-Code courtroom drama Counsellor-at-Law.  Farran Smith Nehme has a beautiful piece on the producer, The High Times and Hard Fall of Carl Laemmle Jr. at filmcomment.com which provides a taut overview of his brief career.  It seems he was involved in another favorite gem, My Man Godfrey, before he was tossed aside at the tender age of twenty-eight.
• The sometimes fickle Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times, liked this one too, calling it “an intelligently conceived story”. As he relates, “a very impressive sequence is that in which [Paul] delivers his summing up speech in the defense” of Walter.  Kiss definitely falls into the categories of not just Noir, pre-Code and psychological thriller but also solidly within the genre of the  courtroom dramas that were so popular at the time.  Hall refers to Frank Morgan’s performance as a bit histrionic but in my mind it suits the theatricality of the premise and art direction.
• Speaking of art, this film has some fantastic posters.  Here’s my favorite:
  

• Danny Reid at Pre-Code.com shares another cool poster as well as his thoughts about the movie, which he liked, in his review.   It includes this succinct observation:

Human relationships are more complicated than simple revenge can properly encapsulate, and the film’s ending, where Paul and Maria forgive each other for their baser desires, is remarkably heartfelt. The movie is more interested in finding the underpinnings of these characters and seeing how far the coarseness in their souls will take them rather than arguing simple gender politics.

• I love it when I get to see Morgan display his dramatic range in these early talking movies. Unfortunately, at least in my book, we don’t get to see it much following his career-defining Wizard in what else, The Wizard of Oz.  He’s on my short list of men displaying charm and yes, intelligence in the early thirties.  And I can never get enough of that.
• Morgan and Nancy Carroll play cute together in this one. I found Carroll quite enchanting. Reportedly receiving more fan mail than any other star of the early thirties, her career was nevertheless limited.  Paramount released this charming actor from her contract by the middle of the decade, apparently tiring of issues with feisty non-compliance.  Too bad.
• Oh – Be sure to take note of the glittering beauty of Gloria Stuart in the opening sequence. She retained those lustrous eyes for 1997’s Best Picture winner Titanic. For her portrayal of the aging Rose, she was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress in a Supporting Role, the oldest actor ever to receive a nomination.  The film won an incredible eleven Academy Awards and brought Stuart’s light and luminosity once again into cinematic imaginations.  Stuart died in 2010 at the amazing age of one hundred.
• One more slightly eerie note stands as a testament to the detail shown in the making of this film. When Morgan emerges into the bright sunlight following his conversation with the prosecutor, music plays faintly in the background, echoing from the city streets. The melody is that of a Viennese and German folk song whose tune was later taken up in later nineteenth century America as ‘Did You Ever See a Lassie’.  These lyrics nicely echo the male dilemmas in this film:

Did you ever see a lassie,

A lassie, a lassie?

Did you ever see a lassie,

Go this way and that?

Go this way and that way,

Go this way and that way.

Did you ever see a lassie,

Go this way and that?

Imagine it sung in chilling children’s voices and you’ll get the full effect. Sleep tight and watch out for the shattering glass. X

Ava Gardner: A Life in Movies

In retrospect Ava Gardner can be a mysterious and contradictory figure, awash in allure and breathtaking beauty. Considered to be one of the world’s most stunning women, she was contracted to a studio that seemed to be at a loss with how to manage her; she did some of her best work on loan or independently.  She had a stated desire for domesticity, children and marriage but her most significant decisions expressed an overwhelming hunger for experience and adventure. Despite insecurity regarding her own talent, she boldly entered varying shooting locations with unfamiliar faces, unknown actors and half-written scripts, doing so with courage and aplomb, only losing outward signs of professionalism as her private life unraveled and the hurts exacted a toll. Too often she bolstered her confidence with liberal amounts of alcohol, resulting in distilled bravado. Not surprisingly she did her best work with sympathetic supportive directors who could tap into her raw sensuality and vulnerability while respecting her fearless beauty and artistic integrity.

Functioning as both coffee table book and detailed biography, Ava Gardner: A Life in Movies knowingly embraces these contradictions and chooses to move along at a fast, luxurious clip. The pace matches the mercurial, hectic and audacious life of one of the last of Hollywood’s true movie stars, a magnetic screen presence as earthy as the North Carolina soil from which she came. Eminently readable and meticulously researched, the book includes a multitude of photographs, behind the scene candid shots, movie stills and promotional images, beautifully interspersed to illustrate pivotal points in this actor’s life. Yet these are still secondary to the text, which treats its subject to a respectful yet honest look at her life and career. As such it lends itself to being a gorgeous reference book, not only a picturesque gallery for each of her films but a source for understanding the heartaches and frustrations that Gardner faced in filming, in loving, and in living.

