via: http://screeninsight.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-lost-weekend-billy-wilder-1945.html  Unless otherwise noted, all images are my own.

In 1945, The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther called The Lost Weekend a “shatteringly realistic and morbidly fascinating film…an illustration of a drunkard’s misery that ranks with the best and most disturbing character studies ever put on the screen.” He added, “We would not recommend this picture for a gay evening on the town. But it is certainly an overwhelming drama which every adult movie-goer should see.”

I must agree–The Lost Weekend‘s unflinching look at an alcoholic in the grips of his disease is far from lighthearted entertainment, but it’s a terrific movie that everyone should see.

This film challenges a common misconception about classic movies: some people assume that all old films are light, naive, and simplistic, and never deal with anything of substance in a sensitive or nuanced way.

That’s somewhat accurate if you’re looking for Realism and Truth in The Harvey Girls or Bathing Beauty, but it’s an ignorant claim doused in the “condescension of the present.”*

Sure, many classic films are light and entertaining; Old Hollywood was a profit-driven enterprise aiming to fill theaters and delight mass audiences. But not every old movie is quaintly old-fashioned, and some will blow your socks off with their gritty intensity or suprisingly “modern” attitudes. The Lost Weekend is one of those films.

This movie tackles alcoholism in an astonishingly honest, complex way. It was rare for alcoholism to be treated as a disease in the 1940s, (and even today), but this film does, and does so in an achingly brilliant way. It remains one of the best films about alcoholism and addiction even seventy years after its release.

The Lost Weekend was based on Charles Jackson’s semi-autobiographical novel published in 1944. Producer Charles Brackett and director/writer Billy Wilder adapted the “strange and savage pages” of the “shocking bestseller” (according to the film’s poster) for the screen.

Their first choice for the lead was Jose Ferrer, who was currently starring on Broadway in Othello. But Paramount wanted a well-known movie star because they were afraid audiences wouldn’t take a chance on this unusual movie unless they knew the actor. So Ray Milland was cast, instead. Milland had worked with Brackett and Wilder on 1942’s The Major and The Minor, and they were happy to be working together again.

But Milland was apprehensive about the role. He’d worked in films since 1929, but he was primarily known for comedies. If you’ve seen him in Easy Living (1937), for example, you’ll be amazed at his work in this movie. But Milland’s wife Muriel and Wilder convinced him he could play the part, so he set about preparing.

It’s hard to imagine the story without the character of Helen, Milland’s girlfriend, but The Lost Weekend the novel had no love interest. The girlfriend was an invention of Brackett and Wilder, who thought that a love interest would make the film slightly less bleak. Jackson didn’t mind the changes, noting that Brackett and Wilder “thought of things I wish I had thought of first – they were that good.”

Originally, the filmmakers hoped that Katharine Hepburn would play the girlfriend. She was interested, but was about to start filming Without Love (1945) so she had to pass. When Jean Arthur, Milland’s co-star from Easy Living, turned down the part, Paramount asked Warner Bros. to loan them Jane Wyman. And that’s how we ended up with Wyman as Helen St. James!

Wyman had been in movies since 1932, but mostly in small roles in small movies. This was a big break for the actress, and marked the first film in which Wyman received co-star billing above the title. She would go on to a very successful career in films like The Yearling (1946), Johnny Belinda (1948), Magnificent Obsession (1954), and All That Heaven Allows (1955).

The movie opens on a virtuosic shot of New York City that pans across the skyline and travels into an apartment through an open window. A bottle hangs below the far window. Trouble.

Don Birnam (Ray Milland) packs a suitcase in the bedroom, but he seems far more focused on the bottle tied to the window than on his shirts and socks.

Don’s brother Wick (Phillip Terry), keeps up a cheery conversation about their upcoming weekend in the country. They’re taking an afternoon train and need to hurry.

We learn that Don struggles with alcohol, but he’s been sober for about ten days. Wick has planned a weekend stay in the country to help Don continue his streak and maybe even get some work done. Don is a writer, but not a productive one. Wick is hopeful that Don is finally ready to buckle down both with his sobriety and the novel he’s been planning to write.

But we don’t share Wick’s confidence. We’ve seen the hidden bottle swaying below the window, and know that Don is dying for a drink.

We’re proven right when Don sends Wick out of the room to search for his typewriter (which Don knows is under his bed). Once Wick is out of sight, Don tries to untie the bottle but he can’t manage it before Wick returns. Then Don’s girlfriend, Helen (Jane Wyman) arrives. You can watch the scene here.

Helen has brought Don books and cigarettes for his weekend away. Like Wick, Helen is hopeful and upbeat. This time she’s sure that Don has quit for good!

Fun fact: Wyman and Terry both had famous spouses when they made this movie. Terry was married to Joan Crawford, though they would divorce in 1946. Wyman was married to Ronald Reagan from 1940-1949, which makes her the only ex-wife of an American President!

When Helen mentions that she is going to the symphony that afternoon, Don suggests that she take Wick with her. Don has a lot to do around the apartment, and he’d rather take the evening train to the country. 

This suggestion is met with worried looks. Wick and Helen might be hopeful, but they’re not stupid. They’ve been here before, and they are afraid that Don wants them out of the way so he can start drinking again. Don is persuasive, though, and he makes his brother and his devoted girlfriend feel guilty for trying to keep an eye on him. He’s fine, he says, and he’s definitely not sending them away so he can go on a bender.

Wick and Helen decide that they have to trust Don sometime, though they don’t really want to. They’re about to leave for the symphony when Wick spots the bottle hanging beneath the sill. He’s disappointed, to say the least, and dumps out the liquor in the sink as Don watches, horrified.

Helen doesn’t want to leave Don now, but Wick assures her that he has found all of Don’s other hiding places. Plus, Don doesn’t have any money, and Wick has gone to every bar and liquor store and told them not to sell Don alcohol on credit. Wick has been paying Don’s bills, but he’s not going to anymore.

Wick tells Don that he’ll be back at 6:00 to catch the train, then he and Helen leave. It’s an awful, tense scene displaying the complex fears, hope, and guilt of Wick and Helen, and the driving need of Don. The film thrusts us directly into the quagmire.

Once Wick and Helen are gone, Don wildly searches the apartment for liqour that Wick may have missed.

But the bathroom vent, the vacuum cleaner bag, and the stash beneath the couch have been empties. Just then, the cleaning woman knocks on the door. She’s come to collect her payment. Don tells her to scram because he doesn’t have her money, but she tells him that Wick usually leaves it for her in the sugar bowl.

Don goes to check, and there it is! Ten bucks folded snugly in the lid. If you’ve seen Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982), you’ll recognize this scene. Steve Martin plays the cleaning woman part.

Instead of giving the innocent cleaning woman her money, Don tells her that Wick must have forgotten, and sends her away empty-handed. Then he leaves the apartment with the princely sum of ten dollars in his pocket. You can watch the scene here.

Don’s first stop is a liquor store where he buys two quarts of rye.

The scene is filmed in brilliant Expressionist style with the bottles looming large in the foreground. Billy Wilder was no stranger to German Expressionism, a style that was used to present the world or a character as warped or insane. Crazy camera angles, dream-like/nightmarish scenes, wild sets, and other conspicuous visual touches that take the viewer inside the mind of a disturbed character were the marks of German Expressionism. (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) is a classic example.) The style’s influence is most evident in in film noir, where you’ll often see unusual camera angles and expressive lighting, for example.

Wilder uses Expressionist techniques in this film to take us inside Don’s mind and to show us the world as Don sees it.

So, for example, the liquor bottles that appear huge in the foreground and obscure the store and Don himself in this scene can be read as a visual symbol of Don’s alcoholism. His world is framed and obscured by his need for alcohol. It’s the biggest drive in his life and overshadows everything else, just like the bottles!

Another noteworthy stylistic element in this film is the score. Miklós Rózsa, a noted film composer, crafted an eerie, haunting score for the film using the theremin. The music, and particularly the theremin sections, work perfectly to heighten the drama and trauma of Don’s turmoil.

The theremin was patented in 1928 by a Russian inventor–it’s L-shaped and is played by moving one’s hands through an electronic field. One part controls volume, the other pitch, but the player never touches anything. Here’s a video of a theremin being played, and here’s a theremin in “The Big Bang Theory.”

You can listen to part of The Lost Weekend’s score here. Eerie, right? You may recognize the sound of the theremin from science fiction films because it was a popular choice for that genre in the 1950s and later. In this film it signals Don’s cravings or descents into drunkenness.

Rózsa was the first to incorporate the theremin in film scores. He also utilized the unusual instrument for Hitchcock‘s Spellbound, also in 1945. That score was supposed to be the first one with the theremin, which producer David O. Selznick was really excited about. When he found out that Rózsa was also using the instrument in his score for The Lost Weekend, Selznick was furious. He knew that The Lost Weekend would be released before Spellbound (Weekend was released in November, Spellbound in December), thus spoiling Selznick’s “first-score-with-theremin” thunder.

Back to the movie! A much happier Don takes his two quarts to a bar down the street. At first, Nat the bartender (Howard Da Silva) tells Don to get out, since he won’t give him anything on credit. But Don flashes his ill-gotten cash, and Nat has no choice but to pour him a shot of rye.

Don notices Nat watching him as he leaps for the brimming glass, so Don slowly lowers it and pretends he’s not dying for the drink. When Nat turns his back, though, Don gulps it down. Nat watches in the mirror.

Fun fact: this movie was filmed in the fall of 1944 with exterior scenes shot on location in New York City, and interiors back at Paramount. This bar was built on Paramount’s Soundstage 5, and although in the film it’s called “Nat’s Bar,” the set is an exact replica of the famous P. J. Clarke’s on Third Avenue,

Paramount’s set designers did such an excellent job recreating P. J. Clarke’s that writer, actor, and homesick New Yorker Robert Benchley started hanging out there. Benchley would walk into the set everyday at 5pm, and Da Silva would pour him a shot of real bourbon (not the iced tea used for filming). And Benchley would pretend he was back at home in his favorite bar!

Here is “Nat’s Bar” in the film, P. J. Clarke’s today, and a film still photographed in the bar (though Milland and Da Silva were actually seated in Paramount’s replica.) It’s from an amazing blog called FILMography. You can find many other photos from movies old and new on the site.

As Don continues to down shots of whiskey, he becomes more expansive, relaxed, and literary. He even flirts with resident barfly and lady of questionable character Gloria (Doris Dowling).

She likes Don, and we get the feeling that the two of them often enjoy conversations at Nat’s, usually when Don is hammered. In an oddly modern twist, Gloria frequently drops the abbreviation “ridic” for “ridiculous” into her conversation, and Don responds with “natch” for “naturally.” And I thought millennials invented abbrevs! You can watch the scene here.

Don asks Nat to let him know when it’s a quarter to six so he can be home when Wick comes back. He still intends to go to the country, but he just couldn’t face it without some rye in his suitcase (and his belly.) He tells Nat that he intends to hide one bottle in Wick’s own suitcase, and then let Wick find the other bottle. That way, Wick will think he has found Don’s stash and he won’t keep such a close watch on him. You can tell that even the veteran bartender is pretty disgusted by Don.

Don tries to explain to Nat why he drinks and what it feels like: “It shrinks my liver, doesn’t it, Nat? It pickles my kidneys, yeah. But what it does to the mind! It tosses the sandbags overboard so the balloon can soar…”

Nat just listens. He’s heard it all before.

The rye keeps sliding down Don’s throat, and soon it’s past six o’clock. Nat has been trying to alert Don to the time for a while, but Don is too drunk now to listen. He doesn’t even want Nat to wipe up the little rye rings left on the counter in front of him.

Meanwhile, Wick and Helen are very upset when they return to Don’s apartment and realize he is gone. They discuss Don’s probable relapse. It’s a difficult scene to watch, especially if you or anyone you care about has struggled with addiction or other self-destructive behaviors.

Wick says that he is through trying to help Don. It’s been six years, and he can’t do it anymore. So he’s not going to search for Don, or stay and wait at the apartment. He’s going to the country as planned, and Don can stay here and drink himself to death if that is what he wants: “If it happens, it happens and I hope it does. I’ve had six years of this…Who are we fooling? We’ve tried everything, haven’t we? We’ve reasoned with him. We’ve baited him. We’ve watched him like a hawk. We’ve tried trusting him…”

Helen isn’t ready to let go, though. She tells Wick: “He’s a sick person. It’s as though there was something wrong with his heart or his lungs. You wouldn’t walk out on him if he had an attack. He needs our help.” But Wick has heard all of that before, too: “He won’t accept our help. Not Don, he hates us. He wants to be alone with that bottle of his. It’s all he gives a hang about. Why kid ourselves? He’s a hopeless alcoholic.”

It’s a terrible scene, and one of the most honest, raw conversations about an addict you’ll see anywhere.

Wick leaves, but Helen stays to pace the sidewalk outside Don’s front door. But Don waits at the back door and then sneaks into his apartment when Helen’s back is turned. She waits for hours and then makes the rounds of his favorite bars searching for him. And all the time, Don is upstairs with his bottles.

Don hides one bottle in his ceiling light fixture before settling down with a smile to drain the other one. The camera approaches the whiskey with Expressionist flair until it drowns in the glass and the film fades to black, just like Don.

Don wakes up the next morning to a horrifying sight: an empty bottle. But he still has some money left, so he goes out, ignoring Helen’s note pinned to the door:

Don heads for Nat’s Bar. Nat is fixing himself some breakfast and isn’t thrilled to see Don. Gloria arrives and Don flirts again, even promising to take her out for a fancy date that night. She is delighted and hurries off to go shopping and get her hair done.

This makes Nat furious. He knows that Don has no intention of taking Gloria out, and he’s tired of dealing with him. Plus, Nat tells Don that Helen came looking for him last night, and he doesn’t understand how Don can be so awful to her.

Don tries to explain himself to Nat (and the audience). He tells Nat how he plans to write a novel about an alcoholic writer and the girl who loves him despite his horrible behavior. Cue the extended flashback.

It’s several years ago, and Don attends a matinee of La Traviata. He’s already an alcoholic, and he stashed a bottle of rye in his raincoat pocket. But he had to check the coat, and now all he can focus on is the alcohol onstage.

He’s so fixated on the (fake) liquor being consumed by the performers that he hallucinates, turning the ballgowns into a row of swaying raincoats. One has rye in the pocket.

Don almost loses it in his seat. He needs a drink desperately, so as soon as the song ends, he goes to retrieve his coat and the important bottle. But there has been a mistake, and Don’s ticket corresponds to a woman’s leopard coat. The attendant refuses to let Don search for his raincoat, so he is forced to wait for the opera to end. Eventually, he and Helen are the only people left. 

They exchange coats, but Don’s rudeness turns to kindness when he discovers that he really likes this lady. She works at Time Magazine and is smart and funny. She even invites him to a party that evening. Don is tempted, but the rye in his pocket tempts him more.

You can watch the scene here. Edith Head designed the costumes for this film, and Helen’s leopard coat is spectacular. And it’s not just a coat–it’s a plot point, too, and one of Helen’s most prized possessions! Remember that.

Don promises to call her, and they part. But just as Helen turns to go, the bottle falls out of Don’s pocket and smashes on the sidewalk. Don is mortified.

He doesn’t want to tell her the truth, so he says that he was taking the whiskey to a sick friend to make him a hot toddy. Oh, and what kind of party is she going to? he asks. When she says it is a cocktail party, he says he’d love to accompany her after all. He’s got to get a drink somehow.

It’s ironic that alcohol brought them together, right? Don explains in voiceover that he liked Helen so much that he stopped drinking for a while because he didn’t want her to see him that way.

Later, Helen’s parents come to town to meet their daughter’s serious boyfriend. Don waits for them in the hotel lobby and overhears their conversation about him.

They are not thrilled because Don didn’t finish college and he doesn’t have a steady job. He’s not exactly the type of man they want for their daughter.

Fun fact: Helen’s mother is played by Lillian Fontaine, the mother of Joan Fontaine and Olivia De Havilland.

This is too much for Don to handle. He sneaks away and calls Helen from the lobby, explaining that he’ll be late. Then he goes home and gets stinking drunk for the first time in a while. Wick finds him there.

Helen arrives unexpectedly and Wick sends Don into the bedroom. Wick tells Helen that Don is interviewing for a job in Philadelphia. 

Helen is disappointed that Don didn’t meet her parents, but delighted about the interview! She sprawls on the couch as she says how nice it would be for Don to have a job. Andut rolls an empty whiskey bottle.

Wick tries to hide it, but Helen sees it. So Wick pretends it is his bottle, and that he is the one with a drinking problem. Don is horrified. He emerges from the bedroom to tell Helen the truth.

He confesses it all. He tells her that he is an alcoholic, and that he has been struggling with alcohol for years. Even a stint in rehab didn’t help.

It all started when he was proclaimed a writing prodigy and dropped out of Cornell to take the world by storm. But his first efforts were unsuccessful, and the grand novel he planned didn’t happen. Writer’s block and crippling anxiety set in.

So he started drinking for inspiration, then drinking more to “counterbalance” the despair when inspiration didn’t strike. Now he drinks because of what he wanted to become and what he is.

He says that there are two “Dons,” the nice, normal guy, and then the “Other Don,” who craves alcohol and will do anything to get it. He even confesses to Helen and Wick that he bought a gun to kill himself on his 30th birthday, but the Other Don wanted a drink, so he pawned the gun to buy whiskey.

Helen listens to it all. But she doesn’t walk out. Instead, she grits her teeth, tells Wick to make coffee, and promises Don she is going to help him fight it. End flashback. It’s been about three years since Helen made that promise.

Nat tells Don that he should write this story, and Don gets excited. Maybe this time he can do it! He rushes home and sits down at his typewriter. He starts strong, but fades quickly after writing the dedication. And then he’s back to staring at the empty bottle.

Don needs a drink, but he can’t remember where he hid the second quart. He destroys his apartment looking for it, but no luck. I love that shot of Don lying on the couch with the lighting fixture and its hidden bottle mocking him.

Don gives up the search and goes out. He ends up at a fancy restaurant and downs several gin and vermouths. But when the check comes he realizes he doesn’t have enough money to pay it. So he hits a new low and steals the purse of the woman at the table next to him.

He gets caught, a crowd gathers, and he is thrown out of the restaurant.

Don stumbles home, disgusted with himself but still craving more alcohol. He sprawls on the couch and gets a happy surprise: the second bottle! He drinks until he passes out for the second night in a row.

The next morning, Don wakes up with a terrible hangover and even worse cravings. He grabs his only possession of value, his typewriter, and sets out for his pawn shop. But it’s closed!

He learns to his horror that all the pawn shops are closed in honor of Yom Kippur. A Jewish man explains that even the Irish-owned pawn shops are closed, because the owners have a reciprocal agreement: the Irish shops close on Yom Kippur, and the Jewish ones close on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s a considerate arrangement, but Don doesn’t care. How is he going to get the drink he so desperately needs if he can’t pawn anything?

Don stumbles down the streets until he is nearly crawling. He looks horrible, he hasn’t eaten or changed his clothes in days, and he’s been drinking non-stop.

To get the look of an alcoholic on a horrible bender, Milland went on a crash diet to lose weight. He subsisted on dry toast, boiled eggs, coffee and grapefruit juice. Apparently he even tried getting drunk, but he wasn’t much of a drinker and would throw up before he got to the point where Don lives.

Don makes it to Nat’s bar, but Nat throws him out after pouring him one shot as charity. Then Don remembers that Gloria lives right next to the bar…She’s furious with him–remember that he stood her up last night? But she must really like him, because she softens and gives him some money when he begs for it. She thinks he’s really ill.

As Don leaves the apartment, he trips and crashes down the stairs.

Next thing we know, Don is waking up in the alcoholics ward at Bellevue Hospital. He was brought in after his fall, and quickly transferred to this ward when they tested his blood. He has a concussion and a crazy blood alcohol limit, but otherwise he’s okay.

Don insists that he is fine and not at all like the rest of the men in the ward. He even tries to leave, but the door is locked and guarded. Don’s nurse, Bim, has seen and heard it all before. Bim (Frank Faylen) is cynical and a little creepy. He points out certain patients and tells Don how that one has been coming to the ward for decades, and that one hardly ever leaves, and that one gets terrible delirium tremens, or DTs, at night. Don insists that he is different; he’s not like these other alcoholics and he’ll never return to the ward. Bim replies:

It’s grim.

That night, the DTs start, just as Bim promised. It’s horrifying. Two patients start screaming and try to escape their hallucinations. In all the confusion, Don steals a doctor’s overcoat, evades the security, and slips out into the night in his slippers.

Fun fact: in preparation for this role, Milland worked out a deal with some doctors and was admitted to Bellevue so he could see what it was like. He actually did escape, just like Don, in the midst of DT chaos. But a cop stopped him, noticed the Bellevue pajamas, and took him back to the hospital. He didn’t believe that the escaped patient was really Ray Milland researching a role!

Billy Wilder heard about Milland’s “research” and arranged to shoot these scenes on location in the Bellevue drunk ward where Milland had masqueraded as a patient. But the Hospital was furious at how negatively it was depicted in the film, and refused to let other productions film there. When Director George Seaton asked if he could shoot scenes for Miracle on 34th Street (1947) at Bellevue “The hospital manager practically threw me out because he was still mad at himself for having given Wilder permission to shoot at the hospital.”

It’s rather early in the morning, and Don walks towards a church. Has he decided to look to God for help? No, he’s just going to wait on the church steps for the liquor store across the street to open.

When it finally does, Don is inside before the owner even has time to remove his coat. He tells the man he needs that bottle of rye, and he’s going to take it, no matter what. The stunned man hands it over, and Don, who has reached yet another low, walks home with his bottle. We thought that his experience in the drunk ward might have been the catalyst he needed to quit, but we were mistaken.

Meanwhile, poor Helen is sleeping on the stairs outside of Don’s apartment. She hasn’t given up on him. The landlady starts telling Helen about the hopelessness of Don’s situation, and how Helen should go find another beau. Don will always treat her horribly because his real love is booze.

But Helen still believes he can get better. I think at this point the audience sides with the landlady, though. Although we pity Don, we’ve just watched him do some terrible things, and we sort of hate him for treating Helen and his brother this way.

Helen goes home and so just misses Don’s arrival. He doesn’t even remove the stolen coat or his hospital pajamas before he settles himself in his chair and begins emptying the stolen bottle. It’s the third night in a row.

Don had told Bim that he never had the DTs, but tonight he gets them, and they’re awful. He hallucinates a mouse creeping out of a hole in the wall. He thinks it is cute until a bat flies in through the window and begins attacking the mouse. The theremin provides creepy accompaniment. It’s a terrifying scene, a true nightmare complete with blood pouring down the wall. 

Don’s screams wake the landlady, who calls Helen. She rushes over, and the janitor uses his master key to open the door. Even as Helen is desperately trying to get in, Don is trying just as desperately to fasten the door’s chain to keep her out.

But Helen slides in just before Don gets the chain in place. She’s never seen Don so bad before.

But she takes control, running a bath, helping him shave, and fixing him some food. Then they both fall asleep (Helen on the couch, of course.) Early the next morning, Helen wakes up to see Don leaving the apartment with her leopard coat. She quickly gets dressed and catches up to him as he leaves a pawn shop empty handed.

He pawned her coat.

Helen is devastated. Not to lose the coat, although it is her very favorite thing. No, she’s distraught because if Don can sink that low and pawn her coat, the thing that brought them together in the first place, and something that he knows she loves, then maybe there is no hope for him. Wick was right; Don loves the bottle more than he can ever love her. Also, it’s raining, just to make everything worse.

Helen tells him she is done. She’s not going to fight for him anymore. She asks for the pawn ticket so she can at least get her coat back, but he refuses and leaves her standing in the rain.

Helen goes into the shop to try to buy her coat back. When she asks how much the man gave Don for it, he tells her that he didn’t pay Don anything. Instead, Don exchanged the coat for a gun that he had pawned years ago. Oh, dear.

Helen rushes back to his apartment. She’s just in time, too.

When Don answers the door, Helen pretends she is just there to borrow a coat for her walk home. But she searches the apartment and sees the gun in the sink. She grabs it, and begs Don to reconsider.

Helen even pours Don a drink, egging him on with “I know you want it” taunts because she thinks that maybe if he starts drinking again he’ll forget about the suicide. She’ll do anything, even beg him to drink, to save his life. It’s yet another poignant, tragic scene.

Then Nat arrives with Don’s typewriter, which he found after Don fell down the stairs. He has brought it back in the hopes that Don can finally write that novel.

Helen takes this as a sign. Don can’t give up yet! He can still get better, and he can still write his novel.

She grabs the title page of “The Bottle” and tells him he can do it! He couldn’t before because he didn’t know the ending, but now he does. She believes that this “lost weekend” was the final, and darkest, chapter in his struggle, but he has come out the other side and can finally write his story.

But Don is afraid. He says that “The Bottle” was going to be about all the “nightmares, horrors, humiliations,” all the things he wants to forget. He’s not sure he can do it, and he’s not sure he wants to relive his worst moments.

But Helen tells him to write it down, and exorcise it that way. Write everything that happened this weekend “to whom it may concern,” she says, and “It concerns so many people, Don.”

She goes to make coffee and watches Don think. He picks up the drink she poured him earlier, and stares at it in his hand. Helen watches from the kitchen, and we hold our breath with her. Then Don drops his cigarette into the glass, and we smile with Helen.

The camera pans back over the skyline of New York City as Don’s voice intones the first lines of his novel. The weekend is over, and Don’s new life has begun.

It’s a happy ending, but Wilder tempered the “all’s well” feeling, noting that “We don’t say that the man is cured. We just try to suggest that if he can lick his illness long enough to put some words down on paper, then there must be some hope.”

Apparently Billy Wilder was interested in directing this film after working with author Raymond Chandler on the screenplay for Double Indemnity (1944). Chandler’s alcoholism re-surfaced in a big way when he was adapting his novel to the screen, and Wilder watched him fall apart. Then he made this movie, in part to try “to explain Chandler to himself.”

via: http://lantern.mediahist.org Film Bulletin, Dec 24, 1945. p. 21.

The Lost Weekend was one of the first films to treat drinking not as a harmless pastime (The Thin Man, anyone?) nor as comic relief, but seriously and even pathologically. The timing was unfortunately perfect, as the film was released in November 1945 as American soldiers who had witnessed unimaginable horrors returned home and tried to get back to normal lives. Many turned to alcohol, but there were very few honest depictions of alcoholism at the time. The timing makes it extra-poignant when Helen tells Don that he must write his experiences because “It concerns so many people.” Don was definitely not alone in his struggles in 1945.

Unsurprisingly, this movie was controversial. Oddly enough, some temperance unions accused the film of encouraging alcohol use. And on the other side, the liquor industry did not want this movie released and lobbied Paramount not to make it nor show it. Even some in Hollywood didn’t think this film was appropriate entertainment. And after a disastrous preview showing, Paramount even considered canceling the film’s release.

The audience at the preview reportedly found the film very funny, which is not at all the reaction the filmmakers wanted. According to TCM, Wilder remembered that the preview audience “laughed from the beginning. They laughed when Birnam’s brother found the bottle outside the window, they laughed when he emptied the whiskey into the sink.”

Preview cards were negative, with one patron writing that the movie was great, but that the “stuff about drinking and alcoholism” should be removed…Wilder said that one audience member walked out, remarking, “I’ve sworn off. Never again.” The man was asked, “You’ll never drink again?” “No, I’ll never see another picture again,” he answered.

via: http://lantern.mediahist.org Film Bulletin, Dec 24, 1945. p. 22.

Paramount decided to try to “fix” the film, and Wilder and Brackett told Rozsa to re-work the score. Rozsa thought that the temporary score that had accompanied the preview was the major reason for the negative reactions. It was Gershwin-esque, whereas Rozsa’s theremin-heavy score went in another direction, and made sure no one was laughing.

After those tweaks, the movie premiered to outstanding reviews. Even the liquor industry got on board when it was clear that the movie was a success.

Seagrams produced an ad praising the film while simultaneously attempting to salvage alcohol’s reputation during the Oscar campaign: “Paramount has succeeded in burning into the hearts and minds of all who see this vivid screen story our own long-held and oft-published belief that…some men should not drink!, which might well have been the name of this great picture instead of The Lost Weekend.”

The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Actor, Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It won those four, but lost Best Score, Best Editing, and Best Cinematography.

To honor Wilder and Brackett after their big wins, some of their colleagues mischievously hung liquor bottles from the windows of their offices at Paramount. But Milland’s extraordinary performance and Oscar win had more serious, and annoying, consequences.

After this movie was released, poor Milland became the poster boy for alcoholism, despite his own modest drinking habits. His performance in the film was so incredible that people tended to confuse the actor with the character. For many years, Milland was approached by people who wanted to buy him drinks and get him drunk the way Don Birnam had. Or alcoholics would come to him for help!

Milland also became a punchline: in My Favorite Brunette (1947), Bob Hope finds a hidden bottle of alcohol and jokes, “Ray Milland’s been here.” That same year, a Bugs Bunny cartoon entitled Slick Hare featured Ray Milland sitting at a bar and using his typewriter as payment, just as he tried to do at Nat’s bar. But the animated bartender accepts the typewriter and gives Milland tiny typewriters as change! You can watch it here, beginning at 1: 15.

Crowther’s review of this “stark and terrifying” film includes praise for Wilder and Brackett, as well as Milland and Wyman: “The film’s most commendable distinction is that it is a straight objective report, unvarnished with editorial comment or temperance morality. And yet the ill of alcoholism and the pathos of its sufferers are most forcefully exposed and deeply pitied, thanks also to the playing of Ray Milland. Mr. Milland, in a splendid performance, catches all the ugly nature of a ‘drunk,’ yet reveals the inner torment and degradation of a respectable man who knows his weakness and his shame. Jane Wyman assumes with quiet authority the difficult role of the loyal girl who loves and assists the central character—and finally helps regenerate him. (This climactic touch is somewhat off key—like the “cute” way in which the two meet—but it has the advantage of relieving an intolerable emotional strain.)”

Crowther’s words still ring true seventy years later. The Lost Weekend remains an incredible film with amazing performances. It is a sensitive, painful, raw, provocative look at Don and his disease. Here’s the trailer–enjoy! And ponder.

As always, thanks for reading! For more, follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, and Facebook, and you can buy this film here.

* Thank you, Professor Robisheaux at Duke for this phrase.

or: Lies Old Hollywood Told Me

This is the second in my series of History Through Hollywood, a discussion of the little things you can pick up from watching Old Hollywood films. In the last edition, I talked about “Reno-vations,” automats, dancing, and manicures for men. This one takes a look at bad habits and vice: crime, sex, cigs, and alcohol as depicted in old movies.

As in the first edition, I’m sticking with movies set in the “present” instead of historical films because those are more accurate “inadvertent time capsules.” (Visit the first History Through Hollywood for more on that.) Some of the vices I’ll talk about are ubiquitous in old films, but have fallen out of fashion now, just like automats and dancing after dinner. But some vices aren’t as straightforward, which makes this edition a little different. Classic movies present vice in very particular ways, and what’s onscreen is not always a true reflection of reality as it was back then—hence the subtitle, “Lies Old Hollywood Told Me.”

Compared to today’s films, old movies can seem laughably tame and even annoyingly subtle. Is she a prostitute or not? Where’s all the blood and gore? Did they actually have sex? To add to the confusion, sometimes what does end up onscreen is barely discernible through a thick cloud of cigarette smoke.

Carole Lombard and Preston Foster in Love Before Breakfast. Unless otherwise noted, all images are my own.

But classic movies aren’t nearly as wholesome as people might think. The difference between old films and new can be boiled down to this gross oversimplification: today, we see everything, but in old movies, we “see” very little, though it’s all still there.

For reasons I’ll discuss in a minute, graphic violence and sex could not be shown onscreen, so instead it’s hinted, suggested, or otherwise included in a subtle way. This might shock you, but people in the first half of the 20th century had sex, fought, killed, drank, and engaged in other “bad habits.” It just wasn’t depicted as openly as it is today.

But vice lurks in the shadows, and if you know how to read the codes and tricks filmmakers employed to suggest the un-depictable, suddenly old movies become much naughtier. But you don’t need to read between the lines for this first one. It’s right out in the open, which is ironic because it is so highly regulated today!

• To be a sophisticated dame, all you need is a cigarette, perpetually lit and resting precisely but casually in your fingers. A fur coat and a cocktail (clear, please!) completes the picture.

Disclaimer: Of course, I’m kidding, and I’m certainly not advocating any of these behaviors! Cigarettes are the worst, fur has fortunately fallen out of fashion, and cocktails are best in moderation.

I bring up these visual markers, particularly the cigarette, to illustrate how our customs and norms have changed over the decades. Today, if I saw a heavily made-up woman chain-smoking and knocking back martinis in an enormous fur coat, I’d feel rather sorry for her. But show me Bette Davis, or Audrey Hepburn, or Carole Lombard, or Barbara Stanwyck engaging in such behavior on screen, and it’s classic, glamorous, powerful, and even a little dangerous.

Bette Davis in Old Acquaintance

Smoking was ubiquitous, and a cigarette was just as common in the hands of a debonair gentleman or a hardboiled detective as it was in the hands of a dame, ingenue, or femme fatale. Although not every star smoked on screen and not every movie contains curls of wafting smoke, it is wildly more common in old movies than today.

I’m certainly not the first to talk about how there’s an awful lot of smoking in old movies, and how iconic images of our beloved stars so often include cigarettes. They made it look so glamorous and so cool, and although now we know that smoking is a deadly habit, there’s something about that smoke expelled from legendary lips. Especially in the platinum tones of black and white; the lens and the lights turn the smoke to silver, and it swirls around the frame like magic.

Bette Davis and Paul Henreid in Now, Voyager

One of the most notorious onscreen smokers is Bette Davis. She didn’t just puff on cigarettes; she used smoking as a tool in her acting arsenal. If she’s mad, those big eyes flash and smoke pours from her mouth like the exhalations of an angry dragon. If she’s contented (slightly less often, it seems), the smoke drifts and whorls, framing her movie-star face in silvery wreaths. Smoking was such a trademark for Davis that it became a plot device in Dark Victory (1939). Early in the film, Davis’ character struggles to light her cigarettes because of vision problems.

The film’s director, Edmund Goulding, came up with this cigarette lighting business to emphasize the character’s illness. He said, “When Bette Davis can’t light her own cigarette, you know something is seriously wrong with her.” Very true.

Bette Davis in Dark Victory

All that’s left now of the onscreen smoke languorously exhaled by Davis and her compatriots are its ghosts swirling on celluloid. But the images are so powerful that it can be difficult to divorce the sophisticated coolness of onscreen smoking from its reality.

After all, the nasty carcinogenic fumes have dissipated, and fortunately we can’t smell or taste the smoke as we watch. But how Bette’s famous eyes must have burned from all those cigarettes, smoldering in take after take, scene after scene, movie after movie! How all those glorious, iconic costumes must have reeked with that unmistakeable, lingering stench! I wonder if the continuity people and editors were ever driven crazy trying to make sure that the length of an actor’s cigarette in one shot matched the next.

There is a certain poignancy in watching the stars light up onscreen, knowing what we now know. It is perhaps most disturbing when watching Humphrey Bogart, who died of esophageal cancer when he was only 57 years old.

via: https://cinemastationblog.wordpress.com/tag/humphrey-bogart/

Bogart was a chain smoker in real life and in most of his movies, and images of the star almost always include a cigarette.

Bogart is not unusual in that regard: so many publicity stills and portraits of Classic Hollywood stars include a smoldering cigarette, and there are just as many cigarette advertisements featuring famous faces.

The cigarette portraits and ads are things you won’t see today. An actor might smoke in his private life, but no studio is going to release an official glamour photo of Reese Witherspoon or Brad Pitt with a cigarette! Times have changed! Thank goodness.

If you’re interested in learning more about actresses and smoking, visit the website Smoking Sides which contains an exhaustive collection of ads, images, movies, and trivia all about this topic.

• Cocktails are always a good choice.

See The Thin Man (1934).

The Thin Man

Okay, I’ll elaborate. Cocktails, like cigarettes or “heading to Reno” are everywhere in old films, though they show up much less today.

It seems that characters in old movies are never more than a glittering sideboard away from a tasty alcoholic libation. Every drawing room has a stocked bar, and the super wealthy have butlers perpetually laden with crowded trays.

My Man Godfrey

Drinking in old movies is a beautiful, glamorous sight: the crystal decanters, the elegant lines of the stemware, the straight-edged highballs arranged so prettily on silver trays! At dinner, sparkling martini glasses and charmingly squat champagne coupes cover the tables like little crystal forests.

Somehow, the ice is always ready and perfectly cubed, and the enormous, gleaming cocktail shakers are brimming with expertly mixed concoctions. In less elegant surroundings, a splash of amber liquid from a bottle hidden in a hardboiled editor/detective/boss’ desk drawer can be just the thing. Basically, in classic films booze of all sorts is readily available, and frequently imbibed.

Esther Williams tries to prove her suitability as a wife for Van Johnson by mixing the perfect cocktail in Easy to Love

The consumption of alcohol is generally depicted as a positive, elegant pastime. Primrose Path (1940) and The Lost Weekend (1945) are extremely unusual in their depictions of alcoholism; in most films, drunkenness is rare and played for comedy. And it’s very uncommon to see any glamorous stars get sloppy. Tipsy, sure, but not unattractively so.

The cocktail guzzling in classic movies seems a little less foreign today, what with hipster bars and mixologists resurrecting nearly extinct drinks and making cocktails cool again. What seems most foreign in old films is the lack of beer and wine. You’ll sometimes see a character order a beer, but I can’t think of anyone asking for a chardonnay. Champagne was always a stylish choice (though it was most often served in shallow-bowled coupes instead of the flutes to which we are more accustomed), but other wines are mostly absent.

Van Johnson and John Lund pine for their lady loves with coupes of cocktails or champagne in Duchess of Idaho. Beer would probably be the drink of choice in a similar scene today.

So why does Nick Charles sip an aperitif instead of a fine wine? We can blame Prohibition.

The Princess Comes Across

The 18th Amendment ruined America’s wine industry. When Prohibition became law in 1919, most vineyards shut down, vintners found other careers, and an entire generation was kept from becoming wine drinkers. You could make bathtub gin, but bathtub wine wasn’t a thing.

The figures are startling: in 1919,  the United States produced 55 million gallons of wine, but by the time Prohibition was repealed in 1933, production had been decimated to only 2.5 million lonely gallons. The newly legal wine industry had to start from scratch.

It took a few decades, but in the late 1950s and 1960s, wine became popular again. Its ascendance was spurred on by the production of better quality American wines and Francophile celebrities like Jackie Kennedy and Julia Child who championed the beverage.

With that in mind, it’s not at all surprising that Nick Charles and other characters in the 1930s-1950s opt for a Manhattan or a shot of whiskey instead of a crisp sauvignon blanc.

For more, visit a Brief History of Wine, this New York Times article on the wine boom, and changing trends in beverages in The Atlantic.

After The Thin Man

• Married couples slept in twin beds, and only really, really bad women had premarital sex. Also, no one kissed for more than three seconds at a time, and there weren’t any gay people.

All of these qualify as “lies.” Watching a classic movie might give you the impression that past generations were unflinchingly wholesome, traditional, and happily conventional when it came to sex. But this doesn’t mean that everyone in real life was straight, chaste, and prudish. So why do the movies depict sex the way they do?

To Catch a Thief

One big reason is that movie content was regulated differently than it is today. Our current ratings system was adopted in 1968, but before that movies weren’t rated for different audiences with a G, PG-13, or R label, but instead received the Production Code certificate of approval. (That’s why when an old film is shown today, you’ll sometimes see a “NR” rating signifying “Not Rated.”)

The certificate meant that a movie was safe to watch, and wouldn’t offend or degrade the audience’s morals; in other words, it followed the guidelines set out in the Production Code, which was a list of topics and images that were either unacceptable or required extreme care if brought to the screen.

via: http://pre-code.com/the-motion-picture-production-code-of-1930/

The Code came into existence because in the 1920s and early thirties, films deemed immoral or too scandalous for public consumption were edited, and often butchered, by religious and moral organizations and censorship boards at the state and local level. Sometimes cities or even states boycotted movies entirely, resulting in a big hit to studio profits.

In an effort to clean up the screens, a Catholic priest and a layman wrote the Code in 1929, hoping to guide Hollywood so that “vulgarity and suggestiveness may be eliminated and that good taste may be emphasized.” But the studios basically ignored the Code for five years until protests against the “filth in films” became too powerful and costly for Hollywood to ignore.

In 1934, the studios banded together to establish the Production Code Administration (PCA) to enforce the Code. Hollywood recognized that self-regulation undertaken voluntarily was much more palatable, as well as better public relations, than if the government or another entity stepped in to censor films.

Separate beds for William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man

The Production Code dealt with topics you might expect, like nudity, rape, “any inference of sexual perversion,” “the use of drugs,” “brutality and possible gruesomeness,” and profanity.

But it also cautioned or forbade more surprising things, like “venereal disease,” “ridicule of the clergy,” “miscegenation,” “scenes of actual childbirth,” “sympathy for criminals,” “man and woman in bed together,” and “surgical operations.” (Today it seems pretty brutal and gruesome that the Code actually forbade the depiction of miscegenation. And of course the “sexual perversion” rule was aimed mostly at keeping homosexuality off the screen. It’s not a progressive document by any means.) The Code also dealt with politics and other potentially inflammatory issues; you can read the Code in its entirety here.

Although the Code allowed for some vice (otherwise no stories), it was important that bad people who did bad things weren’t ever rewarded: “No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.” That’s why reform or more often death is the usual ending for a bad character, particularly sexually promiscuous women or gangsters…

Sidenote: old movies can be roughly split into two eras, those made before the adoption of the Production Code, and those made after. Unsurprisingly, pre-code cinema is much racier than what came later. It’s an unusual turnabout—typically social conventions get looser in time, but in this case, the earlier films are more explicit. For more, visit this fantastic site devoted to pre-Code cinema, Pre-Code.com.

The enforcement of the Code went like this: studios sent the PCA their scripts, hoping to clear up any issues before the film was made (it was cheaper that way). After resolving any  problems in the screenplay, the PCA viewed the finished picture, requested any changes they thought necessary, and reviewed the edited film before issuing (or not) a certificate of approval. This process could be torturous and long or quite simple, depending on the film.

The Code wasn’t law; its power came from the box office. If the PCA refused to grant a film a certificate, theaters wouldn’t show it, and the studio would lose money. It’s similar to how an NC-17 rating dooms a movie’s box office today.

The premise of The More the Merrier worried the PCA, and this scene in particular was hotly debated. McCrea and Arthur are separated by a wall, but it’s cleverly shot to imply a more intimate situation.

It’s important to note that Hollywood abided by the PCA’s rulings not to be more moral or chaste for the sake of it; rather, the PCA seemed like the most painless way out of the quagmire of censorship and boycotts.

And the PCA’s goal wasn’t to censor or punish Hollywood (though that sometimes happened), but to work with the studios to ensure that films would make money without offending powerful, vocal groups. The PCA had Hollywood’s best interests (profits) at heart, and together the PCA and the studios sought a middle ground between boring and boycott.

The relationship between the PCA and the studios was symbiotic in theory, but could be very contentious in practice. There were constant squabbles between filmmakers and the PCA over issues ranging from overarching plot elements to characters, costumes, dances, and even individual shots or words. One of the most famous battles concerned Clark Gable’s closing line in Gone With the Wind (1939). The PCA didn’t want him to say the word damn in “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” But obviously they relented and allowed one of the most legendary lines in cinema to exist.

Four years later, “damn” was still a contentious word. The PCA originally fought Columbia over the “damn the torpedoes” line in The More the Merrier (1943), but they eventually allowed it because it was used as part of a famous quote. It can seem silly now, but it was no laughing matter for the studios or the PCA.

Married couple Nick and Nora Charles sleep in separate beds in After The Thin Man (1936)

The Code’s constraints forced filmmakers to get creative. Then and now, sex sells, but the Code meant that filmmakers had to find other ways of getting the information to the audience.

For example, a fade-out on two amorous characters, especially when paired with a fade-in on the same characters in the same room smoking or fussing with their hair, makeup, or clothes was code that they just had sex. You’ll see that technique a lot once you start looking for it. Some directors got cheeky with visual metaphors, too, as when Hitchcock ended North by Northwest (1959) with his two lovers embracing on a train before it cuts to the final shot showing the train barreling into a tunnel…

Twin beds for married couples got around the “man and woman in bed” rule and helped pass the general guidelines that “The treatment of bedrooms must be governed by good taste and delicacy.” That’s why even the happiest of married couples, like Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man movies, or Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in Adam’s Rib, sleep in separate beds.

Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious

Sex outside the sanctified bonds of marriage was a real no-no. It could be referred to or suggested, very delicately, of course, but only if the participants suffered for their terrible immorality, usually by coming to a bad end. The PCA didn’t want anyone getting any ideas!

In Notorious (1946), Hitchcock famously got around the rule against “excessive or lustful kissing,” which the PCA interpreted as a kiss lasting more than three seconds. In one scene, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman lock lips while Grant takes a phone call.

The pair kiss, pause, kiss, pause, move around the phone, kiss, pause, etc., and their “appropriate” three-second kisses become a long series of lip locks that stretch the intent, if not the letter, of the Code. As Bergman wrote in her autobiography My Story:

“A kiss could last three seconds. We just kissed each other and talked, leaned away and kissed each other again. Then the telephone came between us, then we moved to the other side of the telephone. So it was a kiss which opened and closed; but the censors couldn’t and didn’t cut the scene because we never at any point kissed for more than three seconds. We did other things: we nibbled on each other’s ears, and kissed a cheek, so that it looked endless, and became sensational in Hollywood.” It’s amazing–you can watch it here.

Getting around the “sexual perversion” rule was tricky, too, and made the depiction of homosexual characters more difficult. For example, in The Maltese Falcon the novel, the character of Joel Cairo is clearly gay. But the film couldn’t be as explicit as the novel was, so instead it just hints at his sexuality. Cairo, played by Peter Lorre, is outwardly effeminate with scented handkerchiefs, fastidious clothes, and other small cues that stand in for any obvious declaration. There were gay characters in classic films, just not many and not very openly.

The Code also applied constraints to onscreen violence. Just think of the torture scene in Foreign Correspondent, when we hear the moans and screams of the victim, but the camera remains fixed on the horrified face of a helpless witness. Or in Double Indemnity (1944), when we watch Barbara Stanwyck’s stony face as her husband is strangled a few feet away, offscreen.

Foreign Correspondent

You’ll often hear the word “gratuitous” employed to describe modern films’ penchant for violence, sex, explosions, profanity, etc. Old movies were the opposite of gratuitous, and demonstrate the power of subtlety.

Take a look at old films and their later remakes for illustrations of this difference: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946 and 1981) or Double Indemnity (1944) and Body Heat (1981) are good options. I’m obviously obsessed with classic movies, but I think most would agree that the subtle power, ambiguity, and sly edge of the originals is diminished in the explicit remakes.

As social mores changed through the years, the Code began to weaken, and by the late 1950s, its power was greatly diminished. Some Like It Hot, for example, was denied the seal in 1959, but was released anyway and did wonderful business. Being denied a seal even became a marketing ploy to entice audiences to come see what was so shocking! The Code was eventually abandoned and the ratings system was instituted in 1968. And twin beds became a thing of the past.

For more about the Production Code, check out this NPR article, or this wonderful book, The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code.

• Criminals had a much easier time of things; or, CSI: Classic Movie Style

Murder and crime mysteries are sometimes unintentionally hilarious because of the crime scene investigative techniques. One of my favorite examples of clumsy investigating comes in the The Thin Man (1934). A dead body has been discovered in a suspect’s office, and the police invite private detective Nick Charles (William Powell) to examine the scene. Naturally, Nick brings his trusty terrier, Asta, along with him.

Asta wanders around the scene, and no one seems to mind that a random dog is trampling potential clues and leaving dog hair and paw prints practically on top of the body. Besides the incongruous inclusion of a private citizen’s dog, there are other behaviors that would likely cause accusations of shoddy investigating or evidence tampering: Nick Charles doesn’t wear gloves when examining evidence, nothing is “bagged and tagged,” there is no “perimeter,” and the corpse’s clothes and belongings are thrown around willy-nilly.

Also, as is usual in The Thin Man films, Nick is allowed to pocket any clues (not evidence, “clues”) that interest him, (no chain of evidence here!) and he and Asta are given laughably free rein throughout the investigation. The crime scene bears little resemblance to the ones we are used to seeing in modern TV and movies. Fortunately, the forensic science (if one can call it that) in the film doesn’t impede the discovery of the guilty party.

In another typical twist, Nick’s hunch combined with a few pieces of enormous evidence (the victim’s one-of-a-kind watch chain, old shrapnel in a corpse’s leg, the slip of a guilty tongue) and a black-tie dinner party leads to the capture of the murderer. Plus, a clear confession makes any physical evidence irrelevant. Which is great, because there isn’t any. At least none that could hold up in court.

It’s fun to chuckle and feel superior, but watching old film noir, gangster movies, and mysteries also makes you realize how much we have come to expect miraculous CSI-style magic in our investigative entertainment. This also influences our real life; the “CSI-effect” is a term used to describe jurors’ raised expectation and increased reliance on scientific, high-tech evidence. Thanks in part to CSI and shows and movies like it, forensic science has never been more popular. Combine that with a greater awareness of technology in general, and the average person and jury member has much higher expectations of physical evidence than a few decades ago.

William Powell snooping around a suspect’s apartment without gloves. Or a warrant, for that matter.

Sometimes this isn’t helpful, especially when jurors expect the kind of magic they see in any number of CSI-style shows. Some of it’s real, but some of it is unfortunately fictional. That can make prosecuting a case in the real world a little more challenging. (For more on the CSI effect, check out this article.)

The CSI-effect makes watching an old movie where they flout every basic tenet of crime scene investigation really funny, especially in serious movies when they are trying their best and maybe don’t invite friend’s pets to visit the fresh crime scene.