Gardner’s adventurous spirit and joie de vivre was apparent from her first trips to New York, heady experiences for a young woman from a simple background. As a child, her enthusiastic embrace of life expressed itself as a tomboy’s love for fun and simple pranks. Ava’s early years of poverty and frequent moves, grounded in her love for her father and the devotion of her mother, are given sufficient exploration here, laying the foundation for an understanding of the unchanging aspects of her inherent nature; Her values are clear at the outset. Yet Gardner’s beauty was not easily ignored and despite her naivete, a life-changing photo shoot while visiting her sister in the big city ultimately led to a screen test with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Later Gardner’s passion for new experiences transported her to homes, location shoots and lovers in Hollywood, Madrid, Rome, Mexico and London. Her restlessness led to both good and bad choices, world-wide fame and crushing heartbreak. Gardner was a woman ahead of her time, independent in spirit and frequently in conflict with her studio and her inner desire for respect as an actor, despite her many protestations that she was merely seeking the lucrative pay. In the mid-fifties, following filming that repeatedly took her to Spain, Gardner finally settled there, leaving America for good. As such she developed the lifestyle of many ex-pats of the era, a decision that suited the filming schedules and on location shoots that became arguably de rigueur as the major studios struggled to face the challenges of television. Through it all she wrestled with her own fears that audiences and those in the industry would discover she was merely ‘The World’s Most Beautiful Animal’ as she was so famously labelled, a moniker now glaringly dated in its sexism.

One wonders if Gardner might have had different inclinations regarding her talent if her romantic life had transpired differently. Gardner’s husbands pursued her unrelentingly. Her three marriages were combustible; her third to Frank Sinatra was a union marred by immeasurable passion and unending conflict.  Yet the first two were traumatic as well and potentially emotionally damaging. First husband Mickey Rooney, the perpetual boy in a man’s body, was unprepared for marriage to a beautiful naïve daughter of the south.  Indeed, once the MGM marvel bedded his virginal bride, leading to a sexual awakening for Gardner, he had difficulty fulfilling the role of devoted husband, remaining a gregarious, roaming Lothario. Second husband Artie Shaw inflicted a different kind of wound. Determined to act as Professor Higgins to Gardner’s Eliza, he was mercilessly critical of her lack of intellectualism and cultural sophistication. In a period reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe’s own attempts to overcome feelings of inadequacy stemming from a simple background, Gardner worked to keep up with him.  She met his unrelenting criticism and demands by taking classes, reading literature, pursuing her interests in jazz and classical music.  But as she did so he grew bored and the marriage folded. Her deep disappointment at the failure of these two marriages left her vulnerable and open to a third with a volatile, charismatic Frank Sinatra. A fiercely determined talent and temperamental womanizer, Sinatra met his match in Gardner, a woman possessed of the same impetuosity and high spirits. He was so enamored of the raven-haired green-eyed rising star that he left his wife of twelve years. Yet such was the warmth of Gardner that his famous offspring remember her fondly as a natural beauty, glamorous even without make-up, accepting of their presence, both fascinating and giving.

Sinatra and Gardner’s affair was a public relations nightmare that instigated a barrage of criticism. Gossip columnists and film fans perceived the actress as a home wrecker and the crooner as a fallen Catholic. Both careers suffered temporary blows. Following a tempestuous marriage, the two eventually settled on a lifelong simmering friendship once the flames cooled, with Gardner wistfully reminiscing on what might have been with the second sight of maturity. Sinatra carried his own contradictions; he became a steady rescuer for her on numerous occasions as their lives progressed.

The dynamics of these relationships and others are well-elucidated by authors Kendra Bean and Anthony Uzarowski, who provide specifics without indulging in salaciousness.  Personal details of Gardner’s private life are neatly juxtaposed with accounts of her experiences in making movies, each grounded in chronological time and place. While some of her films may have at times lacked substance or even popular appeal, in others her smoldering persona captured the sensual yearnings of audiences. From her breakout role in The Killers to Mogambo, Bhowani Junction and On The Beach, Gardner was unrelentingly riveting.

In hindsight John Huston’s rendering of Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana stands as perhaps her greatest film; it was her last significant screen role.  As the wise, weary Maxine Faulk she ultimately reaches the epitome of her talent, delving within for a rich, worldly vulnerability that in many ways echoes the woman she had become.  If Gardner was ever to have been awarded an Academy Award it would’ve been for Iguana yet that recognition was never bestowed.  The authors pay loving attention to this significant film, rightfully and rewardingly so.

As with any actor she passed on some good roles and was overlooked for others. Yet she worked with many of the most significant directors and writers of her time, establishing enduring relationships along the way.  Her warm friendships with John Huston, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams and many other significant figures are a remarkable testament to the fascination this woman held for those who appreciated her unique brand of Southern charm and sensuality. The lifelong presence of other friends, such as Grace Kelly and Gregory Peck speaks to her generosity of spirit. Film fans familiar with these larger than life personalities of the twentieth century will find exploration of these relationships a satisfying aspect of this biography.  Ava Gardner: A Life in Movies is a sumptuous feast for the eyes, beautifully presented in a format sure to resonate with fans of classic film.  As such it is a treatment that Ava Gardner ultimately and finally richly deserves.

Many thanks to Running Press for providing this lovely book for this review. It is appreciated. Ava Gardner: A Life in Movies is available through Amazon and other booksellers.

This post is the second in the 2017 Summer Reading Challenge hosted by Raquel Stecher of Out of the Past.  For more book reviews please check her blog throughout the summer!

Book Review – “The Amateur Cracksman” by E. W. Hornung

The figure of the gentleman thief has become so much a part of our psyche in the western world that it’s easy to take such a character for granted.  Generally dashing, good looking, sly, stealthy and charming with the ladies, such figures are sympathetic despite their capers or perhaps even because of them.   We admire their cunning and ability to swindle those we don’t particularly like anyway, the idle rich. In E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung’s The Amateur Cracksman, we have such a gentleman swindler in A. J. Raffles.

Raffles has seen numerous incarnations in film and several on television.  There were two silent versions, one starring John Barrymore and two other better known representations in the thirties.  Breathtakingly, Ronald Colman played him in a 1930 early talking version opposite the luminous and striking Kay Francis.  Between her slinking and his lurking the screen was awash in luxurious charm.  A later version in 1939 suffers some from the long arm of the Production Code, sanitizing the interplay between the two principals, yet it has its considerable charms, the elegance of David Niven and Olivia de Havilland being primary.  Both versions appear to be based upon a 1903 stage play crafted by Hornung after he had achieved considerable success with his books featuring the devious scoundrel.

The first story to feature Raffles was published in a magazine in 1898 and introduces the present compilation.  Consisting of a series of short stories, tied together by its engaging central character embarking upon underhanded capers, this book was so popular that the author continued to write tales featuring the cunning bandit, with even further excursions into burglaries, mistaken identities, forgeries and other rarefied crimes.  Raffles shares a bit of Robin Hoods’ spirit.  The victims of his crimes are usually more than due their misfortune, yet there is one primary difference:  While the latter brings justice and spoils to those suffering oppression, the former luxuriates in the gains that provide him with the outwardly decent, respectable lifestyle of a true gentleman.  By some measures, he has an enviable life indeed.

Interestingly, Hornung was the brother-in-law of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and wrote these short stories of an anti-hero as almost an homage and this first book is indeed dedicated to the Sherlock Holmes creator.  Certainly the central relationship of a mastermind supported by a willing admiring assistant is replicated here.  Yet as the popularity of Hornung’s creation grew, Conan Doyle expressed misgivings regarding the impact of such a warm and generous portrayal of one essentially trolling about in the underworld.  Foreshadowing the feelings of those who later instituted the Code, he expressed concern that Hornung had perhaps made “the criminal a hero”.  Yet it was too late.  The gentleman thief had already been born.  We would later see him appear time and again in cinematic history.

Raffles reluctant accomplice in his escapades is his former school chum Bunny who, as he does in the films, presents as a young man desperately in need of money.  That curse of the upper-crust, gambling debts, has brought him to the point of self-destructive despair.  The similarity ends there as Bunny on the page slowly becomes a greater accomplice to these recurring escapades, a status he never achieves in the films, especially the 1939 vehicle which of course requires Raffles pay for his crimes.

Bunny is an interesting narrator.  He admires Raffles cunning and ingenuity with appalling awe.  Bunny is seemingly seduced, beyond the initial episode, by the cracksman’s charisma and charms. (And I have to say that for me Raffles charm was only enhanced by hearing his words in the voice of the melodiously gifted Colman). This collection is filled with deliciously detailed descriptions of Raffles mannerisms, facial expressions and moods.  We are treated to a recounting by a man wholly captivated by his seductor to the sinister, in a Victorian age. This lingering accounting lends an immediacy to the proceedings.  We see Raffles through the eyes of this disconcerted admirer as Bunny is reluctantly drawn into the world of sophisticated, yet amateur criminal behavior. The money and easy living seduce him even further.  Bunny’s moral misgivings and subsequent slide into a seamy acceptance of devious deeds, with their secretive glamor, becomes our own as we too are charmed by this gentlemen thief.

Having been raised on varying portrayals of these upper crust scoundrels, I fully expected there to be a significant love interest.  I turned page after page awaiting an alluring feminine presence infused with the spirit of Kay Francis, Grace Kelly or Olivia de Havilland.  But no such woman appeared.  In fact there are very few women at all in these stories which are in fact somewhat sexy precursors to what first started as road trips, morphed into buddy movies and then became simply bromances.  The admiration, seduction and conspiratorial nature of the relationship between Bunny and our hero has a definite homoerotic air.  In fact the willing accomplice becomes quite petulant in the final story when Raffles (finally!) becomes seemingly smitten with a young female shipboard passenger.  At last, I thought, a woman!  But we barely get a real glimpse of her before our protagonist makes a necessary hasty get away.  I almost got the sense that she was thrown in, just at the very end, to dispel any notions that might be occurring on the part of the reader.

In order to enjoy these stories, it’s necessary to enter into this world within its context. The Amateur Cracksman as both character and book expresses the sense of entitlement that fueled the rise and fall of the British Empire.  The stories take place during its unraveling yet there is none of that here.  These are quickly told tales designed to amuse in an afternoon or evenings read, suffused with the English ambiance, language and sentiments of the time.

I’d say that this was a fairly satisfying read however I’ve a fondness for British literature of the period.  The short stories do require a certain setting aside of the accepted norms of the era, an understanding that as presented and in context, this is indeed a white male centered universe, where the spoils go to those most able to navigate its niceties and sometimes not so nice underbelly.  And while there are hints of the basis for the films in here you won’t find the actual plot or alas even Lady Gwendolyn.  But you will find the beginnings of a crafty sort of enigma who persisted as a film specimen on through the Sixties.  He continues to show his suave self and dazzle us from time to time today.