Even then, their investigations seem pretty lax. Usually it doesn’t matter too much, though, because the case rarely depends on small details like fingerprints or chemical analysis. More often, it’s a huge, ridiculously helpful clue like a monogrammed handkerchief or utterly unique piece of jewelry that corroborates the gumshoe’s wild hunch and solves the whole case.

These films remind us that before investigators could test for DNA, or use some super-secret device to analyze the killer’s preference for ice cream over gelato, police had to rely on other clues and methods.

That makes these films particularly interesting time capsules giving us a glimpse into an older style of detective work. But if film noirs and murder mysteries like The Thin Man series are anything to go by, it’s lucky any criminals were ever caught. Or maybe that’s just my CSI-addled brain talking.

After all, in that Thin Man case they do X-ray the victim’s body and discover the vital clue of the shrapnel. Maybe that was 1934’s version of finding a microscopic fiber in a body of water, analyzing it in the mass spectrometer, and realizing it matches the space suits made in a Swedish factory between May-July 1999. After hacking a government database, using the latest facial recognition software to enlarge and identify a satellite image taken at night in a forest, and then tracking the perp through the shape of their left pinkie toe in instagram feeds, the culprit is apprehended! Come to think of it, sometimes the old style CSI is rather refreshing.

That’s all the lies and vice I’ve got for now. Visit my first History Through Hollywood here, and stay tuned for more! I’ve written detailed reviews of most of the films I mentioned, so head back to TheBlondeAtTheFilm.com to read about Easy to Love, To Catch a Thief, The Lady Eve, and many more.

As always, thanks for reading! For more, follow me on Twitter, Instagram (BlondeAtTheFilm), tumblr, Pinterest, and Facebook!

The Thin Man

Fair warning: I love this movie. Bringing Up Baby has been my answer to the tricky “What is your favorite movie?” question since I was about twelve years old. It’s a movie I watch over and over, and a film I can count on to make me laugh. It’s a wonderfully familiar comfort, a pick-me-up, a treat, and one of those movies that I sometimes can’t believe exists. It’s such an amazing production with such a perfect cast that sometimes it seems like a fanciful dream. For me, it’s the answer to the question, “If you could imagine your ideal movie, what would it be?”

via: http://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Summaries/B/Bringing%20Up%20Baby.htm

Putting aside my fawning adoration for a minute, Bringing Up Baby is also fascinating because it is a famous “flop.” It grossly exceeded its schedule and budget, did only moderate business when released, and made RKO so mad that they fired Howard Hawks from his next picture and conspired to end their contract with Katharine Hepburn.

It’s also intriguing because sometimes people I recommend it to today don’t “get it.” They come back to me with confusion and faint exhaustion in their eyes, and say “It was just so weird.” I think most of their reaction is due to the genre of the film. We don’t have screwball (in the classical sense) anymore, and Bringing Up Baby is about as screwball as they come. So if you’re expecting a typical romantic comedy, this movie will knock you for a loop.

This post is my entry in the Classic Movie Blog Associations‘ Fabulous Films of the ’30s Blogathon, running from April 27-May 1. Be sure to check out the other entries–they are amazing!

I’m very excited to announce that nineteen of the essays from this blogathon are available in a gorgeous e-book! You can download it for free at Smashwords, or for 99 cents at Amazon. (All proceeds from Amazon sales will go to film preservation.) My essay on Bringing Up Baby in the e-book is quite different from this post, so be sure to check it out! Thanks to Danny at Pre-Code.com for putting this beautiful book together!

To the film! On April 10, 1937, Collier’s Weekly published a short story by Hagar Wilde entitled “Bringing Up Baby.” (Oddly enough, “Stage to Lordsburg” the story upon which Stagecoach (1939) was based, appeared in the same issue!) You can read Wilde’s story here–it’s delightful.

The film version contains some significant changes; for example, there is no dinosaur bone, and David and Susan are already a couple when the story begins. But the general nuttiness of the film can be traced back to the story, and some of the hilarious dialogue was lifted straight from the pages of Collier’s onto the screen.

Howard Hawks liked Wilde’s story about a zany couple searching for their tame panther in the Connecticut woods, and RKO gave him the green light. Hawks, Wilde, and screenwriter Dudley Nichols turned the story into a screenplay, and Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant were cast as the leads.

The film began production in September 1937 and continued until January 1938, with its premiere coming on February 18, just over a month after shooting wrapped.

Hawks always had Hepburn in mind for the role of Susan even though she’d never made such a pure comedy before. Up until this film, she’d been acting mostly in dramas or historical films. But Hawks had seen a wacky, eccentric side to the actress, and he thought she’d be great as a screwball heroine.

The role of David was not so easily filled. The part was offered to Ray Milland, Leslie Howard, Robert Montgomery, Fredric March, and Ronald Colman before Cary Grant accepted it. Grant almost turned it down, too, because he was nervous about tackling such a goofy character.

Hawks told Grant to watch silent film comedian Harold Lloyd to get an idea of how to play David, and Hawks’ suggestion helped Grant tremendously. He nails the concept of the “bewildered innocent” caught up in a whirlpool of chaos that Lloyd did so well. Grant even wore round-rimmed glasses just like Lloyd’s in the movie! Here’s a compilation of Lloyd’s work if you’d like to know more about the comedian.

Harold Lloyd via: http://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Star%20Pages/Lloyd,%20Harold.htm

Hawks also reportedly told Grant to incorporate some of director John Ford’s personality into the character. Hawks had witnessed Hepburn and Ford interacting on the set of Mary of Scotland (1936), and he wanted the relationship between Susan and David to capture Ford and Hepburn’s zany, teasing dynamic.

Once Grant was cast, Bringing Up Baby became the second of four films starring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. Their first was Sylvia Scarlett (1935), followed by Bringing Up Baby and Holiday, which they started filming just eight days after Baby premiered.

After Holiday was released in June 1938, audiences had to wait about eighteen months before seeing Grant and Hepburn in their fourth and final film, The Philadelphia Story (1940). I wish that Grant and Hepburn had made more films together. It always looks as though they are having a marvelous time onscreen.

They had a great time offscreen, too. In her autobiography Me: Stories of My Life, Hepburn remembers in her typical blunt fashion how much fun she and Grant had making Bringing Up Baby: “Cary was so funny on this picture. He was fatter, and at this point his boiling energy was at its peak. We would laugh from morning to night.”

They often double-dated (Hepburn with Howard Hughes, and Grant with Phyllis Brooks) during the production of this movie, and enjoyed getting to the set early to work on ideas and jokes to show to Hawks.

Before I jump into the film, a word about the screwball comedy genre. After It Happened One Night (1934), which is generally considered to be the first screwball, the genre flourished throughout the 1930s and into the early 1940s. The elements that make up screwball include farcical situations, witty, quick repartee, slapstick, mistaken or fluid identities, secrets, mismatches in social class, journeys away from civilization and into the country, a battle of the sexes romance plot where the madcap woman pursues the man and sometimes “liberates him” with her wackiness, and a topsy-turvy world where normal reality doesn’t apply.  Keep these characteristics and tropes in mind, and see how many you can spot. Hint: most classic screwballs such as Hands Across the Table (1935), My Man Godfrey (1936), Easy Living (1937), Topper (1937), Midnight (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), The Lady Eve (1940), and The Palm Beach Story (1942) contain some of these genre conventions; Bringing Up Baby has them all.

To the film! It opens on the Stuyvesant Museum of Natural History. Nerdy, awkward, absent-minded paleontologist Dr. David Huxley (Cary Grant) perches on scaffolding next to a nearly completed brontosaurus fossil.

He’s thinking (he could be a model for Rodin’s “The Thinker”) about where the bone in his hand fits in the skeleton. He’s called back to earth by the arrival of a telegram announcing some very happy news. The museum’s expedition in Utah has finally found the brontosaurus’ intercostal clavicle! David is thrilled because it’s the last bone they need to complete the fossil!

Fun fact: This oft-mentioned “intercostal clavicle” is not a real bone. It’s an invented body part with a nonsensical name that is perfect for this film and genre: intercostal means “between ribs” and clavicle is another word for “collarbone.” Obviously you can’t have an “intercostal” clavicle; even a brontosaurus doesn’t keep his shoulders inside his ribs. The screenwriters could have used the name of an actual dinosaur bone, but instead they opted for a name that is as wacky and illogical as the film.

Also, if the intercostal clavicle is the last bone that David needs to complete the brontosaurus, then doesn’t that suggest that all the other bones have been found and properly placed? So why can’t David figure out where to put that other bone (the one he held at the beginning of the scene)?

Anyway, David is so delighted at the news that he grabs a severe-looking young lady and plants a kiss on her cheek. She shies away from him as though he’s a repulsive stranger. The woman is Alice Swallow (Virginia Walker), and her reaction is particularly odd because she is engaged to David! They plan to get married the following day.

Fun fact: Virginia Walker was the first actress that Howard Hawks signed to a personal contract. He “loaned” her to RKO to play Miss Swallow. She married Hawks’ brother William (Bill) just a few months after making this movie in June 1938.

David says that he can’t wait to celebrate, but Miss Swallow crushes his hopes of a honeymoon. Now that the intercostal clavicle has been found, she insists that they come straight back to the museum after they are married so that David can get on with his work. The completion of the brontosaurus is much too important to delay for such a minor event as their marriage.

She tells a crestfallen David that their relationship should never interfere with his vital paleontological efforts.

David is bummed. He rather hoped they might have children (and sex.) Alice gestures grandly at the enormous fossil and announces, “This will be our child!” She’s a real firecracker.

David and Alice table their discussion of offspring (it’s not a great sign that they haven’t talked about it yet, right?) because David has an appointment to play golf with Mr. Peabody (George Irving), the lawyer of a wealthy benefactor who might give one million dollars to the museum.

Fun fact: one million dollars in 1938 money is about sixteen million in 2015 cash. So it’s a big deal.

David is pumped up for the encounter, telling Alice that “I’ll wow him! I’ll knock him for a loop!” His beloved fiancée responds, “David, no slang! Remember who and what you are!” Again, what a fun lady! You can watch this opening scene here.

David is so awkward that the golf game gets off to a rough start. But things really go downhill when David’s ball lands on an adjacent green and a young woman, Susan Vance (Hepburn), thinks it is hers. He shouts to her but she hits it anyway, and when he joins her to explain, she doesn’t seem to understand.

Fun fact: it’s a treat to watch Hepburn play golf in this film. She was a gifted athlete, and fourteen years later she would play a professional golfer and tennis player in Pat and Mike (1952).

Once Susan sinks a long putt, David collects the ball and shows her that it bears the Crow Flight logo, a circle, not the PGA logo that she says she uses. He has proven that the ball is his, but she still doesn’t get it:

If you don’t enjoy absurd, nonsensical exchanges like this one, you may not love this film…it’s basically 102 minutes of such screwiness.

David returns to Mr. Peabody and they try to restart their game. But David leaves the lawyer a second time when he sees Susan attempting to drive off in his car! I say “attempting” because she’s struggling to pull out of the parking space without demolishing the bumpers on David’s car and the one parked next to it. David yells, “I’ll be with you in a minute, Mr. Peabody!” and runs to the parking lot.

David tries to make her understand that she is driving his car, but his efforts are useless, as we knew they would be. 

As he gets more and more frustrated trying to make her realize that she is driving his car, she says archly, “Your golf ball? Your car?”

His “Yes, thank heaven, you!” answer makes her mad so she peels out of the parking spot with David perched on the running board. David yells the now familiar refrain, “I’ll be with you in a minute, Mr. Peabody!” as Susan speeds away. You can watch this scene here.

The film cuts to the Ritz Plaza Hotel. Mr. Peabody is having dinner there, and David is hoping to catch him and apologize. David has squirmed into his impeccable white tie and tails to visit the fancy hotel, but it’s not the usual Cary Grant-in-a-tuxedo look. David looks ill at ease and deeply uncomfortable in his evening kit. His stride is choppy and uneven, and he seems twitchy and unsure how to act in such a swanky place.

His discomfort is adorably illustrated early in the scene with the hat check girl. She offers to take his top hat, he mumbles and stutters, can’t decide if he should hand it over, and ends up dropping it on the floor. “I dropped my hat,” he says, unnecessarily. Then he bumps heads with the girl as they both bend down to reach for it. As she walks away, hatless, she gives him an odd look.

Cary Grant via: https://chifferobeevents.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/celebrating-oscar/

If you’re used to Cary Grant as Mr. Suave, you’ll be amazed at how dorky and awkward he is as David. In films like Notorious (1946) and To Catch a Thief (1955), or even another screwball comedy like The Awful Truth (1937), Grant emanates graceful, debonair sophistication. He seems both to have been born in a tuxedo and born to wear one. But as Dr. David Huxley, Grant’s personality and physicality change. He becomes a mumbling, bumbling, self-conscious, awkward scientist, though he’s still the most handsome man you’ll ever see!

Bringing Up Baby certainly isn’t the only film that plays with and against Grant’s image as the ultimate suave gentleman, but this film takes it further than most, except perhaps for Monkey Business (1952) or Father Goose (1964). Grant actually played against type quite often, but the power of his sophisticated, debonair star image is always humming in the background, and that’s part of what makes these wacky characters so amusing and wonderful.

Anyway, as David waits for Mr. Peabody to arrive, we visit the hotel bar. The bartender is showing Susan a trick where you throw olives into glasses. When she attempts it, one of the olives lands on the floor. And David promptly slips on it and hits the floor in a terrific pratfall. 

He lands on his hat and crushes it–an extra joke since the hat would have been safe if he had checked it! Susan apologizes and tries to explain about the olive. David responds sarcastically: “First you drop an olive, and then I sit on my hat. It all fits perfectly.”

David’s pratfall is the first of many slapstick moments, and Grant especially can hardly stay on his feet in this film. As philosopher Stanley Cavell wrote in Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage (which counts Bringing Up Baby and other screwball comedies among its case studies), these films include “the comic convention according to which the awakening of love causes the male to lapse into trances and to lose control of his body, in particular to be everywhere in danger of falling down or of breaking things.” Normally dignified Grant finds himself in that danger almost constantly in this film.

David walks away from Susan hoping never to see her again. But Susan has other ideas. She migrates to another table and begins practicing the olive trick while she smiles at David, who tries to ignore her.

As one might expect, the table’s occupant is bewildered by this stranger’s presence. But Susan introduces herself without a hint of embarrassment. She doesn’t seem constrained by society’s rules, and we like her for it. This is one way that the film sets up Susan as Miss Swallow’s opposite. Remember how Miss Swallow chastised David for using slang, and otherwise stretching the rules of polite society? Well, Susan breaks more conventions than she upholds, and she has a wonderful time doing it.

The man at the table is a noted psychiatrist named Dr. Fritz Lehman (Fritz Feld). Susan asks the famous doctor about David’s puzzling behavior, explaining that “He just follows me around and fights with me.”

The Doctor diagnoses the situation immediately; the young man must be in love with her! After all, “The love impulse in man frequently reveals itself in terms of conflict.” Susan is thrilled with this interpretation! She grabs her purse from the table and heads over to David to explain why he is fixated on her.

Costume appreciation break. This sleek lame evening gown is perfect for Hepburn’s slender frame. I like how it wraps around in the front, and stays  elegant with a simple sash.

The veil is an odd choice, though, because in black and white it disappears against her dark hair so that only the metallic trim is visible. It looks as though she’s got a floating halo around her shoulders. Howard Greer designed the costumes for this film.

In the middle of explaining to David that he loves her, Susan realizes that the purse she is holding isn’t hers. She hands it to David and goes to look for her missing purse.

Meanwhile, Dr. Lehman’s wife (Tala Birell) returns from the powder room and realizes that her purse is gone. They start freaking out (it had her diamond pin in it!), and just then David walks by their table holding the purse. Mrs. Lehman thanks him for returning her purse, but when she reaches for it he refuses to give it back. He still thinks it’s Susan’s, you see.

Susan watches it all from the bar. Eventually she intervenes and smoothes things over. You can watch the scene here.

Poor, poor David. He’s had enough of Susan’s nonsense, and he tries to escape. But she follows him and grabs his tails to stop him. His jacket rips, of course.

Running from her didn’t work, so now David tries to get rid of Susan by playing a version of hide and seek, only without the seeking. This makes Susan mad, and she turns away to leave. But David’s foot was on her train, and the whole back panel of her skirt rips clean off as she moves away. 

Susan doesn’t realize that her skirt is gone, and David’s attempts to keep her covered just infuriate her. But eventually she figures it out, and pulls David close behind her so she can walk out of the hotel without flashing everyone. 

Naturally, Mr. Peabody arrives just as David and Susan are marching out. So Susan has managed to mess up yet another meeting between David and the lawyer. You can watch this amazing scene here.

According to TCM, this scene was inspired by a real-life incident. Cary Grant was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art seated next to the manager of the museum and his wife in a theater. At one point, Grant stood up to let the wife walk by. He noticed that his fly was unzipped, so he unobtrusively zipped it up just as the woman passed him. But he accidentally zipped part of her dress into his fly, and the zipper stuck! Grant and the woman had to walk in lockstep to the manager’s office to get some pliers. Grant told Hawks about the incident, and they added it to the film.

In fact, this movie was a very collaborative production. Hawks welcomed improvisation and ideas, and Grant and Hepburn would often arrive on the set early to practice new bits.

Hawks, Grant, and Hepburn on the set via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/568/Bringing-Up-Baby/#

After leaving the Ritz Plaza in such spectacular fashion, Susan takes Grant to her apartment to change clothes and sew up his jacket. He tells her about his botched meetings with Mr. Peabody, and Susan realizes that Mr. Peabody is “Boopy,” a very close family friend. (I guess she didn’t see him when they walked by in the lobby?) She can help David clear everything up!

Susan is less excited when David mentions that he is engaged to Miss Swallow… but she still wants to help him with Boopy. How cute is her pajama-esque outfit?

She even posed for publicity photos in the costume:

via: http://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Summaries/B/Bringing%20Up%20Baby.htm

They drive out to Boopy’s house, but he’s asleep. So Susan grabs a handful of pebbles and throws them at his bedroom window to wake him up. She doesn’t think the first flurry did it, so she grabs a bigger rock and hurls it towards the window, where it hits Boopy right in the forehead. He’s knocked out, so David and Susan hightail it out of there.

David rather hopes that this is the end of his relationship with Susan. He gets out of the car, puts on his crumpled top hat, and wishes her what he fervently hopes is a final farewell:

Susan smiles calmly at David’s speech, guffaws when he falls flat on his face as he turns to go, and looks very determined as he walks away. She intends to see him again, and she usually gets what she wants.

The next morning, David updates Alice on the Mr. Peabody situation over the phone. Their confused conversation goes around and around like this: Alice: “Did you speak with Mr. Peabody?”  David: “Yes, I spoke to him twice, but I didn’t talk to him.”

A delivery man comes to the door with the all-important intercostal clavicle. David tells Alice that he’ll meet her at the museum right away and hangs up. But on his way out the door, Susan calls. And David stupidly answers.

She’s calling about her new leopard named Baby. Her brother Mark caught him while hunting in South America, but Susan isn’t sure what to do with him. David is the only “zoologist” she knows, so she thought he could help. But David flatly refuses. He needs to go to the museum and then get married that afternoon. There’s no time for what he suspects is a fictional leopard.

While Susan talks to David, Baby rubs against her like an enormous kitten, and Susan pets him absent-mindedly. It’s a real leopard, obviously, but Hepburn acts as though it’s the most normal thing in the world.

Fun fact: in Wilde’s short story, Baby is a panther, but RKO couldn’t find any trained panthers. There was a trained leopard named Nissa, though, who’d been in several B-movies, so the panther became a leopard. For more on Nissa, visit Animal-Actors.blogspot.com.

Another fun fact: Grant was terrified of Nissa, but Hepburn had no fear and enjoyed the leopard scenes.

She wrote in her autobiography that “I didn’t have brains enough to be scared, so I did a lot of scenes with the leopard just roaming around. Olga Celeste, the trainer, had a big whip. We were inside a cage–Olga and I and the leopard–no one else… The camera and sound were picked up through holes in the fencing. The first scene I had was in the floor-length negligee, walking around…The leopard followed me around pushing at my thigh, which they covered with perfume. I would pat its head. The scene went very satisfactorily.”

Susan gets upset when David refuses to help, and she trips on the telephone cord. David hears her fall and assumes that the leopard is attacking! Susan realizes his mistake and plays it up, certain he’ll come rescue her. And he does, but not before tripping on his own telephone cord. You can watch the scene here.

Here is Hepburn filming this scene:

David is understandably shocked to see a very healthy looking Susan answer the door. He assumes that she made the whole leopard thing up just to get him to her apartment. But a quick glance in the bathroom convinces him otherwise.

David is terrified, but Susan insists that Baby is as gentle as a kitten. She reads Mark’s letter to prove how tame Baby is, showing David that Baby even “likes dogs!” Although:

David says “This is probably the silliest thing that ever happened to me,” but it’s about to get even sillier because Susan lets the leopard out of the bathroom, and puts on his favorite song “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby.” Baby responds favorably to the song and to terrified David. You can watch this scene here.

As I mentioned, Grant was absolutely terrified of the leopard and didn’t want to work with him. Indeed, in Charlotte Chandler’s I Know Where I’m Going: Katharine Hepburn, A Personal Biography, Grant is quoted as saying “I make an effort to get along with all of my co-stars, the director, everyone on the set, but I did not wish to establish a relationship with Baby.”

Unlike Hepburn, Grant is rarely in the same shot with Nissa, and never in such close proximity as Hepburn is–that’s not Grant’s foot in the leopard’s paws, for example. Hepburn had very little compassion for Grant’s fear of the leopard, and once she even tormented him by throwing a stuffed leopard into his dressing room through the ceiling vent!

In her autobiography, Hepburn remembered how her costume in this scene caused a big problem. They filmed this scene and the negligee scene back to back, and Hepburn changed into “a knee-length dress with tabs on the bottom of the skirt covering metal pieces to make the skirt swing prettily.” (You can see the tabs and those fantastic strappy heels below.)

It was all going fine until Hepburn moved and her skirt flared: “…one quick swirl and that leopard made a spring for my back, and Olga brought that whip down right on his head. That was the end of my freedom with the leopard.”

As you’ll see, most of the leopard scenes were filmed using rear projection or process shots so that the leopard could be filmed apart from the actors. Occasionally the filmmakers even used a leopard puppet instead of the real cat.

Susan asks David to help her take Baby to her farm in Connecticut. She needs to move the leopard because her Aunt Elizabeth, who has one million dollars to bestow, is visiting New York soon, and Susan doesn’t want her to know about Baby. Her frantic explanation includes this beautiful run-on: “If you had an aunt who was going to give you a million dollars if she liked you and you knew she wouldn’t like you if she found a leopard in your apartment, what would you do?”

David refuses to help and leaves the apartment. But Susan gets Baby to follow him. Meanwhile, she gets in her car (which isn’t even a convertible so I’m not sure how she mistook David’s car for her own at the golf course) and drives alongside David and Baby on the sidewalk. Poor David has no idea that the leopard is walking beside him, and he has no choice but to jump in the car when he does realize it. So they are off to Connecticut!

Sidenote: You just have to go with this movie. It is not logical because the characters are illogical. They don’t behave like sensible people and the movie gets deeper and deeper into their silliness. So if you fight the outrageous plot and characters then you will not enjoy the brilliance of the film, and it will all become tiresomely nonsensical.

Once in the car, David bemoans the direction the last 24 hours have taken. But Susan says that she has has a wonderful time! David looks at her with confused wonder: “You look at every thing upside down! I’ve never met anyone quite like you.”  He doesn’t mean it as a compliment, but Susan probably takes it that way.

Besides the leopard chewing on Susan’s backseat, the drive is fairly uneventful until Susan rear ends a poultry truck. You may recall that farcical situations are a hallmark of screwball comedy. There have already been several in this movie, but few can top this scene. You’ve got chickens, ducks and swans loose on the road, Susan holding tight to Baby’s tail to keep him from jumping out of the car, and David and Susan singing “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby” in an effort to calm the hungry leopard.

Cut to a few minutes later. Baby just enjoyed an easy feast of fresh poultry, and David is irritable and covered in feathers. This is not how his day was supposed to go.

Susan, meanwhile, is upset that they had to pay for the birds that Baby ate. She thinks they should have run away, instead. But David responds with these sage words: “When a man is wrestling a leopard in the middle of the pond, he is in no position to run!”

Susan is also upset that they hit the truck in the first place, though she neatly sidesteps any culpability. As she tells David:

The pair stop in a small town to pick up Baby’s dinner. While David shocks the butcher with his order of thirty pounds of raw sirloin steak for “Baby,” Susan parks in front of a fire hydrant (which they call a fire plug). The town constable (Walter Catlett) comes by and writes her a ticket, but she’s more concerned that Baby jumped from her car into the one next to it than with the ticket.So Susan does what any rational person would do when their leopard jumped into another person’s car; she steals the car with Baby in it. David has to hitch a ride on the running board yet again as Susan peels out down the street.

In a grand coincidence, the stolen car belongs to Dr. Lehman, who lives nearby. We’ll see him again.

David and Susan finally arrive at the farm and get Baby settled in a horse stall in the barn. David rushes to take a shower, after which he plans to return to New York for his wedding. But Susan sneaks into the room, steals his clothes, and sends them into town to be cleaned and pressed. She is determined to keep David with her, no matter what.

When David gets out of the shower, he puts on the only clothes he can find, which happens to be a marabou feather-trimmed negligee. He looks ridiculous, but he’s past caring at this point. He’s on his way to see if the gardener has any spare clothes when the doorbell rings.

It’s Aunt Elizabeth (May Robson), the one with a million dollars to give away. David greets her rather aggressively, but she comes right back at him with the very pertinent question of “Who are you?” He answers, “I don’t know. I’m not quite myself today.”

When she asks him why he is wearing those silly clothes, he loses his temper, jumps up in the air and shouts, “Because I just went gay all of the sudden!”

Fun fact: this moment is famous as one of the first times that the word gay was used to mean homosexual in a movie. It was improvised by Grant on the set, which partly explains how it got by the Production Code Administration’s ban on explicit mentions of homosexuality. (For more on the Production Code, visit my History Through Hollywood post here.) You can watch this scene here.

Susan rushes to explain things to Aunt Elizabeth. She tells her aunt that David is one of Mark’s friends and that he had a nervous breakdown. Aunt Elizabeth’s terrier, George, barks incessantly at David throughout this conversation. David very maturely hisses back at the dog and tries to make Susan and Aunt Elizabeth understand:

Susan spins wilder and wilder tales until David stomps on her foot to shut her up. It’s pretty funny to see him act in such an aggressive way while dressed in such a frilly robe. Then he rushes off to Mark’s room to search for more appropriate attire.

Fun fact: you may recognize George the dog from any number of films. George is played by Asta (originally known as Skippy), who is famous for his work as Asta in The Thin Man movies and as Mr. Smith in The Awful Truth. This was Grant’s second time working with the terrier.

David finds riding breeches, a tail coat, and a pair of sandals in Mark’s room. You can’t blame Susan for bursting out laughing at the sight of him!

When she calms down, she tells David that Aunt Elizabeth is the benefactor whom Mr. Peabody represents. It’s Aunt Elizabeth who is considering giving David one million dollars for the museum. Which means that Susan is competing with David for her aunt’s fortune. David is distraught.

He makes Susan promise that she will never tell Aunt Elizabeth that the crazy man in the negligee is Dr. David Huxley. She promises, but follows up his solemn conversation with this complimentary non-sequitor:

David is about to leave when he realizes that the intercostal clavicle is gone! George took it out of the box, and it might be lost forever. When David moans that it took three expeditions and five years to find that bone, Susan has a helpful suggestion: “Now that they know where to find them, couldn’t you send them back to get another one?”

David runs out of the house to find George, and so begins an afternoon of following the dog around and digging holes with him in hopes of finding the bone.

They find three pairs of boots, but no intercostal clavicle. During a brief interlude in the hunt, Susan tells Aunt Elizabeth that David is a big game hunter named Mr. Bone, but she neglects to give David that crucial information…

Hepburn knitting between takes  via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/568/Bringing-Up-Baby/#

Fun fact: the outdoor scenes were filmed at the Bel Air Country Club in LA and the Arthur Ranch in Malibu, though the farmhouse was a set at the Columbia Ranch. You may recognize it from Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). For more on the house, visit HookedOnHouses.net for great pictures and details of the set.

That evening, one of Aunt Elizabeth’s pals, a big game hunter named Major Applegate (Charlie Ruggles), joins them for dinner. Aunt Elizabeth tells him the sad story of Mr. Bone’s recent nervous breakdown, and kindly Major Applegate attempts to engage David through tales of big game hunting. But his efforts fall flat. All David cares about is keeping an eye on George. He is still hoping the “fiendish” terrier will lead him to the intercostal clavicle.

David’s preoccupation makes dinner a rather trying affair. He constantly pops up out of his seat to follow George on brief jaunts into the yard or around the house. He also refuses to play along with his Mr. Bone persona, leading Major Applegate (or Appletree, as David mistakenly calls him) to bumble along alone.

Meanwhile, the gardener, Gogarty (Barry Fitzgerald), sneaks off to the barn to retrieve his hidden bottle of booze. It just so happens to be concealed inside Baby’s stall, and naturally Gogarty doesn’t close the door on his way out.

Baby follows the drunk gardener outside and lets loose with some leopard howls. Major Applegate, who just so happens to be an expert in animal cries, assures the others that the eerie noises are loon calls.

He demonstrates a leopard’s cry to show them the difference, and Baby answers with more howls. Major Applegate is flummoxed: “I can’t understand why a loon would answer a leopard’s cry,” he says to Aunt Elizabeth. Susan and David keep quiet.

This bizarre dinner party finally breaks up when Baby cuddles up to Gogarty on the porch.

Gogarty is understandably terrified and runs into the house babbling about a leopard. Everyone assumes he is just drunk, but of course David and Susan know better. They run to the barn to check on Baby and are horrified when they see the empty stall. David tries to calm a hysterical Susan, but it doesn’t work very well:

They decide to call the zoo and tell them that there is a leopard roaming around. Hopefully the zoo people will come out and catch Baby. So David calls the zoo and Susan goes back to the dinner table.

She is shocked when Aunt Elizabeth opens a newly arrived telegram from Mark asking how she likes Baby. It seems that Aunt Elizabeth has always wanted a leopard, and Baby was actually intended for her! I’m not sure why Mark didn’t make that clear to Susan, but there you go.Susan hurries to tell David not to call the zoo–she doesn’t want them to take Aunt Elizabeth’s leopard away! But she’s too late. The zoo’s staff is already out searching for Baby, and David told them they can keep the cat if they find him! Oh dear!

Costume appreciation break. Susan’s dress has ruffles at the hem, sleeves, and all around the bodice, as well as a scalloped neckline, a jaunty neck bow, and a sash. It won’t be in this pristine state for long, though.

David and Susan head off into the night to try and catch Baby before the zoo does. George ran off while they were on the phone, so David keeps an eye out for the terrier, too.

But Aunt Elizabeth and Major Applegate stumble on Baby first as they stroll around the house. 

They run back inside, but then the Major grabs a gun and heads back out to hunt down the dangerous beast. So now David and Susan are competing against the zoo people and Major Applegate to find Baby first.

They stumble through the woods with a butterfly net and a croquet mallet, the classic leopard hunting tools.

Left via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/568/Bringing-Up-Baby/#

Traipsing through the woods at night presents many opportunities for slapstick, and Hawks and his stars hit them all. For example, Susan gets whacked in the face by branches as she follows David through a thicket. When she asks if maybe she should go first, David answers chivalrously that she’d better not because she might get hurt. She thanks him and then takes a tremendous thwack in the face from branches he releases as he walks on.

So she drops to all fours and crawls behind him to avoid the slingshotting foliage. When he turns around and sees her on her hands and knees, he comes up with an incredibly incongruous explanation for her position:

Susan assures David that she is not, in fact, playing squat tag, and they continue on. But then David takes a terrific fall down a dusty cliff. Susan laughs so hard at his slide that she loses her balance and tumbles down after him, the butterfly net landing directly on his head.

It makes me laugh just thinking about it! It might be my favorite moment in the movie, especially when Grant cracks a tiny smile when Hepburn pulls the net up and it snags on his nose. You can watch the scene here.

Susan and David eventually spot Baby and George. The animals are wrestling in a clearing, but it seems to be a friendly bout. I’m not sure how they were able to film that scene with confidence, as it really is Asta and Nissa rolling around and pawing at each other. If Nissa got mad…but everything turned out okay.

Susan and David have to cross a small stream to get to the animals, but Susan assures David that it’s shallow, and they stride boldly across. But just two steps in, and the water is over their heads. Susan sputters: “The riverbeds changed!” as they swim back to the bank.

They stop to dry off, and of course Susan sets fire to one of David’s socks. Typical.

As they pause by the fire, we cut to the circus in the nearby town.

The circus’ leopard has just attacked its trainer, and a driver is assigned to take the condemned animal to Bridgeport.

Now that we’ve gotten this important information, we head back to the woods. Susan and David come across the circus truck with a caged leopard in the back.

They assume that it’s the zoo’s truck, and that the leopard is Baby. After all, how many leopards are in Connecticut? But we know that the leopard in the back is the dangerous one. While David distracts the two men, Susan releases the leopard. “Baby” snaps at her as she lets him out of the truck, and he doesn’t seem to want his leash. Susan is confused. The leopard jumps out of the truck and runs off into the woods.

So now there are two leopards loose in Connecticut! And one is not nice at all.

Susan and David run after the leopard and hear shots. It’s Major Applegate, and he’s shooting at Baby/the bad leopard! David and Susan explain that the leopard is the one that Aunt Elizabeth has been waiting for, so Major Applegate puts down his rifle and helps with the search.

It’s time for another pratfall, and Susan and David oblige with another rolling tumble. This time, David’s glasses get smashed. He doesn’t mind too much, though:

Susan broke one of her heels in the fall, so she amuses herself by parading back and forth with her new limp. “I was born on the side of a hill,” she chants.

Fun fact: according to TCM, this “born on the side of a hill” business was an improvisation. Hepburn actually did break a heel accidentally during filming, and when she stood up she started comically limping around the set. Grant apparently whispered the “hill” line into her ear, and Hawks liked it so he kept it in the film. You can watch the scene here.

But David isn’t in the mood for jokes anymore. He tells Susan that he’s going to keep looking for Baby, but that she’d better go home. And this makes Susan very upset! She just wants to be with David, and it hurts that he doesn’t feel the same way. He consoles her and eventually agrees that she can stay with him. They almost kiss, too, but David averts his face at the last moment.

And then it’s back to leopard hunting! They see Baby on the roof of a house, so they do what any normal person would do, and begin singing Baby’s favorite song to get him to come down. George is there, too, so he contributes to the serenade. I love this moment because Susan and David seem to forget why they are singing and instead focus on harmonizing!

Their less-than-dulcet tones awaken the house’s occupants. Guess who lives there? Why, Dr. Lehman and his wife, of course! When the doctor appears at his window, David and George skedaddle, but Susan stands her ground and keeps singing to Baby. 

The doctor and his wife don’t believe Susan when she says she is singing in order to catch the leopard who is sitting on their roof. Shocking, right? Dr. Lehman assumes that Susan is insane, and he goes downstairs to bring her inside. Baby runs off, and when David approaches the house to see what is happening with Susan, the constable happens by and thinks that David is a peeping Tom! 

Next thing we know, Susan and David are both locked in jail! But nothing can dampen Susan’s spirit!

Constable Slocum calls Aunt Elizabeth to see if Susan really is her niece. Aunt Elizabeth gives him a furious denial, stating that her niece is asleep in bed! It seems that David and Susan will be stuck in jail for a while.

When Aunt Elizabeth realizes that Susan is not actually at home, she and Major Applegate go down to the jail. But the Constable doesn’t believe that they are who they say they are either, so he locks them up! Gogarty ends up in a cell, too, and soon everyone is collected behind bars.

But Susan has a plan! She drops her high society accent and announces to Constable Slocum that she is “Swingin’ Door Suzy” of the “Leopard Gang” out of Buffalo!

Using outdated slang so that she sounds like a gangster’s moll, Suzy announces to the absolutely astounded group that she’s going to spill the beans on their whole operation! She blames it on “Jerry the Nipper,” yet another new name for poor David. Suzy tells the Constable that if Jerry hadn’t double-crossed her with another dame, she might have kept her mouth shut!

David tries to stop things before they get too far with a desperate plea:

Fun fact: “Jerry the Nipper” was not a random fake name. In The Awful Truth (1937), Irene Dunne calls Grant “Jerry the Nipper” when she is pretending to be his unsophisticated, burlesque dancing sister. So when David says, “she’s making all this up out of motion pictures she’s seen,” he’s telling the truth!

When the Constable brings Suzy over to his desk, he notices her limp. He asks if it’s an old bullet wound, and she responds, “No, I lost my heel,” meaning the heel on her shoe. But the Constable immediately answers back, “Well, don’t bother about him,” thinking she means her unfaithful lover, Jerry! It’s a great moment that goes by so fast you might miss it.

The Constable can’t believe his luck at snaring the notorious Leopard Gang. He begins interrogating Susan while Dr. Lehman and the deputies take furious notes. Susan nonchalantly works her way over to the window. When Constable Slocum looks away for a moment, she slips neatly out the window and into the night! You can watch the scene here.

Fun fact: unlike Grant, Hepburn did not have a background in comedy. Up until this point she’d acted mainly in dramas, so she wasn’t quite sure how to do screwball. When they started filming, instead of reading the hilarious lines and letting them be funny on their own, she “overacted.” As Hawks remembered: “‘The great trouble is people trying to be funny. If they don’t try to be funny, then they are funny.” Hepburn was trying too hard, and Hawks wasn’t having much success with her, so he called on Walter Catlett, a comic who had worked in vaudeville, the Ziegfeld Follies, and Broadway for years.

Hawks recalls in Hawks on Hawks that he sent Hepburn to talk with Catlett, and “She came back from talking with him and said, ‘Howard, hire that guy and keep him around here for several weeks, because I need him.’ And from that time on, she knew how to play comedy better, which is just to read lines.’” Hawks cast Catlett as the constable, so you can see Hepburn’s comedy mentor in action in the film.

Just after Susan escapes, Mr. Peabody and Miss Swallow arrive at the jail. They have come to sort things out. Dr. Lehman recognizes Mr. Peabody from some trial, and he tells the Constable that he has made a huge mistake.

Then the drivers from the circus arrive and ask for the Constable’s help in tracking down their dangerous leopard. They’ve barely had time to tell their story when Baby wanders in. The circus guys realize that Baby isn’t the leopard they were transporting, which means that there are two different cats loose in Connecticut!

Since Baby is at the jail, Susan is searching the woods for the bad leopard! David wails about poor Susan just as the “helpless” heiress drags the dangerous leopard into the city jail.

It’s a wonderful visual joke.

I mentioned that many of the leopard scenes were filmed separately from the actors and then combined through process shots; Susan pulling the leopard into the jail is one of those. From some angles, you can see a break between the rope in Hepburn’s hands and the rope around the leopard’s neck. Also, as is typical with the leopard scenes in this movie, this sequence is broken up into alternating shots of Hepburn and Nissa, so that we don’t see both in the same frame very often.

Anyway, Susan drags the mean leopard into the jail and the assembled group (nearly everyone we’ve met up until this point) screams and runs into cells. Susan loses her nerve when she realizes she’s got a very dangerous cat on a leash. (“Baby” next to Aunt Elizabeth looks fake–this might be one of the times they used a puppet.)

When he sees that Susan is in danger, David’s inner lion tamer emerges. He maneuvers the bad leopard into a jail cell. But nervous, absent-minded professors can only play lion tamer for a few moments, and after the door closes on the bad leopard, David faints in Susan’s arms. 

I love this scene because both Susan and David get to be the heroes at different times. It’s not just David rescuing Susan or the other way around. They’re a good pair.

Cut to a few days later. We’re back at the museum. Miss Swallow breaks up with David, which is not surprising.

Then Susan rushes into the museum, and David climbs up the scaffolding to get away from her. But she has wonderful news. First, she followed George around for three days digging holes, and then that morning he put the intercostal clavicle in her shoe! And second, Aunt Elizabeth gave her the million dollars, but she is going to give it to the museum! 

David thanks her, then asks her to go away. But Susan, naturally, disregards his request and climbs up the ladder beside the brontosaurus. Sidenote: like the gold trimmed veil in the hotel scene, the pom-pom veil on Susan’s hat is an odd choice. It’s distracting and takes away from her face and expressions.

Here they are filming this scene:

Left via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/568/Bringing-Up-Baby/#

She asks David why he wanted her to go away, and he explains that she’s chaos in human form, and he was trying to do the responsible thing. But damn it! He doesn’t really want her to go away:

Susan begins swaying back and forth in her happiness, forgetting she is perched on a ladder high in the air. The rocking gets dangerous, and she climbs onto the dinosaur skeleton to keep from falling off the ladder. And of course a terrible thing happens. The fossil collapses beneath her weight and crashes to the ground. David just barely keeps Susan from falling, too.

Fun fact: Grant’s background as an acrobat (for more on that, check out To Catch a Thief) came in handy for this last scene when he has to hold a dangling Susan by the wrist. You can see a crew member holding a mattress beneath Hepburn for the second shot, but there wasn’t much below Hepburn when the fossil collapsed.

via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/568/Bringing-Up-Baby/#

Grant worked with Hepburn on the exact wrist hold and the timing for this stunt to make sure that neither one got hurt, but he was nervous about it.

In Charlotte Chandler’s biography of Katharine Hepburn, Grant recalled that although he would have preferred stunt doubles to perform it, Hepburn had no fear and wanted to do it themselves: “She said she knew I knew what I was doing. But the thing was, she was the one who had to do it just right. She really was a remarkable athlete, just as she has said. But you know, just the memory of that scene makes me shiver. If Kate had fallen, I’d never have forgiven myself. We were both crazy. Bringing Up Baby has always been called a ‘screwball comedy.’ Well, we were the two screwballs.”

They perormed the stunt in one take, and it worked perfectly. Once on the platform, the pair embrace, despite the destruction of David’s work. He loves her more than his dinosaur! Roll credits!

When this film was released in early 1938, Variety called Bringing Up Baby “the most frantic and whirligig of recent film funnies” with “general ludicrous hullaballoo.” (Its “whirligig” nature is due to the fact that the movie contains all the conventions and tropes of screwball comedy bundled into 102 minutes of nonstop nuttiness.)

Variety’s review of the film praised Grant and Hepburn, noting that Grant “carries his full share of the fantastic abandon in a goofy characterization which required unusual skill,” and “Miss Hepburn is more at home in this role, more zestful in its romping performance, than she has been in many of her esteemed vehicles. This type of playfulness becomes her essential spirit and she tackles it without restraint.”

But The New York Times took a less favorable view of the film. Frank S. Nugent wrote that it was packed with old jokes: “…we were content to play the game called ‘the cliché expert goes to the movies’ and we are not at all proud to report that we scored 100 percent against Dudley Nichols, Hagar Wilde, and Howard Hawks, who wrote and produced the quiz. Of course, if you’ve never been to the movies, Bringing Up Baby will be all new to you—a zany-ridden product of the goofy farce school. But who hasn’t been to the movies?”

Nugent differed with Variety in judging Hepburn’s performance, too: “Miss Hepburn has a role which calls for her to be breathless, senseless, and terribly, terribly fatiguing. She succeeds, and we can be callous enough to hint it is not entirely a matter of performance.” I beg to differ, because like Grant’s David, Hepburn’s Susan is different from many of her other characters. Hepburn played shy and self-conscious so brilliantly that it physically hurts to watch films like Alice Adams (1935) or Summertime (1955), but she could also, and perhaps more famously, embody confident, deeply intelligent, and competent characters as she does in Woman of the Year (1942) and Adam’s Rib (1949).

via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/568/Bringing-Up-Baby/#tcmarcp-142620-142619

Susan is in a different class, but Hepburn jumped right into this character who lacks the embarrassment gene and brims with self-confidence and courage.  Perhaps that’s why we like Susan so much despite the chaos she creates—she doesn’t let silly things like social conventions or accepted logic stop her from living the life she wants.

As I mentioned before, Bringing Up Baby was not a commercial success when it was released. It did okay in most cities, but it was a huge flop in New York and only played at Radio City Music Hall for one week.

Hawks’ explanation for the lukewarm reception of the movie was that he’d made a mistake by not including more “straight” or “normal” characters. In Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood, Hawks claimed that Bringing Up Baby “had a great fault and I learned an awful lot from that. There were no normal people in it. Everyone you met was a screwball and since that time I learned my lesson and don’t intend ever again to make everybody crazy.”

Since everyone is “screwball,” there is no one for the audience to identify with (unless you’re also daffy), which may have been one reason it didn’t so well when it was released. Without a normal core, the film spins off of its axis and careens into the wild unknown of screwball extremes. But that is partly why this film is so adored today—it is the quintessential screwball comedy that went further down the zany, twisting path than any other movie. That’s why scholar Morris Dickstein called the film “the greatest, certainly the wildest of these movies,” and critic Andrew Sarris called it the “screwiest of the screwball comedies.”

RKO was concerned about the movie’s prospects even during production, apparently asking Hawks to minimize the slapstick, add more straight romance, and even to remove Grant’s Harold Lloyd glasses. But Hawks stood his ground.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t vindicated until decades later, and was instead punished for the film. Hawks’ refusal to listen to RKO executives, the film’s lackluster box office, and the damnable fact that Bringing Up Baby went $306,000 over budget and forty days behind schedule, made RKO so mad that they removed him from Gunga Din (1939), and gave the film to director George Stevens.

RKO wasn’t thrilled with Hepburn, either. Unfortunately, this film was the last in a string of disappointing Hepburn releases. RKO doubted her box office appeal, and so did exhibitors.

Hepburn and Hawks via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/568/Bringing-Up-Baby/#

It was after the release of Bringing Up Baby that the Independent Theatre Owners of America included Hepburn on a list of actors they called “box office poison.” The list, published in the Independent Film Journal in May 1938, also included such legends as Joan Crawford, Fred Astaire, and Greta Garbo.

Today, the “box office poison” label slapped on Hepburn seems pretty hilarious, but at the time, Hepburn was not a popular star. RKO wanted out of their contract which stipulated that Hepburn make two more films with the studio. To get out of that agreement, RKO assigned her to a B-movie called Mother Carey’s Chickens. Rather than be forced to make the movie, Hepburn bought out her contract and went to Columbia to make Holiday (1938). When that film also faltered at the box office, she headed to Broadway. She would make a triumphant return to Hollywood with The Philadelphia Story (1940), and the rest is history.

Bringing Up Baby is an incredibly rich, dense movie, and you can find a lot if you start looking. The title, for example, is not as simple as you might think.“Bringing Up Baby” could refer to raising the leopard as in “raising a child.” This interpretation makes the title a joke, since David and Susan are pretty terrible at caring for Baby. Or it could be read as bringing up a topic of conversation, as in “let’s talk about the leopard,” which generally results in chaos. After all, it was when Susan “brought up” her leopard on the phone with David that things really got going. If only Susan had “brought up Baby” to her aunt! All their trouble (and fun) could have been avoided. Less likely is the idea of “bringing up Baby” to New York, as in sending Baby north from South America where Susan’s brother caught him. I like to think it’s a combination.

Robson, Hepburn, and Hawks on set  via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/568/Bringing-Up-Baby/#tcmarcp-142620-142605

Structurally, the movie features several instances of doubling and repetition. For example, the film is tidily bookended with Grant in the museum in the beginning and the end. And both times he’s with his fiancée, though it’s not the same woman.

The doubling continues throughout the film: Susan drives away with David riding on the running board twice, she steals two different cars, and the pair end up beneath a bedroom window at two different houses. There are two nearly identical purses, two confused phone calls with Alice, two missed appointments with Mr. Peabody, and of course two leopards! Even Miss Swallow and Susan could be considered doubles. They look alike, though they are the complete opposites in personality.

Much of the repetition contributes to the comedy—two purses and two leopards creates a comedic gold mine of confusion and mistakes, and poor David’s refrain of “I’ll be with you in a minute, Mr. Peabody!” becomes a running joke.

There’s a lot happening just below the surface, too. For example, you can read a great deal into David and Susan’s evening in the woods. Once outside of the city, and freed from the societal confines of the house and the adult world they inhabit with Aunt Elizabeth and Major Applegate, the pair can finally “get back to Nature” and fall in love.

They experience an almost prehistoric world (perfect for our paleontologist) of wild animals, the thrill of the hunt, fire, water (if a character gets dunked, you have to mention a cleansing baptism—it’s a rule of textual analysis), and honest emotion and conversation.

Civilization intrudes and controls; real connection and truth are easier to find in the wild. That could be a subtitle of screwball comedy—remove the constraints and let characters be weird and wild, and you’ll discover what is important and real.

You can also have fun with the “intercostal clavicle” that David needs for his brontosaurus. This oft-mentioned fossil is not a real bone. It’s an invented body part with a nonsensical name that is perfect for this film and genre: intercostal means “between ribs” and clavicle is another word for “collarbone.” Obviously you can’t have an “intercostal” clavicle; even a brontosaurus doesn’t keep his shoulders inside his ribs. The screenwriters could have used the name of an actual dinosaur bone, but instead they opted for a name that is as wacky and illogical as the film.

The intercostal clavicle brings us to the sexual reading. The word “bone” presents multiple and varied instances of innuendo.

For instance, poor David gets his bone the day of his wedding, loses it almost immediately, and spends the rest of the film searching for it with Susan’s eager assistance. Susan even dubs him “Mr. Bone,” which is rather funny considering it’s the one thing he doesn’t have.

To be fair, “Mr. Bone” also works as a reference to the minstrel show stock character “Mr. Bones” who was a goofy joke teller and singer. David also jokes and sings in this film, so the name could just be a reference to his character. But I doubt it.

The name of the leopard is suggestive, too, especially since Miss Swallow told David that their marriage “must entail no domestic entanglements of any kind,” and that the brontosaurus “will be our child.” In other words, no sex. So, if David chooses Miss Swallow, he gets an old fossil, but if he chooses Susan, he gets a living, breathing “Baby” ( and sex.) Beyond that comparison, it’s interesting that David and Susan spend so much of the film searching for the leopard. You could suggest that in “searching for Baby” they are also “searching for baby,” or the love, marriage, and sex (not always in that order) that lead to babies.

You can go pretty far with the sexual reading; indeed, in Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage, Stanley Cavell labels the film a “sexual allegory” all about marriage and sexuality. For example, when discussing the collapse of the fossil at the end of the film, he asks, “Is it meant to register the perimeter of human happiness, [David and Susan are in love, but David can’t have both the girl and the dinosaur] or the happenstance of it—like the breaking of the glass at the end of a Jewish wedding? Both surely comment upon the demise of virginity, but in this film it is the woman who directly causes it.”

via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/568/Bringing-Up-Baby/#tcmarcp-142620-142609

I’m not sure I’d go that far and suggest that the broken fossil symbolizes the physical consummation of their relationship; it seems more likely to me that the destruction of the brontosaurus illustrates the end of Miss Swallow and David’s relationship (she did call it their child), and proves that David no longer cares more about his work than anything else. Susan is his priority now, as demonstrated by their embrace after the dinosaur has crashed to the ground.

You can see why this film presents many different subtexts and readings. Of course, Bringing Up Baby is wonderfully entertaining at face value, too, so watch it however you like. And if you enjoy it, you can take a look at two loose remakes, What’s Up, Doc? with Barbra Streisand in 1972 and Who’s That Girl? with Madonna in 1987.

With its lackluster release, this film might have been forgotten had influential critics and scholars not resurrected it. In the 1950s and 60s, Howard Hawks became a favorite auteur of André Bazin and the Cahiers crowd, which prompted a re-examination of his work. Other critics, filmmakers, and scholars discovered that screwball comedy as a genre was quite interesting, and of course two mega-icons like Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant helped bring people back to the film. Today, it is recognized as a classic and a gem of the screwball genre, and ranked 88th on the American Film Institute’s “100 Years…100 Movies” list in 2007.

I didn’t know any of this when I first saw Bringing Up Baby as a kid. All I knew was that it made me laugh, and I loved watching it. Since then, my love for this movie has only grown. And as the credits roll, I have to agree with Cary Grant: “I’ve never had a better time!”

Here’s the trailer–enjoy! As always, thanks for reading! For more, follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm, and Facebook.

You can buy this great film here, and be sure to check out the other entries in the Classic Movie Blog Associations‘ Fabulous Films of the ’30s Blogathon!

via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/568/Bringing-Up-Baby/#tcmarcp-142620-142601

Variety quotes from Weekly Variety. 16 Feb 1938. 129: 10. 15.

Obviously I love to watch classic movies, but I also love to read about them. The Golden Age of Hollywood is an endlessly fascinating period (at least for me) so I’m always on the prowl for great books about classic films.

June Allyson selects her favorite movie books with Peter Lawford in Good News (1947)

I’ve compiled a list of some of my favorites, and I hope you’ll find something that strikes your fancy. I tend to prefer work on the “how” and “why” of classic Hollywood to books by critics discussing which movie is “better.”  So my picks skew towards history, especially of the studio system and how the movies and stars we love came to be.

Here are some of my favorites: the classic movie books I have enjoyed, learned from, and keep on my shelves for inspiration, reference, or re-reading. I’d love to know what you’re reading, so please leave a comment with your favorite classic movie books!

1. The Million Dollar Mermaid: An Autobiography by Esther Williams with Digby Diehl

All images of book covers come from Amazon

No surprises here! I’m a huge Esther Williams fan, and this charming, sassy autobiography of the one and only swimming movie star is far and away my favorite auto/biography of a Hollywood star. If you’re at all interested in the “million dollar mermaid,” this book is a must read. Williams relives her life and career with humor and honesty, and the book is packed with juicy tidbits and wonderful stories.

Even if you’re not that interested in Williams, I still highly recommend The Million Dollar Mermaid because it also offers a fantastic look at classic Hollywood and the studio system.

None of the other star biographies I have read give so much detail about daily life on set, or better describe what it was actually like to be a “star” in the 1940s-1950s. When you read this book, the abstract “dream factory” of classic Hollywood suddenly becomes real, glamorous warts and all.

Although Williams’ life was not perfect by any means, her story is not a downward spiral of manipulation, addiction, or destruction. Williams survived the studio system and her stardom, which makes The Million Dollar Mermaid a refreshing book in a sea of depressing biographies of doomed stars.

2. Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Sex, Deviance, and Drama from the Golden Age of American Cinema by Anne Helen Petersen

Esther Williams wrote in her autobiography that the stars “lived under the protection of the great god Public Relations, because the studio had set it up that way, with a kind of army all around us to keep scandal out of the papers.” This book takes a look both at the “army” that protected the stars, and what happened when it failed.

Scandals of Classic Hollywood is a recent release (2014) by film scholar Anne Helen Petersen, who specializes in celebrity gossip. (She also writes great articles for Buzzfeed.) The book delves into some of the most notorious trials, affairs, divorces, deaths, and other falls from grace in Hollywood history, including the Fatty Arbuckle trial, the stardom and deaths of Rudolph Valentino and James Dean, the romance of Bogart and Bacall, Judy Garland‘s tragic trajectory, and Dorothy Dandridge’s brief moment of Hollywood stardom.

But instead of just rehashing the sordid details or unearthing old rumors, Petersen draws on star image theory and cultural history to examine why certain scandals became so notorious, why different stars were held to vastly different standards, and why the public can be so unforgiving when a favorite star “betrays” their trust by doing something (or being rumored to have done something) that is not consistent with their public image.

Petersen also discusses near misses, the almost-scandals that could have derailed careers and destroyed stars but were kept out of the papers or neatly re-packaged into more palatable public versions, often thanks to the mighty studio publicity machines. (Scandals would be great paired with The Million Dollar Mermaid because Williams often discusses the disconnect between her image, so carefully, consciously constructed by MGM, and her reality.)

Carole Lombard during production of The Princess Comes Across. Lombard and Clark Gable’s romance is included in Petersen’s book. via: http://mariedeflor.tumblr.com/post/33782349396/carole-lombard-studies-the-script-on-the-set-of

Petersen peppers each chapter with splashy headlines and articles from fan magazines and tabloids to bring these decades-old scandals to life and illustrate how a star or scandal was understood back then as well as today.

Petersen doesn’t make moral judgments or even try to figure out what “really” happened. As she says several times in the book, the “truth” is less relevant to her study than the scandal: what the public believed, how it was “managed” or not, how it affected the star, and what it all says about American culture at that moment.

Although the scandals Petersen writes about are “old news,” the book is tremendously relevant to the celebrity-obsessed, scandal-hungry world of today. As she writes in the introduction, after reading this book, “You’ll never think about stars, Hollywood, or the machinations that create them in the same way again.”

3. Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of Casablanca–Bogart, Bergman, and World War II by Aljean Harmetz

If you love Casablanca (1942), you’ll really enjoy this exhaustively researched book. And if you don’t love Casablanca but like Old Hollywood, you’ll probably still enjoy it for its meticulous look at how movies got made.

Harmetz chronicles the making of Casablanca at the micro level, detailing every change and development in the casting, script, and production. She discusses how each person involved in the film came to be there, sometimes going back years and entire careers, and looks at how the Production Code, the Office of War Information, and WWII itself affected the film.

Harmetz’s detailed account never gets boring because Casablanca has an especially fascinating production history. For example, did you know that many of the actors playing refugees fleeing Hitler in the film were actually refugees who had fled Europe and landed in Hollywood? Or that the Production Code Administration requested quite a few changes to the film, especially in regards to the relationship between Ilsa and Rick? (For more on the Production Code, visit my post here.)

Round Up the Usual Suspects is one of the most thoroughly researched accounts of a single film out there, and, like The Million Dollar Mermaid, gives you an incredible insight into the workings of classic Hollywood. You’ll emerge from this book with a newfound respect and appreciation for the film and the system that produced it, as well as a sense of awe that so many moving parts converged to create this astoundingly timeless film.

4. Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer by Scott Eyman

Classic Hollywood biographer extraordinaire tackles Louis B. Mayer, Mr. MGM himself, in this wonderfully researched, nuanced book. Most other biographies of Mayer take a somewhat harsh and even unfair look at the man, but Eyman’s biography presents the polarizing figure with more complexity.

Beginning with Lazar Meir’s birth in what is now Belarus, Eyman traces the “lion of hollywood’s” path from Meir to Mayer: junk dealer to theater owner to film distributor to producer to head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and arguably one of the most powerful men in the country.

Mayer understood stars and he understood audiences, and for almost three decades he led MGM to the top of the Hollywood heap. He was intense, demanding, sometimes childish, and rarely forgiving, but without Mayer classic Hollywood might have been very different.

Eyman gives us a three-dimensional portrait of the man and the legend in this enjoyable biography. And along the way we get fascinating looks at MGM, the other Hollywood studios, famous people on and off the silver screen, and the movie business as it was in the 1920s-1950s.

5. The American Film Industry edited by Tino Balio

If you want to go deeper into classic Hollywood, this book is a great addition to your library. It’s an unparalleled collection of fantastic articles about the movies: beginning with the earliest days of moving pictures to the creation of Hollywood, the introduction of sound, vertical integration, the star, censorship, and even the House Un-American Activities Commitee hearings.

Some of the pieces are old (a 1932 Fortune Magazine feature about MGM is a particular favorite of mine), but most are newer articles by film scholars and historians.

The American Film Industry is an academic book, but it’s not as opaque as some, and the introductions to each section are extremely readable and give great overviews. It’s one of the better resources out there even forty years after it was first published. So if you want to get into the nitty-gritty of film history, this is a great book to choose.

6. MGM: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot by Steven Bingen, Stephen X. Sylvester, and Michael Troyan

In the studio era, almost everything was filmed on sets on the studios’ backlots. Temporary sets were built in cavernous soundstages (think of the “You Were Meant for Me” number in Singin’ in the Rain (1952)) and permanent outdoor sets were constructed on acres of land around the studios.

This book chronicles everything on the MGM lot: the dozens of buildings housing administrative and craft departments, the legendary commissary, rehearsal halls, recording studios, Esther Williams’ enormous, tricked-out pool, the zoo, power plants and railroad spurs, and the incredible collection of “Potemkin Villages” built on MGM’s 185 acre campus.

The book is packed with photos (you can see some on its website), and includes a list of each movie that used the “Fifth Avenue Street” or “Small Town Railroad Depot,” so it’s fun to go through and recognize the same location in different movies. It’s fascinating to see how the studios could re-make a street, building, square, or bridge for use in dozens of different films as dozens of different “places.”

For example: MGM built the “Victorian Street” for Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), but used it in many other films, including Good News (1947), which was set in the 1920s.

The image on the left is from production of Meet Me in St. Louis, via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/310/Meet-Me-in-St-Louis/#tcmarcp-146913-146901.  Image on the right is from Good News.

And you can see the same New York Street with the same theater marquee in The Band Wagon (1953) and Hit the Deck (1955):

MGM: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot is a dream for a movie nerd. Other books might mention the backlots or talk about how movies were made during the golden age, but this book shows you in glorious detail. It’s movie magic at its best, and you’ll come away with new, awe-filled respect for the hundreds and thousands of craftspeople who worked behind the scenes. This book also explains a big reason why the studio system became unsustainable; the overhead it took to maintain the backlots was astronomical.

MGM had the biggest backlot, but other studios had their own glorious worlds of make believe. Stephen Bingen wrote a similar book about Warner Bros, Warner Bros.: Hollywood’s Ultimate Backlot, which I can’t wait to peruse.

Get reading! For more, follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm, and Facebook. If you liked this list, check out my Great Classic Films for various occasions and audiences, and my picks of classic movies available to stream on Netflix.

As always, thanks for reading, and I’d love to hear what your favorite classic movie books are–leave me a comment!

Esther Williams in Dangerous When Wet (1953)

via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/133/Easy-to-Wed/#tcmarcp-352267  Unless otherwise noted, all images are my own.

In 1936, Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, and William Powell starred in a hit film called Libeled Lady. Hollywood has never been shy about exploiting past successes, so ten years later, MGM re-made the picture with Keenan Wynn, Esther Williams, Lucille Ball, and Van Johnson.

The basic plot is the same, though MGM added the obligatory swimming scenes, a few musical numbers, brilliant Technicolor, and a new name.

And voila! Libeled Lady was reborn as Easy to Wed. (I’m not going to compare the two versions except to say that Libeled Lady is a typical 1930s sharp comedy, and Easy to Wed is a typical 1940s musical stuffed with contract players and the added water stuff for Esther Williams. So quite different.)

When this film was made, Esther Williams and Van Johnson were some of the most popular stars in the country. They had just starred together in Thrill of a Romance (1945), and they would go on to make two more films together after this one, Duchess of Idaho (1950) and the similarly titled Easy to Love (1953).

MGM knew a successful formula when they saw one, so they paired their two All-American stars whenever they could. All told, Johnson and Williams were in five films together, though only four as the leads. (Williams had a tiny role in her first film with Johnson, 1943’s A Guy Named Joe.)

Williams and Johnson were the headlining stars, but Lucille Ball steals the picture. She would later call this film the highlight of her movie career, mostly because she was finally given a good part. This was pre-Television Lucy, and she’d been languishing in small movie roles that didn’t take advantage of her enormous talent.

Ball had been “Queen of the Bs” at RKO (B-movies were made at lower budgets to fill out the second half of a double feature), but at MGM she had been shunted into mostly small, sidekick-type roles since going under contract to that studio in 1943. Easy to Wed offered a much bigger, juicier part, plus, it was directed by Edward Buzzell, with whom Ball had worked before.

Buzzell had directed her in Best Foot Forward (1943), and he lobbied for her casting in Easy to Wed. The Johnson-Williams, Ball-Buzzell reunions weren’t the only ones on this film; in fact, the whole movie is an incestuous mass of buddies.

A platinum blonde Lucille Ball in Roberta (1935)

For example, Ball and Johnson already knew each other. He had been in “Too Many Girls” on Broadway with Ball’s future husband Desi Arnaz, and both men had been in RKO’s film version in 1940, which happened to star Lucille Ball. It was while filming Too Many Girls that Arnaz first met Ball, and they eloped that same year. Johnson remained a close friend of the couple.

Ball knew Keenan Wynn, too, from their work on Without Love (1945), and she’d also worked with dance director Jack Donohue on Best Foot Forward. With so many old friends running around, the production of this movie took on a lighthearted tone. For instance, according to TCM, Ball showed up to the first dance rehearsal in a wheelchair with her teeth blacked out and her arm in a sling. She had a sign that read “I am not working for Donohue.” But fortunately she was kidding. Donohue would later direct episodes of The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy in the 1960s-70s.

Now for the last tangled web. Johnson and Wynn were very good friends, and their friendship somewhat amazingly continued through a very tricky situation: Wynn’s wife divorced him to marry Johnson just a few months after this movie premiered. Johnson and Eve Wynn were married on January 25, 1947, just one day after her divorce from Keenan became official.

One of Ball’s costumes from the movie

After Johnson died in 2008, Eve began talking about their marriage and claimed it was all arranged by MGM to quell rumors that Johnson was gay. Apparently, Johnson’s sexuality was an open secret in Hollywood, but MGM was afraid it would get out to the general public. So they asked him to get married, and he said he would only marry Eve Wynn. And it went from there. This movie seems awfully prescient, because Johnson’s character marries Wynn’s fiancée, with his blessing!

To the film! We open outside of The Morning Star newspaper offices where men frantically try to collect every copy of the morning edition. A story was printed that may not have been entirely accurate, and the editor is terrified of a libel suit. Before we go on, let’s get a definition: libel is “a false written or published statement that defames a person or damages his reputation.” Slander, on the other hand, is a false, damaging statement that is spoken as opposed to written. This is all about a newspaper story, so we are dealing with libel.

The story that the paper is so desperate to retract concerns one of the richest women in the world, Connie Allenbury (Esther Williams). The Morning Star claimed that she had been involved in a fight over another woman’s husband at a party. The paper realized quickly after printing the story that it wasn’t actually true, and they’re hoping to retrieve every copy before Miss Allenbury finds out. She is a very litigious young woman, and has sued for libel before.

All but forty copies of the libelous newspaper are collected, and Mr. Farwood (Paul Harvey) the head of the paper, thinks they might just get away with it. But then he gets a phone call from J.B. Allenbury (Cecil Kellaway), Connie’s father. Oh, dear.

Somehow, the Allenburys heard about the story and are calmly, classily furious. They’re currently vacationing in Mexico City, but they don’t let that stop them from filing a two million dollar libel suit against The Morning Star. Two million roughly translates to 26 million in 2015 dollars, so the Allenburys definitely aren’t messing around. We later learn that Connie has a personal fortune of fifty million, so two is a mere pittance.

Here is Williams getting a quick wardrobe fix between takes of this scene:

via: http://esther-williams.com/about-esther/photo-gallery/

Mr. Farwood knows that if The Morning Star loses the suit, the paper will fold. And the story is clearly libel; Connie wasn’t even at the party mentioned in the article! Since The Morning Star can’t beat the lawsuit in court, he needs to save the paper another way. Mr. Farwood calls in his best editor, Warren Haggerty (Keenan Wynn), for a emergency meeting.

And Warren comes running, despite the fact that it is his wedding day, and he has already left his bride, Gladys, at the altar a few times before this! He seems excited to have an excuse not to go through with the wedding, actually. But his bride is not. Gladys (Lucille Ball) is absolutely incensed and storms into his office like a cyclone in a wedding dress.

Warren has no time for his jilted bride, and has Gladys forcibly removed from the premises. He’s not the most considerate guy ever, though he sure is a devoted employee of the paper. You can watch the scene here.

Fun fact: MGM pumped out the usual publicity photos for this film, including one of Johnson with Williams and Ball in wedding dresses. Ball is in the gown from this scene, but Williams (who doesn’t wear a wedding dress in this film) is clad in the gown she wore in Thrill of a Romance (1945):

via: http://www.lucyfan.com/photoweek251.html

Here is that gown and Ball’s dress from this film. Note the gorgeous silver detail on Ball’s bodice:

Anyway, now that his yelling fiancée is out of the picture, Warren turns his attention to saving the paper. He gets the brilliant idea of entrapping Connie Allenbury in the same type of situation recounted in the libelous story. He wants to “throw a man at her,” get her involved, and then reveal that the man is married. If he can catch her stealing someone’s husband, then he’s sure she’ll drop the libel suit to avoid the publicity. And the wife would have grounds to sue Connie for “alienation of affection!” This kind of makes sense.

Warren remembers a reporter named Bill Chandler who specialized in this kind of scheme (what an odd thing to make your life’s work.) Warren goes searching for Bill, who has bounced around the country since leaving The Morning Star, but, as luck would have it, just returned to New York! Warren heads to the swanky hotel where Bill is currently living. Warren makes the not unreasonable assumption that Bill must be doing pretty well for himself if he can afford to live there.

But we learn the truth in one of those handy close-ups of an explanatory letter.

Warren and Bill chat, and Bill agrees to help trick Connie into stealing a husband (him), but for a very hefty fee of $50,000. Warren agrees before realizing that Bill is broke and he could have gotten him for much, much less. But too late–the contract is signed! (Bill took the liberty of writing up the contract before Warren ever arrived. He’s a sharp guy, and he knew the paper was in trouble when he saw the Connie Allenbury story only in The Morning Star and only in its morning edition.)

Now that there is a “husband,” Warren has to find a “wife.” He volunteers his long suffering fiancée, and he and Bill go see her at her show, which gives MGM an excuse to include a musical number:

You can watch it here. You may recognize the pink dresses on the back-up dancers from Easter Parade (1948) or from Judy Garland‘s dressing room (on the rack) in Summer Stock (1950), but they were used in this film first.

Top: Easy to Wed, Left: Easter Parade, Right: Summer Stock

Anyway, at first Gladys refuses to marry Bill, as one might expect. But when Warren promises that the marriage won’t be real (he’ll keep the justice of the peace from signing the marriage certificate), and that Gladys won’t have to do anything “wifely” with Bill, she agrees. She loves Warren very much, apparently.

So Gladys puts on her smartest white and dusky blue suit, accessorized with her snappiest powder puff with pearl hatpin, and they head off to see a justice of the peace.

The ceremony is quick and unemotional, if you don’t count fiery Gladys’ disdain for the whole thing. She wants to marry Warren, but here she is getting hitched to this guy she just met!

Once pronounced “man and wife,” Gladys gives Bill a quick peck, but reserves her long smooch for Warren. This confuses the dear old magistrate, but Bill laughs it off.

Remember how Warren promised that the wedding wouldn’t be official? Well, he lied. Rather than keep the justice of the peace from signing the certificate, he makes sure the old man signs it. Warren couldn’t afford to have the scam fall apart on a technicality! So Gladys and Bill are legally married. And Gladys has yet another reason to be furious.

We leave Gladys and Warren and follow Bill down south to Mexico City where he can ensnare Miss Allenbury. I love this brief scene in the airplane. Glamorous midcentury air travel! And open overhead bins?

That’s Ben Blue beside Van Johnson. Blue plays Spike Dolan, Warren’ assistant, who is assigned to photograph Connie and Bill in compromising positions as proof of the affair. Blue was a character actor who appeared in small, comedic roles in many films and TV programs from the late 1920s-1970s.

The pair arrive in Mexico City and head for the pool. Fun fact: According to IMDB, Fidel Castro, yes, that Fidel Castro, appears in this pool scene on the left side of the screen. I think it’s the guy in the brown and dark red outfit, but I can’t be sure. Apparently Castro was an extra at MGM very briefly? I can’t find great verification on this, but it’s too weird not to mention.

Also, it looks like MGM reused the painted backdrop from the hotel scenes in Thrill of a Romance. They changed the umbrellas, though.

Esther Williams diving in Thrill of a Romance

Anyway, Bill makes his way to the pool where he gets his first, spectacular glimpse of Connie Allenbury in a tangerine bathing suit poised at the top of an immense slide.

The other time we saw Connie she was in a bathing suit, too, which got me thinking. Esther Williams almost always appears in a bathing suit in her first moments onscreen. This is true of Andy Hardy’s Double Life (1942), Bathing Beauty (1944), Thrill of a Romance (1945), The Ziegfeld Follies (1946), Neptune’s Daughter (1949), Duchess of Idaho (1950), Texas Carnival (1951), Million Dollar Mermaid (1952), Dangerous When Wet (1953), and Easy to Love (1953). It’s not true of A Guy Named Joe (1943) or Skirts Ahoy! (1952), and I need to re-watch her other first film moments and make a decision about whether or not sarongs qualify before I can make a strong statement about this. Dissertation topic! Not really.

Back to Easy to Wed. Connie zooms down the slide and into the pool.

She swims a few strokes, very prettily, and then climbs out and puts on her smartly monogrammed robe. That’s when Spike goes into action. He sneaks up and takes a picture of her, and she protests at this invasion of privacy. But he refuses to give her the film, and otherwise behaves very rudely. But guess who comes to Connie’s rescue? Big, strong, handsome Bill Chandler, of course! (Though Connie could have taken skinny Spike very easily, I imagine.)

Bill throws the exposed plate into the pool, which earns him this look and an invitation to cocktails that evening. You can watch the scene here. I need a robe like that!

Bill thinks he’s in with Miss Allenbury. He gets all fancy in his white dinner jacket and meets Connie and her father in the hotel bar for drinks. He turns on his charm, but Connie seems incredibly uninterested in her “hero.” In fact, she’s downright cold. She thanks him for his help that afternoon, but otherwise basically ignores him, and makes some snide comments about the kind of people one meets in hotels. I love it when Esther Williams is arch and snappy.

Bill makes no progress with his “mark” before J.B. and Connie say goodbye and head to dinner. But they are waylaid on their way out of the bar by the Norvells, a mother (Josephine Whittell) and daughter (June Lockhart) who ask the Allenburys to dine with them.

Bill knows that Connie can’t stand the Norvells, so he swoops in with a fabricated dinner date of his own, skillfully forcing the Allenburys to dine with him while simultaneously rescuing them from the boring Norvells.

June Lockhart (in pale yellow) in Meet Me in St. Louis

Fun fact: You may recognize Miss Norvell from Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), when she played another boring character (Judy Garland’s brother’s girlfriend.) June Lockhart went on to have a long career in TV on series like Lassie and Lost in Space.

J.B. Allenbury enjoys dinner with Bill, mostly because Bill pretends to be an avid duck hunter. Bill did some research and learned that J.B.’s passion in life is duck hunting. But Connie is suspicious of this young man. She’s dealt with her share of fortune hunters and otherwise sleazy men, and she’s wary of this smooth talker.

Bill tries his best, but even a romantic dance with a personal serenade by Carlos Ramirez doesn’t thaw Connie. Fun fact: Carlos Ramirez (in the chartreuse jacket) was a Colombian baritone. He plays himself in this film, just as he did in Bathing Beauty.

Let’s talk for a moment about this film’s setting in Mexico City and the presence of Mr. Ramirez. There was a huge Latin American craze in Hollywood in the 1940s with stars like Xavier Cugat and Carmen Miranda, films set in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, etc., and cartoon characters visiting our neighbors to the south. This “craze” reflected and influenced trends in music and fashion, but it wasn’t accidental.

The Latin American infusion in Hollywood films was an extension of the Good Neighbor Policy and part of a coordinated propaganda campaign during WWII led by a government office called the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA). This office worked with Hollywood to get “positive” depictions of Latin America into the movies. That could mean including Xavier Cugat, sending Jane Powell, Betty Grable or Esther Williams south in movies like Holiday in Mexico (1946), Down Argentine Way (1940), or Fiesta (1947) and Easy to Wed, respectively. Often films include a musical number in Spanish or Portuguese, or star a “Latin Lover” like Ricardo Montalban or Cesar Romero.

Carlos Ramirez sings to Williams, who is dressed in a matador-inspired cape, in Bathing Beauty

Besides Easy to Wed and Bathing Beauty, some of Esther Williams’ other films show the influence of the Good Neighbor/Latin craze; for instance, in Neptune’s Daughter, she’s paired with Montalban who plays a South American polo player, and in Fiesta (1947) she’s cast as Montalban’s twin sister in Mexico.

Costume appreciation break. Connie is clad in a pale pink, uber-1940s frock with gorgeous draping and curves, a fan shaped brooch, and a gold and silver fringed fan-shaped purse. Irene designed the women’s costumes, and Valles took charge of the men’s. Irene designed the costumes in several other Esther Williams films, including Bathing Beauty, Thrill of a Romance, and Neptune’s Daughter.

Fun fact: The dog in the behind-the-scenes pic was Esther Williams’ cocker spaniel Angie. According to her autobiography, Angie came to work with Williams every day while making this movie, and she never ruined a shot!

The evening ends, and Bill has struck out. Connie is definitely not entranced, and she actually seems to dislike him intensely. His task will not be as easy as he thought.

The next day, Bill puts on his best sombrero and bejeweled breeches and “accidentally” runs into Connie on her daily ride. She’s cold, as usual.

Bill tells her that he was trapped by the Norvells into dining with them that evening, and that he’s also hosting them for cocktails before dinner in his suite.

He wants to get out of it, so he asks Connie if she would come by his room and interrupt the cocktail hour with a made-up excuse to get him out of dinner. (What is so terrible about the Norvells?)

She agrees, and Bill gets to work. He hasn’t really invited the Norvells, of course. His plan is as follows: when Connie arrives at the appointed time, Bill will welcome her into his empty suite, and then Spike will jump out and take the incriminating photographs that Warren needs to fight the libel suit. He’s a class act, this Bill Chandler.

But Connie is no dummy. She turns the tables on Bill by inviting the Norvells to his suite. He gets a nasty shock when he opens the door! Connie 1, Bill 0.

After dinner, Bill finds Connie alone on the terrace. Instead of his smarmy Don Juan act, this time he is blunt and a little mean. He tells her that he has heard about the $2 million libel suit, and asks who the hell she thinks she is? What has she ever done to earn such a valuable reputation? It’s been implied that The Morning Star published the libelous story partly because it seemed like something that Connie would do. They were wrong that time, but we get the sense that Connie isn’t always so prim and proper.

Connie is highly insulted, but she’s also suddenly more interested. She distrusts fawning adoration, but she’s intrigued by Bill’s honest cruelty.

Costume appreciation break. This short sleeve, straight gown is deceptively simple, but notice the color blocking, peplum skirt, and beaded detail.

Bill returns to New York and meets with Warren and Gladys. Warren is furious that Bill didn’t close the deal, and he orders Bill to stay in Gladys’ apartment to keep up the marriage charade. This makes Gladys furious, and she starts to doubt Warren’s love for her. How can he so casually order another man to spend the night in her apartment!

Ball wears the most spectacular costumes in this film. This acid green number with shiny trousers is amazing, and Gladys knows it. She struts and poses around the apartment with her cigarette in a classy holder.

Anyway, Bill takes the sofa in the living room and Gladys locks herself into her bedroom. She’s oddly afraid that Bill will bust into her room at some point, but of course he doesn’t. He sleeps on the couch like a good platonic guest.

His restraint stuns Gladys, especially when she learns that Bill could have unlocked the door at any point, since the key to the front door also unlocks the bedroom door! She discovers this interesting fact the next morning when a duck call expert arrives to give Bill lessons. She and Bill need to keep up appearances of being married, and obvious signs of couch sleeping aren’t great. Gladys has lost her key, but Bill grabs the one from the front door, unlocks the bedroom, and hides his blankets and pillows inside.

Then a weird thing happens. The realization that Bill could have gotten into her bedroom but didn’t makes Gladys soften towards him. It’s strange, right? She basically starts to fall for Bill just because he didn’t rape her! Perhaps she hasn’t dealt with many nice men…

Gladys trades her diaphanous nightgown with its frankly silly “robe” (the blue lace frontless jacket) for a stunning suit of deep blue velvet and gold…

…and joins her husband for his duck call lesson. It’s a throwaway scene plotwise, but turns into a showcase of Ball’s comedic talents. She steals every scene she is in, and really gets going in this one.

You can watch the scene here:

Then Bill goes to the Allenbury’s Canadian lodge to join J.B. in some duck hunting. Connie is there, too, which surprises her father. She seems to dislike Bill, and yet she opted to spend the weekend at the lodge. Interesting…

Bill arrives with his brand new “togs” and shiny ignorance, and tries to feign competency. But even the dogs are doubtful.

Connie and her father leave Bill with the spaniel and a tiny boat. And so begins a seven-minute-sequence of Bill’s disastrous, slapstick attempts at duck hunting. In Libeled Lady William Powell had a similarly unsuccessful sequence of fly fishing, which you can watch here.

Variety‘s review of this movie noted that the dog’s performance in this scene was especially delightful: “Overshadowing even [Ball and Wynn], however, for laughs, is a Springer Spaniel, whose antics are a revelation in animal expression…” It’s a funny scene, but it goes on a little long for me. Variety agreed, adding that some of the scenes dragged, and the “Boat scenes with Johnson and dog, despite mirthful actions of pup, particularly should be sheared…”

The sequence ends with Bill somewhat miraculously shooting a duck as he flails about in his sinking boat. When Connie sees the dead duck, her remaining doubts about him are washed away. (So Gladys became smitten with Bill when he didn’t force himself into her bedroom, and Connie falls for him because he shoots a duck? What is happening with these women?)

Bill and Connie spend the evening together, and things get amorous. But first they shoot marbles.

Connie wants to show Bill that she’s not the cold, spoiled heiress he knew in Mexico; she’s really just a regular gal! Her casual outfit and sudden interest in a child’s game makes this point clear.

They chat a while, and then Connie serenades Bill to the song that Carlos Ramirez sang back in Mexico City the first time they danced together. It’s “Acércate Más” or “Come Closer to Me.”

Williams remembered in her autobiography, The Million Dollar Mermaid, that she was quite apprehensive about singing this song, and about singing in general. After all, Williams was a champion swimmer, not a trained performer, so she was doubtful she would ever be able to perform to MGM’s standard.

But, like all MGM starlets, she’d been taking singing, dancing, diction, and other lessons ever since going under contract to the studio. MGM was the ultimate makeover and movie school, and they put their actors through rigorous training to eke out every drop of talent.

Debbie Reynolds went through the same process at MGM, and described how “You never stopped studying. Ballet, tap, modern dance. Placing the voice properly; how to sing; how to walk and move; how to model, how to hold your hands, how to hold your head, knowing the angle right for the camera; how to do makeup, how to do hair… Anytime you walked on the lot, there was activity, and often music… If you didn’t like it, you had to be bananas. If you didn’t learn from it, you had to be a moron” (quoted in Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer by Scott Eyman).

How amusing and cute is Connie’s cattail outfit with those little booties?  Very appropriate for a weekend of duck hunting.

Williams’ singing teacher at MGM, Harriet Lee, told her that “No one expects you to be another Judy Garland. Just feel comfortable with your song, whatever the lyrics may convey. Think of it as an acting scene with dialogue.” So Williams worked on her singing, but she was overwhelmed when she was assigned “Acércate Más.”

She recalled later, “When I was asked to sing ‘Acércate Más’ in Spanish to Van Johnson in Easy to Wed, I went to Harriet with misgivings not only about singing, but about ‘an acting scene with dialogue’ and not even in a language that I understood. ‘How am I supposed to sing this song? It’s in Spanish!’ Harriet’s answer was simple and sensible, MGM sensible: ‘If they want you to sing in Spanish, you sing in Spanish.'”

So she did! And she does a great job for a novice singer. She tackles a Portuguese song later in the movie, and MGM assigned her more songs in her future films. Her rendition of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” in Neptune’s Daughter (1949) won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. You can watch it here.

Johnson, Williams, and director Edward Buzzell on the set via: http://moviestarmakeover.com/2013/06/11/in-training-with-coach-esther/

Anyway, Bill is having such a pleasant time with Connie that he almost forgets why he is there. But he remembers at the strike of twelve, like Cinderella, that there is a plan rolling along in the background. Gladys, Warren, and Spike are on their way to the lodge to catch Connie in the act of “husband-stealing.”

But Bill is falling for Connie and doesn’t want to spring the trap just yet. So he ends his evening with Connie rather abruptly and sneaks outside to catch Warren’s car before it reaches the estate. He lies to Warren, telling him that Connie isn’t there. Warren turns the car around, but he’s not happy about it. In fact, Warren is in a perpetual state of aggravation throughout the entire film.

Fun fact: at some point during filming, Johnson and Williams headed to the soundstage where Judy Garland was filming The Harvey Girls (1946). I love this picture, staged as it probably was:

via: http://gummgarland.tumblr.com/post/22313613507/behind-the-scenes-of-the-harvey-girls

The weekend ends and Bill returns to his marital home where he and Warren have yet another argument. Warren is getting suspicious of Bill; he finds it hard to believe that the expert womanizer isn’t having any success.

Warren eventually storms out, and Bill sees an opening. He’s going to turn Gladys against Warren to buy himself some time.

He recognizes Glady’s growing tenderness towards him, so he exploits it. (We like Bill, but he does some nasty things in this movie! He’s a professional cad, basically, and he lies to everyone all the time.)

Bill tells Gladys that he can’t believe that Warren is willing to drag her name through the mud just to save his paper. After all, if Connie is caught, Gladys will have to appear in court and her reputation will take a beating. Gladys agreed to the scheme partly for the publicity it would bring to her show, but she hadn’t thought of the damage it might do. Bill presses his advantage by asking her loftily if Bernhardt would do such a thing? Of course not, but Gladys doesn’t see herself in that league.

So Bill goes to work convincing Gladys that she is a grand, serious actress of immense talent, and really shouldn’t be messing around with such skeevy plots.

Bill praises and adores Gladys, while undermining Warren at every turn. The scene gives Ball some wonderful moments:

While they guzzle a magnum of champagne, Bill tells Gladys that she ought to be doing Shakespeare; she’d make a wonderful Ophelia! But tipsy Gladys tells him that she wants to play Hamlet because she is “terrific in tights.”

Gladys is now drunkenly head over heels for Bill, and she’s not shy about it. After all, they are married! But he escapes her embrace at the last moment.

You can watch this terrific scene here. You can see why America fell in love with Lucille Ball.

Costume appreciation break. I love the brooch at her hip. And the fact that wearing an elaborate, flowing negligee with matching hair ornaments was totally normal.

Gladys is firmly under Bill’s spell, so he turns his attention to Connie. He visits her estate and joins her in the pool.

Fun fact: this scene was filmed at what was later renamed the “Esther Williams Pool” at MGM, but it was originally built in 1935. You may recognize it from Katharine Hepburn‘s swan dive in The Philadelphia Story (1940), or any number of other films. You can learn more about the backlot in this great book, MGM: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot.

Oddly enough, Connie’s pool is surrounded by the same yellow fringed umbrellas as the hotel in Mexico City…

Anyway, Connie and Bill have a heart to heart in the pool, which eventually leads to Bill asking Connie to drop the suit.

He tells her that he doesn’t want her to have to go through the nasty publicity of the trial. She protests that it is her fight, so he tells her that he wants to begin their life together without such an unpleasant obstacle.

And he persuades her. This new Connie is more compassionate and less uptight than the one he met in Mexico City, and she wants to let go of all the old annoyances, too.

How gorgeous is Esther Williams? The black suit against the green water is excellent.

The Technicolor design of this film is stunning and bright, which is fairly typical for the period. Black, dusky blue, yellow, hot pink, and chartreuse are everywhere in musicals of this era.

Anyway, Bill is sitting in the raft fully dressed, so obviously he’s going to get dunked. Connie sneakily removes the raft’s plug and Bill is plunged into the pool.

But he’s not mad, because he gets to kiss Connie underwater.

You can watch the scene here.

Bill doesn’t tell Warren that Connie is dropping the suit (which you’d think would be his first move), so Warren comes by the Allenbury estate to talk with Connie himself. He has lost faith in his very expensive, but so far ineffective, womanizer.

Connie listens to his pleas and seems to enjoy playing with him. She doesn’t tell him that she has already decided to drop the suit, but instead says that she will increase the amount of the suit and then use the money to set up a fund for the 200 employees who will be out of work when the paper closes! Warren is sweating.

But then Bill arrives for dinner. All this time, Bill has been telling Warren that Connie won’t see him, but now Warren knows the truth. Bill has been romancing Connie behind Warren’s back and on the newspaper’s dime!

As usual, Warren is furious. But he doesn’t blow Bill’s cover. Not yet, at least. 

Costume appreciation break. Connie’s dress in this scene is one of my favorites. The diagonal sequin stripes are gorgeous, and Williams wears the straight-skirted 1940s styles so well.

Warren hurries off and sets his own plan into action. He tells Gladys that Bill has been “two-timing” her all along (never mind that the marriage was “fake.”) She is furious and upset, and Warren knows she will head right over to the Allenbury household and cause a scene.

Gladys changes out of her white house dress and into a black-and-white fur number, perfect for a scorned wife. But Bill calls just as she is leaving. He was smart enough to get out of the Allenbury house immediately, knowing that Warren would send Gladys and Spike to catch him. Now he needs to get Gladys back on his side, so he works his magic.

I know I’ve done a bunch of costume appreciation breaks already, but I can’t help myself. Gladys’ costumes in this film are really fun because she is such a flamboyant clotheshorse.

Bill convinces Gladys that he is only pretending with Connie. She believes him, and they go tell Warren that his little game won’t work. Surprise! Warren is furious.

So Warren concocts a new plan without Bill. He prints up a fake copy of The Morning Star with a headline about Connie Allenbury stealing Bill Chandler.

Then he gets a woman at Gladys’ spa (or torture chamber) to show it to her as though it’s the real thing.

Gladys reacts just as Warren hoped she would. She heads for the Allenbury mansion, where Connie is throwing a huge, Mexican-themed party. She’s even hired pop organist sensation Ethel Smith, who delights the crowd with her Latin tunes.

Smith also appeared in Bathing Beauty (1944), and her recording of “Tico, Tico” from the film reached no. 14 on the pop charts in 1944! Pop organ was very popular, I guess.

To our minor embarrassment, Connie and Bill star in a huge production number of the Portugeuse song “Boneca de Pixe” for their “guests.” Because whenever I throw a party, I perform an elaborate routine for my friends. Don’t you?

They sing and dance: Connie struts and does a wrist-forearm flourish, and Bill mostly moves his extremely broad shoulders up and down. 

Johnson got his start in Broadway musicals, so he acquits himself well in this light number. Williams does a nice job, too, and the throng of dancers gives it their all in this typically over-the-top musical number. 

They strike a pose for their big finish, and the crowd goes wild! 

You can watch it here:

The whole thing is kind of weird, but I guess it makes sense that Connie would throw a Latin-themed party since she and Bill met in Mexico? It’s really just to get more Good Neighbor stuff into the movie, though. MGM probably would have done the same thing even if Connie and Bill had met in Canada. Here are our stars between takes:

via: http://esther-williams.com/about-esther/photo-gallery/

Gladys shows up after the song and demands to see J.B. She’s going to spill the beans about his daughter romancing her husband, though not the part about it all being a big setup. She really does seem to think of Bill as her husband, and she’s heartbroken that Connie has stolen him away. Warren’s plan worked better than he ever anticipated!

J.B. listens to her tale and then goes to talk with his daughter. He tells her that Bill is already married. She is shocked, and summons Bill to talk to him about it. Everyone has to talk to everyone else individually, apparently.

Rather than ask the big question: “Are you married?” Connie skirts around it and instead proposes to Bill! She thinks that he wouldn’t dare marry her if he already had a wife, but it’s certainly an unusual way of finding out a person’s marital status. The two pretty people profess their love and decide to get married that very night. 

Has Bill forgotten about his marriage to Gladys? It may have started as a con, but the paperwork still makes it legal.

Also, if you’ve seen any Johnson/Williams movies before, so many moments seem like deja vu. They dance, dine, embrace, argue, and kiss over and over in movie after movie. I love it.

Anyway, Bill and Connie go wake up the nearest justice of the peace. His sleepy wife serves as the witness, but she wants to make sure it’s not another drunk couple. Connie answers with a great line:

And then it’s off to the honeymoon! They head to a hotel in New York City, but Gladys finds them.

She tells Connie that she is the real Mrs. Chandler! But instead of acting shocked, Connie just welcomes her into the room. She knows all about Gladys, though we didn’t see Bill tell her. Then Warren shows up. He is thrilled because Connie has not just stolen a husband, she’s also committed bigamy! He’s got her now!

Then Bill explains everything. He says that he’s not a bigamist because the marriage to Gladys was never legal. Gladys had been married a few years ago, but she got divorced “by mail” in Yucatan. All Yucatan divorces were ruled illegal in the United States three years ago, so technically Gladys was still married to her first husband when she married Bill, which means that their marriage was void.

Bill and Connie are very pleased with themselves. But not for long. Now, it’s Gladys’ turn.

In a voice full of scorn and hurt, she explains that she knew that her Yucatan divorce had been repealed, so she went to Reno and got another divorce there. That means that her marriage to Bill was legal after all, and Bill now has two wives. And Gladys is not going to give him up! She has been manipulated and pushed around this whole time, and she refuses to let Connie and Bill win.

How ironic that it is so easy to get married (hence the title), but so difficult to get divorced! (For more on the Yucatan/Reno divorce situation, read my post here.)

The whole situation has gotten out of hand. Gladys flees into the bedroom, Connie follows her, and the boys start to argue. Connie and Gladys chat, and they realize that Gladys doesn’t really want Bill. She wants Warren. They bond.

The women resolve their issues quickly, but the stupid men start fighting. But maybe the men aren’t so stupid, because they realize that when the ladies hear the commotion, Gladys starts yelling for Warren, not Bill. So they escalate their fight to get the two ladies to “rescue” their “heroes.” Connie drops the key, so it takes a minute, but it’s a cute reference to the previous key scene between Bill and Gladys.

Fun fact: In her autobiography, Williams remembered that she and Dorothy Kingsley, the screenwriter, worked together on this scene between Connie and Gladys after the first drafts felt false and awkward. Williams said that the dialogue didn’t sound like two women talking to each other, so she and Kingsley revamped it. Kingsley had worked on Bathing Beauty, and she would write several more of Williams’ movies, including On An Island With You (1948), Neptune’s Daughter, and Texas Carnival.

Another fun fact: Although the ladies are friends onscreen, they weren’t great pals in real life. Williams remembers Ball as jealous and a little paranoid about her husband Desi Arnaz. He had a reputation for going after the ladies, and for some reason Ball assumed that Williams was another of his conquests. The tension boiled over one day in the hair salon at MGM, but Williams eventually convinced Ball that she had no interest in Arnaz. This, according to Williams, upset Ball quite a bit, because she was insulted that Williams didn’t find her husband irresistible.

Anyway, Bill punches Warren in the nose just as Gladys and Connie emerge from the bedroom. So Gladys socks Bill! It’s perfect. 

Then Connie’s father arrives, accompanied by a mariachi band that Bill had assigned to follow him around, hoping it would distract him from Gladys (it didn’t.) And they all begin talking at once, though we are sure that everything will work out just fine.

This movie was in production February through June of 1945, and premiered a year later in July 1946 to good reviews and great box office. Variety wrote that the “Names of Van Johnson and Esther Williams will be the magic draw for this tinter, but Lucille Ball and Keenan Wynn are the real stars. They deliver for sock effect in what is an amusing but lightweight comedy…”

“Both Johnson and Miss Williams do well enough with their respective roles, but parts are somewhat innocuous and meat of the film is tossed to Miss Ball and Wynn, both of whom let down all barriers and do bang-up jobs.”

Bosley Crowther at The New York Times noted that “it is not surprising that “Libeled Lady” should pop up again, considering the Hollywood dictum that nothing succeeds like a past success. Only this time it has a new title, “Easy to Wed,” and a new lot of stars, and it is done up in Technicolor—which is the only thing about it that isn’t good.”

Like Variety, he singles out Ball and Wynn for their excellent performances: “Mr. Wynn is a capital farceur, and as his simple but obliging fiancée, Miss Ball is his comical match. Together they handle the burdens of the cleverly-complicated plot and throw both their voices and their torsos into an almost continuous flow of gags.”

via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/133/Easy-to-Wed/#tcmarcp-177555

Crowther continues: “Van Johnson is likewise amusing—and surprisingly good at farce, too—and Esther Williams is athletically attractive as the libeled lady in the case. Needless to say, the play of romance is provided by these two, and they do quite as well with it in their way as the other two do with the farce…All of whom—along with other cast members who perform comic roles competently—make ‘Easy to Wed’ a summer picture that is decidedly easy to enjoy.”

Audiences did indeed enjoy the film, which encouraged MGM to keep putting Esther Williams in movies. 1944-1946 was a busy time for her. Thrill of a Romance premiered in May 1945, she finished shooting Easy to Wed that June, filmed her one “dry” MGM film The Hoodlum Saint* in June through September, married Ben Gage in November, filmed her scenes for The Ziegfeld Follies somewhere in there, and started Fiesta (1947) in December.

The Ziegfeld Follies came out in March 1946, The Hoodlum Saint in June, and Easy to Wed in July. By which point Williams had already filmed her scenes for Till the Clouds Roll By (1947) and started work on This Time for Keeps (1947). Popular stars had very little downtime in the studio era, as you can see from Williams’ schedule. Van Johnson even remembered finishing a movie with Esther Williams in the morning, and starting a film with June Allyson that same afternoon!

As I’ve mentioned, this was the third of five films pairing Johnson and Williams, and it was the first of four movies Williams would make with Keenan Wynn. He played Williams’ business partner in Neptune’s Daughter, and appeared in Texas Carnival (1951) and Skirts Ahoy! (1952).

Williams would also work with screenwriter Dorothy Kingsley, costume designer Irene, and director Edward Buzzell (Neptune’s Daughter) after Easy to Wed. Hollywood was a small world, and MGM was its own tiny kingdom.

Williams would later say that she sometimes had déjà vu when making her movies because they often seemed to have the same people and the same basic plot. That’s partly true, but I find the sameness really fascinating.

It’s fun to trace different actors and personnel through the movies, and I imagine it was interesting and even comforting for audiences at the time to see so many familiar faces. And when an actor is making 2-3 movies a year, it might have been nice to work with the same unit. Unless you didn’t get along with a particular actor, director, etc., in which case the small world became claustrophobic.

Easy to Wed was near the beginning of Williams’ time at MGM, but the film proved to be one of the last movies Lucille Ball made at the studio. She’d hoped that good roles would flood in after this movie. After all, she got great reviews, and the film was one of the biggest hits of the year. But she was disappointed.

As she said later: “After knocking myself out, giving my best possible performance in this picture, I expected other good roles to follow. Instead, I was put into a real dog with John Hodiak called Two Smart People (1946).” So when Ball’s contract came up for renewal, she decided to leave MGM and freelance, instead. She wouldn’t return to MGM until she made The Long, Long Trailer (1954) and Forever, Darling (1956) with Desi Arnaz in the midst of their television success.

Here’s the trailer of Easy to Wed–enjoy! As always, thanks for reading! For more, follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm, and Facebook. You can buy this fun film here, as well as Esther Williams’ autobiography, The Million Dollar Mermaid.

*Of Esther Williams’ 22 films at MGM, only two, The Hoodlum Saint (1946) and Jupiter’s Darling (1955), failed to make a profit, a record few stars can boast.

Variety quotes from Daily Variety, April 9, 1946. p. 3.

In January I compiled a list of ten classic movies available to stream on the The Movie and Music Network, a website akin to Netflix offering streaming movies and music. They have a great collection of lesser known classic films, including many B-movies, so here is another list of five more great classic films you can stream now.

Besides classic Hollywood films, the Network offers over 2,500 movies, including sci-fi, westerns, and horror. (The Network also offers some channels of erotica, but there are parental locks if that’s an issue.)

There are several different channels, but I’ll be focusing on the classic film offerings on the “Vintage Films Channel.”

To the films! Here are five movies I’d recommend streaming from The Movie and Music Network’s “Vintage Channel.” For more, check out my first list of ten films, including The Most Dangerous Game and Royal Wedding.