This post is a part of the 2017 Summer Reading Classic Film Book Challenge Blogathon hosted by the lovely Raquel Stecher.  She can be found reading and blogging at Out of the Past.  Check her blog for periodic updates from other blogging readers that will run from June 1 – September 15th.  The goal is to read six classic film related books; we’ll see if I make it through six.  I hope to discover some good books in the meantime. Thanks Raquel for hosting 🙂

Notes and Extras

• This book is now in the public domain and is available for Kindle due to a community of volunteers.  I would like to thank those patient people for allowing me to snuggle up with this one.
• It was first published in 1899.
• For my review of Raffles (1930) the movie,  please see here. It’s one I would highly recommend due to its charm.  I think it’s a pretty successful early talking film.

Sensible Cinderella: Kitty Foyle (1940)

A RKO Production ~  Director: Sam Wood,  Screenplay: Dalton Trumbo with additional dialogue by Donald Ogden Stewart, based on a novel by Christopher Morley,  Art Director: Van Nest Polglase,  Costume Designer: Renie

In a year filled with phenomenal films, Kitty Foyle is a good and satisfying movie, but not necessarily a great one.  And yet it was nominated for five Academy Awards, with Ginger Rogers receiving her only nomination and win for this melodramatic woman’s picture, based upon the best-selling 1939 name-sake novel.

The movie begins with an opening sequence that brings us up to date on the state of womanhood in 1939.  Depicted as single, hard-working and man-seeking, the ‘modern ’woman , “a comparative newcomer to the American scene”,  is shown struggling to make her way in a world that does not always make that way easy.  She lacks the protections of a male embrace, her place as a homemaker and the respect that the roles of wife and mother have traditionally bestowed upon her.  Suffragettes, hoping for better, have apparently gotten more than they bargained for now that the Great Depression has thrown them in among the wolves.

This episodic and unfortunately dated opening sets up the quandary of our heroine, Kitty Foyle.  She is strong and independent and yet she struggles.  Seemingly bereft and without family support, she looks to love and finds herself at a crossroads between her desire for the romantic idealized prince of her youth, and the pragmatic considerations of her situation.  Kitty must choose between an adventurous life as an unwed partner to a man she adores, a man who is affectionate and charming but lacking in strength and endurance, and another who is earnest, but frugal, plodding but loyal; he is also definitely not her first choice.

This latter point is brought home by the efficient casting.  Dennis Morgan as Wyn Strafford is dazzling as the man of her heart’s desire.  His smile lights up the screen.   Radiating personal warmth as he sweeps in and out of Kitty’s life, he even takes her out for a night to envy Cinderella’s ball, complete with chimes in the form of an alarm to end the reverie.  Meanwhile, her pragmatic prospect tests her to the point of rudeness, blackmails her into a first date and persists despite her love for another man.  He is patently devoid of charisma.  There is little to no chemistry between Miss Foyle and Dr. Mark Eisen, played woodenly by James Craig.  That is just the point however; it may take better acting than might be first apparent to make a handsome doctor this much of a bland second choice.

In early scenes, Kitty is supported with a home and wisdom by her father, played with long-suffering pluck, Irish cheer and humor by Ernest Cossart, echoing Thomas Mitchell in his portrayal.  His presence is key to understanding Kitty’s determination and sense of spirit.  Long after his departure his influence upon her choices and ultimate decision is felt.

Her quandary is presented early in the film, and elucidated during a debate Kitty conducts with herself via a talking mirrored image.   This was a unique device at the time and pulls the viewer into the film; her dual personas are intriguing.  Kitty’s impetuous, spirited and fancy-free self has literally come face to face with her mature, and wiser woman; it’s a little harder to fool herself than it once was. Rogers plays this well and immediately gains our sympathy.  This was not the only time she was to play herself at multiple ages and levels of maturity.  Here she has a scene where she is just fifteen years old, and similarly to her work in The Major and The Minor, where she plays just twelve, as well as her own mother, she is able to handle the age range convincingly.

Rogers is warm and heart-breakingly human, yes even flawed in this story.  The many close-ups in the film display the subtlety of her work, as her emotions run the gamut from dizzying happiness to devastating disappointment and grief.  She never fails the audience or the intent of the lovely screenplay. Watch her face as the slow realization of the loss of her son washes over her to see the reason for this nomination. Rogers shines without overshadowing Kitty’s story.

This story, which is primarily shown in flashback, is told from a woman’s perspective, an interesting point given all the men that were involved in its creation.  In fact the film is subtitled ‘The Natural Story of a Woman’. Imagine the audience of women at the time, still struggling with the shocks of the worst economic crisis this country had known.  And here is Kitty Foyle.  She is portrayed by the beautiful Ginger Rogers, she of all the glamorous RKO fantasy films where she paired with Fred Astaire, dancing his dances and following his choreography, brought down to earth and living in a small two-room apartment with two other young struggling women.  There is no public safety net, no assurance that it might not be your boss who blackmails you to revel in your attractiveness and not the handsome yet unknown stranger, albeit doctor. Kitty’s choices are of course that of a movie star, a bit of a princess. She chooses between the dashing offspring of a wealthy scion of society and a good-looking smitten physician.  Not much less could be expected of anyone as glamorous as Rogers, yet these dilemmas were very much like the choices being made by women everywhere. Pragmatic cautious decisions were more important than ever.  Her dilemma is relatable and understandable.