1. Happy Go Lovely (1951)

via: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Go_Lovely

This is a British production starring Vera-Ellen, David Niven, and Cesar Romero. Vera-Ellen is an American chorus girl in a show touring Scotland. Through a comic misunderstanding, a rumor spreads that she is involved with wealthy David Niven, and the producer of her show tries to use her connection to the millionaire to bolster his failing production.

The plot of this cute musical is reminiscent of Easy Living (1937) with the same mistaken identities, wild rumors resulting in new wardrobes and special treatment, and an adorable heroine who is completely bewildered by her sudden good fortune.

There are some fairly elaborate musical numbers built into the backstage storyline, so if you enjoy watching Vera-Ellen dance, give it a try!  It’s also fun to see David Niven in an early film like this. Here’s a clip.

2. Sin Takes a Holiday (1930)

Constance Bennett stars as a dowdy secretary in love with her womanizing boss (Kenneth MacKenna). He never wants to get married, so he only dallies with married women–since they’ve already got husbands, they can’t marry him!

via: http://movieweb.com/movies/1930/comedy/

It’s a foolproof plan until one such married woman decides to divorce her husband so she can marry MacKenna! To get out of this pickle, MacKenna makes a deal with Bennett: if she marries him (in name only), he’ll give her a healthy allowance, and in return he can continue his caddish behavior with married ladies from the safety of his own sham marriage. It’s a pre-Code film, so this type of behavior was allowed and delightful! (Visit this post for more on the Production Code).

Bennett accepts MacKenna’s conditions, marries him, and gets shunted off to Paris so he can play with his girlfriends. While there, she undergoes a fabulous makeover, meets a dashing man (played by Basil Rathbone), and tries to conquer her love for MacKenna. I love Constance Bennett (sister to Joan Bennett, and brilliant actress in films like After Office Hours (1935) and Topper (1937), and any movie with the tagline: “Oh lady–what clothes!” is good by me! Here’s a clip.

3. Detour (1945)

This film follows a bitter, down on his luck piano player (Tom Neal) who decides to hitchhike from New York to Hollywood. Along the way he becomes embroiled in murder and blackmail, and a terrifying femme fatale (Ann Savage) gets him under her spell.

This B-movie film noir is now famous as the ultimate exercise in Poverty Row creativity and production. B-movies were used to fill out double features: an A-movie would play first, followed by a B-film, which were made with smaller budgets and shorter production schedules than A-movies.

via: http://www.impawards.com/1945/detour_xlg.html

For example, in 1940, the average budget of an A-film was $400,000, whereas the budgets on Poverty Row very rarely reached $200,000, and shooting schedules for B-films were measured in weeks, not months. (Detour was an outlier at $100,000, most B-movies were produced for five figures, and it was shot in about four weeks.)

The big studios like 20th Century-Fox and RKO made B-films along with their bigger budget films, but there were some studios that only produced B-level movies. They were nicknamed Poverty Row, and Detour was produced by one of their number, PRC.  The small budgets and fast shooting schedules meant that B-movie filmmakers had to be especially creative. They couldn’t afford huge sets, multiple takes, or pricey effects, so they worked with what they had.

Detour is notable for its wild, incredibly creative effects (daring lighting and the giant coffee mug are famous example), “mistakes” that only make the film more interesting, and its quintessentially noir atmosphere and tone. In a really cool way, the B-movie constraints and inspired direction by Edward G. Ulmer seem to only increase the dread, guilt, and fatalism of film noir. If you like the genre, this is a must-see. Here’s a clip.

4. Bird of Paradise (1932)

Joel McCrea is my favorite, so I have to include Bird of Paradise. It’s one of those white men arrive in a yacht, meet the charming “natives,” disrupt their lives, and sail away films, complete with an angry volcano.

via: http://www.moviepostershop.com/bird-of-paradise-movie-poster-1932

Joel McCrea arrives with his buddies on a South Pacific island and falls for the chief’s daughter, played by Dolores del Rio, a Mexican actress who enjoyed great success in Hollywood in the 1920s-1930s before reigning onscreen in Mexican films for three decades.

McCrea and del Rio attempt to start a life together on a neighboring island, but when a volcano erupts, del Rio knows she must return home to “appease” the volcano by throwing herself into it. Naturally, McCrea tries to save his lady love. Who will win: the volcano or handsome, shirtless Joel McCrea?

This often racist and at times ridiculous film features all the cliches of island life, including a famous nude swimming scene, “native dances” by nearly naked women, and human sacrifice. For all its troublesome elements, it’s interesting as a pre-Code movie packed with sensuality that would go on to inspire similar island films like King Kong (1933). Fun fact: this film features an appearance of Lon Chaney, Jr. in his first film, and the dances were choreographed by Busby Berkeley. Here’s a clip.

5. Algiers (1938)

via: http://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Summaries/A/Algiers.htm

This film is the Hollywood remake of a wonderful French movie called Pépé le Moko (1937). In Algiers, Charles Boyer takes over Jean Gabin’s role of the master thief, Pepe. He has fled France and become the leader of the Casbah, a mysterious section of Algiers populated by criminals and otherwise “underground” characters. The police dare not venture into the Casbah, so Pepe is safe. But also bored.

He meets Gaby (Hedy Lamarr), a Frenchwoman vacationing in Algiers, and they begin a passionate affair. Will Pepe leave the Casbah to be with her, thus risking capture? Or will he choose the Casbah and safety?

Fun facts: This was Hedy Lamarr’s first Hollywood film, and she stunned audiences with her beauty. Boyer’s Oscar-nominated performance had an unexpected, lasting legacy: Boyer’s Pepe le Moko partially inspired the animated character “Pepe Le Pew.” Algiers also served as inspiration for Casablanca (1942), and the writers originally had Lamarr in mind to play the part that eventually went to Ingrid Bergman. And finally, Algiers was re-made as a musical entitled Casbah ten years later with Tony Martin and Marta Toren in the lead roles. Here’s a clip of Algiers.

via: http://www.silentfilmstillarchive.com/algiers.htm

For more, follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm, and Facebook. And visit my Movie and Music Network: Top Ten Classics list here and my Netflix picks for more great movies available to stream instantly!

This is the third in my series of History Through Hollywood, a discussion of the little things you can pick up from watching Old Hollywood films. In the previous editions, I’ve talked about “Reno-vations,” automats, sex, cigarettes, manicures, and alcohol as depicted in old movies. This History Through Hollywood looks at fashion in films from the 1930s-1960s.

As I’ve discussed in the previous History Through Hollywood articles, old films are inadvertent time capsules: the cars, architecture, fashion, language, and customs are all there, preserved in celluloid like insects in amber.

Reese Witherspoon “channeling Old Hollywood” at the 2013 Oscars via: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/24/reese-witherspoon-oscar-dress-2013-photos_n_2738057.htmlkate

What’s onscreen is not always entirely accurate, of course, as Hollywood was and remains a powerful dream machine. But there is a great deal of history hiding in plain sight, and what seems weird to me made perfect sense to my grandparents. It’s a fascinating disconnect, and it’s one reason I love classic movies.

On to the fashion! If you pay attention to red carpets, you’ll hear the term “Old Hollywood glamour” thrown around whenever a celebrity struts her stuff with red lips, swooping curls, and a relatively modest amount of exposed flesh showcased in a mermaid or ball gown.

That look, which seems to draw primarily on Veronica Lake, Rita Hayworth, and Marilyn Monroe, has come to represent “Old Hollywood style,” but what we see on modern red carpets is only one tiny slice of classic film fashion. In fact, Classic Hollywood’s stuffed closet and crowded dressing table allowed for many other modes of fashion and beauty, though not all have made the transition into modern style the way that crimson pouts and the side-parted “Veronica Lake” have.

Some elements from the classic era have come down to us either as assimilated features of everyday fashion or as ironic throwbacks donned when trying to be #retro or #vintage. But other elements have fallen out of our style vernacular entirely. You don’t see many platinum pin curls, tight marcelled waves, or pencil eyebrows, for instance, and when was the last time you pulled on short white gloves for a trip to the grocery store?

The Thin Man (1934)  Unless otherwise noted, all images are my own.

This article will focus more on what has fallen out of fashion than what has remained en vogue or has influenced modern design. I think it’s fascinating when things that past generations took for granted (sock garters, anyone?) seem entirely alien to us now.

If you’d like a broad overview of changing styles, this short video on hair and this one on clothes are fun to watch. I also won’t be getting into a costume’s role in a movie, which is a completely different, though also fascinating topic. (You can check out my posts on Summer Stock, Notorious, My Man Godfrey, and My Sister Eileen for that kind of analysis.)

It’s important to remember that what we see onscreen in classic movies is Hollywood’s ideal of fashion and glamour, not necessarily the reality of an average American. But that’s part of why it’s so fun to watch these films! Old Hollywood didn’t skimp on clothes, and making over starlets into icons was a daily occurrence. After all, “realism” was not the goal; rather, many of these films work incredibly hard to present a dreamlike, unattainable world of beauty and style.

The over-the-top fashion show in Lovely To Look At (1952)

One of my favorite examples of this “glamour-over-all” attitude is a scene in which Myrna Loy was filmed waking up in bed. Loy was “subtly deglamorized” so that she would actually look like a woman who had just woken up. But when MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer saw the footage he was furious: “What do you mean by shooting that kind of stuff of Loy? Here we’ve spent a couple of million bucks building her up as a glamour girl and you knock the whole thing for a loop with one shot.” So they filmed the scene again, and this time “Loy woke up looking as if she’d just emerged from Max Factor’s.” (Recounted in Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer by Scott Eyman).

After The Thin Man (1936)

The studios’ fixation on beauty, no matter how unrealistic, was not just confined to the hours spent on the movie set. Joan Crawford recalled that “I would never leave home unless I looked every bit the movie star. The public has never seen me less than perfect. MGM taught us that.” (The Golden Girls of MGM by Jane Ellen Wayne.)

Never appearing “less than perfect” is much harder in today’s TMZ, paparazzi, Internet-driven world obsessed with “stars without their makeup!” and “worst bikini bodies,” but Old Hollywood had the glamorous movie star thing down. And it’s still impacting fashion today.

So, even though not everyone in America was draped in bias cut silk like Carole Lombard, or rocked wartime shoulder pads and Victory Rolls like Joan Crawford, Hollywood certainly had a powerful effect on fashion in the real world. Audiences saw ridiculously gorgeous stars decked out in duds designed just for them by the studio costume designers (no wonder they looked amazing!), and trends were set. (You can check out Silver Screen Modes, a great site about costume design and film fashion, for more on that.)

Edith Head and Grace Kelly going over costume sketches for To Catch a Thief: http://moviestarmakeover.com/2012/10/06/edith-headquarters/

Although Hollywood still wields fashion power, it seems that movies today reflect trends rather than set them as they used to.

These days you can visit websites devoted to tracking down the clothes in movies and TV shows so that you too can own the purse carried by Reese Witherspoon! But in the classical era, clothes were bespoke, one-of-a-kind creations (I’m dealing primarily with women’s clothing here, as men provided their own suits unless it was a period film. For more on that, visit my Foreign Correspondent review.)

Even though movie fashion was designed by studio wizards, it didn’t mean that the clothes stayed onscreen. Retailers saw the power that Hollywood wielded over American fashion, and copycat collections or early forms of product-tie-ins were not at all unusual.

Sometimes specific costumes made the transition from unattainable screen dream to your closet. For instance, the Edith Head-designed gown that Elizabeth Taylor wore in A Place in the Sun (1951) famously became the dress teenagers wanted. The gown was copied and showed up all over the country at dances and proms almost immediately after the film was released.

Elizabeth Taylor in the famous dress in A Place in The Sun via: http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG11028833/Why-costume-designer-Edith-Head-should-never-be-forgotten.html

Edith Head remembered that the flower-flecked ball gown was so ubiquitous after the film was released that “Someone at Paramount once counted at a party 37 ‘Elizabeth Taylors’ dancing.” For more, visit GlamAmor, a wonderful site devoted to Hollywood fashion.

And the story goes that undershirt sales fell after Clark Gable undressed in It Happened One Night (1934) and–gasp!–revealed a bare chest beneath his outer shirt. Esther Williams recalls how after she appeared in Andy Hardy’s Double Life (1942) in a white two-piece suit, bikinis suddenly became much more common around the country’s swimming pools!

But these weren’t bikinis as we know them; just as the conventions surrounding the depiction of sex and violence have changed, so have the standards of modesty. What is totally acceptable now, like a string bikini at the beach, was unthinkable in the 1930s and 1940s.

But if you think ladies sauntered around in high-necked, long-sleeve, ankle-shrouding dresses, you’ll be surprised at some of the sexy numbers that lit up the screen. It’s clear that the amount of skin displayed does not necessarily correspond to a garment’s sexiness. But side-boob is nothing new.

Carole Lombard and Bing Crosby in We’re Not Dressing (1934)

So here is a glimpse into Classic Hollywood fashion, particularly the once ubiquitous styles that are now relegated to fashion’s footnotes: hats, gloves, handkerchiefs, stockings, sock garters, and fur, as well as the “old-fashioned” styles of undergarments, bathing suits, dressing gowns, and more!

Hats

Styles change, but until fairly recently, men and women almost always wore something on their heads. Fedoras, homburgs, trilbys, boaters, newsboys, top hats, and of course the iconic cowboy hat grace the heads of even the most sartorially challenged men. And women had their own extensive options: most of our classic stars appear quite often in cunning caps, enormous poufs, and veiled, feathered, or bejeweled cranial creations. Hats were a must for everyday occasions, and were as much a part of one’s daily attire as socks or shoes.

Hats weren’t limited to the everyday, either. They could be just the thing for special evenings out (or in, as the case may be). Sometimes an actual hat was eschewed in favor of a large bow, flowers, an elaborate clip, a scarf, or a veil.

One must have spent quite a bit of time at the milliners. I love the scene in Midnight (1939) when Claudette Colbert goes to the most famous hat salon in Paris to shop for her weekend trip to the country: 

Gloves

Along with a hat, gloves were a must-have accessory. They were not reserved for the prim, proper or churchgoing crowd, either. Even relatively scandalous characters usually wear a hat and gloves at some point during the film. But when was the last time you donned the cunning cap that matched your outfit, and pulled on your matching gloves before heading out the door?

As you’ll notice in these images, coordination of an entire outfit was the goal. Your purse matches your belt which matches your hat which matches your shoes which coordinate smashingly with your brooch/the trim on your jacket/your eye color. Women seemed to think in terms of an entire outfit and all the corresponding accessories. None of this jeans and T-shirt separates nonsense!

All this coordination could have been exhausting, but it may have been easier, actually. You don’t have to think about combining various pieces into something new and presentable. You just choose your red dress or your grey suit and off you go!

Handkerchiefs

We mustn’t forget handkerchiefs!  Monogrammed, please, and lace-edged for the ladies. There’s no Kleenex in old movies, though facial tissue came on the market in 1924. (Oddly enough, it was first marketed as a makeup-removing tool, and it was customers who began using it as a handkerchief substitute!)

As a bonus, this quotidian accessory was often used as the decisive clue in a murder (so maybe skip the monogram). It also functions as a cute romantic comedy trope. A debonair gentleman always has a clean, pressed hanky peeking from his suit pocket, and he simply waits around to find a tearful beauty in need of comfort. Or, an adorable everyman who is a bit of a slob never has his handkerchief on him. His absent-minded neglect of this basic necessity is simply too endearing! It will make his crying ladylove sob even harder before dissolving into watery giggles. Ladies love it when men are bumbling fools.

I love the scene in The Palm Beach Story (1942) when Rudy Vallee takes Claudette Colbert shopping. She lost her suitcase with all of her clothes, but happily she meets a millionaire who is only too delighted to help a girl out.

He records every purchase in his little book, which gives us a great glimpse at all the elements that went into a woman’s wardrobe, including “2 Doz. handkerchiefs,” and of course, underthings.

Undergarments

Pre-codes are packed with ladies in various states of undress (and more risqué fashion in general), but you don’t see a lot of underthings in post-1934 classic movies. However, it’s a safe bet that girdles, slips, chemises, brassieres, and lace drawers are hiding under most outfits.

We get a glimpse of these marvels of engineering in The Thin Man (1934), when two thugs see a magazine ad for the 1930s version of Spanx showing the outer layer and then what’s underneath.

Such “punishment” may not have fit under the super-slinky, bias cut gowns sported by Jean Harlow and Carole Lombard. Not much can hide under those. But it wasn’t a problem for Harlow, who famously hated wearing underwear. She also liked to ice her nipples before doing a scene to be sure they stood at attention for the cameras!

In the grandest days of the studio system, it wasn’t uncommon for custom, monogrammed undies to be provided to the stars, whether or not they showed on camera. That’s about as glamorous as it gets.

Something that we do see occasionally are stockings. They were an absolute must, which is why a roaring black market sprang up during WWII when stocking factories ceased production and started turning out parachutes, rope, and other war material with the country’s supply of silk and nylon.

Seamed stockings (which prompted the notorious question: “Are my seams straight?”) were popular until the 1960s. For the last few decades, pantyhose (stockings sewn to briefs, which may have first been popularized by dancer Ann Miller) has outsold stockings, which makes the garter belt/stocking combination a #vintage choice.

In Easy To Love (1953), we get a rare glimpse of a lady’s unmentionables in a montage of Esther Williams hurriedly getting dressed for an audition and then removing everything she just put on to change into her glittering swimsuit. Hat, slip, and stockings, check!

Pajamas

If you’ve ever watched a classic film, you probably saw someone in a smart set of matching jammies complete with a coordinating bathrobe and slippers, which were often high-heeled for the ladies. Apparently, people in the 1940s never walked around barefoot inside. Also, somehow characters manage to travel with multiple sets of beautiful pajamas, even if they only have one suitcase. It’s movie magic!

Part of the reason for these well-attired bedtimes might be a modesty issue. In post-Production Code films, it’s rare for a woman to be seen in her pajamas or nightgown without a robe of some kind flung over her shoulders or meticulously buttoned to keep everything censor-proof.

One of my favorite “robes” is Lucille Ball‘s blue lace number in Easy to Wed (1946). She hurriedly throws on the sheer, open front shrug before Van Johnson comes into her room. It’s about the silliest, most irrelevant robe I’ve ever seen, but quite pretty!

Sock Garters

Before dress socks had enough elastic to stay up on their own, men wore these awkward looking sock suspenders that fastened below the knee and clipped on to the slipping socks.

Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye showing off their sock garters in White Christmas (1954)

Sock garters are unnecessary today, thanks to advances in sock technology. According to GQ, they are a “peacockish affectation” providing “nothing but a retro look at the price of discomfort.” Unless you’re wearing a kilt, of course! You can still buy them, though. I was actually surprised to find so many offerings online.

Now that the basics are out of the way–it’s on to bathing suits!

Swimwear

Bathing suits have definitely gotten smaller over the years. Just a few decades ago, strings weren’t an option, and bikini bottoms as we know them didn’t exist. Instead, bottoms were cut straight across and lower down the leg, or draped in little skirts in what is actually a very flattering look.

Esther Williams in Bathing Beauty (1944)

Dangerous When Wet (1953) even includes a little joke about the new “French style” of suits when Esther Williams‘ French beau gives her a French bikini as a gift. She is shocked, and makes sure to pull down her window blind so that the audience can’t see her trying it on!

Let’s talk belly buttons. Belly buttons were to classic movies what nipples are to today’s mainstream media: taboo. So although Esther Williams donned dozens of swimsuits throughout her movie career, not one of them displays her belly button. The two-piece suits rise just high enough to cover it.

(If you like the look of these suits, you can buy one at esther-williams.com. Williams designed swimsuits just like her character in Neptune’s Daughter (1949)! I’ve got one and I love it!)

Although belly buttons were out, midriffs weren’t off limits. There are actually a surprising number of two-piece outfits and evening gowns in old films. This trend has recently come roaring back with popover dresses and stars like Taylor Swift and Jennifer Lawrence rocking the hidden-belly-button, midriff-baring styles.

Women’s bathing suits were high-waisted, but that’s nothing compared to the men’s trunks.

And their trousers. Sometimes their pants are practically skimming their collarbone.

Fur

Fur was a status symbol, a glamorous, expensive item lusted after by women everywhere. Now it’s taboo, but in old movies, if you’ve “made it,” you’ve got a fur coat. And if you’re really rich, you’ve got several, and perhaps even stroll around town in fur-trimmed gowns and day wear.

Easy Living (1937)

Fur was so special and so marked that sometimes a fur coat becomes more than just an item of clothing. It’s loaded with meaning and can become a bargaining chip of sorts. For example, when a chorus girl who parties with a rich man appears at the theater in a new sable, she’ll get some knowing looks from her compatriots. She might as well wear a sign saying “I traded my virtue for this coat.” Diamond bracelets work the same way.  They’re both 20th century versions of a scarlet letter.

Jean Arthur in Easy Living

That’s why poor Jean Arthur gets fired from her job when she shows up in a gorgeous, $58,000 sable coat. It’s all perfectly innocent; an angry millionaire threw the coat off his penthouse roof to punish his wife for overspending, and it landed on Arthur as she rode the double decker bus to work. Arthur tracks down the millionaire who gives her the coat as a reward for her honesty and good, hardworking spirit. But Arthur’s boss assumes the worst, and he can’t have a fallen woman working in the office, now can he?

Top Hats and Tuxedos

Nowadays, tuxedos are reserved for special occasions, but in classic movies they’re put on about twice a day. After all, a man without a set of impeccably tailored tails isn’t to be trusted. Bonus points for a top hat.

I won’t get into silhouettes or fabrics (for instance, when silk was rationed during WWII, even the movie stars’ fabulous forms were draped in substitute fabrics) in this History Through Hollywood, but instead I’ll leave you with these stunning gowns that prove that old-fashioned does not always mean modest, boring, or dated. Funny how some of these styles would look perfect at this year’s Oscars, isn’t it?

Styles change: hemlines and necklines rise and fall, waists are cinched-in and loosened, sleeves are lengthened, shortened, inflated, deflated and sometimes dispensed with altogether. Hats are tiny, huge, then small again, and then disappear altogether. Skirts are puffed into voluminous folds and supported by lacy petticoats, then hang slim and straight without the help of marvels of structural engineering. Trousers become acceptable and then begin their own unending dance of shapes and lengths, while an exposed ankle is deemed whorish, scandalous, risqué, sexy, commonplace, and dull. Then it all begins again! Hurray for fashion!

If you’d like to know more about some of the movies I mentioned, check out my reviews on The Blonde at the Film, and follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm, and Facebook. As always, thanks for reading!

via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/73500/Double-Indemnity/#tcmarcp-152119  Unless otherwise noted, all images are my own.

In honor of TCM’s “Summer of Darkness” Film Noir Festival and online course, here’s Double Indemnity (1944), an undisputed masterpiece of the genre.

But first, what is film noir? Can we even call it a genre? And what does a movie need in order to belong to this notoriously slippery category?

Film noir literally translates to “black film,” and was first used in 1946 when French critic Nino Frank wrote an article called “A New Police Genre: The Criminal Adventure.” Frank wrote about the Hollywood films Laura (1944), The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Double Indemnity, among others, noting their brutality, darkness and cynicism, and labelling them “film noir.”  (The term had been used in France in the late 1930s to describe poetic realist movies like Le Quai des brumes (1938), but most agree that Frank was the first to use it in its modern, Hollywood sense).

It is perhaps surprising that it was a French critic who called attention to the dark tendencies of these American movies, but it’s not actually that strange. After all, Hollywood films had not been shown in France during WWII, but when the war ended, French theaters were flooded with a backlog of Hollywood imports. This circumstance helped critics like Frank detect themes and tendencies that were less noticeable to Americans who didn’t have the option of watching Double Indemnity and The Maltese Falcon back to back, for example.

Anyway, the term film noir stuck, though it remains an incredibly sticky, contested label. Some scholars and critics refuse to grant film noir the status of “genre,” preferring terms like “tendency,” “category,” “mood,” “phenomenon,” “cycle” or “style.”

Part of the problem with the term film noir is that it was only applied retroactively; unlike musicals or gangster films, Hollywood studios did not have a category of “film noir,” and the filmmakers never described their films as such. Instead, most canonical film noirs were called “melodramas” when they were produced.

Another complicating factor is that the modern canon of film noir (which is itself a highly contested group) is far from a cohesive collection of movies sharing clear cut characteristics. For instance, we know that a movie is a western by its setting, and a musical is easy to spot because the characters sing and dance. But film noirs can differ hugely one to the next.

That being said, there are certain characteristics that shout (or suggest) film noir: an urban setting, a private detective, a femme fatale, an anti-hero, crime, a mood of cynicism and pessimism, corruption, moral ambiguity, fatalism, violence and brutality, erotic elements, a hardboiled style of narrative and dialogue, flashbacks, voiceover narration, a dreamlike quality, and sometimes a hopelessly tangled plot.

Film noir also has a certain visual style, which includes expressionist flair (composition, angles, etc., visit The Lost Weekend for more on German Expressionism), and iconography like rain-slicked city streets, neon signs, Venetian blinds, and cigarettes. But perhaps the most salient element of film noir style is low-key lighting.

As Janey Place and Lowell Peterson write in “Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir,” “Noir lighting is ‘low-key.’ The ratio of key to fill light is great, creating areas of high contrast and rich, black shadows. [Click here to learn more about the terms key and fill.] Unlike the even illumination of high-key lighting which seeks to display attractively all areas of the frame, the low-key noir style opposes light and dark, hiding faces, rooms, urban landscapes—and, by extension, motivations and true character—in shadow and darkness…”

Compare a comedy, The Lady Eve, which is lit in the more typical high-key style, with a film noir, Double Indemnity, dimly lit in low-key:

Along with the various characteristics and visual style, the era of production is also important when classifying film noirs. The 1940s-1950s are generally considered the classic period of film noir, with later films taking on the “neo-noir” label, though that is a whole other can of shady worms.

Nearly every convention of the category/genre/cycle of film noir has several notable exceptions (many do not take place in cities, for example, or lack a private detective character), which is why various scholars and critics disagree so much over what the term means. What doesn’t help (but fascinates) is that film noir is by its very nature mysterious and malleable. The movies just have a certain atmosphere–film noirs present a shadowy, cynical, stylish world, but these qualities can be difficult to quantify and classify.

It doesn’t stop people from trying, though! There are more books than you’d imagine presenting arguments for a certain definition of film noir, and it seems that each scholar’s canon differs from the next. Those championing a narrow definition of film noir might set out a canon of only several dozen films, whereas those who take a broader view might make room for hundreds of movies in their “definitive” lists.

Basically, there is no consensus and no clear canon, which is one reason that film noir is so intriguing! I’m not even going to get into the various influences of film noir, nor the reasons why it arose when it did/looks how it does. This post is already a monster, and it would never end if I tried to cover all of that.

But if you’d like to jump into the film noir morass, check out TCM’s free online course from Ball State University, or take a look at two of my favorite books on the topic: Film Noir Reader and More than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts.

Despite all of this critical confusion, no one disagrees with Double Indemnity‘s categorization as film noir. As scholar Carl Freedman wrote, “Though the genre is too varied and complex for any particular film to be completely typical, it would be difficult to name another that comes closer to providing a paradigm for noir” (“The End of Work: From Double Indemnity to Body Heat,” in Neo-Noir).

Double Indemnity is the standard against which other film noirs and thrillers are judged, but it’s not just interesting in an academic sense. The film’s themes of betrayal, murder, and lust don’t go out of style, and this film still sucks you in eighty years after it was made. It somehow strikes a weird balance between highly stylized, very “of-its-time” but also timeless, which not many films manage.

Hardboiled author James M. Cain, who also wrote The Postman Always Rings Twice and Mildred Pierce, penned Double Indemnity in the mid-1930s. It was published serially in Liberty Magazine in 1936 before Cain included it as part of a collection of stories in 1943.

Cain was inspired by a sensational real-life murder: in 1927, a woman named Ruth Brown conspired with her married boyfriend Henry Judd Gray to kill her husband. She took out a hefty insurance policy on her doomed hubby, and with Gray’s help murdered the poor man. They were caught, found guilty, and executed. See the parallels to Double Indemnity?

Cain’s story was first submitted to the Production Code Administration (you can read more about that process and entity here) back in 1935 by MGM head Louis B. Mayer. But the PCA chief, Joseph Breen, shot down MGM’s hopes, writing that the story violated the Production Code and was “almost certain to result in a picture which we would be compelled to reject.”

Breen listed some of the violations, including the fact that “the leading characters are murderers who cheat the law and die at their own hands; the story deals improperly with an illicit and adulterous sex relationship; [and] the details of the vicious and cold-blooded murder are clearly shown.” Such a strong denial from the PCA shelved the story–without a Production Code certificate of approval, theaters wouldn’t show the film, so it wasn’t worth making.

Just to make sure the studios knew where Breen stood on Double Indemnity, his memo was sent to Warner Bros and Columbia, too. It would also make its way to Paramount eight years later when that studio began preparing to make the film in early 1943.

Despite the PCA’s strong objections, writer-director Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, author of The Big Sleep and other hardboiled novels, went to work adapting Cain’s story for the screen. Rather amazingly, Breen approved their treatment, writing in September, 1943 that it appeared acceptable, so long as the towel wrapped around Phyllis in her first scene “properly cover[s]” her and falls beneath her knees: “There must be no unacceptable exposure.” Also, the “whole sequence of the detailed disposition of the corpse is unacceptable…as a too detailed exposition of crime…We strongly urge, therefore, that you fade out after they take the body from the car…”

PCA files are fascinating. Breen and his staff handled the huge themes and issues, but tiny details (like the exact length of Phyllis’ towel) were dissected almost gleefully, too. When you’re guarding a nation’s morals, nothing can be overlooked!

Stanwyck and MacMurray hanging out between takes via: http://filmmakeriq.com/lessons/film-screening-double-indemnity/

Now that the script had preliminary approval, Paramount went to work. Barbara Stanwyck was cast as Phyllis Dietrichson, though Walter Neff was harder to find. Alan Ladd declined the part, so Wilder went to George Raft, who is most famous for his gangster roles and for passing on an extraordinary number of iconic movies.

When Wilder told Raft the plot of Double Indemnity, Raft asked him “Where’s the lapel?” The actor was convinced that at the end of the movie Neff would reveal himself as a policeman or FBI agent by flipping his lapel to display his badge! Raft wanted the character to be a true hero, and when Wilder told him there was no “lapel moment,” Raft turned down yet another legendary role.

Often Raft’s discarded roles went to Humphrey Bogart, but this time it was Fred MacMurray who took the part. Wilder thought MacMurray would be an intriguing choice because he typically played nice guys in light comedies.

But MacMurray wasn’t sure it was a good fit. He told Wilder, “I’m a saxophone player; I do little comedies with Carole Lombard.” (You can read about two of those “little comedies” here: The Princess Comes Across and Hands Across the Table.) But Wilder persuaded him, and MacMurray would later claim that Walter Neff was his favorite role. Fun fact: about fifteen years later, Wilder personally convinced MacMurray to play another anti-hero in The Apartment (1960).

Edward G. Robinson, who was wisely transitioning from his notorious gangster roles into a more diversified career, formed the third point of the unusual triangle as the claims investigator Barton Keyes. And off they went!

The film opens with a car careening recklessly down the nearly empty Los Angeles streets in the predawn darkness.

The opening of this film is so noir that it almost feels like a spoof. But that’s only because the dark, wet streets and a lonely city sparsely lit by piercing headlights and streetlights have become such strong markers of the style.

The car stops in front of the Pacific All-Risk Insurance Company and Walter Neff (MacMurray) gets out. He limps into the building and stays mostly silent despite the kindly conversation of the elevator operator. Walter makes his way through the dark office and goes in a door marked “Barton Keyes, Claims Manager.”

He sits at the desk, gingerly sets up the dictaphone, and begins his confession. He says it’s July 16, 1938, he’s 35-years-old, and he killed Dietrichson. “I killed him for money. And for a woman. But I didn’t get the money…and I didn’t get the woman. Pretty, isn’t it?”

It’s an amazing line and a great scene. You can watch it here.

Cue the flashback as Walter says, “It all began last May.” We cut from the office to a neighborhood in Los Angeles. Walter walks up to a Spanish-style house, and his voice continues to narrate what we’re seeing. (We’ve got murder, voiceover narration and a flashback narrative already. Check, check, and check.)

Walter walks into the house and explains that he is an insurance salesman. He has stopped by to renew an auto policy with Mr. Dietrichson. He isn’t home, but his wife is…

There’s that towel. And it does indeed fall just below Stanwyck’s knees. Walter flirts shamelessly with Mrs. Dietrichson (Stanwyck), and she gives it right back to him. Immediately we know that neither of these characters is an upstanding, moral person. And that’s one reason this movie is so fun.

Phyllis Dietrichson tells Walter to wait for a moment–she was sunbathing but will put on some clothes and be right down. Walter grins as he waits for Phyllis. He’s a heel, we realize, and has no problem at all flirting with a married woman.

When Phyllis comes down the stairs, we get a shot of her high-heeled slippers and anklet. Whenever the camera lingers on feet like this, you know the character is bad news. It’s a fantastic trope.

Phyllis is still buttoning her ruffled dress as she walks into the living room. It’s yet another clue that she is iffy, morally and sexually speaking. After all, a nice lady always makes sure her clothes are properly fastened before engaging with a strange man.

Phyllis slouches sensually in her chair and plays with her huge cocktail rings and bracelets as Walter starts his insurance pitch. But he doesn’t stay on topic.

Phyllis casually rebuffs his more aggressive efforts, but it’s perfunctory, at best. At one point she rises from her chair and paces, clearly pondering something. Then she asks Walter if he sells accident insurance, too. Her husband works in the oil fields and she worries about him so!

Walter doesn’t buy the “worried little woman” routine. There’s something awfully calculating and predatory about Phyllis. She seems excited yet contained, like a crouching panther, when she starts talking about accident insurance.

This is an amazing scene packed with double entendres, sexual tension, and desire. Eventually, Phyllis tells Walter that he can come back tomorrow evening. Her husband will be there and can sign the renewal, and she’ll be there, too, of course. Walter asks, “Same chair, same perfume, same anklet?” She says, “I wonder if I know what you mean.” He replies “I wonder if you wonder.” It’s great. You can watch the scene here.

Fun fact: John Seitz, the cinematographer, achieved the look of “waning sunlight” in the dark, dusty house using “some silver dust mixed with smoke.” (Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck).

Another fun fact: Bosley Crowther, the reviewer at The New York Times, found MacMurray’s immediate attraction to Stanwyck difficult to believe, writing “Mr. MacMurray is a bit too ingenuous as the gent who falls precipitately under her spell. And the ease of his fall is also questionable. One look at the lady’s ankles and he’s cooked.” It’s pretty true–but I buy it.

As he leaves the house, Walter’s voiceover breaks through the sultry flirtation with this hardboiled, utterly film noir line:

Goosebumps!

Now for a costume appreciation break and wig discussion. We’ve got to get that out of the way. Stanwyck looks different in this film, mostly because of the brassy blonde wig. It’s an odd, clearly fake hairstyle with heavy sausage curl bangs and a platinum glow.

The wigs’ strangeness is not the result of changes in style, either; even when the movie was released people thought the wig was weird. Reportedly, an executive at Paramount said, “We hire Barbara Stanwyck and here we get George Washington” after he saw some of the early footage!

Critics mentioned it, too, for example, Variety’s review of the film included this line: “Miss Stanwyck is not as attractive as normally with what is seemingly a blonde wig, but it’s probably part of a makeup to emphasize the brassiness of the character.”

As Variety noted, the wig was intended to make Phyllis look trashy and inelegant, and perhaps to allude to her deceptive character and general boldness, which it certainly does. But that effect is somewhat overshadowed by the basic weirdness, though the wig did make it easier for Steve Martin to step into Phyllis’ place in his wonderful noir spoof, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982). I’ll have more on that in a moment.

To Phyllis’ costume! Her clothes are especially interesting in this movie, so I’ll be paying extra attention to them. Paramount’s head designer Edith Head created the costumes for this film. She had first dressed Barbara Stanwyck in Internes Can’t Take Money (1937), but the relationship between designer and actress really took off on The Lady Eve (1941).

Stanwyck’s costumes in The Lady Eve

Before that film, Head remembered that “As for fashion, [Stanwyck] couldn’t have cared less,” but The Lady Eve changed her mind.

Stanwyck agreed, recalling that for The Lady Eve, “…Edith made the most beautiful clothes I had ever worn.” From then on, Stanwyck requested that Head design all of her costumes, and she had the designer’s name “written into every contract, no matter what studio [she] was working for.” Head and Stanwyck would go on to work on more than 25 films together (Edith Head and Paddy Calistro, Edith Head’s Hollywood.)

When Head designed for Stanwyck on films at other studios, she would only create Stanwyck’s outfits, and the studio’s designer would dress the other actresses. This was not an uncommon arrangement for powerful stars; Carole Lombard had a similar arrangement with Travis Banton, for example. For more on the relationship between Head and Stanwyck, and the various “tricks” Head used to make Stanwyck look her best, visit my post on The Lady Eve.)

Head worked her magic on Double Indemnity, though the goal for Phyllis was slightly different than for other characters who just needed to look beautiful.

The ruffled dress Phyllis wears in this scene is fussy and cheap looking, but, like the wig, it serves a purpose. Phyllis is not a classy lady, and her costumes contribute to that characterization.

The material is slinky and falls in easy folds when she settles into a dark chair, seductively revealing her knees. The shiny buttons, belt buckle, large jewelry, and platinum hair glitter as she moves, giving her a “cheaply manufactured, metallic look” (James Naremore, More than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts.)

Phyllis appears tawdry, cold, and inelegant, an effect which was very much intended. Wilder “wanted to make her look as sleazy as possible,” and Head made it happen (Ella Smith, Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck.)

Her costume also serves another purpose tailored to film noir. I propose that one reason Head chose a light color for this dress, and for others in the film, was due to the low-key lighting used throughout the movie. The dim light pools and shimmers along her dress and jewelry, turning her body into a sort of noir landscape of shadows and highlights. The pale dress and the blonde wig make Stanwyck practically glow, and keep her visible in the shadowy room.

Edith Head and her fellow designers would have been well aware of the cinematography and overall look of each film they worked on. The various departments (set, art, costume, makeup, etc.) worked together to create a cohesive movie, and smart designers like Head learned what worked on screen and what didn’t.

via: https://sartorialsilverscreen.wordpress.com/double-indemnity-barbara-stanwyck-as-phyllis-dietrichson/

Head explained this collaborative process, remembering how during her early years at Paramount she: “learned to buck what a Hollywood designer must try to buck: first the star who puts herself in your hands but knows exactly what she wants, then the producer and the director, either of whom is likely to say, ‘I want a square neckline, my wife always wears one,’ the sound man who doesn’t like the rustle, the color consultant who worries himself sick about plaids and tweeds…”

“…the art director who insists, ‘You can’t use blue, the interior of my room is blue,’ the set decorator who screams, ‘Oh, my God, you can’t use a black dress for this scene, I’ve planned a black sofa!’…or the front office reminding you, as the day of economy came in, ugliest of all words, WE CAN’T AFFORD…or, finally, the censor who may decree that mousseline de soie is too diaphanous… ” (Edith Head and Jane Kesner Ardmore, The Dress Doctor.)

Head’s awareness of the various factors from sound to censors, and her habit of collaboration influenced her designs and would serve her well in an expressive movie like this one. Although she would not have called Double Indemnity a “film noir,” as that term did not yet exist, she would have known that it would be shot in a very dark, low-key style, and she certainly seems to have taken the lighting into account when designing the costumes.

The white costumes and light colors worn so frequently by Phyllis also play an interesting game in terms of characterization. In the popular, and occasionally scholarly imagination, femme fatales appear draped in black, sparkly dresses that ooze sexuality. Gilda’s iconic black strapless gown in Gilda (1946) and Kitty’s sultry, one shoulder number in The Killers (1946) have come to represent “the femme fatale dress,” but both of these black dresses are signaled as “costumes” worn to perform songs within the world of the movie.

Despite this, the gowns have become part of the iconography of the femme fatale, although Phyllis and other film noir dames are more often seen in modest white clothes than black dresses. (ps. I really enjoyed this article on Double Indemnity‘s costumes from the great Girls Do Film site.)
Back to the movie. Walter leaves the house and returns to his office. Barton Keyes (Robinson), who is a legendary investigator who never lets a phony claim sneak by, is yelling at a man who set fire to his truck in order to collect the insurance money.

After the confrontation, Walter and Keyes chat, and you can tell that they are very close. It’s sort of a father-son dynamic.

We also hear about the “little man” in Keyes’ gut who alerts him when something isn’t quite right. (It’s proto-Stephen Colbert and truthiness.) Keyes’ hunches are famous, and he’s a bloodhound when it comes to tracking down the truth.

This scene is important to get the relationship between Keyes and Walter, and to understand what a great investigator Keyes is (he plays the “private eye” role in this noir). But it’s also fun to see the mid-1940s decor in the office. All those tiny drawers! You can watch it here.

Walter gets a call from Phyllis later that day rescheduling his evening appointment to an afternoon visit. So Walter goes back later that week, but–shock!–Mr. Dietrichson isn’t there! Walter isn’t fooled by Phyllis’ fake-surprise at remembering that it’s the maid’s day off, too…

Phyllis starts with an innocent act, but the conversation soon turns to that accident policy and her troubled relationship with her husband. But it’s still full of great lines.

For instance, Phyllis tells Walter that her marriage is so dull she spends her evenings knitting. Walter says, “Is that what you married him for?” She answers, “Maybe I like the way his thumbs hold up the wool.” And Walter for the win: “Anytime his thumbs get tired…Only with me around, you wouldn’t have to knit.”

Eventually, Phyllis asks about the accident policy, and Walter is happy to explain. He becomes suspicious, though, when she starts talking about how her husband doesn’t want one, and would it be possible to get one without his knowledge?

Walter had no problem flirting (which seems a far too innocent word for these two scoundrels) but he’s not okay with a secret insurance policy. He says, “You want to knock him off, don’t you?” (there is such great slang in this movie!) She acts shocked and insulted, but Walter doesn’t buy it, and he’s happy to leave. He’s not interested in such underhanded dealings. At least not yet.

Costume appreciation break. Just a typical afternoon dress for receiving insurance salesman, right? Notice how the waist of the dress dips in the back. Stanwyck had a “figure problem,” a long waist and a low, wide bottom that stumped designers. Until Edith Head came along…

Head solved Stanwyck’s “problem:” “By widening the waistbands on the front of her gowns and narrowing them slightly in the back, I could still put her in straight skirts, something other designers were afraid to do, because they thought she might look too heavy in the seat. Since she wasn’t the least bit heavy, I just took advantage of her long waist to create an optical illusion that her derriere was just as pertly placed as any other star’s” (Edith Head’s Hollywood).

This dress is also a great example of the peculiarities of costume design for black-and-white films. Head later explained that: “When you do a black-and-white picture, you have to depend upon two things: extreme contrast, to get variation in light and shade, and then you have to be much more intricate in construction of clothes and much more elaborate in accessories, decoration, embroidery, and things of that sort” (Edith Head qtd. in Sam Staggs, Close-up on Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream.)

The intricacy of the designs was important because “A red sheath which might be magnificent for a scene in color would have looked like a gray sack in black and white” (The Dress Doctor.) For example, a dress like this pink one from Easy to Wed (1946), which is stunning on Esther Williams in high-key Technicolor, would look awfully dull, like a “gray sack,” in black and white. But Phyllis’ flower print dress has the extreme contrast and the elaborate detail that makes it pop in the black and white world of Double Indemnity.

Easy to Wed

Back to the movie. Walter goes to a drive-in where he drinks a beer in his car (!) and then bowls a few frames to quiet his mind. Just the typical activities one does when a customer solicits one’s help in murdering her husband.

But he can’t get Phyllis out of his head. You can watch the scene here.

That night, Phyllis shows up at his apartment. She wants to clear up their “misunderstanding.” Of course she doesn’t want to kill her husband!

Phyllis and Walter stand at the window watching the rain dance down the panes (of course it’s raining!), and soon they profess their “love” for each other with mutual “I’m crazy about you, baby.” Kiss. They have known each other for about fifteen minutes at this point, so it was about time, right?

Talk turns to Phyllis’ mean husband. He hits her and he never lets her do anything, plus he’s leaving all of his money to his daughter from his first marriage. He won’t ever grant Phyllis a divorce, so she’s stuck. Walter listens, but basically tells her that she can’t murder her husband because everyone gets caught sooner or later. And insurance companies “know more tricks than a carload of monkeys,” so they would be all over her if there was a big insurance payout. 

Significantly, there’s never any mention of the evil of murder, no “you shouldn’t kill him because it’s bad to kill people.” Walter and Phyllis’ reservations are all very rooted in selfish consequences, which is one reason this movie feels so brutal, so dark, and so very noir.

Things look bleak for Phyllis and she begins to cry. They embrace, and a cross-dissolve takes us to Walter recording his confession. The cross-dissolve signals that Phyllis and Walter are going to have sex, but since this is a 1944 film that had to contend with the Production Code, we can’t watch it.

In the office, Walter talks about how he was partly interested in Phyllis’ plan because he wanted to pit his skills and inside knowledge against the insurance company and the police. He was in a perfect position to carry out insurance fraud, and he sort of wanted to see if he could do it! Again, there’s no real mention that he will be killing a human being as part of his game. That’s film noir for you.
Another dissolve takes us back to the apartment. Walter is sprawled on the couch smoking, and Phyllis is touching up her makeup. These are more codes for “the characters just had sex.”

Movies like this are so fascinating because of all the codes and shorthands the filmmakers employ to abide by the letter of the Production Code while still including crime, sex, and other no-nos. It can seem really tame by today’s standards, but it’s all there if you know how to read it.

Before Phyllis goes home, Walter pulls her in for another kiss. By this point he’s completely under her spell, and he tells her that he has changed his mind. He will help her kill her husband. They’re going to do it right and plan out everything so that they won’t get caught. They’re on the same trolley car to murder, taking it “straight down the line,” a metaphor that will crop up quite often.

Costume appreciation break. Phyllis wears a light colored coat over a white sweater and a slim dark skirt in this scene. It might seem counterintuitive to wear a white sweater to a seduction, but it really works. The sweater is so thin you can see Phyllis’ bra underneath, and it clings quite tightly to her figure.

The white sweater signals both demure (long sleeve, crew-neck) and sexy (very tight and slightly sheer). Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper focused on its vampy side, writing “Stanwyck broke all the Hays [Production Code] rules, including the ban on sweaters, in Double Indemnity” (Hedda Hopper, “Looking at Hollywood. Chicago Daily Tribune. 12 June 1944.)

This costume is likely another instance of Edith Head working with Wilder and Seitz’s vision for the scene. It is one of the darkest interiors in the film, and most of the shots are from the waist up.  Walter, also in a white shirt, and Phyllis remain visible partly because of their white tops as they pass in and out of shadows.

A few nights later, Walter comes by the house to get Mr. Dietrichson to sign the auto insurance forms/his secret accident policy. Phyllis and her step-daughter Lola (Jean Heather) play Chinese checkers while Walter goes through his sales pitch. It’s obvious that Lola and Phyllis are not pals.

This scene is a notable example of costume design and the idea of a “foil.” As I mentioned earlier, not every femme fatale is always dressed in black sequins. Most often, the femme fatale is coded relatively within each film, usually as the counterpart to a “good woman.” This juxtaposition helps to easily separate the different types of women in that old binary of good/bad, or virgin/whore.

Edith Head employs this juxtaposition in her costume design; after all, femme fatales can’t always be in strapless black dresses, but they can be subtly coded as “sexier” than the other women in the film. That’s what is going on here: Lola is in a pale, modest dress with a bow at the collar, and Phyllis is garbed in a low-cut, black fringed number with a large brooch at her décolletage.

The styles and the colors set the women apart; as Edith Head said later: “I think you see colors before you see details, and certain clichés will work—virginal white for a girl, black for a vamp” (Deborah Landis, Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design.) In this film, Head uses both clichés, sometimes playing with and sometimes against the standard connotations. She goes with them in this scene.

Anyway, Walter gets Mr. Dietrichson (Tom Powers) to sign the accident policy, which he thinks is the auto insurance renewal. So far, so good. For Phyllis and Walter. Not for Mr. Dietrichson.

Phyllis walks Walter to the door and they have a brief whispered conversation before he takes off. Phyllis watches him go, a peculiar smile on her face. You can watch the scene here.

Walter’s night isn’t over yet, though. Lola has been waiting for him, hoping that he will drive her into the city. She told her father that she was meeting a friend, but she’s actually meeting a boyfriend, Nino Zachetti (Byron Barr.) Lola’s father doesn’t approve of Zachetti, so Lola has to sneak around. Once we meet Zachetti, it becomes clear why Mr. Dietrichson isn’t a fan. He’s hostile and aggressive, and scarily possessive of Lola. He’s upset that she rode with Walter, for example. 

Besides the general excellence of this masterpiece, it is fun to watch just for the views of Los Angeles and the general 1940s environment. Many scenes were shot on location; for example, the exterior of Walter’s apartment was shot at 1825 North Kingsley Dr., the garage was in the El Royale building on Rossmore Avenue, Jerry’s Market was at 5330 Melrose Avenue, and scenes were filmed on Sunset Boulevard, Western Avenue, and Hollywood Boulevard.

Now that the accident policy has gone into effect, Walter and Phyllis set the rest of their plan into action. Although this movie does give some elements away beforehand, it doesn’t show the audience every detail of the plan, which makes it extra-exciting when we watch our two “heroes” execute their intricate plot.
Walter and Phyllis are extremely careful. For example, they don’t call each other (that could be traced), but instead meet at Jerry’s Market near Phyllis’ house when they need to talk.

Despite their precautions, they’re highly noticeable when they both stop in front of the baby food and stand there for minutes at a time speaking in low voices.

Fun fact: this scene is used extensively in Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982) with Steve Martin as Phyllis. You can watch that version here. Another fun fact: Edith Head designed the costumes for that film, too. Her expertise in 1940s style and the fact that she designed many of the original outfits came in handy! It was her final film in a career that spanned nearly sixty years.

Walter wants to make it look like Mr. Dietrichson died on a train because the accident policy has a “double indemnity” clause that pays double on certain rare accidents, like deaths on trains. As luck would have it, Mr. Dietrichson’s Stanford reunion is coming up, and he plans to take the train. Walter and Phyllis want to murder him on that trip, thus doubling the $50,000 payout. It’s all coming together…

But then Mr. Dietrichson breaks his leg! The trip is cancelled, so Walter and Phyllis have to think of another plan. But the wait is taking its toll. They don’t dare see each other, and their enforced distance is very frustrating. Also, Phyllis’ powerful hold over Walter seems to weaken when she’s not around, and he starts vaguely second-guessing the entire thing.

Then the fates smile on our evil pair. Phyllis calls Walter with good news: her husband has decided to go on the trip after all. He’s catching the 10:15 train that very night. It’s a wonderful scene because Walter is with Keyes when she calls, and Walter has to pretend it’s just some random lady on the phone, not his murder accomplice. There’s an extra layer of betrayal built into Walter’s actions, since he and Keyes are so close, and Keyes just finished asking Walter to come work with him in his department when Phyllis called!

The pair swing into action. Walter heads home, careful to make his presence known to as many people as possible because he needs an alibi for the evening. He asks the garage attendant to wash his car, calls a co-worker, and puts a piece of paper in his doorbell and phone box so that he will know if anyone stops by or calls. He needs people to think he was at home all night.

Then he changes into a suit to match Mr. Dietrichson, grabs a towel to serve as a cast, and walks to the Dietrichson house. He sneaks into the garage and hides in the backseat of their car. Phyllis and Mr. Dietrichson arrive soon after, and Phyllis and Walter lock eyes as she puts her husband’s suitcase in the back. It’s creepy.

Phyllis drives to the station with Walter hidden in the back. It’s incredibly suspenseful. 

Phyllis turns down a very dark street and honks the horn three times to signal Walter. He rises from the back and kills Mr. Dietrichson right there in the car. We don’t see the murder; instead, the film lingers on Phyllis’ face. Although this was partially mandated by the Production Code, (remember that Breen didn’t want to see the murder nor the corpse), it’s a masterful choice, and more effective than seeing Walter kill Mr. Dietrichson, in my opinion.

Our eyes stay fixed on Phyllis as we listen to her husband’s dying gurgles and groans. She doesn’t say a word, and she barely changes expression. There is certainly no pity nor remorse in her face, and she actually seems to grow stronger and ruthlessly happy as he dies beside her. It’s chilling.

The murder was just the beginning of the plan. Now they need to get “Mr. Dietrichson” on the train. When they get to the station, Walter puts the body in the trunk, grabs the crutches, and follows Phyllis to the train pretending to be Mr. Dietrichson.

Phyllis says goodbye to her “husband” and heads back to the car with the corpse hidden in the back. Meanwhile, Walter makes his way to the observation platform on the caboose. But he’s not alone. Obviously Walter can’t have a witness!

So Walter asks the friendly man (Porter Hall) to fetch his cigars from his compartment. Once he’s gone, Walter jumps off the slow-moving train and waits for Phyllis to meet him at the appointed spot. Then they throw the corpse on the tracks and run back to the car.

It’s all very neatly done. Clever, cold, and ruthless.

When Phyllis tries to start the car, the engine sputters and dies. Uh oh. She tries again and again without any luck. The seconds tick by, and the suspense is crazy. Finally, Walter is able to start the engine, and the pair make their getaway. Although we know that Phyllis and Walter are doing something very bad, we still root for them. We’re glad their car finally started because we really don’t want Phyllis and Walter to get caught.

Fun fact: the car scene wasn’t in the original script. Wilder’s own car wouldn’t start after a day of shooting, and he liked the idea of adding something similar to the movie. It’s funny that this wasn’t part of the master plan because it is one of the most memorable moments in the film.

Another fun fact: contemporary reports note that some night scenes were filmed in Phoenix, AZ because Los Angeles had blackout regulations which made it difficult to shoot at night. This film was in production in September through November 1943, as WWII was raging, so such regulations were the norm. But since the movie is set in 1938, there’s nothing about WWII in the film.

Phyllis drops Walter off near his apartment. He is glad to find that no one called nor came by, though it’s unclear what he would have done if someone did try to get in touch with him during those hours. Then he walks to a nearby drugstore for some food and more alibi support, which gives him the opportunity for some more amazing noir moments.

His voiceover comes back as he walks down the dark, deserted street. He explains that although the plan had gone off perfectly, he was suddenly overcome with a sense of dread: “I couldn’t hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man.” He feels that everything will go wrong.

But it doesn’t. Days pass and no one gets suspicious. It seems perfectly reasonable that a man with a broken leg could have lost his balance, fallen off the train, and broken his neck. But then the president of the insurance company hears that they are on the hook for a $100,000 payout (a little over 1.3 million in 2015 dollars) and takes a look at the case himself. Mr. Norton (Richard Gaines) then calls in Keyes and Walter and tells them that he thinks Mr. Dietrichson committed suicide, which, of course, negates the accident policy.

Walter stays quiet, but Keyes comes to the rescue. He destroys Mr. Norton’s theory in a magnificent monologue. Actuarial tables and suicide statistics have never been so dramatically fascinating! Keyes’ conclusion is that there is no way Mr. Dietrichson committed suicide. The company will have to pay. (It’s terribly ironic and poignant that Keyes, who is Walter and Phyllis’ most dangerous foe, actually helps their case.)

Then things get even more interesting. Mr. Norton asked Phyllis to come by to discuss her husband’s policy. She walks in wearing her dark suit and mourning hat, and plays the part of grieving-wife-shocked-to-learn-about-the-accident-policy-and-also-insulted-by-the-suicide-theory perfectly. 

Walter and Phyllis barely look at each other in this scene, but you can feel Walter’s terrible tension. Phyllis seems quite cool, though. Deception is her thing, after all.

Phyllis rocks that veil, and she naturally has a handkerchief at the ready.

Despite Keyes’ assertions to the contrary, the president refuses to pay the double indemnity on the grounds of suicide. Phyllis fully intends to sue.

That evening, Phyllis stupidly calls Walter to ask if she can come to his apartment to talk about their options. He stupidly agrees. As he waits for her, guess who stops by unannounced? Keyes! He’s been thinking about the Dietrichson case, and his “little man” is performing somersaults in his gut. Something isn’t right.

Walter is in a tough spot. If Phyllis walks in, which she will at any moment, the game is up. But clever Phyllis hears Keyes from outside Walter’s door and waits in the hallway.

Walter listens to Keyes’ theories, calm on the outside but churning within. Keyes is getting closer to the truth, though he harbors no suspicions about Walter.

It’s another suspenseful scene, and it only gets crazier once Keyes leaves the apartment. Fortunately for Phyllis, the door opens out into the hall (unusual), so she hides behind it as Keyes and Walter step into the hallway.

She tugs almost imperceptibly on the doorknob to let Walter know where she is. He stands in the hallway and makes sure not to close the door until Keyes is safely in the elevator. Whew!

I love this door gag. It’s used a lot, as when Cary Grant hides behind the door in The Awful Truth (1937), but never with this level of suspense.

You can watch the scene here:

Now that Keyes is gone, Phyllis and Walter can discuss their next moves. First, they really can’t see each other for a while. Now that Keyes is investigating, they need to be crazy-careful. And Walter doesn’t think that Phyllis should sue the insurance company. He is certain that a lawsuit will only end up exposing the murder. But Phyllis doesn’t like that, not at all. She wants that money!

Walter is starting to wish they’d never killed Dietrichson, whereas Phyllis seems energized by the crime. But there is not much either one of them can do. Things have changed between them, but they’re inextricably bound together by the murder. There’s no getting off the trolley. It’s straight down the line.

Things just get worse for Walter as the days go by. Lola shows up in his office with her own suspicions. She tells Walter that she saw Phyllis trying on a black hat and veil days before her father died, and she thinks that Phyllis had something to do with his death.

Her suspicions are based on more than premature mourning attire, though. She tells Walter a terrible story about how her mother died. She was so sick that her father hired a full-time nurse, and they all went to Lake Tahoe together in the middle of winter.

One night Lola walked into her mother’s room to find that all the windows had been thrown open and the blankets taken from the bed. The room was freezing cold, and her poor mother was terribly ill and delirious with fever. Lola was covering her up when the nurse walked in and gave Lola a look she never forgot.

Her mother died soon after–guess who the nurse was?

Phyllis. Of course.

Lola thinks that Phyllis killed her mom so she could marry her father for his money. Lola was too young to do anything back then, but now that her father has died she can’t sit by and let Phyllis get away with it.

This is not what Walter wanted to hear. His most immediate problem is Lola going to the police, so he decides to wine and dine her to keep her mind off of the murder. (He must think she’s really dumb and shallow if a few dates will erase her suspicions about her father’s death.)

He’s right, though. Lola has such a lovely time with him that she doesn’t seem concerned about Phyllis killing both her parents! He must be a wonderful conversationalist.

Meanwhile, Keyes is still working away at the Dietrichson case. Walter gets a nasty surprise when he comes by Keyes’ office and sees Mr. Jackson (Porter Hall), the man from the observation platform, waiting outside. Keyes tracked him down and wants to ask about his encounter with Dietrichson. 

Keyes has a new theory: Dietrichson was murdered before he ever got on the train. The theory is bolstered when Mr. Jackson looks at a picture of Dietrichson and says the man he talked to definitely wasn’t him. (But he doesn’t recognize Walter as the imposter.) Keyes is thrilled. He’s getting close to the truth! He tells Walter that he is sure that Phyllis was in on the murder, though she must have had an accomplice. Keyes still doesn’t suspect his protege of being that man, though.

Walter and Phyllis call an emergency meeting at Jerry’s Market. Walter once again tries to convince Phyllis not to sue. Keyes is closing in, and they will both hang. But she refuses to back down. 

Her final lines to him invoke their “down the line” metaphor, but now it’s not a profession of love. It’s a doom-filled threat: “We went into this together and we’re coming out at the end together. It’s straight down the line for both of us. Remember?” And off she goes after giving him a terrifying look.

Walter’s voiceover joins in with this dark line: “Yes, I remembered. Just like I remembered what you had told me, Keyes. About that trolley car ride and how there was no getting off until the end of the line where the cemetery was. And then I got to thinking what cemeteries are for. They’re to put dead people in. I guess that was the first time I ever thought about Phyllis that way. Dead, I mean. And how it would be if she were dead.”

Things are getting serious.

But remember, it’s just a movie. Here are Stanwyck, MacMurray, and Wilder between takes of this scene in Jerry’s Market:

via: http://filmnoir.mx/resenas/pacto-de-sangre/

The shoot was a relatively easy one without huge personality conflicts or troublesome elements. Stanwyck had a good deal to do with that, as she was one of the most professional, least temperamental actresses of the classical era. Wilder remembered that Stanwyck was “as good an actress as I have ever worked with. Very meticulous about her work. We rehearsed the way I usually do. Hard. There were no retakes.”

Wilder’s opinion of Stanwyck was shared by many in Hollywood both in front of and behind the camera. Stanwyck had risen to movie stardom after a long, difficult career dancing in vaudeville and working on the stage where she had developed great working habits and an easy-going attitude. She’d been in films since 1927, but retained her trouper roots and never acted like a diva despite being a huge star. For example, Stanwyck had a habit of learning not only her lines, but everyone else’s, too, and her impeccable preparation meant that everyone on set performed better. For more on Stanwyck, you can read Victoria Wilson’s massive biography, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940. I’m currently waiting for the second volume.
Back to the movie. Phyllis seems prepared to kill Walter, Walter is thinking about killing Phyllis, Keyes is closing in, and Walter still has to romance Lola! They meet up again and go sit high above the Hollywood Bowl, but Lola isn’t enjoying it.She starts to cry, but it’s not about her dead parents nor her murderous stepmother. No, she’s upset because Zachetti is seeing someone else. Guess who?

Phyllis, of course! Walter sits, stony-faced, as he hears the news.

After his date with Lola, he sneaks into Keyes’ office to figure out just how much the investigator knows. Turns out, quite a lot.

Walter listens to Keyes’ dictaphone recording of his notes and finds out that Keyes is certain that Phyllis and a partner murdered Mr. Dietrichson. He’s had someone surveilling Phyllis for days and thinks he’s found her accomplice: Zachetti. Lola’s unfaithful boyfriend has visited the Dietrichson house for several nights now. Lola was right!

Just to twist in the knife even further, Keyes’ voice intones that he did check up on his colleague Walter Neff, but Neff has an alibi for the night of the murder. So that’s good?

Walter calls Phyllis from Keyes’ office and asks if he can come by that night. He needs to end this.

Cut to Phyllis preparing for his visit. She wears flowing white lounging pajamas, which is fortunate because the house is so shadowy that we can barely see her. She hides a gun under the seat cushion and lights a cigarette as she waits in the empty, dark house. This is not going to go well.

Walter arrives and they start their old flirty chit chat, though it’s not nearly as playful as before. After all, this time they’re being casually cool about how they’ve murdered someone, how Phyllis has used Walter and betrayed him, and how they’re both terrible people. “Rotten” through and through.

Walter asks Phyllis about Zacchetti, and she tells him that she kept him around just to fill his mind with poison about Lola two-timing him. She hoped that Zachetti would eventually snap and kill Lola, thus transferring all of Mr. Dietrichson’s money to Phyllis. She’s a real charmer.

Walter tells her that Keyes is on to her but that he thinks Zachetti was her accomplice. He tells her that he can still get away with it, but it’s too late for her. Then he gets up to close the curtains, and that little silver gun comes out. She shoots him.

She gets him in the shoulder, but he walks towards her like a zombie spouting film noir gems: “You can do better than that, can’t you, baby? You’d better try it again. Maybe if I came a little closer? How’s this? Think you can do it now?”

She doesn’t move as he takes the gun from her and asks, “Why didn’t you shoot again, baby? Don’t tell me it’s because you’ve been in love with me all this time.” They’re practically embracing now in a wonderful representation of one of this film’s themes: the close relationship between love and hate and lust and violence.

Phyllis looks up into Walter’s face and says, “No, I never loved you, Walter. Not you or anybody else. I’m rotten to the heart. I used you just as you said. That’s all you ever meant to me. Until a minute ago, when I couldn’t fire that second shot. I never thought that could happen to me.”

He says, “Sorry, baby, I’m not buying.” And she wraps her arms tighter around his neck and says, “I’m not asking you to buy. Just hold me close.”

Then she feels him press the gun to her stomach and looks at him in shock. He fires two shots as he holds her, and the camera stays on her face until she slumps in his arms. He lays her down on the sofa and leaves the house. 

It’s a magnificent, beautifully filmed, terribly affecting scene. And the movie isn’t even over! You can watch it here:

Costume appreciation break. This is the darkest interior scene in the film, and the white outfit helps to keep Phyllis visible. Moonlight streams in through the venetian blinds and the shafts of light fall on her and create moody stripes on the fabric. In a dark outfit this effect would be minimized or lost, and she would blend into the dark room.
Also, dressing Phyllis in “virginal” white is a more complex choice that neither telegraphs the character’s evil, nor signals her goodness, but instead plays with her character more subtly.

Phyllis is super evil–no amount of white can counteract that. But I think this costume taps into the idea that femme fatales are deceitful and manipulative. One imagines that Phyllis knows exactly when to wear a feminine white dress and when to bring out the black fringe and sequins. Thus, although ending the film in flowing white clothes might seem out of character, it is actually quite in keeping with Phyllis’ ruthless nature.

And it’s not at all unusual. In fact, in three more film noirs (The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), and The File on Thelma Jordan (1950), Stanwyck wears white when she dies. All of these films’ costumes were designed by Edith Head.

Back to the movie. Walter sees Zachetti approaching as he leaves the house. Walter gives Zachetti Lola’s address and tells him to go smooth things over. The young man hurries away.

Walter’s intervention in that romance keeps Zachetti from going in the house, and maybe ensures that Lola will have someone in her life, but it’s also a very questionable decision. After all, Phyllis said she was pretty close to getting Zachetti to murder Lola in a jealous rage, and we’ve been hearing throughout the movie about what a troubled, quick-to-anger guy he is. There’s a good chance that Lola is going to die a violent death at his hands. Maybe not immediately, but at some point. Thanks, Walter, for telling Zachetti where to find her!

Anyway, cut to Walter recording his confession in Keyes’ office. The flashback has ended, we’re in real time now. He’s almost finished his story when he hears something and looks over his shoulder. Keyes is standing in the doorway. He knows.

Walter chats with his mentor as he bleeds in the chair, never breaking his confident, caddish exterior. He asks Keyes not to call the cops right away, and not to bother with an ambulance. Walter plans to make it to Mexico, he just stopped by to tell Keyes what happened. Keyes lets him leave the office, but we hear him calling for an ambulance as Walter stumbles to the elevator. He doesn’t make it.

Keyes joins him on the floor and lights Walter’s cigarette in the cute way that Walter always used to light Keyes’. It’s a very tender moment. Keyes and Walter were almost father-and-son, and it’s very fitting and poignant that they are here together.

Walter tells Keyes that his investigation was top notch; the only problem was that “The guy you were looking for was too close. Right across the desk from you.” “Closer than that, Walter,” Keyes says quietly.

And Walter smiles and says, “I love you, too.”

It’s unusual that the scene between the actual lovers was so horrifyingly cold compared to this sweet, tender one between coworkers, but it really works. The love between Walter and Keyes was far more real and good than anything that Phyllis and Walter shared.

The relationship between Walter and Keyes has led some to find homosexual undertones in the movie, though for me their love is much more familial and lacks a sexual element. Regardless, this final scene has been called “one of the most powerful images of male love ever portrayed on the screen: a pieta in the form of a surrogate father’s lighting the cigarette of his dying son.” (Bernard F. Dick, Billy Wilder).

Miklós Rózsa‘s score surges in as sirens echo, and the film comes to a stunning, ambiguous, gorgeous end. You can watch it here.

Fun fact: Wilder intended to have another ending showing Walter going into the gas chamber. They shot the scene knowing it was questionable in terms of the Production Code, and indeed, Breen wasn’t thrilled. He wrote in December 1943 that “We have read the balance of the script…As we advised you before, this whole sequence in the death chamber seems very questionable in its present form. Specifically, the details of the execution…seem unduly gruesome from the standpoint of the Code, and also will certainly be deleted by censor boards…”

An image from the deleted ending via: http://filmmakeriq.com/lessons/film-screening-double-indemnity/

Wilder ended up cutting the scene after preview screenings despite his co-writer Raymond Chandler’s protests. I think it was the right call. Here’s an interview with Wilder discussing the alternate ending.

The disagreement over the gas chamber scene wasn’t the only issue between Wilder and Chandler. Apparently Chandler’s alcoholism re-surfaced in a big way when he was adapting Double Indemnity to the screen, and Wilder watched him fall apart.

Chandler later wrote that “working with Billy Wilder…was an agonizing experience and has probably shortened my life, but I learned from it about as much about screen writing as I am capable of learning, which is not very much.” And Wilder said that Chandler “gave me more aggravation than any writer I ever worked with.”

Wilder also said that working with Chandler made him especially interested in his next project, The Lost Weekend (1945), a fantastic film about an author struggling with alcoholism. Wilder said he made The Lost Weekend in part to try “to explain Chandler to himself.”

Double Indemnity was released in April 1944 and was well received by critics and audiences. Daily Variety‘s review was full of praise: “As a piece of screen craftsmanship it is masterful, especially in the writing and directorial phases, with only one other crime tale of this general nature comparable for calibre, namely, ‘The Maltese Falcon.'” (It’s interesting that Variety linked those two films together back in 1944, as they generally top the lists of film noir.)

Variety continued: “…The brilliant and exceptionally literate as well as gripping screenplay by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, is done with the conciseness, the clarity, the suspenseful idiom of an ace police reporter…” and “The dialog is a delight. The mechanism of the narrative is novel. The suspense devices are cleverly used. The narrative always remains clear-cut and straightforward, but never approaches monotony, even though the audience is in on every development from the very first. The final result is as if the beholder had sat through a genuine case in a criminal court.”

Crowther at The New York Times agreed with that assessment, writing that Wilder “has detailed the stalking of the victim with the frigid thoroughness of a coroner’s report, and he has pictured their psychological crackup as a sadist would pluck out a spider’s legs. No objection to the temper of this picture; it is as hard and inflexible as steel.”

Weekly Variety called it an “absorbing melodrama” and mentioned the real-life murder that supposedly inspired Cain’s story (noting that the victim was “sash-weighted to death”?) Both reviews praised the cast, with Daily Variety writing “…all these items of cunning, guilt, emotional turmoil, dark passion and finally tragic recoil are given complete conviction and haunting reality by a superbly impressive cast.”

And “MacMurray establishes himself with the best of his profession in a flawless delivery, sustained across almost two hours of constant camera scrutiny through shifting shades of emotion from easy arrogance to frenzied fear. Barbara Stanwyck, her hair blonded, her behavior never out of kilter with her conscienceless role, is the ultimate wanton, consummately played. Edward G. Robinson musters his finest talent to give living reality to a fascinating character.” And despite the wig, Weekly Variety noted that Stanwyck’s performance “is consistent though the character in the final reel would have been stronger had not the scripters sought to reflect some sense of human understanding for her.”

Stanwyck’s performance of what Variety called a “mercenary, nymphic wife” won her a Best Actress nomination, though she lost to Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight. Today, Stanwyck’s Phyllis is considered to be one of the greatest villains and femme fatales of all time, coming in at #8 on AFI’s 100 Greatest Villains List.

Stanwyck acted in several more film noirs, and after finishing yet another dark film, No Man of Her Own (1950), she joked, “My God, isn’t there a good comedy around? I’m tired of suffering in films. And I’ve killed so many co-stars lately, I’m getting a power complex!” (Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck.)

Stanwyck has since come to be known as the “undisputed first lady of noir” (Scott Snyder, qtd. in Julie Grossman, Rethinking the Femme Fatale in Film Noir: Ready for Her Close-Up.) Her fame as a femme fatale would probably be amusing to her, but she was right when she said that “roles in which [actresses] play evil women sometimes make a deep impression” (Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck.)

Besides Stanwyck’s Oscar nomination, Double Indemnity also received nods for Best Picture, Best Direction, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography (black & white), Best Sound Recording and Best Music (scoring of a dramatic picture). Amazingly, the movie didn’t win any of its eight categories!

Double Indemnity inspired several re-makes, including TV movies in 1954 and 1973, and 1981’s Body Heat (a loose re-make and prototypical neo-noir/”erotic thriller.”)

There are also some parodies of Double Indemnity, including Big Trouble (1985), a fantastic Carol Burnett spoof (see below), and of course Steve Martin’s Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.

Well, this post got out of control and is ridiculously long, and yet I feel as though I’ve barely scratched the surface of this complicated movie. If you’ve managed to make it this far, I applaud your efforts. Go get yourself a treat.

Here’s the trailer–enjoy! For more, follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm, and Facebook. You can buy this great movie here. As always, thanks for reading!

And watch Part 2 of “Double Calamity” here!

Variety excerpts from:

Weekly Variety. 26 April 1944. 154: 7. 12.  and Daily Variety. 24 April 1944. 43: 36. 3, 6.

Independence Day is on the horizon, and if you’re craving a classic movie to enjoy between the parades, fireworks, and barbecues, I’ve got you covered.

I compiled a list of Great Classic Films perfect for the Fourth last year, but I’ve added a few more this summer. I haven’t included any combat films, as wonderful as those can be. Instead, I’ve chosen eight exuberantly American movies. I’m going for big, bright, and brilliant, classic Hollywood-style!

I hope you find something to enjoy, and Happy Fourth of July!

Esther Williams in Easy to Love

1. Casablanca (1942)

My first pick bends my just-stated rules, but let me explain. If you are in the mood for an America-at-war movie this 4th of July, you can’t do much better than this incredible, one-of-the-best-films-ever, WWII drama. If there was an entry for “timeless classic” in a film encyclopedia, it would be Casablanca. Unlike some other classics (Citizen Kane, anyone?) that can feel a little like a chore to sit through, and that you “appreciate” but don’t really enjoy, this movie remains gripping, funny, romantic, and damn watchable seven decades after it premiered.

via: https://www.movieposter.com/poster/b70-1187/Casablanca.html

The script is taut perfection and the cast can’t be beat: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, and Paul Henreid star, but the movie is packed with great supporting actors, some of whom were actual refugees who had fled Europe. (For a fascinating account of the making of this movie, check out Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of Casablanca–Bogart, Bergman, and World War II by Aljean Harmetz). 

Rick (Bogart) is an American living in Vichy-occupied but really Nazi-controlled Casablanca, a city full of refugees fleeing WWII. The dream is to get to America through Casablanca via neutral Portugal, but many get stuck in Casablanca indefinitely. Rick runs his nightclub and remains “neutral,” but things get complicated when an old love (Bergman) arrives and needs his help to escape the Nazis.

Okay, so it’s not a big and bright Technicolor extravaganza, but when this film ends, you’ll be ready for “The Star-Spangled Banner” and fireworks! Here’s the trailer. To buy this great movie, click here!

2. Easy to Love (1953)

Huge swing from Casablanca, but give me a moment. This MGM extravaganza reunited two familiar co-stars, Esther Williams and Van Johnson. This was their fifth film together, and their fourth as romantic leads. (You can read about three of their other films here: Thrill of a Romance, Easy to Wed, and Duchess of Idaho.)

In this film, Ray (Johnson) runs Cypress Gardens in Florida (it was shot on location), and Julie (Williams) is his star attraction, a swimming, water-skiing beauty who models on the side.

via: http://www.museumoffloridahistory.com/resources/collections/ posters/EasytoLove.cfm

Conflict arises in this tropical paradise because Julie is in love with Ray, but he only sees her as a valuable commodity and profit-machine.

And she’s quite the commodity! As Ray says, Julie’s “smile has sold more toothpaste, her legs more nylons, her middle more girdles than you can possibly believe…She’d run away with the Miss America title every year if I’d let her compete.” But he doesn’t let her compete because it “Wouldn’t be fair to the other contestants.”

(Not only is Easy to Love a bright, Technicolor MGM musical, but it’s got an added edge of critique/endorsement of celebrity, image-driven marketing, and commodification.)

Why is this a fun Independence Day movie? Well, Williams’ character gets to be feisty and fun as she battles for her own independence from Cypress Gardens, and there are some absolutely absurd, exuberantly American water-skiing and water ballet interludes. Helicopters, speedboats, tourists, pageants, and sunny Florida plus Williams and Johnson? Can’t get much more American than that! And it’s about as joyful and spectacular as a fireworks display! Here’s the trailer. For more, read my full-length review, and you can buy this film here.

3. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Directed by Frank Capra and starring James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Astrid Allwyn and Edward Arnold, this film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and remains timelessly excellent.

Jimmy Stewart plays naive, optimistic Jefferson Smith who runs a Boy Scout-esque organization. He’s appointed to the Senate by his state’s governor, who assumes that Smith will be easy to manipulate. Smith doesn’t realize that just about everyone in Washington is crooked, criminal, jaded, or all three, and eventually his innocent idealism causes problems for some corrupt political bosses and politicians…his filibuster against these forces is cinematic magic!

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a must-watch that unfortunately remains very relevant, but don’t worry, it’s not a downer. It’s one of my July 4th picks because even though it shows a dark side, it will still make you say “Hurray for democracy! Hurray for America!” Here’s the trailer. To buy this wonderful movie, click here!

via: http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Smith_Goes_to_Washington_(1939)

4. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

If you’d like to spend some time with singing and dancing pioneers this Fourth, you can’t do better than this movie. Seven Brides is the story of Milly (Jane Powell), a beautiful orphan in the Oregon Territory circa 1850 who falls in love with Adam Pontipee (Howard Keel), marries him, and goes to his cabin in the wilderness, all in one eventful day!

via: http://www.listal.com/viewimage/164594h

What Adam neglected to tell Milly, though, is that his six brothers live with him, and now she is expected to cook, clean, and otherwise care for all seven slobby backwoodsmen. Milly is not thrilled, but she manages to bring some civilization to the Pontipee brothers.

Adam’s brothers decide that Milly is pretty great, and maybe they should find their own wives! Then things get crazy.

This film is enchanting. The music and dancing are out of this world–Jane and Howard can sing! And the brothers include dancer extraordinaire Tommy Rall, ballet dancer Jacques D’Amboise, and tumbler Russ Tamblyn. (It’s worth watching just for the exuberant barn raising scene.)

It’s not all brothers, either; soon six other women are living on the Pontipee homestead. Gingham has never looked so gorgeous. Fun fact: one of the “brides” is future CatWoman Julie Newmar.

Seven Brides is funny, radiant, and wonderful, and makes pioneer life look absolutely amazing! Here’s the trailer, and you can buy this great movie here!

5. On the Town (1949)

If you’re more of a city type but are in the mood for a musical, here’s On the Town. It was based on a 1944 stage show and was brought to the silver screen by the famed Freed Unit at MGM, responsible for such sparkling musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Harvey Girls, and The Band Wagon.

via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/355/On-the-Town/articles.html#tcmarcp-145970

The film was directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, and some scenes were shot on location in New York City, a rare move at the time. In fact, sometimes hidden cameras were employed to avoid attracting attention and crowds!

The film follows three sailors (Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin) on twenty-four-hour shore leave in the Big Apple. They’re pretty excited to arrive: this is the movie when Kelly, Sinatra, and Munshin burst out with “New York, New York, a wonderful town!” Fun fact: the original line, “a helluva town,” was changed for the movie.

The three sailors meet three ladies (Ann Miller (shown on the poster in one of her costumes from Easter Parade, oddly enough), Vera-Ellen, and Betty Garrett). Romance, hijinks, comedy, and plenty of singing and dancing fill their time together!

The book and lyrics were penned by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the duo behind Singin’ in the Rain, My Sister Eileen, and Good News. On the Town is a celebration of New York City, of America, and of the American movie musical by some of its greatest talents. Here’s the trailer, and you can buy this movie here.

6. The Long, Hot Summer (1958)

Embrace the summer heat with this sultry film starring real-life couple Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. It’s a Southern Gothic tale based on several of William Faulkner’s works, namely The Hamlet and “Barn Burning.”

via: http://www.impawards.com/1958/long_hot_summer.html

The film also took inspiration from Tennessee Williams’ play “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” which came to the silver screen that same year, and also starred Paul Newman, this time opposite Elizabeth Taylor (Summer was filmed first).

Besides Woodward and Newman, who were married shortly after finishing this film, the movie stars Lee Remick, Angela Lansbury, and a bloated Orson Welles, who made things difficult for just about everyone during production.

This film is heavy on Southern atmosphere and Southern accents, with plenty of heat, languid fans, and sprawling porches. So if bright musicals, war films, or westerns aren’t doing it for you this Fourth, celebrate the work of one of America’s greatest authors brought to the screen by some of our biggest stars.

Plus, it’s fun to see Newman and Woodward in their first film together. Here’s the trailer, and you can buy this sultry film here.

7. Hit the Deck (1955)

This movie’s finale takes place on a Navy battleship and includes hundreds of sailors backing up a gold lamé-clad Ann Miller. So I had to include it.

via: http://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Summaries/H/Hit %20the%20Deck%20(1955).htm

Hit the Deck follows the classic pattern of three sailors on leave in the city. The sailors (Tony Martin, Russ Tamblyn, and Vic Damone) naturally have three lady loves (Ann Miller, Debbie Reynolds, and Jane Powell).

With this group of six, you know there will be incredible musical numbers, though none top the enormous finale. Reynolds and Tamblyn bouncing around a carnival fun house, and Miller’s strange “Lady of the Bayou” dance come close, though. (It’s not a serious film.)

Throw in a pompous, predatory Broadway star, the Shore Patrol, (who search for the three sailors after they punch said Broadway star), various subplots involving the sailors’ families, and of course their love adventures, and you’ve got yourself a movie!

Hit the Deck is a joyful, absurd romp in CinemaScope with enough Admirals, sailors, and songs to garner a salute. Here’s the trailer. For more, you can read my full review and buy this delightful film here.

8. Stagecoach (1939)

This is considered one of the greatest westerns ever made, and what’s more American than that? Like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, it was released in that wonderful film year of 1939. Directed by John Ford, it stars Claire Trevor, George Bancroft, Louise Platt, Andy Devine, John Carradine, and Thomas Mitchell.

via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/91227/Stagecoach/#tcmarcp-949173

Oh, and a young man named John Wayne. This was Wayne’s breakout role, and he’s just tremendous as the outlaw Ringo Kid. And jaw-droppingly young and handsome–his first appearance in the film is epic.

It is 1855 and we’re traveling on a stagecoach with an awkward mix of people in very tight quarters. There’s an alcoholic doctor, a corrupt banker, a gentlemanly but dangerous gambler, a prostitute with a heart of gold, a tough marshal, and a classy lady. Plus, a scared salesman and an outlaw out for revenge!

The journey would be difficult enough, but add on rampaging Apaches, a baby’s untimely arrival, and an overwhelmed U.S. Cavalry, and you’ve got a legendary, epic western.

The film is mythic in its archetypes, conflicts, and scenery (it was the first film Ford shot in Monument Valley, a now iconic location.) It’s a beautiful, exciting, surprisingly moving film, a giant in this very American genre. Here’s the trailer, and you can buy this classic here. (Try Calamity Jane for a lighter, musical take on the western.)

I hope something on this list strikes your fancy this Independence Day. For more, follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm, and Facebook. You can find my lists of Great Classic Films for Kids, Halloween, Date Night, and Christmas here.

Happy Fourth of July!

Hit The Deck

or, Babel by the Seine

Instead of looking at one movie or writing a more typical History Through Hollywood, this week I’m focusing on a strange chapter in movie history inspired by a recent encounter with Smartling, a company that offers a cloud-based translation service for apps, websites, and documents. In our wildly globalized world, it’s important to be able to communicate across borders and languages. But although the pace and extent of globalization have certainly accelerated in the last decades, it is not a new phenomenon.

Some industries have always had an international reach. Hollywood, for example (you knew I’d get there sometime), has looked beyond national borders from the very beginning. Today, Hollywood makes the majority of its profits overseas, but the American film industry has almost always had a healthy market share of international screens.

This foreign success was threatened, though, in the late 1920s when movies began to talk.

MGM recording Leo the Lion in 1929 via: https://www.hollyshop.com/2014/01/the-1929-recording-of-the-mgm-lion-roar-pic/

What had been a silent medium (though always accompanied by live music) began to change. Unlike the seemingly overnight transition depicted in Singin’ in the Rain (1952), sound conversion actually swept Hollywood and the world at varying speeds and with varying levels of enthusiasm.

It was an exciting, scary, and complicated transition for everyone involved. Some popular silent stars had unappealing voices or strong accents that effectively ended their careers, the patent situation of sound technology was a tangled mess, and filmmakers suddenly had to rethink their methods and work around the unwieldy new equipment. Singin’ in the Rain depicts this frustrating situation rather brilliantly:

Besides the enormous tasks of making sound pictures and wiring theaters, talking pictures had huge and potentially disastrous implications for Hollywood’s share of the foreign market. After all, Hollywood had dominated the worldwide market for the last several years; for instance, in the 1920s, American films captured about 70% of the French box office (Andrew). Silent film exported wonderfully, but when movies began to talk, many feared that the resulting language barriers would end film’s ability to transcend borders.

Norma Talmadge on the cover of Photoplay, December 1929, via: http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/tag/mgm-history/

Hollywood wasn’t sure how to “translate” its films, and it feared losing the worldwide audience (and profits) it had enjoyed for the last decade. But other film industries were delighted by the language specificity offered by the sound film. Some filmmakers and studios in France, for example, looked forward to talkies “as a chance to recapture at least some of that audience which it had lost to American films around 1920” (Crisp).

But the American film industry was not going to relinquish its domination of the international market without a fight. The dubbing and subtitle technology was not yet advanced enough to be a viable option, so making movies in various languages was pretty much the only choice. So Hollywood decided to make foreign-language films to supply the world’s screens.

Unsurprisingly, most national cinemas were not excited to have America intrude upon their newly reclaimed territory. In March of 1930, an American film producer dismissed Europe’s alarm: “We know already what language is being used in England, in Germany, and in France against the American intrusion. And we know as well that those who clamor the loudest have been, and still are, our best clients” (Andrew). Hollywood had ruled the screens for a decade, and didn’t doubt it could satisfy its “best clients” even in their own languages.

And so the “American intrusion” began. Hollywood started “importing” international talent to make foreign-language films in America for export. This enabled the studios to make movies their way in their own backyard, just in languages besides English.

The second option devised to retain foreign audiences was a bit more extreme. The big American studios already had distribution offices and theaters dotting the globe, as you can see from this map of Paramount’s “empire” published in Motion Picture Herald in August, 1931:

But sound pushed the Hollywood studios to establish bases or expand their holdings overseas to film multiple-language versions (MLVs) with foreign casts. None of the studios, though, were as aggressive as Paramount in pursuing this goal. The company had been investigating producing films in France since 1923, but in 1929, spurred on by the success of talkies, Paramount got serious about the project.

The first big sound hit via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/3140/The-Jazz-Singer/#tcmarcp-184565

Besides the newly raised language barriers of the sound film, Paramount had another powerful inducement to producing films in France: the American studios had made a great deal of money in France in the last decade, and legally a portion of those profits had to remain on French soil (a regulation intended to bolster the French film industry).

Paramount decided to spend some of their French-bound money producing sound films in foreign languages, and Robert T. Kane, the former general manager of Famous Players/Lasky studio in Astoria, New York, and a Paramount producer, arrived in Paris in 1929 to investigate the situation.

Kane, whom historian Colin Crisp describes as a “magnate with a big cigar and a little French,” liked what he saw, and since Paramount was flush with profits, the company decided to produce foreign-language films abroad. A headline in The New York Times on May 14, 1929 announced “Lasky Will Make Talkies in Europe: Producer Predicts Popularity on Continent by Reproduction with Native Casts.” Jesse Lasky, vice-president of Paramount, explained:

The sound movement in Europe is on in earnest…The Europeans’ acceptance of sound pictures will, of course, present new and difficult problems for the American film industry, but I feel confident we will solve them in a manner satisfactory to the Europeans.

He attempted to calm anxious Europeans by assuring them that  “You can readily see that the so-called Americanization of the world’s screens will no longer be true…Instead; we will soon serve each country with talking films in its native tongue and by its own actors.” He outlined Paramount’s plan for sound production of MLVs in France, using French films as an example:

We will buy a story which has the distinct European appeal and at the same time contains all the elements of success for the American public. The film will be made in an American studio. Then, with this picture as a model, we will reproduce it faithfully in a French studio, but substitute an entire French caste [sic]. By saving on the very large cost of the original production, the reproduction abroad can be made for a small portion of the original cost.

It was an ambitious plan, and Paramount threw its resources into making its “reproduction” scheme a reality. In April of 1930, Paramount purchased the Aubert studio at Joinville-St. Maurice, about 26 km from Paris, and promptly destroyed most of it.

None of the French studios had been designed for sound production, so Paramount “totally dismantled the outdated Aubert studios already on the site…replacing them with an entirely new purpose-designed studio on the American model” (Crisp). The company poured money into the complex, building six new soundstages, and installing modern laboratories (Williams). All of this costly construction was undertaken in order to turn the relatively humble Joinville complex into something resembling a Hollywood studio. As Lasky excitedly said:

As to the prospects of Paris becoming a sort of European Hollywood, I think the chances are excellent, for from here we can draw upon the finest talent of the Old World and bring whole companies of actors to our Joinville studios with a minimum of time and expense. (“Paramount to Film Talkies in Europe: Will Solve Language Problem with Casts Composed of Foreign Actors.”)

The idea of a “European Hollywood” with huge studio complexes and constant production was quite unusual in France. The French film industry was comprised mostly of small production companies that usually rented studio space to produce one or two films before going bankrupt and starting over again. By contrast, Hollywood had by 1930 developed a producer-unit system in its huge, vertically integrated studios predicated on economies of scale, and it was this mode of production and the capital to support it that Kane brought to Joinville.

Pathe studios at Joinville via: http://www.usinenouvelle.com/article/quand-l-histoire-de-l-industrie-s-ecrivait-en-banlieue-parisienne.N193368

France did have a few large production companies, namely Pathé and Gaumont, but by this time in the late 1920s they had shifted focus from production and were facing financial troubles. The massive mergers that brought Gaumount-Franco-Film-Aubert (GFFA) into existence left it 98 million francs in debt at a time when huge expenditures were needed to sonorize studios and theaters (Crisp). To meet its financial obligations after a banking crisis in 1930, GFFA sold its distribution agencies and equipment factories, and found a willing buyer in Paramount for its Joinville property.

The same sort of situations that allowed Paramount to step in and buy the Joinville complex also enabled the studio to get a jump on sound production and exhibition in France. The smaller-scale operations of French studios and their precarious financial situations in the late 1920s and early 1930s meant that French companies were not rushing to complete the costly conversion of theaters and studios for sound. Add to this a complicated and risky patent situation regarding sound equipment, and it is no surprise that conversion in France was slow and uneven.

Paramount saw an opportunity, and jumped at it. Kane set to work creating his European Hollywood: “Telegrams, cables, and telephone messages flashed over Europe as [Kane] collected engineers, directors, actors, equipment” (“Letters and the Arts: Paramount’s Paris Studio.”) He recruited “an unprecedented concentration of talent—a who’s who of the best actors from theater in Europe and elsewhere” to his studio (Waldman).

via: http://movieposters.2038.net/movieid-793

The list of personnel is staggering: the directors who worked at Paramount at Joinville include Julien Duvivier, Serge de Poligny, Claude Autant-Lara, Marcel Pagnol, L’Herbier, Jean Renoir (he finished Boudu sauvé des eaux at the studio), Alberto Cavalcanti, and Alexander Korda. Actors at the studio included Françoise Rosay, Marguerite Moréno, Jeanne Fusier-Gir, Dalio, Jean Murat, Pierre Brasseur, Henri Garat, Michel Simon, Madeleine Renaud, Jean-Pierre Aumont, and the famous Argentine tango singer Carlos Gardel.

“The bulk of contemporary French dramatists” worked there, too: including Sacha Guitry, Pierre Benoit, Achard, Paul Colline, André Dahl, Yves Mirande, Poulbot, Saint-Granier, Pierre Wolff, and Henri Jeanson (Crisp).

Paramount budgeted $8,000,000 for French productions in 1931, which was about 20% of the company’s total production budget (Andrew). The average feature length film at the studio cost up to $100,000 and a short was about a tenth of that (Waldman). In his first year, Kane intended to produce “ninety full-length films and more than fifty short ones” (“Letters and Arts”).

To accomplish these production goals, Paramount in Paris set a frenzied pace. French critic Nino Frank, (who coined the term film noir fifteen years later), emphasized the incredible pace as well as the incredible capital at the studio, in his (slightly hyperbolic) description:

At St. Maurice, in the new studios of a Californian firm, with palm trees and swimming pools, they’re filming night and day, 12 films a week, 20 days per film, 80 stars on the set, and they’re advertising for actors, directors, and technicians who can work in all languages…The bosses are American, the administration Hungarian, the writers French, the directors Russian, the technicians German, the assistants Italian, the laborers from the Balkans. They film while eating, while sleeping, while swimming, while arguing. The great river of dollars flows endlessly. Millions are nothing, they build not even on chalk and on sand, but on champagne and caviar…(Crisp).

The original plan for Joinville was to make the same movie in about ten languages using different crews and actors, though “In many cases, for economy’s sake, only the closer shots were re-taken in different language versions, then interspersed with the more distant shots from the original American version” (Crisp). Most films were never made in the oft-quoted fourteen languages—instead the average was closer to four or five early on before the studio focused on Spanish, French and German-language versions and then just French. The films weren’t all mass-produced copies, either. More than a third of the films produced at the studio were original productions, especially towards the end of its existence.

The sheer number of people from different countries speaking different languages made comparisons to the Biblical Tower of Babel inevitable: “The resultant linguistic chaos, with several different directors and a dozen different casts all working in different languages and alternating in identical scenes on an identical set, earned for the studio the title Babel-sur-Seine” (Crisp).

You can see Paramount’s Babel (center image on the left page) in this 1931 Motion Picture Herald article celebrating Paramount’s 20th anniversary:

Making so many films in so many languages in only so many days was a logistical undertaking of the highest order. The process typically followed the pattern outlined for this Swedish language film at the studio:

As soon as the subject is chosen, the scenario department plans the continuity and Swedish dialogue. Then the personnel department busies itself finding actors suited to the different roles and settles all the questions connected with transporting them in a body from Stockholm to Paris…As soon as the actors have arrived, the costumers and designers start preparing costumes and scenery, and rehearsals commence. When the costumes and scenery are ready and the actors know their parts, the camera men take their places on the platform, along with the carpenters, electricians, property men, script girls, stage managers, sound engineers, and mechanics, who appear and disappear according to the need of the moment. Only then does the real filming and sound-recording begin (“Letters and Arts”).

Not only were languages flying around, but so were assorted tricks, styles, and filmic conventions. Babel-sur-Seine most likely had a large impact on film style and production just because it brought together so many different traditions and personnel who could learn from each other.

For example, the French film industry lacked “script girls,” assistants to the director who watched for script errors and technical problems during filming. Script girls were common in Hollywood, so naturally Paramount brought the position to Joinville. Script girls caught on and soon became a fixture on French sets. And Michel Kelber, a French cinematographer, remembers being taught an American lighting style where a strong key light was placed above and in front of an actor. Kane explained a classic Hollywood adage to the cinematographers working at Paramount: “Gentlemen, we are in the business of selling voices, and actors…” It was all about the stars, and Kelber remembers that

As a result, we had to constantly hold on the actors, film them in front, in full light, avoiding anything that might distract from the expression on their face.  The Americans had developed a quite specific type of lighting setup for this purpose—a single spot from in front…this single unidirectional light, falling from above, came as a revelation to us…(Crisp).

Other stylistic options, conventions, and devices must have been traded back and forth between the different crews and actors as they milled about Babel by the Seine.

via: http://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Summaries/M/Marius.htm

As you can see from Kelber’s story, Kane was extremely involved in the studio’s operations and earned a reputation for being a bit controlling. French filmmaker Marcel Pagnol, whose legendary film Marius (1931) took shape at the studio, became friends with Kane, and despite Pagnol’s dislike of the rigid hierarchy at the studio, he later wrote, “If I was later able to direct films, while at the same time administering a laboratory, studio facilities, and distribution agencies, I owe it to the friendship of Robert T. Kane” (Williams).

As Pagnol suggests, Kane was skilled at operating the studio, and Paramount in Paris was extremely productive; in only three years, 1930-33, the studio released 300 films. Indeed, Paramount made twenty-five French-language films in 1931-32 alone, which was more than any other production company in France: Pathé-Natan produced 20, Osso made 12, Haïk and Braunberger each produced nine, and Gaumont contributed 4. At the same time, sound films were overtaking theater as the more popular entertainment, growing from a 40% audience share in 1929 to a 64% share three years later (Crisp).

Paramount in Paris seemed to be a great success:

for the first two years of the decade everyone gleefully made lots of money. The French thronged to see sound films no matter where or how they were made. Hollywood resuscitated a collapsing market, taking all the risks and providing the enormous capital to make the sound film venture possible (Andrew).

But Paramount at Joinville was not to flourish long. The Great Depression hit the company hard, and Paramount began to flounder. It suffered massive losses in 1931-1932, going from profits of eighteen million dollars in 1930 to deficits of fifteen million in 1932 (Andrew).

Alfred Hitchcock’s first sound film, which he also shot silent via: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmail_(1929_film)

In response to these losses, Paramount in Paris scaled back its production. In 1931, the company had begun to focus only on German, Spanish, and French films, down from the fourteen languages it had originally supported. In 1932, only two of the twenty-four French language films released were also filmed in another language, and in April of that year the studio announced that it would only make French films because it had “its hands full producing enough pictures to meet the French market demand” and it was “impractical” to continue to compete in the other languages, too (Kingsley).

The French films to be made at Paramount would be adapted from “French stories and plays, with no French versions of American-made pictures” (Kingsley). Thus, the studio founded to create MLVs of American films changed its course. Kane went from greenlighting “foreign-language versions of hit films that Paramount had turned out in Hollywood and Astoria” to approving adaptations of French boulevard theater, and original scripts to be made only in French (Walkman). In this way, Paramount in Paris helped start the trend of boulevard films, which remained “a massive presence in French cinema of the 1930s” (Williams).

The dissolution of the multi-language operation meant that the economies of scale upon which the scheme at Joinville had been founded were no longer operating. The disappointing profits, combined with the Depression, forced Paramount to shut down most of its studios at Joinville in 1933, though a few stages remained open for dubbing, a method which had finally become a viable option, and was much cheaper than producing MLVs.

In April of 1933, as Joinville was beginning to wind down, Kane left Paramount for a position at Fox, where his brother-in-law Sidney Kent was now president. Fox suggested that Kane would continue in the same vein for them, perhaps even at Joinville:

The Paramount studios at Joinville represent an investment of several million dollars. General liquidation in America of Paramount interests will determine whether the forthcoming Fox production will take place at the Joinville studios which Mr. Kane himself established four years ago or at other modern sound studios near Paris (“Fox Film Control in Europe is Seen.”)

Kane’s departure and Paramount’s major financial troubles signaled the end of Paramount in Paris, only three years since Paramount had purchased the studios at Joinville. This wild experiment of Babel-sur-Seine remains relatively unknown today, partly because very few of the 300 features and shorts that were produced at Joinville survive. It doesn’t help that the story fits so well into a narrative of money-obsessed Americans encroaching on artisanal, artistic European, particularly French, cinema. The belief that these films were assembly-line products lacking any artistic merit has held back close analysis of the movies that did survive (perhaps even influencing the preservation of the films) and, by extension, the story of the phenomenon itself. Colin Crisp writes that

Retrospectively, all French critics have labeled these Paramount productions as banal and pedestrian, and some contemporary accounts suggest they were seen in the same light then. No figures exist on the exact economic status of their output, so it is uncertain whether the undertaking would have flourished or not.