The script by Dalton Trumbo walks some delicate lines in blurring a novel that was written without a Production Code to abide by.  This makes the film a bit of a puzzle at times.  Kitty has a hasty marriage and an even more impulsive and spontaneous divorce.  Her marriage results in pregnancy and the subsequent loss of this child through stillbirth (a woman’s heartbreak not all that uncommon at times both then and now).  In the book, Kitty has a dalliance with Mr. Dazzling that results in an unwed pregnancy and an abortion.  Trumbo cunningly sticks to the major plot points while adhering to the Code. Of note is a very romantic, moving scene in the Poconos that fades to black and helps us to understand Kitty’s love for Wyn. While the film plays fast and loose with the time frames, audiences were well aware of both the restrictions of the Code as well as the shocking circumstances and sadness that Kitty endures through familiarity with the novel.  Its raciness had done much to make it a best-seller.

It was this very raciness that had first made the project unpalatable to Rogers.  But ultimately she made a shrewd decision.  The public knew that she was a talented entertainer.  She could dance with the absolute best and sing too.  She had shown a wonderful way with comedy and endeared audiences to her as she helped them to escape the dreariness of their everyday realities with music and laughter.  But 1940 was the year she made her first forays into serious roles.  Kitty Foyle was recognized by the industry but Primrose Path, a romantic confection filled with realistic grittiness from director Gregory LaCava, also starring Rogers, and  co-starring Joel MacCrae, was released just nine months ahead of this one.  Kitty Foyle was the bigger film, a hit for RKO and subsequently nominated for Best Picture.

The field was crowded that year.  There were ten films nominated for the top Oscar, several undeserving and others perhaps that should have won; Hitchcock’s Rebecca beat out a challenging field.  Additionally, there were many others that, in any other year would have been nominated.  Numerous women were also deserving of recognition.  Rogers faced stiff opposition from Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Joan Fontaine and Martha Scott for her award.  This was also the year of Rosalind Russell’s career-defining turn in His Girl Friday, Irene Dunn’s snappy performance in My Favorite Wife and a heartbreaking portrayal by Vivien Leigh in Waterloo Bridge that was a far cry from her Scarlett O’Hara. There has always been a sense of upset, that Kitty Foyle was a minor film and a not particularly worthy performance.  But Rogers, in depicting an everywoman, while remaining her glamorous self, grabbed hold of audiences and apparently Academy members, who not only wished to honor her performance here, which is quite moving, but seemingly the body of her work and the incredible range of her talent. From the time she delivered her famed pig-Latin rendition of “We’re In the Money” to her sashays with Astaire, Ginger Rogers had done her part to help a nation through the tough years of the Great Depression and the Academy and movie-going audiences were grateful.

Recommended for its moving story, the chemistry of Rogers and Morgan and its Oscar winning history.

Ginger with her mother, Lela Rogers

Ginger with her new found friend

This post is a part of the 31 Days of Oscar Blogathon 2017 February 17-19, 2017 hosted by Paula’s Cinema Club, Once Upon a Screen and Outspoken and Freckled. For more please click the image below:

Notes and Extras

• Bosley Crowther of The New York Times describes this one as “a boy-girl drama which tugs cruelly on the heartstrings but never snaps them.”  He seemed to like it quite a bit, rightly predicted its popularity and noted significant deviation from the novel, some of it necessary to “conform with the moral code”.  He’s kinder to Craig’s doctor who he feels is no less attractive than Morgan and seems to agree with the film that Kitty makes a wise choice, perceiving Strafford as cowardly.  Perhaps….
• This was a break-out role for Dennis Morgan, cowardly though he might’ve been.  Morgan began his Hollywood career in a favorite of mine, Piccadilly Jim (1936) with a small uncredited part as a nightclub singer.  And a singer he was, having studied voice at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and the American Conservatory in Chicago.  His lovely singing voice made him useful as both a bit player and singer until he was established.
• Some of you may recognize Morgan for his role in the holiday perennial Christmas in Connecticut (1945) where he displays beautiful chemistry with Barbara Stanwyck.  He is charming (what else?), commanding and gets to use his golden pipes in that one too. When Stanwyck as housekeeping expert Elizabeth Lane questions his character Jefferson Jones by asking “Are you making love to me?”, we’re pretty sure he is, and that’s exactly how she wants it.
• Early in his career Morgan appeared in The Great Ziegfeld (1936) in the famous Wedding Cake musical number.  Cast due to his voice, you might assume it’s him singing the famous “A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody”, but you’d be wrong (as I was)!  In fact Morgan himself didn’t find out that his voice in the number was dubbed until he watched it at the premiere.  Imagine that…
• Morgan made five films in 1936 another of which was Suzy with Jean Harlow, Franchot Tone and Cary Grant.  That’s an awful lot of good looks for one picture.
• Speaking of good looks, Morgan is a bit of a Prince Chaming in this picture and that’s not the only fairy tale suggestion you’ll get here.  Watch for soothing rhythmic imagery in this film: a snow globe containing a child’s sled, Cinderella references with time-ticking deadlines, a speakeasy with a special bottle of liquor, seemingly bottomless.  Interestingly enough, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane was in production, also at RKO, when this film was released.  For Kitty the snow globe and the sled within represent her “little girl”, ties to her father, childhood and lost innocence.  This snow globe also makes for a unique transitional device during short interludes of voice over-narration, spoken by the much wiser Kitty.  Interesting the way one artistic endeavor can influence another. As well as awards…
• Rogers was probably pretty happy she accepted this role.  It first went to Katherine Hepburn who turned it down.  Hepburn was subsequently nominated that same year for The Philadelphia Story, which she considered her “comeback vehicle”, in a role she created for the stage, but lost the Oscar to Rogers.  Funny how things turn out…
• In fact Kitty Foyle was nominated for five Academy Awards:  Best Picture, Best Director for Sam Wood, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Writing – Adapted Screenplay for Dalton Trumbo and Best Sound.  This was Wood’s second nomination; he had three altogether but never won.  But Trumbo, who was also nominated three times, won twice, both times under a pseudonym due to Hollywood blacklisting.  The record was subsequently changed to reflect his unique contributions.  Roman Holiday, a true American classic, is the best known of these two winners.
• Besides winning Rogers her award, this film has another mark of distinction:  the subsequent donning of little white collars by secretaries and women in the workforce by the droves.  As noted prophetically by film critic John Mosher in The New Yorker, “I am inclined to think that it’s Miss Ginger alone who makes ‘Kitty Foyle’ a better-than-average film and Kitty herself a proper model for those hundreds of thousands of young things who will now be adding a touch of white to their neckline.” What is it with these film critics and their ability to foresee trends?  And so the phrase “White Collar Girl” became a part of the vernacular.  Life magazine did a photo essay on the life and times of such a girl, modeled after Rogers’ Kitty.  One caption reads “The Five p.m. feeling is awful. Finished with work, she is sure of meal and a bed. But she suffers the dreadful loneliness of the White Collar Girl because she has nothing to do between work and bedtime. Here is the five p.m. feeling in Times Square”. Cue dismal-looking  model.  This is pretty heavy stuff and gives some insight into the cultural context of this film.  I’m getting that five p.m. feeling just reading about it.
• RKO, knowing its audience and the appeal of both the film and the novel, arranged for Rogers’ to attend an annual stenographers’ ball in New York just two weeks after the film’s opening.  Rogers donned her little white collar but ever the movie star, and good PR person, she decorated it with a  generous diamond broach and wore a mink coat, matching mink-trimmed hat and gold earrings. She was met at Grand Central Station by 1,500 cheering fans and was given a special scroll by that year’s Queen of the Stenographers.
• Ginger Rogers is listed in the AFI’s 50 Greatest Screen Legends, coming in at number 14.

A Torn Soul: State’s Attorney (1932)

An RKO Production~Director: George Archainbaud, Screenplay by Gene Fowler and Rowland Brown, based on a short story by Louis Stevens, Art Director: Caroll Clark

This film has two great things going for it: a tight script infused with Gene Fowler’s personal knowledge of its semi-fictionalized subject and a pitch-perfect performance by John Barrymore.  Both lend dynamic pacing to a movie that fits neatly into a then emerging pre-Code genre, the lawyer picture.  This genre seems to have found its initial flowering in 1932 when no less than three, and I would argue more, movies arrived on the scene loosely based upon then-famed criminal defense attorney, William J. Fallon, who defended the famous and infamous.  With the 1931 publication of Fowler’s popular biography of Fallon acting as starting shot, the lawyer-based courtroom drama was off and running.

In the opening scene a tipsy defense attorney Tom Cardigan (John Barrymore) accepts 5Gs to defend a renter, a lovely lady accused of tapping on a window to procure ‘clients’, in order to protect the reputation of her landlord Vanny Powers.  As apparently this technique was standard procedure for ladies of the evening, Cardigan has no difficulty understanding what is required. And so he delivers, establishing his courtroom finesse and way with women and juries, the judge being female, manipulating one and then the other with essentially fabricated nonsense.

Seeing Barrymore as a lawyer is akin to watching an arm slip into a sleeve. His penchant for delivering snappy dialogue and his engaging manner render him entirely believable. His theatrical nature gave him a fondness for make-up, eye make-up in particular, quite evident in the very first scene,  a holdover from his silent days. While this doesn’t bother me, in fact I would prefer to see more men in eye make-up, it does remind us that we are watching The Great Profile at work. This is either good or bad depending upon how you feel about his theatrical style.

 

Cardigan defends the tapping young woman and things being what they are she accompanies him back to his private apartment. The chemistry between these two establishes their relationship pretty quickly.  There’s only a minute or two before he is slowly removing her jacket and seductively kissing her, to which she responds “you have a nice mouth”.  One gets the sense that Cardigan has done this before.  Yet it’s a nice set up scene and establishes the dynamic between these two; it’s different this time. Pretty June Perry (Helen Twelvetrees) is not only lovely but warm and  good-hearted, as many women of the night are apt to be in pre-Code films, and soon is Cardigan’s paramour.  Twelvetrees is able to convey emotional depth and is truly moving in many of her scenes.