Of course some filmmakers and cinephiles were critical of Joinville, but it is difficult to know what the average audience member thought. For instance, it seems odd that silent Hollywood films were popular and profitable in France in the 1920s, but Paramount’s sound films, as the story goes, were all flops. Yet some scholars and critics even today seem to accept this assumption, suggesting that the films weren’t “culturally specific” enough to be successful. But the silent films exported by Hollywood were not necessarily “culturally specific,” either, yet they found great success on foreign screens.

As I mentioned, in our flat, globalized world, Hollywood movies make the majority of their money outside of the United States, which affects the type and style of movies that get made. And Hollywood and other national cinemas are still locked in a battle for the box office. Babel-sur-Seine was a short-lived phenomenon from nearly eighty-five years ago, but the issues it was grappling with are still relevant, though hopefully our world is a little more in sync…

Thanks for reading! For more, follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm, and Facebook.

Paramount’s offices and studios. Motion Picture Herald, August 8, 1931. via: http://lantern.mediahist.org

Works Cited

Andrew, Dudley. “Sound in France: The Origins of a Native School.” Yale French Studies 60 (1980): 94-114. JSTOR.

Crisp, Colin.  The Classic French Cinema, 1930-1960. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.

“Fox Film Control in Europe is Seen.” The New York Times. 5 April 1933. 22. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Kingsley, Grace. “Foreign Film Plans Expand.” Los Angeles Times. 27 April 1932. 6. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Lasky Will Make Talkies in Europe.”  The New York Times. 14 May 1929. 5. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Letters and the Arts: Paramount’s Paris Studio.” The Living Age. Oct 1930. 206-207. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Paramount to Film Talkies in Europe: Will Solve Language Problem with Casts Composed of Foreign Actors.” The New York Times. 27 April 1930. 10. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Represented in 70 Foreign Lands.” Motion Picture Herald. 8 Aug 1931: 94, 98. 104, no. 6. http://lantern.mediahist.org.

Waldman, Harry. Paramount In Paris. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1998.

Williams, Alan. Republic of Images: A History of French Filmmaking. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.

via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/1696/Nancy-Goes-to-Rio/#tcmarcp-411474 Unless otherwise noted, all images are my own

Before Jane Powell conquered the backwoods in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) or got in trouble with the Navy in Hit the Deck (1955), she played a series of adorable teenagers desperate to grow up. She sang and bounced her way through bubbly movies like Delightfully Dangerous (1945), Holiday in Mexico (1946), and A Date with Judy (1948) before MGM realized that it was time to attempt that dreaded transition to adult roles.

Nancy Goes to Rio was a step in that direction with its pregnancy plot and almost-adult romance, and Powell’s next film, Two Weeks With Love (1950) continued that trajectory. Powell, who turned 21 in 1950, was finally growing up on screen.

For her first almost-adult role, MGM put Powell in Nancy Goes to Rio, a remake of a Deanna Durbin film called It’s a Date (1940).

Durbin was a young, cute soprano whose films had saved Universal from bankruptcy in the late 1930s. If a star, genre, or trend was profitable, MGM wanted in on it. They searched for a bubbly singer to compete with Durbin, and they found her in Jane Powell.

Suzanne Burce (“Jane Powell” came from her character’s name in her first movie, Song of the Open Road (1944)) started appearing on the radio when she was only five-years-old.

Deanna Durbin via: http://www.doctormacro.com/movie%20star%20pages/Durbin,%20Deanna-NRFPT.htm

Her gorgeous, surprisingly mature soprano voice and Shirley-Temple inspired curls kept her working on stage and radio until a trip to Hollywood won her a contract with MGM in 1944. Powell was fifteen when the studio signed her.

After a few loanouts to other studios, MGM handed Powell to producer Joe Pasternak, who had guided Durbin to stardom at Universal, and had produced It’s a Date, among her other films.

MGM also bought the remake rights to some of Durbin’s hits and reworked them for Powell. That Certain Age (1938) became Holiday in Mexico (1946), Three Smart Girls (1936) came to the screen as Three Daring Daughters (1948), and It’s a Date (1940) became Nancy Goes to Rio. You can watch the trailer for It’s a Date here.

Although MGM fashioned Powell’s career in Durbin’s image, Powell would eventually eclipse Durbin, who retired from movies in 1949. Oddly enough, the same thing happened when MGM signed Esther Williams to be their answer to Twentieth-Century-Fox’s ice skater Sonja Henie.

Co-starring with Powell in this film is Ann Sothern. Sothern had been working in film and Broadway since the late 1920s, but her movie career didn’t take off until 1939 when she played the bold but tender-hearted dancer Maisie in MGM’s film of the same name. (The part had originally been written for Jean Harlow, but she passed away in 1937.)

Maisie (1939) was a hit, and Sothern went on to make nine more Maisie movies, with the final entry in the series coming in 1947.

Sothern appeared in other musicals and dramas, namely Lady Be Good (1941) and A Letter to Three Wives (1949) but she never rocketed to superstardom. Nancy Goes to Rio was her final movie at MGM, although, like so many other stars of the period, she enjoyed a successful second act on TV.

I think Sothern is delightful. She’s always got a wry comeback and a twinkle in her eye, and she makes the most of a fairly dull part in this movie.

Rounding out the cast is tall, dark, and handsome Barry Sullivan, outrageously entertaining Carmen Miranda, goofy Scotty Beckett, and that patrician rascal Louis Calhern.

via: http://themotionpictures.net/2014/06/06/nancy-goes-to-rio-1950/

To the film! It’s closing night of “My Own Sweet Love,” starring Frances Elliott (Ann Sothern). We follow Frances’ seventeen-year-old daughter Nancy (Jane Powell) as she drags her boyfriend Scotty (Scotty Beckett) backstage to watch from the wings. Scotty is more interested in the chorus girls fixing their stockings, but Nancy nips that in the bud.

Don’t let her pretty pink dress or blonde curls fool you: Nancy is a petite but powerful package of stubbornness and unshakeable confidence. Plus, Scotty seems pretty malleable and utterly besotted with Miss Nancy.

The pair make it to the wings to watch Frances’ finale, and we are meant to marvel along with them at her talent and charisma.

A quick cut to a luxury box shows us two other characters marveling at Frances: Marina Rodriguez (Carmen Miranda) and Paul Berten (Barry Sullivan) are in attendance, too. Paul seems especially taken with the lovely blonde star.

You can watch the opening scene here:

After a rousing curtain call, the characters head to Frances’ house for a closing night party. Frances’ father Gregory Elliot (Louis Calhern), is having a wonderful time with a bevy of beauties, but Frances has work to do.

She meets with her longtime producer Arthur (Glenn Anders) and a hot new playwright from Brazil named Ricardo Domingos (Fortunio Bonanova) to discuss her next project. She has read Domingos’ new play and absolutely adores it!

Frances is a big-time star, so Domingos is flattered, but after Frances leaves, he tells Arthur that he was picturing someone a bit younger in the part. After all, the character is only eighteen!

Xavier Cugat and company perform in Bathing Beauty (1944)

Fun fact: it’s not random that Domingos hails from Brazil. There was a Latin American craze in Hollywood in the 1940s with stars like Xavier Cugat and Carmen Miranda, films set in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, etc., and cartoon characters visiting our neighbors to the south.

The Latin American infusion in Hollywood films was an extension of the Good Neighbor Policy and part of a coordinated propaganda campaign during WWII led by a government office called the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA). A driving force behind this trend early on was the fact that Europe was shut to American films because of the War, so Hollywood needed to beef up its exports to Latin and South America.

The OCIAA worked with Hollywood to get more “positive” depictions of Latin America into the movies. That could mean including Xavier Cugat, sending Jane Powell, Betty Grable or Esther Williams south in movies like this one, Down Argentine Way (1940), Fiesta (1947) or Easy to Wed (1946). Often films include a musical number in Spanish or Portuguese, or star a “Latin Lover” like Ricardo Montalban or Cesar Romero.

Even after WWII ended, the Latin American trend continued. So it’s no surprise that Nancy goes to Rio instead of Paris, for example.

Back to the film. Nancy arrives to talk to Arthur about getting some of his old scenery for her summer stock company.

When the producer makes an off-hand, somewhat disparaging comment about kids playing about in summer stock, Nancy goes off.

Her heated defense of amateur theater becomes even more dramatic when she realizes who Domingos is. She turns her indignation into an impromptu, melodramatic audition for the playwright.

Domingos is inexplicably impressed by her over-the-top performance, and suggests that Nancy’s company present his new play in their barn theater. That way, he and Arthur can work out some of its kinks, and they can watch Nancy play the lead role.

Nancy is over the moon! But she doesn’t tell her mother when she rejoins the party. If Frances knew, then the plot wouldn’t really work, so just let it go. Instead, Nancy tells her mother about her fervent desire to become a star.

Nancy incorporates various lines from different plays into her melodramatic monologue, and of course her mom catches the plagiarism. Frances knows her daughter is ridiculous, but she hides her smile behind her sparkly handkerchief and treats her gently.

Nancy explains how she has already experienced so much through the roles she has played that she isn’t sure she can fall in love for real anymore. And that’s okay–she wants to be “married” to the theater.

Frances tells Nancy not to worry: “When you fall in love, you’ll be just plain Nancy Barclay. And your only concern will be to make your husband happy.” (This is 1950, after all.)

Nancy isn’t so sure: “I may never get married. I feel like you do; the theater is enough for any woman.”

“Not much help on a cold winter’s night,” Grandfather chimes in. Creepy.

This conversation eventually segues into “Harvest Moon.” Grandfather, mother, and daughter sing and dance around the living room. As one does.

Nick Castle choreographed the dances in this film. He would also work on Powell’s film Royal Wedding (1951).

After the party, Nancy heads back upstate to her theater troupe while Frances and Gregory go to Rio. Domingos’ play is set in Brazil, so Frances thinks that Rio is the perfect place to start preparing for the part (she has no idea that the playwright is considering another actress, least of all her teenage daughter.)

She also doesn’t know that her daughter’s amateur troupe is performing the play. Somehow no one bothers to tell her, and no one bothers to tell Nancy that Frances wants to play the lead on Broadway. Everyone just goes about their business.

Nancy and her pals get to work in their barn theater, which you might recognize from Summer Stock (1950) when Gene Kelly and Judy Garland put on a show.

Inside the oft-used barn, Nancy rehearses with Scotty, who is hopeless. But Nancy shines. We don’t see much of the play, but it seems to concern a young Brazilian peasant (ridiculously named “Emily”) who falls in love, gets pregnant, and is later abandoned by her paramour. Dramatic stuff.

Fortunately, we see only a tiny snippet of that before Nancy entrances the audience with her rendition of “Magic is the Moonlight.”

Fun fact: Colombian baritone Carlos Ramirez crooned this song (in Spanish) during Esther Williams’ first swim in Bathing Beauty (1944). You can watch that version here.

The song became one of Williams’ “signature songs,” and she recalled in her autobiography that “Later, when I would enter nightclubs like Mocambo’s or Ciro’s, or the Stork Club in New York, the orchestra would stop what they were playing and begin the strains of ‘Magic is the Moonlight'” (The Million Dollar Mermaid 109).

Which brings me to another fun fact: Jane Powell sang “Because” at Esther Williams and Ben Gage’s wedding in 1945. Jerry Scott had performed that song in Esther Williams’ movie Thrill of a Romance (1945) that same year. How’s that for cross-promotion?

Back to the movie. Nancy is wonderful as Emily, and Domingos decides that he wants her in the lead, not Frances Elliott. Even those fake blonde braids don’t dissuade him. I love how they left Powell’s typically 1950s hairstyle alone and just added two long plaits!

Nancy is overwhelmed when Domingos tells her the good news, and she actually suffers a moment of self-doubt as she thinks of performing the role on Broadway. But Arthur and Domingos promise to help her. Nancy agrees to do the play, and decides to go to the best actor she knows for coaching–her mother. (Incidentally, no one thinks to alert Frances to the change in plans.)

Nancy tells Scotty that she is going to Rio, and they get vaguely engaged after a chaste kiss followed by the obligatory cheek smush towards the camera.

Then Nancy dazedly tells her friends, and they celebrate with the exuberant “Nancy’s Goin’ to Rio!” number. You can watch it here.

Then Nancy goes to Rio. She takes a luxurious ocean liner, though the ship shown in a few establishing shots is most likely a miniature filmed in MGM’s process tank. And the passengers appear to be cutouts. It’s worth watching the movie just to see that. 

Nancy’s habit of running lines while lounging on deck attracts some attention. That’s Paul, the same guy we saw briefly at the theater.

But Nancy’s dramatic line readings aren’t the only things that attract attention. And not everyone is as upstanding as Paul. An uncouth lummox approaches Nancy with indecent intentions, and he doesn’t take her “No” for an answer. In fact, he only stops bothering her when Paul steps in and says that Nancy is his wife. 

It’s that age-old conundrum ladies know well. If you’re being hassled and the guy won’t leave you alone, the best way to get rid of him is to tell him you have a boyfriend/fiance/husband. He may not respect you enough to go away when you ask him to, but if you’re already claimed property, he’ll back off. He wouldn’t want to offend another man! Unfortunately, this still works like a charm today.

Anyway, Paul introduces himself once the big blonde guy has wandered away, and Nancy thanks him for his help. Then Nancy goes back to running lines.

She really puts her heart into one of Emily’s monologue about her baby and its absent father. “I’m glad I’m going to have the baby,” she says, as she fights back bittersweet tears.

She follows that doozy with melodramatic drivel about how even though she has been abandoned by the father, at least she’ll have the baby, and therefore part of him with her, always.

Paul doesn’t know that Nancy is practicing for a play, and he somewhat understandably assumes that she is pregnant, alone, and a weirdo who says really personal things out loud while staring at a clearly fake ocean.

The plot swings into action around this fundamental misunderstanding! Paul hurries off to talk to his business partner Marina (Carmen Miranda). She is rehearsing for a performance later that night, but stops everything when Paul tells her that there is a young woman aboard who is in trouble and most likely needs some womanly support.

Marina is as kind as she is feisty, so she goes to see Nancy at once. Marina tells her that she has come like “John Alden” on behalf of a friend.

In Longfellow’s poem “The Courtship of Miles Standish,” John Alden woos a woman on behalf of his friend. This reference doesn’t do much for me, but it’s the same one that Judy Garland’s character uses in The Harvey Girls (1946), so maybe “The Courtship of Miles Standish” was a cultural touchstone in the 1940s? Have you ever come across this John Alden thing?

Anyway, on behalf of Paul, Marina invites Nancy to dine with them that evening. Nancy demurs, but she finally agrees when Marina says that Paul would especially like to see her.

Remember that Nancy has no idea that Paul mistook her rehearsal for reality. She is bewildered but flattered by Marina and Paul’s friendly, but slightly aggressive interest.

That evening, Nancy joins Marina and Paul at the Captain’s Table. The dining room has the fabulous obligatory band and dancing that I talked about in one of my History Through Hollywood posts. It’s rare to see dinner and dancing these days, but back then it was the norm.

Nancy hopes for a decadent meal and grown-up society. But things get weird quickly. She’s seated next to the ship’s doctor, who immediately takes her pulse without explanation. And although everyone at the table is friendly, their solicitous interest in her health borders on obsessive.

Nancy is bewildered by the tone of the conversation: every comment and question is infused with clucking pity, and everything that she says is misconstrued. For instance, when she tells the table that she is traveling to Rio because her mother is there, and “something happened to me and I need her,” everyone at the table practically tears up. And when she says that she hopes she’ll get to see a little of Rio, though she “won’t be able to get around much,” everyone nods sympathetically and murmurs things like “poor dear.” It’s a very funny scene.

When the entrees arrive, the waiter brings Nancy some sort of oatmeal mush when everyone else gets steak and shrimp cocktail. The doctor urges her to eat the “nourishing” dish and even provides a handful of pills and vitamins as a side! And her decadent dessert? A big glass of milk. Nancy is very confused, but her fellow diners shut down her questions and use such veiled euphemisms that she thinks they are concerned about seasickness, not pregnancy. 

Nancy is fed up with this weirdness and is about to order some normal food when Paul signals to Marina. She hops up and starts her song. Must be nice to have a built in distraction like Carmen Miranda. You really can’t take your eyes off of her.

Miranda was an extraordinary, unique performer who became a star in the 1930s on stage and in Brazilian films. Her first Hollywood film was Down Argentine Way (1940), and she followed it with over a dozen films in the 1940s, mostly at Twentieth-Century-Fox where she established her persona as the “Brazilian Bombshell.”

Miranda became an incredibly popular star and was the highest paid woman in America in 1945, earning a reported $201,458. But she was nearing the end of her Hollywood career by the time she made this movie; Nancy Goes to Rio was her penultimate film before Scared Stiff (1953).

For this scene, Miranda performs “Yipsee-I-O,” a comical western themed song that draws its humor from Miranda’s use of slightly wrong English words: “cantaloupe” for “antelope,” etc. During a section of the performance, she engages with the guy who hit on Nancy. He plays the part of the Ugly American quite well. It’s a little cringeworthy, honestly.

She doesn’t wear her famous fruit headdresses in this film, but she does rock those skyscraper platform heels! She knew how to pull off a bold look. Fun fact: this brown and bronze costume was auctioned off in 2012 and went for $4,800.

Anyway, after the performance, Nancy heads back to her room in a huff. She didn’t like being treated like a child. Paul follows her but they are interrupted by the same big lug. He and Paul fight in the corridor, and in a nice switcharoo, Paul is the one who ends up on the floor with a bruised jaw, not the bad guy! Funny!

The ocean liner set looks an awful lot like the one Walter Pidgeon, Esther Williams and Victor Mature stroll down in Million Dollar Mermaid (1952). MGM had an enormous backlot and knew how to use it.

Nancy comforts her injured hero, and he attempts to comfort her right back. He is afraid that this young, abandoned, soon-to-be-mother might succumb to despair, so he tells her that he knows she will be happy one day and find someone who loves her.

But she misunderstands and thinks he is proposing! That allows her to play a fantastic dramatic scene as she grandly but vaguely refuses his offer. Everything is vague in this movie, but it has to be to keep the misunderstandings from unraveling into clarity.

Speaking of euphemisms, “pregnant” was a nasty word so instead they say “expecting.” And although the pregnancy plot seems a little mundane to us, it was very risqué at the time. Even big, bad New York Times critic Bosley Crowther found the whole thing rather distasteful, writing in his review:

There is also a misunderstanding—which we blush to mention, by the way—whereby everyone thinks through most of the picture that Miss Powell is in a family way. This horrible misunderstanding builds up when someone overhears Miss Powell rehearsing some lines that she hopes to speak in a play. We mention this latter ingredient to give you a faint idea of the brand of humor in this picture—and to show how far Miss Powell is off the beam.

Maybe I’m low brow, or just living in 2015, but I think the pregnancy jokes and misunderstandings are the funniest parts of the movie.

Anyway, how cute is Powell’s polka dot dress? It’s a nice collection of mixed signals: pale pink, polka dots, big collars, and bows read “little girl,” but the tight, low cut bodice, sheer back, and sleeveless style says “woman.” It basically sums up Powell’s screen image and the plot of this movie.

Helen Rose designed the costumes for this movie, and Powell, Miranda, and Sothern appear in a series of beautiful frocks and gowns.

The next thing we know, the ship is pulling into Rio’s harbor. We get a few shots of the city, but nothing extensive and nothing with the actors. Nancy may have gone to Rio, but this production certainly did not, and the images of the city are scarce and might even be old footage. They aren’t as crisp as the rest of the movie.

Nancy’s new friends come to say goodbye before they disembark. One woman bids adieu with more vague, pitying baby stuff and brings a gift which Nancy packs away unopened. It will come back into play later on.

Top: Nancy Goes to Rio. Bottom: Summer Stock

Then Marina drops by and tells Nancy to come see her in Rio anytime. It’s not a huge scene, but look at the trim and lining on Marina’s coat and hat! It’s the same red and green material as Gloria De Haven’s dress in Summer Stock, another MGM production released in 1950!

Walter Plunkett designed all the costumes in Summer Stock except for Gloria De Haven’s clothes, which were designed by Helen Rose. Nancy Goes to Rio was in production in June through August 1949, and Summer Stock started shooting in November, so the Miranda coat probably came first. It seems that Rose had some extra fabric lying around and decided to reuse it  in Summer Stock. I love finding recycled costumes like this.

Nancy arrives at her mother’s villa which has gorgeous panoramic views of MGM’s lovely painted backdrops. They’re very pretty, but not always accurate. Indeed, famous Rio landmarks like the Sugar Loaf mountain (the tall one by the bay shown on the far left of the frame) and the Corcovado Mountain (with the famous Christ the Redeemer statue right behind Powell) appear really close to each other, even though there are miles between them in reality. The view enjoyed from Frances’ house doesn’t actually exist.

Nancy is all aflutter to tell her mom and grandfather that she is starring as Emily in the new Domingos play! But first she runs upstairs to change out of her cute plaid traveling coat and hat.

When she returns, she sees her mother running lines with her grandfather. It’s a normal occurrence in this family, but Nancy gets a shock when she realizes that her mother is rehearsing Emily’s “I’m glad I’m going to have the baby” monologue! Oh dear!

Nancy realizes that her mother wants to star in Domingos’ play. But rather than call Arthur to ask him what the hell is going on, or even perhaps speak to her mother about it, Nancy keeps her emotions bottled up.

Frances unknowingly twists the knife deeper when she asks Nancy to sing “Magic is the Moonlight” with her, explaining that it’s a song she’s working on for her next show! 

Nancy finishes the song and runs back to her room.

Instead of contacting Arthur to sort all of this out, Nancy sends him a teary cable announcing that she can’t be in the play because is getting married. This is not a great solution, because don’t you think Frances’ longtime producer and dear friend would reach out to her upon hearing about Nancy’s engagement? And what is this false dichotomy between doing this one play or getting married? As I mentioned before, you can’t think too hard about the plot. You just have to ride it out.

Then Nancy goes to see Paul at his office. He and Marina are partners in the Rio-American Coffee Company, which is kind of cool because it makes Marina a businesswoman. Anyway, Paul is surprised to see Nancy, and shocked when she comes on to him. Strong.

She tells him that she has changed her mind and wants to marry him after all! Never mind that he never actually proposed. And he thinks she’s pregnant.

Fun fact: this cheery suit was released as a sewing pattern!

Paul once again calls on Marina for help, and she decides it’s time to visit Nancy’s mother. Frances and Gregory laugh when Marina tells them that Nancy is “in the family way.” But Frances goes to talk to Nancy anyway, though she is confident that this is all a misunderstanding.

How sharp is Marina’s striped suit with the obligatory platforms and jaunty cap?

Frances doesn’t come out and ask Nancy if she is pregnant–that would be too easy. Instead they dance around it as Nancy unpacks and tells her mother about her new love, Paul. As usual, Nancy’s words could be taken multiple ways, so Frances isn’t sure.

Frances is still trying to figure it out when Nancy opens the gift from the woman on the ship to reveal a set of baby clothes! Frances nearly collapses. It doesn’t help that Nancy says, “How cute!” when she sees the tiny booties, not “Why in the world would anyone give me baby clothes?” Poor Frances!  

She gets a double-shock when she learns that Paul (whom she assumes is the father) doesn’t want to marry Nancy right away. In a weird moment of dubbing, Nancy tells her mother that Paul thinks they should wait “Until I’m a little bit older,” even though Powell clearly mouths “Until we get to know each other better.” I’m not sure why they altered the original line, except maybe the dubbed version plays into the pregnancy plot a little better? If Nancy is pregnant, she and Paul already “know each other” just fine, right? And the dubbed line is funny because they can’t afford to wait until Nancy is “older!”

Anyway, a shell-shocked Frances returns to her father and tells him the bad news. Then Frances calls Paul and asks him to meet her to discuss Nancy. She is surprised and disgusted by how casual he seems about the whole thing, but they don’t have a choice. He has to marry Nancy! As Frances tells her father, “If he isn’t a criminal or insane or something that’s all we can do about it!”

It’s pretty unusual to have a pregnancy plot like this one in a musical from this era, but it steers clear of trouble because the audience knows the whole time that sweet, unmarried Nancy isn’t really knocked up. That loophole allows the movie to make light of such a serious and taboo issue in ways that most movies couldn’t.

And just to keep things extra above board, it’s even implied that Nancy was married to the father of her (fake) baby, which is why everyone on the ocean liner treats her with pity instead of derision. They think she’s an abandoned wife, not an unmarried whore. Later, when Paul finds out that Nancy has never been married, he is horrified. He may not have been so kind had he known that…

Anyway, Frances and Paul put on formalwear and meet at a very fancy restaurant, as one does when negotiating a shotgun wedding. Paul recognizes Frances at once as the famous actress, and we learn that he is a pretty big fan.

Keep in mind that he thinks they are meeting to discuss Nancy’s silly crush on him, while Frances thinks they are meeting to arrange a rushed wedding before Nancy begins to show.

Their basic misunderstanding allows for some great double entendres. For example, Nancy is utterly horrified when Paul says, “If I’d known you were Nancy’s mother, I would have paid a lot more attention to her.” And he gets confused when she scolds him for admitting that he hasn’t thought much about taking care of a wife and child.

But the funniest moments come when Paul starts flirting with Frances. She is disgusted. And he has no idea why.

She storms out. The next day, Paul comes by the house to see her. He really likes Frances, and he’s brought her flowers and everything. Super inappropriate if you think he impregnated your teenage daughter, but sweet otherwise!

When Paul introduces himself to Grandfather, he gets socked in the nose. And he might have gotten more if Nancy hadn’t intervened.

Nancy runs to get some first aid stuff, leaving Grandfather to chat with Paul. And it emerges that Paul only met Nancy on the boat to Rio, so he couldn’t possibly be the father of her child! Whew.

Grandfather presses his advantage, and Paul tells him how he “found out” that Nancy is pregnant. Grandfather recognizes the lines from Domingos’ play, and eureka! He realizes that Nancy isn’t having a baby after all!

Frances is thrilled when her father shares this crucial information. But she’s less thrilled when she sees Nancy serenading Paul at the piano. Apparently, Mother and daughter like the same guy. Awkward.

So begins a series of incredibly inappropriate dates. Paul ostensibly takes Nancy, while Grandfather chaperones Frances, but it’s all very messy. Frances and Paul exchange loving looks while Paul holds Nancy’s hand, for example, and both ladies flirt outrageously with Paul on the dance floor. Yuck. Shades of Lolita.

After one of these dates, Frances tells Nancy that she is much too young for Paul and needs to give it up. But her headstrong daughter won’t listen. Frances married Nancy’s father when she was just Nancy’s age! So there, mother!

The creepy competition for Paul continues! I don’t know why Paul doesn’t tell Nancy that he isn’t interested. Although I suppose if he did, the movie would end, and we still have several minutes to fill. And lovely gowns to see.

Soon it’s Carnival time! The odd foursome watch the parade from their balcony before going enjoying an upscale dinner. The footage of the parade might actually be from Carnival.

Guess who performs at dinner? Marina, of course. And this time she goes full Carmen Miranda with a wild headdress and a Portuguese song. She sings “Baião (Ca-Room’ Pa Pa)” and dances with clowns and a man covered in umbrellas. 

It’s everything you could hope for and more.

And look at her costume! Amazing!

After Marina’s fantastic show, the after-dinner dancing begins. Frances and Paul stroll onto the terrace to have a private, romantic chat, as everyone does, and has done, always and forever.

In the faux moonlight surrounded by faux scenery, Paul and Frances profess their love. They don’t want to hurt dear Nancy, obviously, but this thing between them can’t be stopped.

They pause in their love scene to watch Nancy perform an impromptu solo. She sings “Quando men vo,” also known as “Musetta’s Waltz” from La bohème.

Fun fact: in It’s a Date, Deanna Durbin performed the same song. MGM wasn’t coy about using Powell to copy Durbin.

After her stunning performance, Nancy gets back to her primary purpose: getting Paul to marry her. It’s awkward, especially when Frances watches her brazen flirtation from the shadows.

Finally, Paul and Frances step up and tell Nancy that they are going to get married. She is quite upset, as one would expect. But she also falls back on her old habit of using melodramatic lines from plays. When she begins one of Emily’s monologues about a love affair gone wrong, Frances recognizes it at once. She even prompts her when Nancy stumbles over a line!

And the lightbulb clicks on! Nancy would be tremendous as Emily. 

This family sure bounces back quickly from traumatic confrontations, because the next thing we know, we’re back in New York at the same theater where Frances recently triumphed. But this time it’s Nancy’s name on the marquee! This movie has a nice rhyming structure. Compare:

Nancy has been thrilling audiences for 200 performances! She’s a star! And now it’s Frances pulling Paul along backstage to catch the finale of Nancy’s show.

They stand in the wings just as Scotty and Nancy did before. Just like them, in fact. It’s a cute instance of repetition.

We even get the same look at the box where Marina, Grandfather, Scotty, and Domingos watch Nancy proudly.

Nancy sings and dances in that hot pink chiffon confection against a bright blue backdrop. Technicolor, utilized!

I have no idea where the Brazilian peasant went, or the baby drama, or anything that we thought this play was about. But I’ll take swirling skirts and flashy choreography any day.

And that’s Nancy Goes to Rio.

As I mentioned, this was one of the first grown-up roles for Jane Powell. MGM carefully tried to prepare audiences for a more adult version of their petite star, even taking some odd domestic publicity photos to emphasize Powell’s transition to adulthood. She cooks! She sits on sofas! She’s a real woman!

Despite her onscreen persona, Powell was all grown up by this point. She married ice skater-turned-insurance broker Geary Anthony Steffen in 1949 a few months after finishing production on Nancy Goes to Rio, and she would have her first of two children with him in 1951.

Powell, Steffen, and bridesmaid Elizabeth Taylor via: http://themelodylingerson.tumblr.com/post/5102447854/pinklioness-elizabeth-taylor-at-jane-powells?&cuid=a9a69e0d4851a533a71fe731c1ddcbc4

Despite her real life maturity, Powell’s next film, Two Weeks With Love (1950) toed the same teenage/adult line as Nancy Goes to Rio, and Powell wouldn’t play a full adult on screen until Royal Wedding (1951), when she was 22 years old.

Critic Bosley Crowther found little to commend when he reviewed Nancy Goes to Rio upon its release. He had a hard time getting over MGM’s blatant attempts to copy Deanna Durbin, and he hadn’t liked the original version of this movie anyway:

It looks as though MGM is trying to route its young singing star, Jane Powell, pretty much in the footsteps of the young Deanna Durbin, bless her soul. For the studio has not only placed her under the guidance of Joe Pasternak, who produced most of Miss Durbin’s pictures back in the happy days, but it has even presented the little lady in an ancient Durbin script. ‘Nancy Goes to Rio,’ which arrived at Loew’s State yesterday, is a somewhat altered remake of the ten-year-old ‘It’s a Date’…And even with new stars, Technicolor and a considerable change of locale, it is still pretty much the Durbin picture—which, as we recall, was not too good. Somehow you’d think that Metro would be a little less obvious—or at least, would select a better story, if not model, for its talented Miss Powell. For plainly the story of this picture was weak when employed ten years ago, and Sidney Sheldon’s revisions haven’t strengthened it in the least.

He found Carmen Miranda “bizarre,” and concluded that “A few nice songs, some amiable clowning on the part of Louis Calhern and an eye-filling M-G-M production are the only ingredients worth mentioning.”

Somebody was feeling grumpy that day! This movie is a fairly typical MGM musical of the time. It does what it set out to do: wow us with Technicolor, gorgeous sets, costumes, and lush musical numbers. And it provokes some chuckles, too, along with some eye rolls.

Here’s the trailer–enjoy! As always, thanks for reading! For more, follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm, and Facebook. And you can buy this fun film here!

Netflix is constantly changing its lineup of classic movies available to stream, so here are five more great classic films you can watch instantly!

For more streaming classics, check out my other Netflix Instant classic movie lists. And for more on classic films, you can follow me on Twitter, Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm, tumblr, pinterest, and Facebook.

1. Beach Party (1963)

via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/20606/Beach-Party/#tcmarcp-172250

It’s not summer without Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello frolicking on the beach with their ragtag gang of buddies! This was the first “Beach Party” movie and tells the strange story of an anthropologist (Robert Cummings) secretly studying the odd behavior and surfer slang of a bunch of teens. A motorcycle gang (whose leader is a parody of Brando in The Wild One (1953)) complicates this idyllic beach existence, though of course they are no match for the strapping young surfers!

As one might expect in a movie aimed at teenagers, there’s sweet but complicated young love, inconvenient crushes, dance parties, and of course swinging sixties tunes written especially for the film.

It’s a fun, light movie that’s a veritable time capsule of the early 1960s (why did people dance like that?), and you can see why it spawned several sequels. Fun fact: Joel McCrea‘s son Jody plays Deadhead, one of the surfer dudes! Here’s the trailer, and you can buy this fun movie here.

2. State Fair (1945)

via: http://www.traileraddict.com/state-fair-1945/poster

If you’re in the mood for a more traditional musical, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s State Fair is a good choice.

It’s the story of an Iowa family who pack up their prize hog, their special mincemeat, a restless daughter, and a brash son and head to the state fair. The fair is the biggest event of the year, and the family has high hopes for romance and blue ribbons!

The son (Dick Haymes) and daughter (Jeanne Crain) both enjoy flirtations with interesting people they meet at the fair (Guys and Dolls‘ Vivian Blaine and Laura‘s Dana Andrews), while their parents enjoy their respective competitions. It’s a lovely film with great songs and a fun cast, minus the scary dream ballets or deaths of Oklahoma, South Pacific, or Carousel. It’s great for kids, and perfect for summer!

Fun fact: this was the only Rodgers and Hammerstein production crafted specifically for the screen. Their other musicals were written for the stage and adapted for film later. Another fun fact: Esther Williams‘ husband Ben Gage provided the singing voice for Dana Andrews. And last one: this movie was remade in 1962 starring Pat Boone and Ann-Margret. Here’s the trailer for the 1945 version, and you can buy this film here.

3. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/82756/The-Man-Who-Shot-Liberty-Valance/#tcmarcp-435165

Switching gears, here is a classic western directed by the master, John Ford, and starring two giants, James Stewart  and John Wayne. Stoddard (Stewart), a senator, and his wife have come back to a tiny town out West to attend the funeral of Doniphon (Wayne). A reporter asks Stoddard why he journeyed so far for a rancher’s funeral–cue the flashback!

Twenty-five years ago, Stoddard was a newbie lawyer just arrived in the Wild West. A nasty outlaw named Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) ruled the town, terrorizing its citizens, but Stoddard, with help from his new, less naive pal Doniphon stand their ground. Things get complicated when they fall in love with the same woman, but there’s not a lot of time for romance when Valance is on the loose. As you can guess from the title, someone eventually kills the outlaw, but I won’t spoil it.

This movie is considered to be one of Ford and Wayne’s best westerns, which is saying something! Fun fact: this movie contains the famous quote, “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Also, although the title song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David didn’t actually make it into the movie, Gene Pitney’s recording reached #4 on the charts. It has since been covered by many other artists. Here’s a clip from the movie, and you can buy this classic here.

4. Bus Stop (1956)

via: http://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Summaries/B/Bus%20Stop.htm

Continuing with cowboys, but with the added inducement of Marilyn Monroe, here’s Bus Stop. If you’re expecting a light comedy, perhaps with millionaires, go watch something else. This is not that. Not at all.

Bus Stop is a drama about a young, cocky, overwhelmingly inconsiderate cowboy named Beauregard (Don Murray) who fancies himself in love with a rather pitiful singer stage-named Chérie (Marilyn Monroe). They meet at a cheap cafe on the bus route, and Beau basically kidnaps Chérie and plans to take her home to Montana and marry her.

She keeps trying to escape, and he keeps catching her. To add insult to really awful injury, he refuses to use her chosen name and instead calls her “Cherry.” Various people try to help Chérie throughout their bus journey, but Beau is incorrigible in a horrifying way.

The basic plot, but especially the abuse showered upon powerless Chérie makes this movie difficult to watch. It’s a more complex drama than my synopsis would suggest, but it’s still a fundamentally unpleasant story and I hate the ending. That being said, it’s worth watching because it’s generally regarded as one of Monroe’s better performances. This was the first movie she made after studying at The Actor’s Studio, and she was very clearly flexing her acting muscles and showing that she was more than a pinup.

Fun fact: this movie was based on a play by William Inge, who also wrote Picnic, which was adapted to the screen in 1955, and Splendor in the Grass (1961). You can watch Bus Stop’s trailer here, and you can buy this film here.

5. People Will Talk (1951)

via: http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Posters/P/Poster%20-%20People%20Will%20Talk%20(1951)_01.jpg

Like Bus Stop, this film has not aged super well. You’ll understand why in a moment.

It stars Cary Grant as Dr. Praetorius, an unconventional physician and professor with a holistic approach that patients love but his colleagues distrust. A particularly jealous colleague has brought charges of misconduct against Praetorius and hopes to get the Doctor fired from the medical school faculty.

Against the backdrop of that witch hunt (which involves a practically supernatural character), a young student named Deborah (State Fair‘s Jeanne Crain) faints in one of Praetorius’ lectures. He runs some tests and finds out that she is pregnant. But this is horrible news because she’s not married, and the father of her child was just killed in the Korean War.

Deborah is so distraught that upon her release from Praetorius’ clinic she shoots herself. But she somehow misses everything important, and Praetorius is able to save her quite easily. In an incredibly patronizing and unethical move motivated by his concern, he lies and tells her that the test was faulty; she’s not pregnant, after all!

Eventually they fall in love. I won’t spoil things except to say that this is one of the rare times I don’t like Cary Grant in a movie. He’s so serious, so patronizing, and so godlike. And Jeanne Crain does her best, but her character could use a backbone. Fun fact: this film has been discussed as a commentary on McCarthyism with some Korean War stuff in there, too, so look for that. Here’s the trailer, and you can buy this movie here.

Bonus pick: If you’re looking for something a little different, try this film:

The Bicycle Thief (1948)

via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/68597/The-Bicycle-Thief/#tcmarcp-376302

This movie is a masterpiece of Italian neorealism directed by a master, Vittorio De Sica. It’s gritty and at times grim, but beautiful and strangely uplifting at the same time.

Set in Rome, the story concerns Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani), a man who is desperate for a job so he can support his wife and two children. The family pawns everything they’ve got so that Antonio can buy a bicycle and then get a job putting up advertisements all over the city.

But the bike is stolen on Antonio’s first day. The film then becomes a search for the thief as Antonio and his young son roam the city, desperation mounting. This film is a must-see, regarded as one of the best ever.

Fun fact: as is typical of Italian neorealism, De Sica shot the film entirely on location and cast non-professional actors. For example, Maggiorani was a factory worker who brought his son to audition for the film. De Sica liked him, and cast him as the lead. Here’s a clip, and you can buy this classic here.

For more streaming classics, check out my other Netflix lists here, and my picks from the Movie and Music Network here. And you can follow me on Twitter, tumblr, pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm. Happy watching!

The History Through Hollywood series takes a look at the little things you can pick up from watching Old Hollywood films. As I’ve discussed in the earlier posts, classic movies are inadvertent time capsules: the cars, architecture, fashion, language, and customs of a bygone era are all there, flashing across the screen in smoky black and white or glorious Technicolor. It’s history hiding in plain sight, and you can learn a lot without meaning to, and usually without even noticing.

In other posts, I’ve talked about “Reno-vations,” automats, sex, fashion, language, and alcohol as depicted in old movies. This History Through Hollywood looks at a motley collection of oddities that might seem odd today, but must have been as normal to past generations as texting and online shopping are to us. So all aboard for a look at train travel, the housing shortages during WWII, coffee and doughnuts, and why so many people in old movies speak in a pseudo-British accent.

• Train travel is luxurious, glamorous, and an utter delight from start to finish. It’s the only way to get around!

Before interstates criss-crossed the country, and before commercial air travel was a viable option, the best way to get around was by train. In fact, it was basically the only option, and trains ruled the passenger business until the 1950s and ’60s. So it’s no surprise that when characters in classic movies take a trip, they think “train!” (Unless it’s abroad, in which case “ocean liner!”)

The Major and the Minor

Trains were such a vital part of travel that the Hollywood studios built permanent train station sets, train cars, and railroad spurs on their backlots for the numerous departure/arrival and travel scenes. For example, MGM had a “small town railroad depot” as well as a Grand Central Station set, and almost every actor at the studio filmed there at least once.

Trains aren’t only ubiquitous in old movies; they are also luxurious. I doubt every train car and compartment was as gorgeous, clean, and comfortable as the ones onscreen, but the reality was probably nicer than today’s trains.

The glamorous train travel shown in old films really spoiled me, and I’m always unpleasantly surprised when I do opt for that mode of travel. Where are the sparkling club cars with a band striking up an impromptu rehearsal of the kind we see in Duchess of Idaho and Some Like it Hot?

Duchess of Idaho

Where are the compartments, glamorous private cars, or at least roomy berths? Nowhere, because things have changed. At least for the average traveler.

Even the Wild West-traversing Atchison, Topeka, and the Sante Fe in The Harvey Girls is clean and pristinely comfortable!

The Harvey Girls

Times have changed, but it’s lovely to look back wistfully at how things used to be on the nation’s railways.

It’s also interesting to see air travel slowly making inroads on the silver screen. For instance, inventor Joel McCrea‘s big idea in The Palm Beach Story (1942) is an airport suspended on a sort of trampoline-runway stretched on top of a city. Thankfully, that was just a movie dream, but other characters look to the skies in more sensible ways.

McCrea’s airport in The Palm Beach Story

For example, Esther Williams flies home after her disastrous wedding in Bathing Beauty (1944), Joel McCrea opts for a plane when he chases after his wife (who took a train) in The Palm Beach Story (1942), and Van Johnson takes to the air to reach Mexico City in Easy to Wed (1946). A few years later, Johnson and Williams flew from Florida to New York and back again in Easy to Love (1953).

You see characters on airplanes in Foreign Correspondent (1940) (though that trip is hardly an endorsement), and Sullivan’s Travels, too. Of course there are numerous films with airplanes if you include war movies, but commercial air travel is scarce until the 1950s and 1960s. Then the focus shifts from occasional flights in films to movies about pilots or “airline hostesses,” like Three Guys Named Mike (1951) and Boeing Boeing (1965).

What’s striking about watching early air travel is how formally passengers are dressed. Pajama pants and sneakers on airplanes are definitely a more modern trend. For more on that, visit History Through Hollywood: Fashion.

• WWII caused massive housing shortages in many cities, especially the nation’s capital.

Before I watched The More the Merrier (1943), I had no idea that there was a housing crisis in Washington, D.C. during WWII. But housing shortages were a very big problem at the time, and crop up in movies, radio shows, and other media.

Here’s the story: after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. declared war and cranked into gear. The country underwent a massive mobilization: the armed forces swelled as twelve million people joined the military. That’s an obvious result of war, but what we tend to overlook is the even larger mobilization that occurred within our borders. During WWII, fifteen million people moved from their homes, mostly to work in a war industry.

The More The Merrier

For example, during the war 1.4 million people moved to California to work in the state’s many aircraft and munitions plants, shipyards, and military installations. Few cities were prepared to handle this onslaught, and D.C. wasn’t the only “boom town” to run out of beds.

Richard Gaines and Charles Coburn take part in a discussion of the housing crisis around munitions plants in The More The Merrier

But the capital was particularly overrun: the government was expanding at a rapid pace to handle war time operation, and people flooded into Washington for various war-related jobs. There weren’t enough houses, apartments, nor hotels to handle the influx, and the city became notorious nationwide for its housing shortage.

Stories and jokes like this one became popular during the war:

A man crossing the Fourteenth Street bridge looked down into the Potomac and saw another man drowning. “What’s your name and address?” he shouted to him and ran off to see the drowning man’s landlord. He asked to rent the now-vacant room and was told that it was already taken. “But I just left him drowning in the river,” he protested. “That’s right,” the landlord replied, “but the man who pushed him in got here first” (Krutnik 418).

The discourse around the housing shortage could be serious, too. Novelist John Dos Passos wrote a series of essays about communities adjusting to wartime life in Harper’s Magazine, and he described his packed lodging house in DC:

a big old place that had been a family mansion not so long ago, now partitioned off into small cubicles where lived a pack of young men and women clerks, most of them in government jobs. The house was clean but it had the feeling of too many people breathing the same air, of strangers stirring behind flimsy walls, of unseen bedsprings creaking, and unseen feet shuffling in cramped space, a feeling of private lives huddled lonesome and crowded. (Krutnik 420)

The scene Dos Passos describes could have come straight from The More The Merrier, whose frenzied, sarcastic opening comments on the same phenomenon.

The More the Merrier is not alone in dealing with Washington’s wartime overcrowding. Film historian Frank Krutnik identified nine films released between 1943-1944 that dealt with the capital’s housing crisis: The More the Merrier (1943), Get Going (1943), So This is Washington (1943), Government Girl (1944), Standing Room Only (1944), Ladies of Washington (1944), Johnny Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1944), Music in Manhattan (1944), and The Doughgirls (1944), based on a popular play.

12 other films released between 1944-1945 dealt with housing crises in other locations, mostly towns near military facilities. So although the housing shortages of the 1940s aren’t very well known today, you can bet that contemporary audiences knew exactly what the films were talking about.

It may seem a little strange that so many movies dealt with the housing crisis in such a short period of time, but Hollywood knew a good story when it heard one. Beyond the basic elements of the housing shortages, these films reflect the topsy-turvy chaos of a nation at war, with the blurred boundaries and relaxed social conventions that result from major social change. The housing shortages were a convenient narrative device that allowed for topical, patriotic, and titillating plots, and Hollywood took advantage of the new normal.

The films, jokes, and articles also served to bolster the American public: Krutnik writes that “Disseminated widely across the popular media, and, one may presume, within the social currency of everyday life, discourse of the Washington housing crisis performed a kind of emotional mapping by addressing the personal and social costs of wartime mobilization” (417). Watching the crises unfold on the screen, generally with a comic bent, could have helped Americans deal with the very real, and often unpleasant, effects of mobilization.

This all comes across in The More The Merrier, and in most of the other housing crisis movies. For example, Americans were constantly encouraged to make sacrifices to help the war effort. So it’s no surprise that Connie (Jean Arthur) explains to Mr. Dingle (Charles Coburn) that she decided to rent her spare room because it is her “patriotic duty” to try to relieve some of the housing congestion in Washington. Her desire to “do her part” leads her to share her apartment with two men, despite her misgivings.

At one point, Connie tries to evict her tenants, but when she learns that handsome Joe (Joel McCrea) is being sent to Africa in just two days, she lets him stay. His imminent deployment removes any remaining concerns about propriety. She can’t throw a soldier out on the street, even if it is highly inappropriate for them to be living together!

Such a storyline was unthinkable in Hollywood before the war, but the housing crisis provided an excuse to throw men and women together in potentially scandalous situations.

At the end of the film, after Connie and Joe have obtained a quickie marriage, Joe tells Connie that he doesn’t want her to rent the room out when he is gone. She protests, wanting to fulfill her duty, but Joe says that sending a husband to Africa is patriotic enough!

In The More The Merrier, the frantic search for housing is played for laughs, but that wasn’t the case for most people, and especially not for African-Americans.

Most people coming to D.C. during the war had a difficult time finding a place to live, but it was much harder for African-Americans. Shamefully, but unsurprisingly in this segregated era, “virtually all new housing constructed during the war was earmarked for whites,” (Krutnik 423) leaving African-Americans to make do with whatever they could find.

Without other options, many African-Americans were forced to squat in alleys. In the early 1940s, about 20,000 people, the majority of whom were African-American, lived in “hastily built and overcrowded alley dwellings” without running water or indoor toilets.

The deplorable conditions pushed Congress to create the Alley Dwelling Authority in 1943 to improve the situation, but it did little good. For more, you can read this article.

Of course, none of this shows up in the cycles of films dealing with the housing crises. As usual, Hollywood presented an overwhelmingly white world.

Another missing element in the movies and jokes about the overcrowded capital is the effect of the crisis on public health. During the war, Washington had the highest rates of tuberculosis and venereal disease in the country. It wasn’t all romantic comedy shenanigans, that’s for sure.

On a (slightly) lighter note, there was a sharp rise in the divorce rate once the war ended, mostly attributed to rapid marriages like Connie and Joe’s that linked men and women who were basically strangers and then separated them until after the war. Hopefully Connie and Joe weren’t one of the record 600,000 divorces filed in 1946…

Source: Frank Krutnik. “Critical Accommodations: Washington, Hollywood, and the WWII Housing Shortage.” The Journal of American Culture. Dec 2007. 30: 4.

• Coffee is best sipped out of tea cups, not mugs, preferably as part of a gleaming silver service. And coffee’s perfect pairing was a doughnut, or “sinker,” and could be enjoyed at nearly every casual restaurant in the country.

It may surprise you to learn that Nick Charles didn’t sip his morning coffee out of a “World’s Greatest Dad” coffee cup, and that Carole Lombard guzzled java out of a delicate tea cup-style vessel instead of a clunky “Blondes Have More Fun” mug.

Love Before Breakfast

The straight-sided, thick-handled mugs we’re used to seeing appear very rarely in old movies. This backstage scene in White Christmas is one of the few that feature the more “modern” mug. (Even the famous mug in Detour has a slight tea cup shape.) You can see the mug on the table and in Vera-Ellen‘s hand:

These are the more typical choices, and note the prevalence of lovely silver coffeepots.

To doughnuts! Or donuts. These fried treats are by no means a relic of the past, but in old movies they are everywhere! Just about every diner, roadside stop, or casual restaurant has a heaping tower of golden doughnuts beneath a glass dome. (The doughnuts are usually unglazed, dense, and look like Dunkin’ Donut’s “old fashioned cake donut”).

Observe:

A doughnut and coffee seems to have been a standard order at nearly any time of day. It doesn’t necessarily occur to me to order “coffee and a sinker” at 8pm at a roadside diner, but it happens frequently in old movies.

http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptorium/sheetmusic/a/a00/a0015/ The Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University.

Doughnuts go way back in culinary history, though their most famous moment came in WWI when Salvation Army workers served doughnuts and coffee to soldiers in the trenches in France.

That donut delivery system explains this song, “Don’t Forget the Salvation Army (My Doughnut Girl)” with its charming illustration. With that in mind, one would be forgiven for thinking that the term “doughboy” came from all these doughnuts, but actually that term had been used since the 1840s to describe American soldiers.

I assumed that National Donut Day was started as a marketing ploy by Krispy Kreme, but actually it dates back to the Great Depression. The Salvation Army started the holiday as a way to raise money and awareness of their mission. They chose the donut theme to honor the “donut lassies” who served the fried treats to soldiers (and also provided other food, writing supplies, and clothes mending during WWI). You can even make the famous Salvation Army doughnuts at home!

You won’t see many donut lassies in old movies, but you will see lots of doughnuts and coffee, and often some dunking of the former into the latter. This may have started as a way to improve the taste of stale treats (apparently really stale donuts sink to the bottom, hence the the slang term sinker).

Dunking one’s doughnut was so common that a certain chain took its name from the practice! So keep an eye out for your favorite stars dunking a sinker in their graceful coffee cups! For more on the history and wonder of doughnuts, read on here and here!

And for a dunking tutorial, watch this famous scene from It Happened One Night (1934). Start the clip at the 47 minute mark:

• Everyone in old movies speaks with a British accent.

If you’ve watched a classic movie, you’ve noticed that many actors speak in a British-esque accent even if their character is American. Their vowels are softer, their “T’s” stay sharp instead of dulling into “D’s,” and their “R’s” are whisked away by the wind. This seems to be especially true in films from the 1930s concerning high class hijinks, like My Man Godfrey (1936).

This phenomenon is not just due to British actors working in Hollywood, although, then as now, there were quite a few of them. When you hear actors like Ray Milland, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, Greer Garson, Claude Rains, Angela Lansbury, Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon, Errol Flynn, and Deborah Kerr, among others, expounding with round tones, it’s due to their British heritage.

Ray Milland and Jean Arthur in Easy Living

But how to explain the vaguely British accents of American actors like William Powell, Irene Dunne, Bette Davis, and the Barrymores?

First, some background. What most people think of as the “British accent” is called standardized “Received Pronunciation” or RP, more commonly known as BBC English. The typical “American accent,” (which we consider to be no accent at all), is called “General American” or GA, commonly known as “newscaster accent.” There are hundreds of other regional British and American accents, but I’ll keep things simple with just those two.

The major difference between GA and RP is rhotacism: GA is rhotic, which means speakers use a hard “R.” RP is non-rhotic with soft “R’s”; “hard” becomes “hahd.” Here’s a great short video about this.

Why is there a difference in British and American English at all? Well, the idea that Americans “lost” the British accent is a common misconception. As far as we know (this era lacked recording, obviously), the British used a more GA-style accent until the turn of the 19th century. The RP was developed around that time, and soon became fashionable among the upper and middle classes in Britain. The non-rhotic accent eventually became a cherished marker of status and class. (Think of Eliza gaining social mobility as she adopts an RP accent in My Fair Lady.) Therefore, the difference in GA and RP is not due to Americans losing an accent, but to the British gaining one. For more, visit this great Mental Floss article.

After The Thin Man

Back to the movies. When I say that William Powell, for example, sounds British, what I mean is that on the spectrum of GA and RP, he is closer to the non-rhotic side even though he doesn’t sound exactly like the Queen.

Powell wasn’t aiming for pure RP, though. In fact, what we hear in old movies has its own dialect designation: Mid-Atlantic or Transatlantic English. As its name suggests, it’s a hybrid of GA and RP, a made-up, learned accent that sounded classy and cultivated. You can watch a great demonstration of Mid-Atlantic English in this scene packed with upper class characters who have never pronounced a hard “R” in their lives in After The Thin Man (1936).

Holiday

To get an idea of this movie accent, think of Cary Grant, whose speech is generally held up as the prototype of Mid-Atlantic English–neither British nor American but a combination. His famous speaking style became part of the “Cary Grant persona” when humble, Bristol-born Archibald Leach transformed into a cosmopolitan dreamboat with a gloriously hodge-podged accent that evoked champagne and a perfectly cut suit, with a healthy dash of mischief. Here he is in The Awful Truth (1937):

Fun fact: Tony Curtis later parodied Cary Grant’s accent in Some Like It Hot (1959). You can watch a scene here.

But Cary Grant was by no means alone. The Mid-Atlantic accent became very common onscreen, partly due to the theater world’s embrace of the style. Some have suggested that the accent first rose to prominence in the early days of radio because the sharp “T’s” transmitted better on the relatively weak devices. (You can listen to a radio performance of The Thin Man here.) From radio the accent spread to theater, where it became the accent of choice, and was taught by drama teachers and voice coaches for years. It migrated to movies with the advent of sound films, and remained popular for decades.

Remember the scene in Singin’ in the Rain (1952) when Lina Lamont visits a dialogue coach? Her over-the-top teacher is attempting to impart an exaggerated Mid-Atlantic accent so that Lina can make the transition to talkies. This is not farfetched; many dialogue coaches hammered the Mid-Atlantic accent into their pupils.

It wasn’t just actors picking up the style, either. The accent signified refinement and sophistication, and it proliferated in swanky drawing rooms and the most exclusive clubs. It was even taught in fancy prep schools, and could be heard echoing down the halls of elite universities. As strange as it might seem, upper crust Americans really did sound like characters in old movies, at least for a few decades!

Fun fact: the Netflix show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt referenced this sort of thing by having an extremely wealthy, upper crust character named Logan (played by British actor Adam Campbell) speak with a British accent.

At one point, Kimmy says she loves hearing English guys talk, to which Logan replies, “I’m from Connecticut. My parents just insisted all the children learn British. I didn’t speak a word of American until I arrived at college, bro.” His speech rather appropriately transitions from posh RP to frat boy GA as he gets to the end of the sentence!

Katharine Hepburn honed her famous Mid-Atlantic accent by combining the speech of her wealthy Connecticut upbringing and four years at Bryn Mawr College with vigorous speech coaching in the New York theater.

That’s why she sounds like this:

You can read more about Hepburn and the Mid-Atlantic accent in this article in The Atlantic.

Hepburn and Grant are famous for their Mid-Atlantic accents, but dozens of other actors developed their own concoctions. For instance, Miriam Hopkins merged it with her Savannah drawl, and Belgian-born, British and Netherlands-raised, multilingual Audrey Hepburn cobbled her own lovely version together. William Powell, Myrna Loy, the Barrymores, Claudette Colbert, Irene Dunne, Bette Davis, Lew Ayres, Rosalind Russell, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Orson Welles, Mary Astor, and Carole Lombard, to name a few, all sported the accent in various films.

But some actors, particularly those with “All-American” star images, rarely adopted it. Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Stewart, Judy Garland, John Wayne, Gene Kelly, Barbara Stanwyck, Van Johnson, Esther Williams, Joel McCrea, and others used a more typically American accent than cosmopolitan stars like Colbert and Hepburn. (I’m speaking generally here, as any good actor would alter his or her accent for different roles.)

The Mid-Atlantic accent slowly fell out of favor after WWII (as you can see from the list of stars who eschewed it for a GA accent.) Americans in general moved towards a more vernacular style of speech, and the Mid-Atlantic accent began to sound contrived and “high-falutin’” instead of classy. Grace Kelly, (who spoke a version of the Mid-Atlantic accent), even parodied the upper crust speech for a scene in High Society (1956):

Ironically, later on the Mid-Atlantic accent sometimes showed up in the speech of “ethnic” characters: Rita Moreno remembers using a style very similar to the Mid-Atlantic when she played a gypsy or an Egyptian girl, for example. Thus, by the 1950s and 60s, the accent that once signified wealth and status had begun to suggest “the other.” And now it’s just an odd piece of trivia.

If you’d like to know more about some of the movies I mentioned, check out my reviews on The Blonde at the Film, and follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm, and Facebook. You can find my other History Through Hollywood posts here. As always, thanks for reading!

The great site In The Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood is hosting a blogathon all about the legendary Barrymore dynasty. I’m taking part by freshening up a post on Midnight (1939), featuring John Barrymore in a spectacular screwball performance.

To read my entry on Midnight, please click here! And be sure to check out all the posts in The Barrymore Trilogy Blogathon!

via: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/83933/Moon-Over-Miami/#tcmarcp-940385-940399 Unless otherwise noted, all images are my own.

A reader asked if I would write about this movie, and I was only too happy to do so! Moon Over Miami is a bright, bubbling, delightful movie that sings summer and giddy romance.

The Technicolor is stunning, Grable and Ameche have crackling chemistry, and it’s a perfect example of the kind of escapist musical fare that was so popular during WWII.

To clarify, I don’t mean “escapist” in a derogatory way at all–I love movies like this. These big, glossy musicals are the studio system doing what it was designed to do, and that is an incredible thing to witness.

The film stars Betty Grable, Don Ameche, Robert Cummings, and Carole Landis, and follows the adventures of “TWO SAUCY LITTLE SISTERS ON A MILLIONAIRE MAN-HUNT!” according to a shouted tagline on one of the posters.

Moon Over Miami was based on Stephen Powys’ play “Three Blind Mice.” This was the second adaptation of the play: the first, Three Blind Mice (1938), starred Joel McCrea, Loretta Young, and David Niven. After Moon Over Miami, it was made once more as Three Little Girls in Blue (1946) starring June Haver and George Montgomery.

The plot is simple but catchy, and you can see why it was fertile ground for the studios. Fun fact: despite the film’s title, the song “Moon Over Miami” never appears.

Betty Grable is the star of the picture, though she had only recently become a household name. She had been in Hollywood since 1929, and appeared in small roles and B-movies for about a decade. You can see her as a featured performer in The Gay Divorcee (1934), for example.

Grable’s big break came when Fox’s blonde star Alice Faye fell ill before starting production on Down Argentine Way (1940). The studio replaced her with Betty Grable, and the film was a huge hit.

Fox wasted no time capitalizing on Grable’s newfound stardom and threw her into movie after movie. By 1943, Grable was the top box office star in the world, and in 1947, she was the highest paid entertainer in the country!

It must be mentioned that some of her popularity is due to a certain pinup photo. This famous image, taken in 1943, was the most requested pinup among GIs in WWII, and was later named one of the “100 Photographs that Changed the World” by Life magazine.

via: https://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/betty-garble-pin-up/

Grable was famous for having the best legs in Hollywood, and you’ll see how the costumes in this movie make sure that her gorgeous gams are on display. Fox even insured her legs with Lloyds of London for one million dollars!

But Grable is more than a nice pair of stems. There’s something incredibly effervescent, quick, and cute about her. She’s magnetic on the screen, beautiful, and glamorous, but not terribly mysterious.

When you watch one of her movies, it’s easy to see why her beaming pinup and adorable screen personality made her such a popular reminder of home for so many American soldiers.

To the movie!

Moon Over Miami starts at Texas Tommy’s, a roadside diner. It promises “service with a song,” and when a car pulls in, carhop Kay Latimer (Betty Grable) dances out with a catchy tune and a smile.

Kay’s sister, Barbara (Carole Landis), is also a waitress at Texas Tommy’s. They’re lovely ladies, but they aren’t treated with much respect by their obnoxious customers. One jerk tells Kay that he’d like a “double order of you on toast.” She retorts, “White or wheat?” and snatches the menu out of his hand. You can listen to the song here.

When the mailman arrives, Kay and Barbara run to the kitchen with a long awaited letter. Their Aunt Sue (Charlotte Greenwood, who starred with Grable in Down Argentine Way) reads the letter notifying the three women that they’ve been left $55,000 by a wealthy relative.

They rejoice before they realize that their grand inheritance is actually just $4,000 once you remove taxes, legal fees, etc. Hopes dashed.

But Kay has a plan. They can use the four grand to set themselves up as wealthy ladies to try to catch a millionaire. Sue and Barbara are skeptical, but Kay pulls out the gold diggers’ justification that you’ll see in dozens of other films:

The old “marry for love/marry for money” routine shows up constantly. You’ll see it in Midnight, Hands Across The Table, The Palm Beach Story, Some Like it Hot, How to Marry a Millionaire, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, etc. Typically, the story goes like this: the now-cynical woman watched her parents scrimp and save, and saw the toll it took on their love. She wants something different, and she’s going to get it! But in the end, she marries the man she loves regardless of his bank account. Retroactive spoiler alert for an entire chunk of screwball comedies and musicals of Old Hollywood.

Here are our three leading ladies in their Texas Tommy gear on the backlot. Fun fact: Fox considered casting Virginia Gilmore and Gene Tierney with Betty Grable in this film, and John Payne and Dana Andrews were discussed for the male leads.

via: http://dawn-bettygrable.blogspot.com/2010/12/photo-from-moon-over-miami-1941.html

Kay is very persuasive, and soon they quit their jobs and go to Miami, where “rich men are as plentiful as grapefruits.” Cut to a sunny montage!

Kay, now arrayed in climate-inappropriate fur, strolls into their luxury hotel with her “secretary” and “maid” in tow. I love that there was never any discussion about which sister would be the “lady” and which would be the “secretary.” Everyone automatically agrees that Kay is the prettiest and their best chance to hook a rich man, even though Carole Landis is no slouch! 

The obligatory arrival song and dance ends with Sue and Barbara putting pressure on Kay to land a millionaire. They only have a few weeks before the money runs out!

Costume appreciation break. Notice how the buttons down Grable’s dress run diagonally:

The trio are settling into their swell new digs when a butler named Jack (Jack Haley, known to posterity as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (1939)) arrives with champagne. Jeff Boulton, a very wealthy guest, is sending bottles to everyone in the hotel. Kay’s ears perk up.

She gets even more excited when Jack brags that he knows everyone in the hotel and can spot a gold digger a mile away. (Though he misses these three.) He tells Kay that he will help her find the real rich men by giving her a thumbs up or down whenever she meets someone. Handy!

Jeff Boulton gets Jack’s seal of approval, so Kay hatches a plan. She calls Jeff and tells him that the bottle of champagne he sent was “inferior.” It’s the old “be mean” routine that Kay hopes will make her stick out from all the other girls who fawn and flatter.

It works–Jeff rushes over at once! But before he arrives, Kay hands Barbara her thick, fake spectacles, and tells her to put them on because “I don’t want you to look better!” It’s very funny in a cruel way.

When Jeff walks in the door, he and Kay both get a happy surprise. She’s gorgeous, obviously, and Jeff (Robert Cummings) is a lot younger (and cuter) than she assumed he would be. Game on!

While they begin their romance, Aunt Sue is doing some cooking of her own. She and Jack are rather taken with each other!

Their connection only grows when she tells him about her famous “guacamole sauce” that’s just perfect on hamburgers. Oddly enough, they both pronounce guacamole as “guaca-mala.”

Kay and Sue have been paired off, but poor Barbara is left to languish as a myopic secretary. But no one really seems to care.

Jeff takes Kay to the party he’s been throwing for three days. They stumble over the drunken form of Phil McNeil (Don Ameche), whose curmudgeonly rudeness provides a nice contrast to sweet, chivalrous Jeff. But you know immediately that Kay will end up with Phil. Not least because Grable and Ameche had starred together and found love in Down Argentine Way (1940), but also because immediate dislike is a prerequisite for eventual love. At least in the movies.

Kay is intrigued by Phil, but she stays focused on her rich prey. First, she and Jeff sing together:

Then she hops up and does a “spontaneous” number with the Condos Brothers dance team. What a cliche! If I had a nickel for every time I met a handsome millionaire, sang a beautifully executed duet with him three minutes later, and then wowed the crowd with an impeccable tap routine while wearing a 4th of July star dress…

Remember, these movies aren’t supposed to be realistic! Fun fact: look at how differently Kay’s dress photographs in the lighting in the hotel room vs. the party. It looked navy in the first scenes, but becomes royal blue outside.

After Kay’s triumphant performance, this tall drink of water who traveled back through time from the 1980s re-introduces her to Phil.

His manners do not improve. In fact, he insults Miss Kay. They seem to be drawing from the same playbook: “Be mean to fall in love.” It’s a great scene:

After this exchange, they dance to a wonderful tune called “You Started Something.” (You can listen to Rosemary Clooney perform a slower version here.) Jack, meanwhile, has given Kay the thumbs up about Phil, so she feels pretty good that she’s got two millionaires vying for her.

But then it gets tricky. She can’t get time alone with either man because the other one is always popping up.

They even chase each other through Cypress Gardens, the same place where Esther Williams would lead a phalanx of water skiers in Easy to Love (1953).

There’s a funny moment when Jeff and Kay go flying over a jump and the boat gets swamped when it lands. But the next shot shows the two of them perfectly dry! Movie magic/stunt doubles.

Jeff even manages to crash Phil and Kay’s submarine party. (If you’ve seen Dial M For Murder (1954), you’ll be amazed at how goofy and dumb Cummings is in this film.)

It’s all very flattering, but Kay knows that she can never close the deal if she doesn’t get some alone time with her suitors! She needs to hurry, too, because their inheritance is almost gone, and soon the hotel will kick them out!

So Kay tells the boys that it is her secretary’s birthday, and as a treat she has invited her to dinner with them. Barbara can occupy Jeff while Kay works on Phil, whom she prefers. Kay removes her sister’s glasses, thus rendering her un-hideous for an evening. 

Ugly old Barbara wows Jeff when she emerges. So far, so good!

Let’s talk about the Technicolor palette for a minute. You’ll notice that a dusky, greyish blue shows up quite frequently. It’s everywhere in this movie: the ladder and trim in the sub (my favorite inexplicable detail), the walls in the hotel, and Kay’s spangly scarf, which you’ll see in a minute. This color, as well as other highly saturated, rich tones, was a mainstay of 1940s Technicolor design. Some colors photographed better than others (you’ll see a lot of chartreuse, hot pink, emerald green, and pale yellow, too), so there is a definite look to films from this era.

For more on Technicolor color design, check out this wonderful book by Scott Higgins: Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow: Color Design in the 1930s.

Back to the film! The group enjoys dinner and dancing (a tradition that has sadly fallen out of fashion). Unsurprisingly, Barbara starts falling for Jeff, who rather likes this sympathetic listener. She starts bolstering his self-confidence and encouraging him to get a job instead of loafing around living off of his highly successful father. That’s my move on first dates, too.

While Barbara and Kay are out with Jeff and Phil, Sue is cavorting around the suite with Jack. They perform a charming if at times uncomfortable number featuring Greenwood’s famous high kicks. She does the same thing in Dangerous When Wet (1953). It was her shtick.

Meanwhile, Phil and Kay have commandeered a boat and are floating along singing and romancing. They profess their undying love and Phil proposes!

But then the truth comes out. Phil pursued Kay because he thought that she had a lot of money, and he needs an influx of capital to save his family business. She, of course, was pursuing him for his money, which she now knows doesn’t exist. Awkward.

These are two very confused and ill-informed gold diggers. They dissolve their engagement immediately because although they like each other, they are both more interested in money. It’s all very civilized, if cynical.

Kay returns home in a tizzy. She is sure that Phil will tell Jeff the truth, Jeff will spurn her, and their grand plan will fail. They will be evicted from the hotel, and forced to return to Texas Tommy’s. But!

Phil doesn’t tell Jeff that Kay is a gold digger. Instead, Phil tells Jeff that Kay likes him better. So stupid Jeff runs right over and proposes to Kay, who happily accepts as her heartbroken sister watches from the doorway. Barbara has it rough in this movie.

Costume appreciation break. Travis Banton, perhaps best known for his slinky bias-cut gowns in the 1930s, designed the costumes for this film.

Fun fact: Carole Landis had recently broken through the ranks of Hollywood starlets with her role in One Million B.C. (1940). Fox was developing her into a star when she made this movie, though she never reached the stratosphere. Landis was very active with the USO and traveled more than 100,000 miles visiting soldiers during WWII, more than any other actress. And like Grable, Landis became a popular pinup, and was even known as “The Chest” because of her curves. Yikes.

Back to the film! After the proposal, we cut to a quirky invitation held by a lady with a very trendy reverse French manicure. Nothing is new.

And here we go with another cliche: an engagement party where the bride performs a novelty conga! I mean, we’ve all been there, right?

After entertaining the crowd with her “Kindergarten Conga,” Kay performs a spirited routine with a Fred Astaire lookalike. It’s Hermes Pan, fantastic choreographer and dancer who is best known for his collaborations with Astaire. Astaire called Pan his “ideas man,” and the two virtuosos choreographed and rehearsed together for decades.

Fun fact: this was the first featured performance of Pan onscreen, though he’d been in a number with Astaire in Second Chorus (1941), and it’s possible that he’d been Astaire’s double for some long shots in earlier films. You can see how it would be difficult to tell if it’s Astaire or Pan at a distance! They even move the same way.

After the dance, Kay rejoins her duped fiancé, but her happiness is smudged when she sees Phil romancing Connie, a very wealthy woman.

Kay is so upset by Phil that she asks Jeff if they can head to his family home that night instead of the next morning. She wants to keep her eye on the prize, but it’s difficult with that handsome, penniless devil hanging around.

As Kay waits for Jeff to grab his things so they can go, Phil shows up to say goodbye. And then another well-known trope pops up: the tame crow conversation in the moonlight(!). Kay and Phil giggle with a crow named Mr. Sylvester (why?) until Connie shows up and ruins their moment. I do not understand why there is a crow in this scene. If they needed a reason to sit in the garden, wouldn’t it make more sense to admire some flowers? 

There is time for one last, meaningful look…and then Kay runs off. Ameche sure can wear a tux.

Costume appreciation break. This gold lamé and pleated white chiffon number is something else! Note the gold strips down the skirt and bordering the shawl.

Kay gets back to her suite and finds her sister looking miserable. She asks, “Why aren’t you gay?” and Barbara gloomily replies, “I am gay!” It’s got an extra layer of funny that wasn’t there in 1941.

While Kay and Barbara chat in the living room, Jack says goodbye to Sue in the kitchen. She gives him a huge jar of her guaca-mala sauce, which is inexplicably bright red. As they make their fond farewells, Jack hears Kay and Barbara discussing when they should tell Jeff that they’re really broke carhops from Texas.  

He flips out, and the ladies lock him in the bathroom so they can make their getaway before Jack can tell Jeff. But what a lemony fresh bathroom it is!

Kay and the gang arrive at Jeff’s family home and are greeted unexcitedly by the butler, played by the wonderful Robert Greig. No one else can manage such pompous, dry snobbery with such charm. He plays similar roles in Easy Living and Sullivan’s Travels, and I wish he had more screen time in this film.

One might assume that Jeff’s father would be suspicious of his son’s fiancee, but he embraces Kay at once and even shows her how to make “gashouse eggs,” or egg-in-a-hole. See if you can find the egg and bread among all the grease:

If I had a nickel for every time I made down-home egg dishes in an evening gown with my future-father-in-law two minutes after meeting him…

Everything seems to be going according to plan! But then Phil shows up at the house, swiftly followed by Jack. Oh, dear.

How cute is Kay’s whimsical fish brooch?

The ladies manage to get Jack alone and try to explain the situation. Kay convinces him that she really does love Jeff and wants to make him happy. They make a deal: Jack will watch Kay carefully and if he sees anything that suggests she is only marrying Jeff for his money, he will sound the alarm.

Meanwhile, poor Sue has traded in her classic black uniform for a lavender version which doesn’t suit quite so well.

Jeff’s father throws a lavish engagement party, but this time Kay doesn’t provide the entertainment. She just dances with Jeff and then Phil, watched all the time by Jack.

Kay is furious that Phil has shown up. She loves Phil, of course, so having him around as she marries someone else is cramping her style. After they chat, she runs off to pace in her room.

Meanwhile, Barbara has convinced Jeff to get a job in one of his father’s companies. Anyone with half a brain can see that Barbara and Jeff are the ones who should be engaged.

While they talk business at a table crowded with coupes (read my History Through Hollywood: Vice for more on alcohol consumption in old films), Phil follows Kay to her room. Naughty boy.

At first they fight, but then they kiss. Courtship in microcosm. Jeff bursts in and finds them mid-embrace, but he really doesn’t mind because he just came to tell Kay that he wants to marry Barbara instead!

Now isn’t that tidy? And a nice turnabout for “ugly” Barbara to get the millionaire! More importantly, both sisters marry for love, which redeems their nasty gold-digging characters. Thus, Moon Over Miami follows the trajectory of almost every other movie about women looking for rich husbands.

Next thing we know, our gang of six is enjoying the pleasures of Miami. No idea what Phil and Kay will live on, or if Jeff really will start working. But who cares? You don’t watch this film for that stuff. You watch it for the songs, the Technicolor, the stars, and the glorious, joyful artifice. 

That’s Jack and Sue (really their doubles) water skiing, by the way.

It’s happily ever after for all!

via: http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/cl/clx6.htm

This movie was in production March through April, 1941, and premiered just two months later on July 4. It was a hit.

The film critic for The New York Times gave this movie a favorable review, writing:

Gaily packaged and pretty as a Fourth of July skyrocket display, “Moon Over Miami,” now at the Roxy, once again shows what Technicolor can do for an otherwise very average musical comedy. For, as sometimes happens, the contents are not as surprising as all the bright ribbons would lead one to expect. The script…is older than memory and nearly as long. But if you are content—and we were very content—to be dazzled by Betty Grable and Carole Landis in color, to listen to some saucy tunes warbled with a lilt and to beat time in a couple of swirling production numbers, well, one can think of less pleasant ways of spending a hot Summer’s eve.

He found the script a little worn:

But partly through Walter Lang’s direction, “Moon Over Miami” rarely lets you remember it’s old hat. It keeps dazzling you with little speedboats scooting across blue lagoons, romantic under-water tête-à-têtes…sumptuous parties under the palms and, of course, Miss Grable in a range of pretty and petulant moods. How her moods photograph!

I love that line: “how her moods photograph!” The review finishes with “Like its two little heroines, ‘Moon Over Miami’ isn’t very bright in conversation, but it looks wonderful.” Perfect.

Moon Over Miami continued Grable’s rise to stardom. Fox kept their blonde dynamo busy, and in 1943 she was voted the number one box office draw by exhibitors, edging past Humphrey Bogart, Greer Garson, and Clark Gable to take the top spot. She remained a popular actress until the 1950s, and retired from the screen in 1956.

Fun fact: one of her last films was How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), which is basically Moon Over Miami set in New York. Lauren Bacall and Marilyn Monroe round out the trio as three friends who pool their resources to try and catch rich men. You can watch it on Netflix now!

Here’s the trailer of Moon Over Miami, and you can buy this dazzling movie here.

For more, follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Instagram, pinterest, and Facebook. As always, thanks for reading!

Fun fact: oddly enough, the end credits get Phil’s last name wrong; it’s McNeil, not O’Neil!

TIFF Bell Lightbox, the home of the Toronto International Film Festival, contacted me a few weeks ago and asked if I would write about an Ingrid Bergman film as part of their “Notorious: Celebrating the Ingrid Bergman Centenary” event.  Of course I said yes! I am thrilled to be involved in this celebration of such a legendary, luminous star. The TIFF retrospective runs from August 22 to September 6–so stop by if you can!

Ingrid Bergman was born in Stockholm on August 29, 1915, and died on that same date in 1982. She had an extraordinary career and a fascinating life, and she left us with many incredible films. I’ve written about Gaslight (1944), Spellbound (1945), and Notorious (1946), and for the TIFF Bell Lightbox retrospective I chose Anastasia (1956).

via: http://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Summaries/A/Anastasia.htm Unless otherwise noted, all images are my own.

It’s a great movie about an infamous subject, but it’s also interesting because it marks Bergman’s return to Hollywood after her scandalous affair with Italian director Roberto Rossellini.

In 1949, after appearing in such classics as Casablanca (1943), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Notorious (1946), and Joan of Arc (1948), Bergman went to Italy to work with Rossellini on Stromboli (1950). Bergman and Rossellini were both married to other people, but they fell in love and had a son in 1950.

A highly publicized divorce between Bergman and her husband Peter followed, with widespread denunciation of Bergman’s “abandonment” of her husband and daughter Pia. Many in America felt betrayed by their angelically beautiful star, and public outcry against her was fierce: Ed Sullivan dropped her from his show and Senator Edwin C. Johnson from Colorado attacked Bergman in a speech in Congress, calling her an “agent of evil.” (In 1972, Senator Charles Percy (IL) entered an official apology into the Congressional Record for Johnson’s attack on Bergman.)

Meanwhile, Bergman stayed in Italy with Rossellini, whom she married in 1950. She starred in four more of his films, and they had twin daughters in 1952 (actress Isabella and Isotta). But Hollywood seemed off-limits, as anger at Bergman simmered away. It seems astounding today that an affair could derail a career as strong as Bergman’s, but she was a special star in a different time.

via: http://www.lazygirls.info/Ingrid_Bergman/Life_Magazine_United_ States_26_November_1956_owaNWYy

As TIFF Bell Lightbox programmer James Quandt wrote in his notes for the Centenary celebration: “When Bergman gave birth to Rossellini’s child while still married to her dentist husband, she became the new Hester Prynne, denounced on the floor of the United States Senate and, even more damningly, dropped from The Ed Sullivan Show.”

But as we’ll see, audiences forgave and forgot. Bergman would later famously remark that her reputation had swung “from saint to whore and back to saint again,” though it took nearly seven years for the pendulum to move back to “saint.” And Anastasia was the movie that pushed it along.

This film tells the story of a notorious legend surrounding the murders of the Romanov family. The Tsar (I’m using that spelling because the film does), his wife, their children, and four servants were executed in a cellar by the Bolsheviks after the Revolution in 1918. But rumors soon circulated that one of his daughters, seventeen-year-old Anastasia, had miraculously survived. Many women came forward after the massacre and claimed to be the lost Grand Duchess, last surviving member of the Romanov dynasty and heir to a substantial fortune.

The most famous of these “Anastasias” was a woman named Anna Anderson, who began claiming that she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia in 1921 while in an asylum in Germany. Anderson became something of a celebrity, and gained enough support to meet with remaining Romanov relatives, some of whom believed her and some who did not.

Anderson initiated a lawsuit in Germany in 1938 to prove her identity and thus allow her access to the Romanov inheritance. It was the longest running suit in German history, and finally ended in 1970 when the courts ruled that Anderson had not proven her case. I’ll give you more on Anderson and the saga of Anastasia at the end of the review.

Anderson’s story inspired Marcelle Maurette’s play “Anastasia,” which was adapted by Guy Bolton on Broadway in 1954. 20th Century Fox bought the film rights and hired Anatole Litvak to direct. Fun fact: Litvak was born in Kiev, and spent much of his early life in St. Petersburg before fleeing Russia in 1925.

Fox wanted Bergman to play the leading role despite the potential risks inherent in starring the “fallen” actress. She’d been absent from American screens for seven years, but Fox head Darryl Zanuck and producer Buddy Adler took the chance. Lucky for us, Bergman accepted the part!

Yul Brynner, who was filming The King and I (1956) at the time, agreed to play the White Russian General Sergei Bounine. Appropriately enough, Brynner was born in Russia, as were many of the other actors in the film.

The final big role went to Helen Hayes, “The First Lady of American Theater,” who came out of semi-retirement to play the Dowager Empress Marie, Anastasia’s paternal grandmother. Fun fact: Hayes is one of only twelve people to win the coveted “EGOT,” an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony.

The movie opens with this ambiguous prologue:

Cut to Russian Easter in Paris, 1928. A woman (Ingrid Bergman) in a dingy black coat and thick grey scarf shuffles around the streets by a Russian Orthodox church. She pauses by a photograph of the Tsar’s family in the window of a Russian shop before slowly making her way into the church courtyard. A man watches her closely, though she doesn’t seem to notice. He sends a messenger to General Bounine, who arrives soon after. It seems that they’ve been searching for this woman…

Bounine (Yul Brynner) approaches and asks her if she is the woman who told the nuns in a German asylum that she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia. The woman looks terrified and flees. Bounine follows from a discreet distance.

The whole mysterious scene is played with the Easter procession filing from the church behind them, while soaring music from the choir fills the air.

It’s a great juxtaposition between this odd, sickly woman, these unknown men, and the formal beauty and sanctity of the service. Alfred Newman composed the score for this film, and though at times the music feels melodramatic (as does much of this film), it usually works brilliantly. You can listen to it here. Fun fact: he was nominated for an Oscar for this film, but he lost to Victor Young’s score for Around the World in 80 Days (1956).

Another fun fact: the production requested permission to film this scene at St. Alexander’s Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church in Paris. But the church said no, so the crew took still photographs of the cathedral and then built a version of it on a soundstage in England.

Back to the film! The woman rushes down dark Paris streets, clearly terrified at being followed and discovered. She seems ill and keeps coughing as she tries to disappear into the shadows. These scenes were filmed on location in Paris in early summer, 1956.

Eventually she ends up at the banks of the river, and stares into her reflection with anguish in her face. She seems so terribly tired. She takes a step towards the water…

…but a man pulls her back at the last moment. Bounine, of course.

Cut to a cellar where two Russian men discuss a scheme they’ve been running to find Anastasia, or at least someone who can impersonate the Grand Duchess and gain access to her ten million pound fortune held by the Bank of England. They’ve been selling stock in the proposition to finance their efforts, but the money is running out and their shareholders are not happy.

Bounine enters but doesn’t tell his partners that he has found the woman from the German asylum. (How they heard about her in the first place is never explained.) The three men discuss their situation and the rumors of Anastasia’s survival for a while (it’s basically a long scene of exposition for the audience).

Then Bounine summons the woman he saved from suicide. She says her name is Anna, and we learn that she’s an amnesiac who is clearly unwell, both physically and mentally.

The men tell her what they want from her, but Anna has no interest in being their Anastasia imposter. Plus, the men rather unforgivably bully and scold her, despite her clear distress. But then something odd happens. She becomes extremely upset when she realizes that she is in a cellar, crying out that they’ve brought her down here to shoot her. Now, that’s strange! Then they examine scars on her hands and her head, which look consistent with bullet wounds. Even stranger…

Bounine looks at her piercingly, but he lets the moment pass. Anna says that the scars might be from bullets, but they might be from a train explosion. She can’t quite remember. Her amnesia covers almost all of her life, and she has no idea who she is or what her life has been.

It becomes very clear in this scene that the men do not care about finding the real Anastasia. They aren’t even convinced that she survived. Bounine sums up their attitude when Piotr (Sacha Pitoeff, the one wearing glasses) questions his choice of Anna: “You’re examining her as if she was the real Anastasia. There is no Anastasia. She was shot to death ten years ago by a firing squad. We are seeking only a reasonable facsimile.”

They just want the money, and they’re interested in Anna because she resembles Anastasia, she’s the right age (though she looks a little older than 27 to me), she seems malleable, and she even has the correct measurements! Bounine and his cronies have been thorough: they found the royal dressmaker and got Anastasia’s measurements so they could make a handy life-size silhouette. It’s creepy.

Also, Bergman looks so awful and ill at the beginning of this movie. Her transformation throughout the film is very well done.

Despite Anna’s resemblance to Anastasia, Bounine’s partners aren’t convinced. For example, when Anna slams back a shot of vodka, Boris (Akim Tamiroff, the one in the brown suit) throws up his hands and says, “We should have kept the redhead! The Tsar’s daughter drinks like a Cossack!”

But Bounine is confident that they can mold Anna into Anastasia. They’ll teach her to talk, walk, and dress like a Grand Duchess, and they’ll fill her head with enough “memories” that she can fool the servants, relatives, and courtiers who escaped the Revolution. Conveniently enough, Bounine was a General and special aide to the Tsar, so he knows all the useful information about Anastasia and her family.

After a while, Anna begins to show interest in the scheme. She is tired, suicidal, ill, alone, and poor, so the fact that she will get food and a place to live are very strong inducements. Plus, Bounine and his pals play on the fact that Anna yearns to find out who she is. She wants a family and an identity more than anything else, and if she gets it through a long con, that’s okay.

Once she agrees, the training begins immediately. Bounine shows Anna pictures of “her” family onboard their yacht. Anna supplies the name of the ship almost unconsciously, and Bounine gives her another sharp look. But then she explains that the name is written on the lifeboat in the picture. Still, though…

The scene ends with Anna weeping against a picture of the Tsar and his wife, completely overcome. We get the first inklings that maybe she wants to be Anastasia, and that she thinks there’s a chance that she really is. Is she displaying the grief of a child for her parents and for a lost life, or is it the sorrow of a confused, identity-less, exhausted woman at the end of her strength? Bergman performs it brilliantly.

This scene in the cellar seems to go on forever. There is a lot of information to get across, but mostly they just criss-cross the room and arrange themselves into pleasing groups as they chat. It’s very clear from this scene, and from most of the other ones in this film, that the source material was a play. There are only a few locations, and the majority of the scenes show static conversations. The lack of fluidity and movement doesn’t hurt the movie too much, since the conversations and plot are so fascinating and the performances are tremendous. But it’s something to watch for.

They only have a few days before they need to present Anna to their stockholders, so they waste no time drilling facts, family trees, and memories into Anna’s head. Boris, Piotr, and Bounine are still mean to her, though. It seems that they would get much further if they showed a little compassion, but Bounine treats her like a disobedient child who needs to be whipped into shape.

Just as in the cellar, sometimes Anna amazes the men with details about Anastasia and her family that they don’t remember teaching her. How does she know these things? We’re never sure. The film does a marvelous job keeping the audience guessing. Sometimes Anna’s strangely accurate “memories” can be explained, sometimes they can’t, and sometimes we just don’t know because we don’t see every moment of her Anastasia training. So when she pulls out some obscure detail about the summer palace, for instance, the audience isn’t always sure where that information came from.

Bounine thinks that Anna is starting to believe that maybe she is Anastasia, but he refuses to discuss the possibility with her. It doesn’t matter to him, and he sees no point in such speculation. Better to focus on their goal.

A few days later, Bounine invites some of their most important stockholders to see Anna. These include court officials, servants, and other Russian expats who are keen to see the “Grand Duchess.” Fun fact: many of the bit parts in this film were filled by actual members of the large Russian exile communities in Paris and London. This situation is similar to another of Bergman’s films, Casablanca, which featured actual refugees who had fled Europe playing refugees who had fled Europe.

Bounine warns Anna to be silent–he doesn’t think that she is ready to undertake interviews, and they can plead her obvious illness and gain some more time. But when Anna sees an older woman, she beckons her closer and claims to recognize her as one of her mother’s ladies-in-waiting.

Anna amazes the woman by using the pet name that the Tsarina used to call her! The woman is overcome, and bows to Anna, utterly convinced that it is truly Her Imperial Highness, the Grand Duchess Anastasia.

This is one of those moments I was mentioning earlier. We didn’t see Bounine or his cronies telling Anna about this woman, so we don’t know if Anna is truly remembering something, or just doing a terrific job of repeating what she’s been told.

Regardless, she’s proven she can convince people that she is Anastasia.

After this meeting, Anna has a mini-breakdown because she is so confused. She doesn’t know what she remembers and what she has been told she remembers. Her real memories and Anastasia’s memories are becoming inexorably mixed, and it’s driving her crazy. She just wants to be who she actually is, whoever that might be! But Bounine brushes aside her very real concerns. Back to business! It’s time for dance lessons!

That mini-breakdown and other such conversations keep Anna likable and very sympathetic throughout this movie. She’s not in it for the money, and her “impersonation” of Anastasia doesn’t seem mercenary or cruel because she genuinely doesn’t know if she is the Grand Duchess or not. She might be! There are enough strange coincidences that such an idea seems possible.

Bergman plays the character as a very lonely, terribly confused woman who latches on to anything that seems real, but then has trouble determining where reality and facsimile end. You can see how a strong character like Bounine takes over, and someone like Anna finds it difficult to push back. Soon she is lost in his world, and her confusion only grows as she delves deeper into Anastasia’s life.

It’s clear as the movie progresses that Bounine is beginning to wonder if Anna is the real Anastasia, but, again, he refuses to discuss it, no matter how much Anna would like to. He also seems to be growing fond of his troubled Grand Duchess…

Bounine needs the most important, powerful members of the Russian expat community to accept Anna as Anastasia, so he arranges a party where Anna will be on display and available for chats so that everyone can make up their own minds. And hopefully sign affidavits for the Bank of England swearing to Anna’s identity.

This man with the excellent mutton chops is particularly skeptical. At first he refuses to even speak to Anna, and once he does, he tells her that nothing she can say will convince him. Only the bearing and behavior of a Grand Duchess will change his mind.

As he turns to go, Boris lights up a cigarette. Anna snaps, “How dare you smoke in my presence without permission!” The mutton-chop man turns around with a shocked look on his face and asks her, “Who are you?” his voice full of wonder. Anna has succeeded again!

(And we are left to wonder, too. We didn’t see Bounine instructing Anna in that specific behavior, and her anger at Boris sure seemed genuine and spontaneous!)

A crucial switch has occurred for Anna by this point in the film. Before she was nervous and conflicted when she had to convince people of her identity, but now she’s angry. She believes she is Anastasia, a Grand Duchess, the daughter of a Tsar, and it infuriates her to have to “perform” for these skeptics. It’s degrading! So that’s an extra wrinkle.

Despite Anna’s success and her newfound confidence and surety, Bounine knows they need more support to get their hands on the Romanov inheritance. Their only option is to convince Anastasia’s paternal grandmother, the Dowager Empress Marie (Helen Hayes), that Anna is her long lost granddaughter. If they get the Dowager’s endorsement, no one will dare question Anna. But it will be tricky.

First, the Dowager Empress lives in Copenhagen. And second, she refuses to see any Anastasias. She has been burned too many times, and it’s far too painful to hope and be crushed again.

But Bounine and Anna go to Copenhagen anyway. He has a plan.

Look at how bright and beautiful Anna looks compared to her sunken, sick appearance at the beginning of the movie! Being Anastasia suits her!

Bounine meets with one of the Dowager’s ladies-in-waiting, Baroness von Livenbaum (Martita Hunt), at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. Fun fact: the production did go to Copenhagen to get background shots of various places, but most of the filming took place in Borehamwood Studios in England.

Bounine gets the scoop on the Dowager, and learns that she only leaves her palace to see Russian ballets or concerts.

Luckily for Bounine and Ana, Tchaikovsky’s “The Sleeping Beauty” is next on the schedule. (It’s a little on the nose; the princess who has been asleep/lost for years and finally re-awakens?) So off they go to the ballet!

Anna is terrified, but not because she has to convince the Dowager. She’s terrified because she is so near to the only family she has left, but might never get the chance to close the distance. Remember that Anna’s reason for agreeing to this scheme in the first place was to gain an identity and a family. And she’s almost there!

At intermission, Anna turns her significant charm on Prince Paul (Ivan Desny), a cousin and the man who Anastasia was engaged to before the Revolution.

Paul is very close to the Dowager, so he is a good friend to have. Meanwhile, Bounine weasels his way into the Dowager’s private box. The fierce old lady tells him that there is no way she will see his imposter, and summarily dismisses him.

But when the ballet cranks back up, the Dowager Empress can’t resist taking a look at the woman sitting with Bounine. In a very intense moment, Anna feels the Dowager’s stare and turns to meet it. Chills. You can’t help thinking, “What if she really is Anastasia?!”

Costume appreciation break. Bergman’s costumes are mostly utilitarian in this film, but this white dress with pink stripes is quite lovely. Rene Hubert designed the costumes, and he does a great job in the crowd scenes combining old-fashioned gowns like Anna’s with short, flapper styles. It is 1928, after all!

A few days pass, and the Dowager still refuses to see Ana. But Prince Paul is delighted to take his pretty new friend/possible former fiancee out on the town.

Bounine interrupts this particularly heated date. He seems jealous of Paul and the attention Anna pays him. When Bounine takes a drunk Anna home that night, he stands at the end of her bed and looks down at her. And that’s about as tender and romantic as this film gets.

There are only a few days left on Anna’s visa when they get a surprise visit. The Dowager has come to see Bounine’s imposter after all. Paul now believes that Anna is Anastasia, and he begged the Dowager to talk to her.

It’s an incredibly powerful scene, wonderfully played by two extraordinary actresses. First Anna tries to drop names and places, calling Catherine the Great by the Romanov family nickname, “Figgy,” for example. But the Dowager shuts that down.

She’s not interested in anything that Anna could have been taught. She admits that the resemblance is strong, but remains highly skeptical. It seems that nothing Anna does can convince this battle-scarred matriarch.

At one point, Anna embraces her “grandmother,” explaining that even if the Dowager never believes that she is Anastasia, at least Anna will have been granted one embrace with the family she thought she had lost.

Remember that Anna really thinks she is Anastasia at this point, and she knows that this might be the last time she will ever be with her grandmother. See what I mean? Intense.

But still the Dowager maintains her stony refusal. She turns to go, and Anna collapses in a chair, coughing quietly. The Dowager asks if she is ill, and Anna replies, exhausted, that she is not ill; she coughs when she is frightened. And that does it!

The Dowager goes white and says that Anastasia used to cough when she was frightened! She had that quirk even when she was a little girl! 

In that moment, the Dowager believes, wholeheartedly, that her granddaughter has returned to her. It’s marvelous.

But as she clutches Anna to her, she whispers, “If it should not be you, don’t ever tell me.” She wants to believe more than she wants the truth, much like Anna. And you don’t blame her. She thought her entire family was murdered, but now she learns that a granddaughter survived. Of course she wants it to be true! And the audience does, too! What a great story, right?

Indeed, this film is a fascinating meditation on what happens when we simply will ourselves to believe something. If we want something to be true, we’ll grasp anything that supports it, and our reality will shift, no matter how “true” it might be.

Fun fact: although this film is inspired by Anna Anderson, it doesn’t follow her trajectory too strictly. A major difference is that Anderson was never accepted by the Dowager Empress, nor by most of the other members of the Romanov family.

Anyway, things move quickly once the Dowager Empress validates Anna as Anastasia. We cut to a spectacular ballroom where the Dowager Empress will officially recognize Anna as the Grand Duchess Anastasia, and also announce her engagement to Prince Paul. It’s a big night.

But first, Bounine and Anna hold a press conference. Anna descends the stairs in her Imperial court dress like the Grand Duchess she is about to become/has always been.

The press conference has barely begun before a man emerges from the crowd and tells Anna that he knew her in a hospital in Bucharest several years ago.

She had been injured in a train explosion (remember that she mentioned that in the cellar the first night), and that her name is Anna Koreff.

Anna recognizes the man and admits to being in Bucharest, which sends the reporters into a frenzy. Though it really doesn’t prove anything either way. Anastasia could have been in a train explosion near Bucharest after 1918, too.

Bounine ends the press conference abruptly and the reporters are ushered out. Anna is unnerved but not terribly so. She’s so different from the unstable, weak, terrified woman Bounine pulled back from the river’s edge!

She and Bounine sit and talk, but he still refuses to tell Anna if he believes that she is Anastasia or not. He says that it doesn’t matter, and implies in his stern way that he would love her no matter what her name was. Unlike Paul, who would definitely not marry Anna Koreff.

Their heart-to-heart ends in an argument, as usual. But their attraction is stronger than ever.

Costume appreciation break. The gown Bergman wears is a replica of the court dresses the royal family wore to special events. That’s the real Grand Duchess Anastasia as a little girl in her court dress:

After the botched press conference and the tense exchange between Bounine and Anna, the ball gets underway! Anna opens the dancing with her nearly-affianced prince. She asks him if he’d marry her if she wasn’t Anastasia, and he demurs, saying it doesn’t matter because she is!

She ponders and replies with this classic line: “The poor have one advantage. At least they know when they are loved for themselves.”

As you can see, the sets and costumes are incredibly lush in this film, and especially this scene. The production values pushed the budget up and up to a staggering 3.5 million dollars, and Fox claimed that it was the most expensive movie they had ever made abroad.

There is talk all around the ballroom about how the good old days, the pre-Revolution, Imperial days, have returned. But Bounine and Anna don’t share in the giddy nostalgia. And neither does the Dowager, who is too wise to believe that the past can be resurrected after all these years and such monumental changes.

After watching Anna dance with Paul, Bounine requests an audience with the Dowager so he can make his goodbyes. He isn’t going to stay to see Anna crowned as Anastasia. Which is odd, because that was his goal all along. The Dowager guesses that Bounine is in love with Anna. She’s a savvy lady!

She asks him to stay just a little longer, and sends him to wait in the “green room” (not a TV show’s waiting area, but a nearby chamber with green walls.) He obeys. 

After her waltz, Anna goes to see the Dowager. They have a beautiful grandmother-granddaughter chat about who and what Anna really wants (not a life as Anastasia with Prince Paul, but a simpler one as Anna with Bounine). Of course, they don’t actually say that, but it runs beneath the conversation.

The Dowager realizes that Anna doesn’t truly want to be Anastasia, even if she really is. The Dowager hugs her tight, for what she knows is the last time, and sends her into the green room. Well played, Grandmama.A few minutes pass and it’s time for the formal presentation of the Grand Duchess Anastasia. But she is nowhere to be found! And Bounine is gone, too! The Dowager seems delighted by this turn of events even as everyone around her panics. 

She takes Prince Paul’s arm, and they begin their stately descent into the ballroom. When Paul asks her what she will say to the assembled crowd, she answers with all of Helen Hayes’ power: “I will say, ‘The play is over. Go home.'”

And so it ends!

The true identity of Anna is never established, though I think the film wants us to believe that she is Anastasia.

It makes for a delicious tale, especially with the surprise ending. Anna’s decision to reject life as a Grand Duchess only makes us like her more because she has proven that she was never in it for the money and the fame. She just wanted love and an identity, and she found it!

Director Litvak watches Bergman and Brynner on set, though they don’t dance in this scene in the film. via: http://frickyeahanastasia.tumblr.com/post/28362922669/bellecs-1956-director-anatole-litvak-watches

Anastasia got good reviews, and many applauded Bergman’s performance, including The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther. He wrote that:

Anatole Litvak has smartly staged it for a fine projection of its human ironies. And it is played with keen sensitivity by Ingrid Bergman, Yul Brynner and Helen Hayes…If the ending is slightly ambiguous and touched with a gloss of sentiment that may be generously forgiven in gratitude for what has gone before.