Powers is soon shot leading to a hospital bedside suggestion that Cardigan could be more help to his pal on the other side of the law, in the prosecutor’s office as opposed to handy DA. Cardigan makes it clear to the thug, “If I go on the other side, I’ll stay there”. There are soon hints that this proposed prosecutors position also holds the possibility of an eventual governorship. Unfortunately for June, the governor has a daughter.

At this point June’s deep love and affection for Cardigan has been well-established. During their time together he is loyal and comes home faithfully to her. He is sweet and adoring.  They understand one another. Despite his cynicism we understand that there is a bond between these two and a gentle playfulness. He provides nicely for her despite a lack of vows and she adapts to a more comfortable lifestyle.  Her gowns are stylish yet soft and feminine.  But he is an ambitious man and when the governor’s daughter, Lillian Ulrich (Jill Esmond) begins to make an overt play for him, it’s not surprising that he begins to stray, particularly given his love for the bottle and someone to share it with.

Throughout this film, Cardigan is essentially portrayed as a man who has been led by events. While ambitious, his career path has been determined by his checkered past and reform school history with Powers. He falls easily into a relationship with an easy woman and just as easily into one with an assertive one.

Lillian in her very first scene is depicted as a ‘modern’ woman and a dangerous one at that.  She’s attired in a jacket, white collared shirt and tie and wearing a brimmed hat (an outfit echoed years later in the early balcony scenes of Annie Hall where a very similar costume conveys a very different message). She finds Cardigan’s ties to the underworld exciting and appears to be drawn to him merely for her own entertainment, finding him “thrilling”. In their introductory meeting we learn Cardigan will be prosecuting a woman  for the murder of her husband. Interestingly Lillian has little sympathy for the defendant but finds the case titillating while June is repelled by the thought that Cardigan may send a woman to the gallows.

Barrymore opens this second courtroom scene by holding a steady gaze upon the defendant, Nora Dean (Mary Duncan), who accuses him of staring at her legs. As he replies quite plainly “I’m not staring at your legs Madam, I’m looking at your soul”, Lillian pulls her dress down. Apparently she’s not so certain that she would like him to see her own soul.

While the script is truly a good one, it is Barrymore’s masterful working of this fairly lengthy courtroom scene that gives it it’s power. He handles the blunt weight and apparent murder weapon, in such a way as to force a confession from the defendant, tapping not only upon the rail of the jury box but on the metal frame of the very bed where she slept, gave birth, made love and eventually murdered her husband. The tension continually builds as he literally has her, the jury and the audience squirming in their seats. As this high-profile case begins to pave his way to the governorship June expresses her concern that Cardigan is losing his moral bearings. This is an interesting twist as despite his being on the right side of the law , she sees through to the darkening of his soul.  Once he expresses that if acting as defense he could’ve gotten the defendant off in a hot minute, June begins to lose respect for him, leaving this weak man vulnerable to finding admiration elsewhere.

 (Spoilers Ahead)

Of course things get messy with the governor’s daughter as well as with the extremely shady Powers. When Cardigan won’t play by Powers rules and lay off on charges against his right hand man, he threatens to expose their shared past in reform school, potentially derailing the path to the governorship. There’s a hasty, regretted marriage and the loss of a true love. An obviously drunken Cardigan impulsively marries Lillian, sobers up and regrets it knowing that he’s lost a woman of true worth for one who was merely momentarily exciting. Right and wrong again change places as the better woman is the street walker, the socialite a cold-hearted, empty beauty.  A dissent into further alcohol abuse leads to a seedy road and political gain but at a cost to our hero’s soul. The man is torn.

Eventually in the third and final courtroom scene Cardigan is forced to make a decisive decision and actually determine his own path. No longer able to straddle the thin line between right and wrong, virtue and pragmatic immorality, he chooses integrity and is rewarded with a return to respect and love.

This film contains a number of scenes and dialogue of a decidedly pre-Code nature.  Here are just a few:

~After an intentionally direct kiss at his apartment following his defense of June, Cardigan needs to leave to collect his $5,000 from Powers.  Her last words as he departs with his coat: “What do you want for breakfast?”  Barrymore’s long, lingering and suggestive look tells us not only that he understands her meaning but exactly what he’d like.

~The murder weapon in the Nora Dean murder trial is a phallic-shaped weight that Cardigan taps rhythmically upon the marital bed.

~When Cardigan asks Lillian if she’s ever been in love she ascertains that he’s seeking to know some intimate information. She whispers in his ear and then pulls away asking “That’s what you wanted to know?”  He replies, “That helps a lot” as he wraps his arms around her and pulls her into himself on the dance floor.

~June and Tom’s relationship is clearly one where they are living together without the benefit of a license.  In fact June seems well aware that she doesn’t consider herself marriage material, not being a nice girl and anticipating “nicer girls” to come, even though Cardigan has let her know “I don’t like nice girls”.

~After marrying Lillian and regretting it, Cardigan states “June, it’s funny.  I never realized what a beautiful thing marriage could be, until tonight. That’s one ceremony I’ve never been through.  What a woman means to a man, and a man to a woman. And when I looked around, it wasn’t you…standing there… beside me”. The relationship between these two couldn’t be clearer. June stands her ground and sardonically responds, “I’m not one of your juries Tom”.

There is an economy of dialogue, story and editing that keeps this film moving at a brisk clip, with rarely a wasted movement, gesture or line. Yet it is the small touches that propel the story, set a quick pace, and make this film a fun watch.  Barrymore’s entertaining flourishes, Twelvetrees’ pretty sensuality and a satisfying ending are details that seal the deal.

Recommended.

This post is a part of the “Order In the Court!” Blogathon June 10-13, 2016 hosted by Cinemaven’s Essays from the Couch and Second Sight Cinema

To read additional entries please visit:  https://cinemavensessaysfromthecouch.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/order-in-the-court-now/

Notes and Extras

• Primary writer Gene Fowler wrote a biography of not only William J. Fallon but also subsequently another:  Good Night, Sweet Prince: The Life and Times of John Barrymore.  A long-time friend and drinking buddy, Fowler was also a member of the Bundy Drive Boys, a loosely-knit pre-Rat Pack Hollywood boys club that got its name from the location of their gatherings.  It included such hard-living souls as Errol Flynn, W. C. Fields, Thomas Mitchell, Roland Young, John Carradine, Ben Hecht, a young Anthony Quinn and various other artists and writers.  While their primary point of cohesion was alcohol they also shared many other ‘philosophies’ of living.  For a more detailed account try “Hollywood’s Hellfire Club: The Misadventures of John Barrymore,  W.C. Fields, Errol Flynn and “the Bundy Drive Boys” by Gregory William Mank with Charles Heard and Bill Nelson.
• Fowler also wrote the screenplay for What Price Hollywood?, whose main lead, played beautifully by Lowell Sherman (no stranger to alcohol himself), meets a far less redemptive fate than our hero here.  What Price Hollywood? is considered the prototype, if not the first version of each of the subsequent A Star Is Born films.  A favorite Fowler quote: “Hollywood is a place where you either ride in a Rolls Royce or are run over by one”, is reflected in the contrast between the main male leads in each of these two films.
• Fowler was at John Barrymore’s bedside just moments before he died, testimony to their enduring friendship.  He, Lionel Barrymore and artist John Decker (whose home was host to the Bundy Drive Boys) were at John’s bedside for his final two days.  After, Fowler kept vigil at night over the body with his son Will for safekeeping until arrangements could be made. Interestingly Decker is the name of Powers right hand man in State’s Attorney.  On Bundy Drive apparently John Decker was a right hand man to many.
• Criminal defense attorney Fallon’s most famous client, Arnold Rothstein was known for fixing the 1919 World Series among other criminal and gambling related crimes.  His partner and passionate defender (read frequent fall-guy) Nicky Arnstein was later immortalized in Funny Girl, the film depicting the life of Fanny Brice, an actress and wife who in the end found Nicky’s antics not so funny.
• Damned in Paradise: The Life of John Barrymore by John Kobler gives this movie a scant two sentence paragraph mention.  There is actually little in print available regarding the filming of this one, probably in part due to the fact that, according to IMBd, it took a mere two weeks to shoot.  Yet despite this it netted Barrymore a sum equivalent to over $1.7 Million, a figure that attests to the star’s one-time power in Hollywood. The book does mention that a line in the film is directly attributable to Maurice Barrymore, a star of the theater himself and John’s father.  When shown a painting of a winter landscape by it’s artist and the speakeasy’s owner, Cardigan quips, “Winter isn’t as bad as it’s painted”.  When I read these types of things I always wonder just how much of what we see on screen  is attributable to John himself, building off a good (or sometimes weak) screenplay.
• Jill Esmond, in the role of  Lillian Ulrich, was at the time of filming, Mrs. Laurence Olivier.  As many of you know, this was not going to be the last marriage for Mr. Olivier as he would soon leave Esmond for Vivien Leigh.
• I perked up when I noted the name Ulrich, especially when I saw it in bold in a newspaper headline.  There was a prominent society family at the time in Grosse Pointe, (a suburb just barely outside of Detroit) by the name of Ulrich.  I only know this because I happen to be related to them.  So I checked the writers.  Sure enough writer Rowland Brown studied at the University of Detroit and the Detroit School of Fine Arts.  Funny thing, a pretty brunette granddaughter of the Ulrichs did eventually marry a grandson of James J. Couzens, a former Mayor of Detroit and  Senator,  connecting herself to a political family.  His son was also Mayor after him.  A funny case of the movies having a strangely predictive tendency.  Or just a crazy coincidence. And while the newspaper (and IMBd) clearly says Ulrich, the credits change the spelling to Ulric.
• Keep your eyes open for a brief appearance by Nat Pendleton playing a boxer who acompanies Cardigan and Lillian to a speakeasy after a fight. It just so happens that this club features a lively Theresa Harris singing her jazzy little heart out in a way too brief number.  Both are uncredited.
• Watch the set design too in this one.  There are large beautiful rooms, such as Tom Cardigan’s apartment and later he and June’s more upscale digs, that are lovely to look at.  Just as lovely are the gorgeous gowns worn by Twelvetrees and the dresses and furs on Esmond.  Art Direction is by Caroll Clark, costume design is unfortunately uncredited.

State’s Attorney is available from Amazon, Amazon Prime or occasionally for free viewing on TCM