And as for scandalous Ingrid Bergman?

Miss Bergman’s performance as the heroine is nothing short of superb as she traces the progress of a woman from the depths of derangement and despair through a struggle with doubt and delusion to the accomplishment of courage, pride and love. It is a beautifully molded performance, worthy of an Academy Award and particularly gratifying in the light of Miss Bergman’s long absence from commendable films.

This film was a terrific comeback for Bergman. She won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, which she accepted in person, marking the first time she had been in the United States since 1949.

And as Crowther predicted, Bergman won the Best Actress Oscar, her second such prize after 1944’s Gaslight. She would win her third Academy Award, this time for Best Supporting Actress, in Murder on the Orient Express (1974). You can watch Ernest Borgnine present the Oscar and Cary Grant accept it on Bergman’s behalf.

Bergman wouldn’t make a public appearance in Hollywood until the next year’s Oscars in 1958, when she was introduced by Cary Grant and received a standing ovation. The “agent of evil” had been forgiven and welcomed back into the fold.

Fun fact: a very loose adaptation of this story became an animated film in 1997. In a cool twist, David Newman, Alfred Newman’s son, composed the music for that Anastasia.

And now to ruin the mystery…Anna Anderson died in 1984, and DNA tests proved conclusively that she was not related to the Romanovs, but instead was a Polish woman named Franziska Schanzkowska. All of that is irrelevant, now, though, because in the 1990s and 200os, when the graves of the Tsar and his family were finally discovered after nine decades of secrecy, DNA testing in 2007 proved that all seven members were accounted for. Anastasia didn’t survive the massacre, after all.

Here’s the trailer of Anastasia–enjoy! For more, follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Instagram, pinterest, and Facebook. And you can buy this classic movie here–or go see it at TIFF Bell Lightbox! As always, thanks for reading!

or: How Classic Hollywood Done Me Wrong

My sister got married last weekend, and after all the happy dust settled, classic Hollywood wriggled its way into my brain-spotlight as it so often does. Watching my sister with her wonderful husband reminded me of all the classic couples and love stories snuggled on celluloid, and how our ideas of love, weddings, and marriage have changed, or not, over the years.

The Palm Beach Story

The History Through Hollywood series looks at old films as inadvertent time capsules packed with the norms and customs, both quotidian and grand, of a bygone era. Old movies are full of history hiding in plain sight, and you can learn a lot without meaning to, and usually without even noticing.

Traditions change and cultural mores shift; what was once commonplace might now seem totally weird. For example, when was the last time you saw a man wearing sock garters? And have you ever noticed that no one drinks wine in old films but instead opts for cocktails? (Find out why here.) In terms of this post, it must be said that one big way things have changed is that classic Hollywood love is almost exclusively heteronormative; you can read more about that here.

This series is also my attempt to explain why old movies can sometimes seem so very different from today’s films. With a little context, a “boring,” and “tame” old film can suddenly shimmer (watch for those cross-dissolves, people!), and something that seems utterly alien can suddenly make sense (why are so many wives going to Reno?) You can read my other History Through Hollywood posts about sex, doughnuts, those odd English accents, fashion, divorce, and the ever-smoldering cigarettes here.

Inspired by the joy and love at my sister’s wedding, this History Through Hollywood takes a look at classic love and the crazy, wonderful ideas you can pick up if you watch classic films, and even worse, believe them!

Rosemary Clooney sings “Love, You Didn’t Do Right By Me” in White Christmas

• Love is a dance or a sparkling conversation.

Ladies, if I’ve learned anything from classic movies, it’s that if you and your beau dance beautifully together or banter like two hardboiled reporters, marry him! Immediately.

First, the dancing. Even if you’re strangers, or you hate each other, if you’re in sync on the dance floor, put a ring on it. You’ll see this often in old movies: two characters who don’t really know each other or perhaps even dislike each other accidentally end up on the dance floor. They amaze everyone, including themselves, with their glorious performance. At the end of the dance, they look at each other in stunned confusion. Only soulmates could achieve such harmony and bliss on the dance floor! So naturally they get married.

This also applies to harmony in the swimming pool in Esther Williams’ films. Once she performs a water duet with a man, you know that happily ever after is assured!

No one better personified the terpsichorean path to love than Fred and Ginger. The romance in their movies generally follows this trajectory: amusing meet-cute, immediate dislike on her part and immediate infatuation on his. He pursues, she rebuffs, and their path to love is littered with obstacles. But then they come together for a dance…

The Gay Divorcee

Often Astaire literally pulls Rogers into the dance as she attempts to elude him. The first section usually follows the pattern of Astaire pursuing as Rogers spins away. But soon she can’t help but melt into the movements with him, and as they float together in achingly perfect harmony, Rogers begins to fall in love. And can you blame her?

When the music stops, sometimes the spell is broken, and it’s back to a milder version of their one-sided affair. But there is always another dance, and another, and each time they fall more in love until they embrace as the ending credits roll.

Astaire and Rogers certainly weren’t the only famous dance team in classic movies, and most of the great choreographers also used dance to tell the love story. I’m very partial to real-life couple Marge and Gower Champion, for example, and I’ll watch Cyd Charisse, Gene Kelly, and Vera-Ellen dance with anyone. But Rogers and Astaire used dance to tell a story better than anyone else. Dances in their films aren’t just music breaks; they’re integral to the romantic plot.

The good news is that you don’t have to be a world-class dancer to partake in this dance-well, love-well tradition. You see it all the time–when a couple moves delightfully together it’s basically a guarantee that they’ll end the film with a kiss.

But maybe you have two left feet and it’s your mind that waltzes, dips, and spins in perfect coordination with another. That’s acceptable, too. (And perhaps preferable, since chatting is more common and quite a bit easier than epic choreographed dancing.)

Some of our most beloved screen teams perfected this sublime verbal choreography just as surely as Fred and Ginger perfected their routines. And just like the dancers who fell in love almost against their will as they performed together, so the verbal version often starts with clever animosity before blossoming into witty love.

Relentless sarcasm and teasing don’t usually work so well in real life, but in classic movies, couples that are meant to be often start their relationship with acerbic barbs and cutting repartee. It’s smart, it’s fast, and it’s delightful.

One of the greatest examples of the fast talking dame in perfect sync with her swift-speaking fella is His Girl Friday (1940), where ex-spouses Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant demonstrate their brilliance at badinage.

Their repartee flies back and forth in famously fast, overlapping quips; the dialogue is so dense and rapid that I always feel a little tired after watching the movie. Exhilarated, but worn out from trying to follow these two masters. After watching Russell and Grant banter back and forth, you know immediately that bumbling Ralph Bellamy, who plays Russell’s fiancé, is utterly wrong for her because their conversations are slow and gentle, dull and plodding, compared to the spitfire sarcasm of the destined couple Russell and Grant.

Poor Bellamy is cast in the same sort of bumpkin role, once again opposite witty Cary Grant, in The Awful Truth (1937). Not only is Bellamy left behind verbally when Irene Dunne and Grant get going, but he also fails at dancing with Dunne. He leads her on a mortifying jig while Grant grins at the mismatch. He already knows that Bellamy can’t keep up verbally, and he’s gratified to find out that he can’t dance well with Dunne, either.

The Awful Truth

Some of my favorite fast-talking pairs with beautifully linked brains include Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne and Grant, Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray, Myrna Loy and William Powell, and Ginger Rogers and Claudette Colbert with assorted clever fellows. They are a joy to watch.

The dancing and banter seem to have been Old Hollywood’s way of testing and demonstrating a couple’s suitability physically and mentally. Nowadays, movies cover the same territory, but the couple sleeps together and texts instead of dancing and chatting. Not to sound too old and crabby, but I rather miss classic Hollywood’s method.

• An immediate dislike is a prerequisite to eventual, lasting love.

It’s the old Mr. Darcy/Elizabeth routine. If a character finds another person insufferable at first, chances are they’ll end up at the altar in about 80 minutes. Or if a character decides immediately that a possible suitor is completely wrong for her, you can bet they’ll end the film in a classic clinch, cheeks smushed together as they beam at the camera.

Neptune’s Daughter

So the next time you meet someone who can’t stand you, or hurls darts of witty insults your way, just hang on. You’ll probably get married.

Take a look at Calamity Jane, The Gay Divorcee, We’re Not Dressing, Bringing Up Baby, Captain Blood, Easter Parade, Easy to Wed, Funny Face, Foreign Correspondent, Hit the Deck, How to Steal A Million, Love Before Breakfast, Neptune’s Daughter, The Band Wagon, The Harvey Girls, or just about any movie to see what I mean.

This about sums it up:

• If his clothes coordinate with yours, lock it down.

This is a subtle indicator of true love, but it’s very rarely wrong. It might be that his shirt matches your shoes, or that his overall color scheme coordinates just perfectly with your own; bottom line, if everything goes together, book your wedding venue.

Sometimes costume designers sneakily forecast perfect pairs even before the characters realize they are falling in love. The overriding reason for these prescient costume choices was probably not to hide romantic clues, but to make a scene look pretty, as it wouldn’t do to have the characters clashing, and to help create the characters. Clothes are useful at building “types,” so when a soon-to-be-couple appears in similar styles or colors, you know that they click on a deeper level, too. Regardless of the original intent, sometimes by examining costumes you can find subtle cues suggesting which characters will end up together, and which ones are not meant to be.

Some of my favorite examples of costumes telegraphing the love plot are in Summer Stock (1950). Destined couple Judy Garland and Gene Kelly match or coordinate to an alarming degree. At the same time, just to make sure we get it, Kelly clashes with his original girlfriend Gloria DeHaven, who coincidentally looks great next to her future love, Garland’s fiancé Eddie Bracken!

• Don’t marry someone you’ve just met. Or do!

The evidence is conflicted on this one, and there is quite a bit of it to sift through because it seems as though every movie features a very fast love story.

Some of the speed of Old Hollywood romance can be blamed on the medium. If you’ve only got ninety minutes to tell a story, and your couple has to end up engaged or married (read History Through Hollywood: Vice for more on that), you can’t date for three years.

The More The Merrier

But even so, it does seem that romances happened faster back then. No eighteen-month engagements or decade long courtships, that’s for sure. Indeed, usually a long engagement is seen as a very bad sign.

For example, in The More The Merrier (1943) when Charles Coburn learns that Jean Arthur has been engaged to pompous Richard Gaines for a whole 22 months, he asks if she is “engaged to be married” or just “engaged to be engaged,” and he expresses doubt that they will ever actually get married.

Characters move so quickly in old films that a week from meeting to marriage sometimes seems like a conservative timeline. They just seem to “know” really quickly and they don’t waste time worrying about learning each others’ middle names or basic personality traits. It’s an insanely optimistic view of love: soulmates are everywhere, you know within three seconds, and everything will be amazing forever and ever. That’s Hollywood for you!

This super-fast romance is especially prevalent in films produced during WWII, and I imagine this reflects the very real rapid courtships that were happening across the country at the time.

It was not uncommon for a soldier on the eve of deployment or on a few days leave to meet a gal, marry her, and then have to leave her behind, all in a matter of days. People didn’t have time to wait, and the stories on screen reflect that new reality.

Thrill of a Romance

It must have been a glorious morale booster to see such plots flashing across the screen, and quite comforting to think that a lonely, exhausted soldier could find his true love in a matter of minutes, and have it all wrapped up in a quickie marriage before he has to board his train! After all, if it’s on the silver screen, it must be true.

Hit The Deck

I’m sure these fast romances worked well for some, but there was a sharp rise in the divorce rate once the war ended, mostly attributed to these quickie marriages that linked men and women who were basically strangers, and then separated them until after the war. (For more on divorce in classic movies, visit this History Through Hollywood post and this one about the housing shortages during the war that also contributed to fast marriages.)

Overall, the probability of marital happiness seems to depend less on how quickly characters become a pair and more on the genre of the film. Basically, fast courtships work out great in comedies and musicals, and go disastrously wrong in dramas and horror films.

A quickie marriage that doesn’t go so well in Rebecca

This conclusion is neither groundbreaking nor particularly clever, but it’s important to note that genre is a fundamental characteristic that still dictates a lot of what we see onscreen. (How many times have you heard someone say they didn’t like a movie because it wasn’t what they thought it would be?)

Crazy-fast love works quite well in The Major and the Minor, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (where it’s about two hours between meeting and marriage), The More the Merrier, Moon Over Miami, Bringing Up Baby, It Happened One Night, and dozens and dozens of other films.

Crazy-fast love goes badly in dramas, horror films, and film noir. Watch Double Indemnity, Gaslight, or Rebecca, and you may be awfully gun-shy the next time you get a crush.

And sometimes one’s first snap-romance goes poorly, but it is immediately replaced by a second one that works. See what I mean about murky evidence?

Also, you can generally tell what kind of marriage it will be by when it happens in the movie. If it’s early on, chances are good that it was a mistake; you’re not going to spend 75 minutes watching newlyweds be deliriously happy! No, there is probably a dark secret or a horrifying twist that occupies the rest of the film. But if they get engaged or married right before the credits roll, you can bet that it was a fantastic decision. Or so we hope, since we don’t see it. It’s the old “happily ever after” ending in all of its vague glory.

If a character doesn’t meet and marry someone within a matter of hours, there’s a good chance they decide to re-marry their original spouse. They were right all along, they just got confused! Besides being a fun twist on a romantic comedy, these “comedies of remarriage” had a very practical component.

As I discussed in History Through Hollywood: Vice, the Production Code didn’t allow for any sex during courtship (or really any after marriage, either), but the rules could be loosened when the couple had already been married. There is no chastity nor spotless reputation to protect, so they can get away with much more “risqué” behavior (unchaperoned evenings, flirtier repartee, and overall a thrilling familiarity) than a virginal pair.

Of course, even the divorced couples behave like cloistered nuns compared to what goes on in today’s movies, but at the time, their path to remarriage seemed delightfully daring! If you’re interested in some of these narratives of re-marriage, I’d recommend The Philadelphia Story and its re-make High Society, The Awful Truth, His Girl Friday, The Lady Eve, and The Palm Beach Story.

The speed with which Old Hollywood brings its couples together can be dangerous, since another tenet of Old Hollywood Love is…

• Pretending to be someone you’re not is the best way to find your soulmate.

It’s particularly efficacious to lie about your financial situation and family background. And when in doubt, masquerade as an aristocrat. Everyone loves a fake countess, and a princess will be the toast of the town! It worked for Claudette Colbert in Midnight, Carole Lombard in The Princess Comes Across, Ginger Rogers in Roberta, Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve, and for many other duplicitous dames.

Even if you don’t pretend you’ve got a title, definitely don’t show up as yourself.  That’s no way to catch a beau!

False and mistaken identities are as old as stories, but Hollywood loves ‘em, especially in screwball comedies. It goes like this: you pretend to be someone else or lie outrageously about some aspect of your life. That will entice your true love, who will fall for you, somehow sensing the real “you” underneath. Then she won’t even care when she finds out that you’ve been lying to her from the moment you met! If you think about it, it’s a lovely, though counterintuitive, and probably disastrous plan.

Such cheerfully two-faced romances occur in Love in the Afternoon, To Catch a Thief, Neptune’s Daughter, My Sister Eileen, Charade, How to Steal A Million, Easy Living, My Man Godfrey, Barbary Coast, Virginia City, The Lady Eve, and several dozen other films featuring less than truthful protagonists.

Since everyone is pretending to be someone they’re not, keep a close watch on your assets, because according to classic Hollywood…

• Gold diggers are everywhere.

The true gold diggers, the really cold-hearted dames, never get ahead, but classic Hollywood is full of women who try to be gold diggers but whose fine feelings win out in the end. It’s the prostitute-with-a-heart-of-gold-thing, but easier to redeem. This narrative was very popular: besides the Gold Diggers series (1929, 1933, 1935, 1937, and 1938), many screwball comedies like Hands Across the Table, Midnight, and later movies like Moon Over Miami, The Palm Beach Story, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and How to Marry a Millionaire follow this faux-gold digger plot.

Usually, the woman is sick and tired of being poor, or she is determined to marry rich because she watched her parents’ love disintegrate as they struggled to make ends meet. She’s “through with love,” and just wants financial security. And diamonds. Lots of diamonds.

Her resolution is tested when she falls in love with a non-millionaire. Either she ends up marrying for love, and therefore proving that she was never really a nasty gold digger, or she gets a very happy surprise when her non-millionaire turns out to be loaded. He was lying about it the whole time! She forgives him at once. See the previous tenet of Old Hollywood love. Next up:

• Age differences are irrelevant.

See nearly every post-1950 movie starring any of the Old Guard as they become progressively craggier: Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Fred Astaire, Humphrey Bogart, Bing Crosby, etc. Despite their advancing years, they still romanced actresses who were decades younger, sometimes painfully so.

This is by no means a relic of a past age, either. Age differences are still incredibly common onscreen. See this recent Buzzfeed article for a great illustration of the double standard.

Once you’ve found your true love and gotten over any doubts concerning the twenty-five years between you, forget the year-long engagements that seem so common today, because…

• Engagements were short, and weddings were simple.

You’ve got maybe a month before you’re married, so no time to order that designer dress and wait ten months for it to arrive! And don’t worry about booking that perfect venue with an 18-month waiting list. You’ll get married at home (the majority of fancy movie weddings), or at city hall, or at church.

It’s not an economic issue to bypass a huge wedding—some of the wealthiest characters choose city hall or that always adorable “wake-up-the-nearest-justice-of-the-peace” 3AM option.

Elopements are a very common occurrence in old films. Weddings were just about the bride and groom getting married, so no one bats an eye when a couple takes off in the middle of the night!

Thrill of a Romance

If there is a “reception,” it will most likely be at home. The ceremony will probably take place in the morning, giving you and your new spouse plenty of time to get to Niagara Falls. If you’re wealthy, don’t forget to display your wedding loot for your guests to admire!

So much silver…the room devoted to wedding presents inspires a memorable musical number in High Society when Celeste Holm and Frank Sinatra are so overwhelmed by the finery that they burst into “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”

Dancing, chatting, hate-turning-to-love, matching outfits, false identities, quick courtships and faster marriages, gold diggers, age differences, and weddings. That’s love, Old Hollywood style!

If you’d like to know more about some of the movies I mentioned, check out my reviews on The Blonde at the Film, and follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm, and Facebook. You can find my other History Through Hollywood posts here. As always, thanks for reading!

The wonderful ending of Bringing Up Baby

via: http://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20curriesummaries/A /All%20Through%20the%20Night.htm Unless otherwise noted, all images are my own.

If you’ve been searching for a comic-thriller about a bunch of New York wise guys taking down a Nazi sleeper cell, get excited! All Through The Night is that film. As an added bonus, it stars a collection of actors who would go on to make a much more famous WWII drama, Casablanca (1943).

All Through The Night is an odd combination of slapstick comedy and serious anti-Nazi film, with more than a hint of propaganda aimed at raising awareness of the Nazi threat and combating isolationist policies. It was in production in August through October 1941, crucially before Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7. The film was released in January 1942, but its pre-Pearl Harbor attitude is very evident.

It’s strange to watch it today–we know what is coming but the movie doesn’t, so its strident warnings against Hitler and calls for the American people to wake up seem weirdly naive and obvious, and extremely dated. It reminds me of Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (1940), which is packed with similar warnings of Axis plans and urgent pleas for the world to realize the danger before it is too late.

Although films like this can be disconcerting to watch (especially the Nazi-centered comedy in All Through The Night), they are fascinating reminders that even things we take for granted, such as Hitler=evil, and of-course-America-got-involved-in-WWII, weren’t always so clear, even as late as the fall of 1941. What appears entirely inevitable to us as we look back often didn’t feel as destined to those living it. So try to put aside the “condescension of the present” and imagine it’s the summer of 1941.

In June of that year, Warner Bros. released Underground (1941), a dark drama set in Berlin. Producer Hal Wallis admitted the film was anti-Nazi “propaganda,” but that wasn’t surprising coming from that studio.

via: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_a_Nazi_Spy

Thanks to its prescient leaders Jack and Harry Warner, Warner Bros. came out as anti-Nazi very early, and the studio was not shy about making films warning of Fascism and Hitler’s rise.

In fact, the Warner Bros.’ movie Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) is considered to be the first major anti-Nazi film produced by a Hollywood studio, though Warner Bros. had been including anti-Fascist messages in its cartoons since the early 1930s. (You can read more about Warner Bros. pre-war work here.)

Confessions of a Nazi Spy was banned in Germany, Japan, and some South American and European countries, and even earned censure from the US State Department and the Production Code Administration for being too explicitly anti-Fascist and potentially inflammatory.

As wild as it may seem today, after Confessions was released, the PCA even issued a ruling banning anti-Nazi sentiment in Hollywood films. The PCA’s job was to monitor and often censor content to ensure maximum profits for Hollywood, so a movie being banned was a terrible result from their end. (You can read more about the PCA here.) Unsurprisingly, the anti-Nazi rule was lifted in 1941–suddenly it was completely acceptable to make anti-Fascist films!

via: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_(1941_film)

In another odd twist, after the war, Warner Bros.’ early anti-Fascism got the studio in trouble with the House Un-American Activities Committee. HUAC thought that the anti-Nazi, anti-Fascist messages in some of Warner’s (and other studios’) films were evidence of pro-Communist leanings.

Apparently there was a very narrow window of time and a precise level of intensity for anti-Fascist feelings, and if a studio or an individual espoused such beliefs too early, too late, too stridently, or too lazily, they were in trouble. They could be accused of being too-anti-Fascist (Communist) or not anti-Fascist enough (Nazi sympathizer or just un-American.) You can read more about the Hollywood-focused HUAC hearings here.

Anyway, back to Underground and Warner Bros.’ anti-Fascist efforts. Underground was directed by relative newcomer Vincent Sherman, and bombed at the box office. But Warner Bros. wasn’t discouraged, and almost immediately went into production on what Wallis called a “companion piece” to Underground, All Through The Night. Also directed by Sherman, this film had a bigger budget ($600,000 when the average A-film was made for about $500,000) and starred Humphrey Bogart and Underground‘s leading lady, Kaaren Verne.

As surprising as it may seem today, Bogart was not the first choice for the role. Oddly enough, Wallis wanted columnist Walter Winchell to play the part, convinced that the publicity of such a choice would make up for Winchell’s acting. After Winchell turned it down because he couldn’t take eight weeks off from his day job, the part was offered to George Raft.

Motion Picture Herald, January 31, 1942 via: http://lantern.mediahist.org

But Raft only added to his incredible reputation for passing on good roles, and the part went to Bogart. Fun fact: among Raft’s discards are the leads in The Maltese Falcon (1941), High Sierra (1941), and Double Indemnity (1944). In fact, Bogart owes his breakout roles to Raft’s picky and often poor judgment.

When he made All Through The Night, Bogart was not yet the enormous star that he would become. In fact, he had only recently graduated from playing villains in B-movies and small parts in A-films, such as his horribly miscast turn as a Mexican bandit in Virginia City (1940) and his role as the Irish horse trainer in Dark Victory (1939). Bogart had found success as a leading man in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and High Sierra (1941), (thanks to Raft’s refusals), but it would be Casablanca that shot him to immortal stardom.

Kaaren Verne was cast as Bogart’s love interest. Verne was German-born but had fled the Nazis in 1938, landing first in England and then coming to Hollywood where she was given the stage name Catherine Young in order to minimize her “German-ness.” But as war loomed ever closer, Warner Bros. decided to capitalize on Verne’s heritage and her compelling backstory of fleeing the Nazis, so she was re-christened Kaaren Verne.

Like Verne, most of the German actors in this movie and in other Hollywood films in the 1930s and 1940s had come to Hollywood after fleeing Nazi rule. Ironically, most of them spent the war years playing Nazis in Hollywood movies!

For example, Warner Bros. borrowed Conrad Veidt (Major Strasser from Casablanca), from MGM and cast him as a Nazi spy. Veidt had enjoyed a very successful career in German film (he played Cesare in the classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)), but he left Germany in 1933 shortly after marrying a Jewish woman.

Peter Lorre, who plays Veidt’s murderous henchman, had also been a star in Germany (with his most memorable role in the horrifying 1931 classic M), but the Hungarian-born actor was Jewish, and he left Germany in 1933. Lorre came to Hollywood and played Mr. Moto in a series of B-movies at 20th Century Fox before coming to Warner Bros. and appearing in several films with Bogart, including The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca.

Fun fact: Lorre and Verne met and fell in love while making this movie. After Lorre divorced his first wife, he and Verne were married in 1945. They divorced in 1950, and both married other people, but after Lorre died in 1964, Verne and her husband James Powers adopted Lorre’s daughter from his third marriage.

To the film! We open at a New York restaurant where a bunch of wise guys are using toy soldiers to debate the British strategy against the Nazis. Of course they have all the answers!

You might recognize character actor William Demarest who plays Bogart’s right hand man Sunshine. He was a member of Preston Sturges‘ unofficial stock company, and can be seen in Hands Across the Table, Easy Living, Sullivan’s Travels, The Palm Beach Story, The Lady Eve, and dozens of other films from the 1930s-1970s.

You may also recognize the waiter as comedian Phil Silvers and the hatless man seated next to Silvers as Jackie Gleason. According to the director Vincent Sherman, Jack Warner called him and told him to put Silvers and Gleason in the movie. Sherman said he didn’t have any roles left, but Warner said, “Well, make some parts.”

So Sherman asked the two young comedians to come in for an audition. Sherman remembered that “Gleason brought in a page of funny lines and Silvers, nine pages of jokes.” Sherman cast Silvers as the waiter, and Gleason as one of Bogart’s henchmen.

“Gloves” Donahue (Humphrey Bogart) soon joins the group, and we learn immediately that he is the big boss of this motley crew. A gangster-turned-slightly-more-respectable promoter and gambler, Gloves rolls off the bets he wants Sunshine and his driver Barney (Frank McHugh) to place for him. He drops five and ten grand on horses and boxers like it’s nothing while he waits for his standing order of cheesecake and coffee.

As these men chat, amazing 1940s slang flies fast and furious. The movie is packed with it. Some of my favorites include: date with a doll, old lady for “mother,” dame, knock him off, sister as a direct form of address for any woman, keep ‘em on ice, for “make them stay put,” and scratch for money. We also get classics like murder rap, beef for “an issue,” dogs for “feet” and mugs for “men.” It’s terribly dated but delightful.

Anyway, Silvers brings Gloves his cheesecake and coffee, but he’s nervous because it isn’t the cheesecake from Miller’s Bakery, Gloves’ favorite. Mr. Miller hasn’t made his usual delivery yet, so they are fresh out!

But Gloves knows immediately that the slop he’s been served is not Miller’s cheesecake, and he’s not pleased. Gloves is so powerful that he makes all of the restaurants he visits order Miller’s cheesecake just for him, and he doesn’t like being disappointed.

As they leave the restaurant, Gloves runs into the baker Mr. Miller (Ludwig Stossel), a German immigrant who lives next door to Gloves’ mother in the “old neighborhood.” Mr. Miller seems anxious, but he insists that everything is alright and apologizes for his late delivery.

Gloves heads to Yankee Stadium for the day’s betting. Meanwhile, we follow Mr. Miller back to his shop. His wife leaves to make a delivery, and as soon as Mr. Miller is alone, this creepy character walks in. It’s Pepi (Peter Lorre), and he’s come for some information. We don’t know what’s going on, but it seems that Pepi has been forcing Mr. Miller to spy at the docks.

But Mr. Miller is through with whatever nasty business Pepi is running. The baker bravely tells Pepi that he’s not going to work for him anymore, and he’s going to tell the world about the plot! Bad move, Mr. Miller. Pepi pushes him down the stairs and advances slowly and horribly with his gun. Shots are fired as the scene dissolves to the spinning wheels of Gloves’ car.

This film features some spectacular noir style lighting with deep, well-defined shadows like the ones we see criss-crossing their faces and the walls in this scene. Watch for it. (For more on what I mean by “noir-style” lighting, check out my post on Double Indemnity.)

We follow Gloves’ car to Miller’s Bakery. Gloves’ mother, who lives next door, called her son and asked him to come over right away. He obliges, pulling up in his big fancy car in this humble neighborhood. 

Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Donahue are distraught because Mr. Miller has disappeared! Gloves and Sunshine take a look around, and a cat helps them discover Mr. Miller’s body hidden in the basement.

While the police have a look around, a woman (Kaaren Verne) shows up and asks for Mr. Miller. She has a German accent, she refuses to tell Gloves why she wants to see the baker, and she disappears when he turns away for a moment. Something is up!

Mrs. Donahue is played by Jane Darwell, who is most famous for her potrayal of Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). She speaks in an Irish accent in this film, and I would not be at all surprised if Warner Bros. made an extra effort to emphasize the happy “melting pot” of America where immigrants from all over can thrive as neighbors and find wild success as Gloves did versus the racial purity of the Nazis.

Anyway, the German woman runs away before Gloves can find out more. He returns home for his usual pampering by his valet and manicurist (I told you that men got manicures!)

But Mrs. Donahue is on the case! She arrives at Gloves’ luxurious apartment to announce that she has found the woman. She’s a singer at the Duchess Club, and Mrs. Donahue wants to go talk to her right away. They arrive to find the woman singing “All Through The Night,” a Johnny Mercer-Arthur Schwartz standard. Title, check.

Gloves sends his mother home and starts his own investigation. Things get extra complicated because Gloves’ rival, Callahan (Barton MacLane, General Peterson from I Dream of Jeannie) owns the Duchess Club, and he doesn’t like Gloves poking around.

Joe, that little balding gent, is sent over to throw Gloves out, but of course it doesn’t work. You can’t intimidate Gloves. Fun fact: Joe is played by Edward Brophy, whom you may recognize from The Thin Man. Brophy also voiced Timothy Mouse in Dumbo (1941)! As Gloves smokes, drinks, and watches, we notice Pepi playing the piano. He’s a talented musician who kills bakers purely as a hobby.

After the woman’s song is over, Gloves settles in for a chat. He learns that her name is Leda Hamilton, and she seems like a lovely lady who is genuinely upset about Mr. Miller’s murder. Fun fact: Olivia de Havilland and even Marlene Dietrich were apparently considered for the role of Leda.

But before Gloves can get anything out of her, Pepi and his pals drag her away. 

Costume appreciation break. Verne’s sultry lamé dress by Warner Bros. costume designer Howard Shoup is daringly low cut! Here she is posing for some publicity stills:

Fun fact: some colorized shots of Bogart from this scene in the club were used in a 1991 Diet Coke commercial starring Elton John! Look for James Cagney and Louis Armstrong, too.

Anyway, Leda is taken into a back office–the door closes and we hear a gun shot! You can watch the scene here.

Meanwhile, Gloves follows Leda to the back of the club and finds Joe. He’s been shot. As he dies, he tells Gloves, “The dame…they got the dame,” before pushing his spread hand into Gloves’ face as though it’s some sort of sign…

Gloves runs for it, but as the camera pulls back we see that a glove has been left behind…uh oh.

Gloves tracks down the taxi that whisked Leda away, but as they talk to the dispatcher, a news bulletin pours from the radio announcing that Gloves is the prime suspect in Joe’s murder. That will make things quite a bit more difficult for Mr. Donahue.

Gloves, Sunshine, and Barney track the cab to a warehouse filled with children’s toys. Sunshine and Gloves head inside, though Sunshine is comically terrible at sneaking around. He keeps loudly tripping over things, and he eventually slips on a roller skate and ends up on the floor covered in toys. They have definitely lost the element of surprise.

I love how the monkey toy is hugging Sunshine’s neck! This scene is a perfect example of the varied tone of this film. It’s a murder mystery-thriller about a Nazi plot, but interspersed with the drama are comic, even slapstick moments.

Besides the physical comedy, there are several other jokes packed into the film. For example, Gloves and his valet have an amusing exchange about the valet wearing Gloves clothes, Sunshine keeps complaining about Gloves’ meddlesome mother, and there is a running gag about Barney’s quickie marriage that afternoon and how he is desperate to get back to his wife. He says things like, “The fleet’s in, and she’s defense minded!” to try to get time off to visit her, and he constantly bemoans the fact that he is missing his honeymoon. At one point she appears long enough for a kiss, but Barney is whisked away to go hunt down some Nazis! The New York Times critic described All Through The Night‘s mix of drama and comedy as “melodramatic kidding,” which sums it up pretty well.

The slapstick and other comedic elements seem very out of place in a Nazi movie. It reminds me of a Mel Brooks film or something–like in The Producers when the musical is “Springtime for Hitler!” But it’s weird to see jokes and goofy moments in a 1942 film about the Nazis…more about that later.

Anyway, right after Sunshine’s memorable fall, a man comes up behind him and drags him away without Gloves’ noticing. (We’ve gone from silly slapstick right back to drama.) Gloves searches the dark warehouse and seems particularly interested in an empty freight elevator that ominously and inexplicably goes up and down, up and down, but he can’t find his pal.

While Gloves looks for Sunshine, a bad guy is stalking him. More noir lighting!

The cat and mouse game ends in a spectacular fight. Gloves’ foe plummets to his death down the elevator shaft.

The fight reminds me of the windmill sequence in Foreign Correspondent (1940). That scene also features overhead shots, staircases, and moving machinery that almost crushes the characters. Besides this set piece, that movie shares that similar “melodramatic kidding” tone, too. Comic interludes (McCrea‘s missing hat, a sudden romance blossoming while they chase an assassin, lighthearted banter between torture scenes, etc.,) somewhat unnervingly pop up between very serious moments. Movies made after the United States entered the war lose that comedy pretty quickly. As you can imagine, it was hard to laugh at the Axis once the war began in earnest in this country.

Anyway, Gloves emerges, battered but victorious, and rejoins Barney. But where is Sunshine? They realize that the freight elevator must connect to a neighboring building. So they stroll around until they stumble into an auction run by Franz Ebbing (Conrad Veidt). His able assistant in the shimmering black dress is Madame, played by the terrifying Judith Anderson. 

Anderson had recently performed the most memorable role of her career, that of the evil housekeeper Mrs. Danvers in Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940). She retains all of her smooth cruelty in this movie.

Pepi notices Gloves and Barney in the crowd and alerts Madame and Ebbing. They spring into action. Fun fact: the auction scene is reminiscent of the scene in North by Northwest (1959), though All Through The Night‘s auction is less important to the plot.

When Gloves worms his way into the back room, they are ready. In the midst of the standoff, Leda emerges from a secret passageway. Gloves thinks he is rescuing her, but when he turns his back on her she knocks him unconscious. Pretty Miss Hamilton is not the innocent victim we thought she was. You can watch the scene here.

Gloves wakes up in the warehouse next to Sunshine. Things are looking grim. Meanwhile, Madame is creepily caressing her dachshund while berating Leda. (This movie is full of cliches, such as the evil mastermind petting a small dog or cat. But they probably weren’t cliches back in 1941, so try not to judge.)

We learn that Leda’s father is a prisoner of the Nazis in Germany, and that they will kill him if Leda doesn’t cooperate. Ebbing is certain that Leda won’t risk her father’s life, but Madame has her doubts. She doesn’t trust Leda.

Fun fact: both Anderson and Verne were also filming the period drama Kings Row (1942) while they made this movie. Anderson was especially busy, and sometimes had to hurry between sound stages during the day to film her scenes in both movies.

Despite the threats and the evil implicit in Madame’s carefully orchestrated dog caresses, Leda makes a decision. She finds Gloves and helps undo his bonds. Then she scurries away.

Thanks to Leda’s intervention, Gloves and Sunshine are able to  overpower their guards. They sneak around the auction house to figure out what the hell is going on.

Quite quickly and easily they find a room plastered with maps and charts and stocked with powerful radios. They find records of the group’s most recent acts of sabotage, and ledgers with the names of the conspirators and assets. In an unintentionally chilling moment, Gloves reads that Leda’s father is being held in Dachau, only he pronounces it “Datch-ow” because it wasn’t yet notorious.

The true giveaway of what they are dealing with comes when they see the portrait of Hitler, though:

Gloves realizes that when Joe held up his hand as he died he was trying to tell Gloves that the people responsible were “Fifth Columnists.” The term “fifth column” was first used in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s when a Nationalist General said that he had four columns of troops marching on a city, and a fifth column of supporters already inside working to disrupt the enemy. The “fifth column” thus became shorthand for a collection of people seeking to undermine the larger group from the inside.

WWII poster via: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_column

In the late 1930s and early 1940s in the United States, the term came to mean Nazis working against America from within its borders. There was widespread fear of Nazi fifth columnists; in June 1940, Life Magazine ran a collection of photographs with the title “Signs of Nazi Fifth Column Everywhere,” and similar articles weren’t uncommon. So when Gloves and Sunshine throw around the term “fifth column,” it’s a safe bet that audiences in 1942 would have understood what they meant.

Anyway, now Gloves knows that he is dealing with a group of Nazis. And he’s mad about it.

Rather than quietly escape and get help, though, he bursts into Ebbing’s office. He’s a good old American ganster and he is going to take care of this himself! Ebbing tries to reason with Gloves, telling him that they aren’t so different after all. But in a not-so-subtle moment of ra-ra-America, Gloves tells Ebbing that they are nothing alike; although he may not be a model citizen, he still believes in democracy and freedom. Subtext: America may not be perfect, but it’s better than Nazi Germany!

Despite Gloves’ rousing speech and his gun, Ebbing escapes. Gloves, Leda, Sunshine and Barney take off, but the fifth columnists give good chase.

There is a car crash, and Leda and Gloves flee through the woods of Central Park. In an oddly calm moment in the midst of all of this danger, Leda explains to Gloves that she doesn’t want to help Ebbing, but the Nazis will kill her father if she doesn’t do what they ask. Then she sees the page about her that Gloves ripped from the ledger he found. It says that her father died on October 24, 1941. 

Leda recovers astonishingly quickly after such horrible news, and comes completely over to Gloves’ side. There is nothing holding her to Ebbing now! This is very fortunate because Gloves has a crush on her.

The pair make it out of Central Park and summon the police, capitalizing on Gloves’ status as a fugitive murder suspect. But Ebbing finds them first, though he’s forced to retreat when the police finally do show up to capture Gloves. Everything should be fine now, right?

Of course not! Naturally, the bumbling police think that Gloves is making the whole thing up. And in another now-cliche, when Gloves takes them to the warehouse, the whole place has been emptied. There is nothing to suggest a fifth column plot. Even the button that operates Leda’s secret passageway has been removed.

The police are about to arrest Gloves for the murder of Joe when he escapes and runs off into the night. He’s determined to prove his innocence and stop the Nazis himself!

Meanwhile, Gloves’ gang waits in his apartment next to a pretty lamp decorated with what appears to be a painting of Venice. They may be tough, but they appreciate the nice things in life.

Gloves somehow eludes the police, the Nazis, and Callahan and his gang who have stationed themselves outside of his apartment. He sneaks in using the dumb waiter (though it’s never explained how he got into the building in the first place…)

He’s a bit worse for wear, but miraculously recovers and puts on a fresh suit. He’s back in action! And good thing, too, because Callahan breaks down his door. He wants to take Gloves to the police, and he doesn’t seem interested when Gloves tells him that he needs his help defeating the Nazi group.

Callahan callously declares that he doesn’t really care if the Nazis take over as long as they stay out of his way. He has been dealing with the US government for years, and surely the Nazis would just be more of the same. But Gloves says that the Nazis won’t stay out of Callahan’s way; they want to control everything and everyone down to the smallest detail, and they want to take away America’s freedoms.

“But that’s against the law!” says Callahan. “It’s unconstitutional!” exclaims Mrs. Donahue.

You can easily see the kind of response that Warner Bros. was trying to elicit from the audience. Callahan is a handy stand-in for the American people, and Gloves is the patient but passionate wise man urging everyone to “Wake up! The Nazis are bad news and we’d better start paying attention!” Today, exchanges like this are unintentionally funny, (Callahan and Mrs. Donahue’s utter shock at hearing that Hitler would not respect American law is particularly amusing), and the scene seems awfully heavy-handed. But I wonder how it was received in 1942.

Fortunately, Gloves’ speech convinces Callahan that he’d better rouse his guys to support Gloves’ takedown of the fifth columnists. With the two gangs unified against the Nazis, Gloves, Sunshine and Barney make their way back to the warehouse district. They see two men open a secret entrance in the sidewalk, so they quickly knock them out before stealing their papers.

Sunshine and Gloves then sneak into the Nazi meeting happening beneath the street. Fifth columnists have come from all over the country, and we see that many of them were born in the United States and speak without a German accent. (Subtext: Nazi sympathizers can be anyone and anywhere!)

Ebbing tells the assembled group about their plan for that night; it will be their biggest act of sabotage yet, though we still don’t get details. Of course there is lots of “heiling,” which Sunshine and Gloves have to participate in so they don’t blow their cover. Sunshine makes sure to keep his fingers crossed whenever he has to do the salute, though.

Ebbing steps away and the second-in-command calls for the man whom Gloves is impersonating to give a status report (of course!). Gloves reluctantly makes his way to the stage, where he and Sunshine engage in faux-German double-talk to buy time until they can figure out what the Nazis are planning.

Whenever Gloves needs a moment to think, he just says “Heil, Hitler!” and everyone else forgets whatever he was saying and jumps to their feet to join in. This is another joke that has become cliched, but it seems so weird to see in a movie from this time!

Fun fact: this scene with all of its German-esque-nonsense was not in the original script. The director Vincent Sherman came up with it during filming and asked producer Hal Wallis if he could add it in. Wallis thought it was a terrible idea, but Sherman filmed it anyway. Wallis still hated it when he saw it onscreen, and he told Sherman to cut it. But he kept it in for a preview screening, and the audience loved the scene and laughed out loud at Bogart and Demarest’s fake German. So Wallis relented, and the scene is one of the highlights of the film.

Gloves’ reckless scheme is working, and he even gets a copy of the plan to blow up a battleship that very night. But then Pepi wanders into the room. He runs back to Ebbing to tell him that Gloves has infiltrated their most secret meeting.

Ebbing is pretty busy smacking Leda (who was released from police custody and promptly nabbed by Pepi), but he returns to the meeting to take care of that obnoxious American.

Just as Ebbing is confronting Gloves, Callahan and Gloves’ men storm the room. It’s a good old-fashioned brawl, and of course the street-wise New Yorkers come out on top.

One of my favorite moments is when Phil Silvers (the waiter from the first scene) hides in the corner and says “Heil?” to anyone who comes near him. If they respond with “Heil” and a raised salute, he knocks them on the head with a club. It’s a comic way to emphasize that the fifth columnists look and sound a lot like the good guys…be on guard, audience!

Ebbing realizes that he has lost, but he still has the chance to carry out the battleship plan himself. He tells Leda, Pepi, and Madame that the meeting has been broken up, and when Pepi asks who did it, Leda jumps in with an impassioned cry of “The people! The people you despise so much! The people you said you would split into angry little groups! You can’t beat them, Ebbing!” Not subtle, but very stirring.

Ebbing asks Pepi to come with him on the suicidal battleship mission, but when Pepi refuses, Ebbing shoots him. Pepi falls down the stairs in a fitting end that echoes his murder of Mr. Miller.

Meanwhile, Gloves searches for Ebbing and finds a boat loaded with explosives and the dachshund. Ebbing sneaks up on him and forces Gloves to drive the boat out into the harbor. (I love the shot of the boat pulling away from the building! It’s so clearly miniature.)

The plan is to ram the small boat into the side of a battleship which is chugging through the harbor. I’m not sure what the original plan was that required dozens of people and lots of information (remember that Mr. Miller was gathering intelligence for the scheme, as were most of the people in the Nazi meeting), but this is pretty simple. It’s perfectly doable by just one maniac.

Unfortunately, that one maniac has taken a hostage. More disturbing, though, is Ebbing’s decision to bring his dog along! He knows that he will most likely die in the attempt, so why sentence an innocent animal to death, too? Ebbing even draws attention to the dog’s presence as he rambles on about his evil plan, and we get a shot of the teeny dachshund staring back at Ebbing as the boat zooms towards their death.

Maybe the dog was included to show how utterly awful the Nazis are (they don’t even care about their loyal pets!), but I find it almost absurdly, comically terrible.  

Anyway, Gloves pilots the boat straight towards the battleship, but at the last moment, he wrenches the craft away from the ship and hurls himself into the water. The boat careens across the bay and slams into a barge, killing Ebbing (and the dog!) in a fireball, but leaving the battleship unscathed.

Cut to the police station, where Gloves, Leda, and the gang are receiving the thanks of a grateful city. Gloves is declared a hero, and officials and politicians are rushing to offer their congratulations.

The film moves squarely back to comedy, and ends with this memorable exchange:

Leda says, “It’s about time somebody knocked the Axis back on its heels!” and Gloves responds, “What she means is it’s about time somebody knocked those heels back on their Axis!”  And everybody laughs and laughs! The end…

This movie has an appealing premise: isn’t it nice to think that a bunch of tough, everyday Americans can easily defeat a Nazi plot? And have such a great time doing it?

But funny movies about the Nazis stopped being made after America’s official entry into WWII. Indeed, a movie like All Through The Night could only have been made pre-Pearl Harbor. As The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther wrote in his review on January 24, 1942:

Let it be said for the record that this is a pre-Pearl Harbor job, lest any one raise the objection that it plays too fast and loose with a subject much too serious for melodramatic kidding in these times. One would hate to think that an enemy plot of such elaborate magnitude as the one presented here should be so completely overlooked by our capable F. B. I., and that the responsibility for licking it should fall upon a semi-gangster. So don’t even let yourself think that this picture pretends to be fact. It is straight, unadulterated fiction pulled out of a script-writer’s hat.

Crowther seemed to enjoy the film, though he noted the somewhat farfetched premise and typical Warner Bros. attitude:

Of one thing you may be certain: no national peril can ever impend which the Warner Brothers are unable to cope with in triumph—on the screen. And now, in All Through the Night…the Burbank brethren are confronting a sinister Nazi spy ring with the most effective opposition that their studio has at hand—their own stock company of tough guys, Broadway sharpies and muggs, led by that ever-resourceful facer of situations, Humphrey Bogart. When the Warner gang swings into action, the Nazis don’t stand a chance, even with Conrad Veidt and Peter Lorre on their side. And although the consequent conflict is as wild as a cowboy-Indian fight, it makes for uncommon excitement and a roaring adventure film.

He continued:

In spite of its slap-bang construction and its hour-and-three-quarters length, the picture does move with precision and steadily maintained suspense…But most of the impact is generated by a series of knock-down fights and the usual business of groping nervously about in the dark.

I don’t entirely agree with Crowther’s assessment of the movie as “precise” and “suspenseful;” it seems awfully goofy to me, and not always in a good way. But perhaps I feel less kindly towards this film because so many of its elements have been done a thousand times since, or because the tone unnerves me as it switches from light comedy to dark suspense, or the propaganda is so in-your-face, and probably also because it is still uncomfortable to laugh at the Nazis…

Showmen’s Trade Review, December 20, 1941. via: http://lantern.mediahist.org

Other films have held up better, but that’s hardly this movie’s fault. It is dated and at times heavy-handed, but it was made to be stunningly topical and to deliver a strong message that is no longer relevant, and wasn’t even that necessary when the movie hit theaters in January 1942. But it succeeded in what it was trying to do: make a fun, funny thriller while educating the audience to the dangers of the Nazis in general and fifth columnists in particular.

As Crowther wrote, “All Through the Night is not exactly a melodrama out of the top drawer, but it is a super-duper action picture — mostly duper, when you stop to think.”

A much more timeless, top-drawer WWII melodrama called Casablanca went into production in early May 1942. It reunited Lorre, Veidt, and Bogart in iconic roles. If you’re looking for a truly magnificent WWII film, go for Casablanca. But if you’re interested in movies made on the eve of America’s involvement in the war, All Through the Night is a fascinating choice.

Here’s the trailer–enjoy! For more, follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm, and Facebook, and you can buy this strange movie here. As always, thanks for reading!

It has been an exciting few weeks for The Blonde at the Film!

First, the Classic Movie Blog Association held its annual awards and History Through Hollywood: or, What I Learned from Classic Movies won for Best Classic Movie Series!

I’m thrilled and honored, especially because the CMBA is such an outstanding group of classic movie bloggers. It was wonderful to read all the nominations and revisit the year’s incredible collection of writing! I was reminded yet again of what a talented group this is. Congratulations to the other winners!

Best Film Review: Queen Christina ( 1933 ) – Pre-Code.com

Best Film Review ( Musical/Comedy ): In Defense of Lina Lamont – The Vintage Cameo

Best Film Article: Real-life Society “Honor Slaying” Inspires Two Movies – Immortal Ephemera

Best Profile of a Classic Movie Performer or Filmmaker: CMBA Forgotten Stars Blogathon : Eddie Cantor – Once Upon a Screen

Best Classic Movie Event: The Great Villain Blogathon April 13-17, 2015, hosted by Speakeasy and co-hosted by Shadows and Satin and Silver Screenings

Best Classic Movie Blog Design: Silver Scenes and Shadows and Satin

You can find out more about the awards here. And congratulations again to all the nominees and winners!

The More the Merrier

Second, I’m delighted to announce that I will be writing the monthly Colorama column on ClassicFlix.com! I was thrilled to be asked, and I am excited to contribute to such a wonderful site.

If you haven’t checked out ClassicFlix, definitely head over there. It’s a Netflix-type subscription service but only with classic movies, so it’s a dream for a movie buff! Much of their inventory is difficult to find anywhere else, so I am looking forward to watching hard-to-find films as well as old favorites! You can read my first article on the color design in Thrill of a Romance (1945) on ClassicFlix now—of course I chose an Esther Williams film!

I love writing The Blonde at the Film, and it’s just an added bonus when my work is recognized. Thank you to my fellow bloggers at the CMBA and to ClassicFlix!  And thank you, as always, for reading!

Bringing Up Baby

For more on classic Hollywood, follow me on Twitter, tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram at BlondeAtTheFilm, and Facebook.