A Guide to the
Interesting and Unusual on TCM
By Ed Garea
The highlight of this
week’s menu by far is film critic Molly Haskell, who will be
hosting a night of films on June 11 called A Night of Working Women Who Surrender in the End. She begins at 8:00 pm (EST) and finally calls
it a night at 5:30 am the next morning.
Haskell is a critic of
long standing, having written for The Village Voice, Esquire, The
Nation, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian (U.K.), New
York Magazine, and Vogue. Her book From Reverence to
Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies (1973; updated 1989) is a
classic and now considered part of the film criticism canon. She should be
familiar to long-time TCM viewers for her role as co-host of The
Essentials with Robert Osborne in 2006. That was a magic year for the
show and one that hasn’t been duplicated. Together she and Osborne brought an
intelligent, serious look at the movie they spooled each week, and the show was
not to be missed. It didn’t matter if I had seen the movie they were showing 1,200
times. I tuned in expressly to hear Molly and Bob discuss their opinions of the
film. After Haskell left, her chair was filled with actors and intellectually
it hasn’t been the same. The measured stance of a critic has been replaced with
the “Golly-Gee Ain’t This Great” stance we would expect of an actor. *
And it is interesting
Haskell’s theme is films about working women. Cher and Osborne had previously
covered the subject in April during a month-long series running on Fridays.
Considering what Cher did to those movies, it’s refreshing to see a real expert
tackle them, although the only movies they will have in common will be His
Girl Friday and Woman of the Year. Cher knew so little
about the films presented that Osborne frequently had to correct her on basic
points. It was truly cringe-inducing to watch and only furthers my despair
about the channel moving from critic and historian driven to featuring more and
more celebrities that really know no more than we at home do.
So, to Molly: Remind us
once more of what TCM was with your brilliance.
8:00 pm Baby Face (WB, 1933) – Director:
Alfred E. Green. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Theresa Harris, Donald
Cook, Douglas Dumbrille, Alphonse Ethier, Henry Kolker, Robert Barrat, Margaret
Lindsay, Arthur Hohl, & John Wayne. B&W, 71 minutes.
Stanwyck, who had
already built an impressive resume in Pre-code films, stars as a woman who
literally sleeps her way to the top. It’s been called the most notorious of the
Pre-Code films and was said to have been responsible for Darryl Zanuck losing
his job as head of production at Warner Bros. (I personally doubt that part of
the story, but it sure sounds good, doesn’t it?) Carnal and lurid, the film ran
into trouble with state censorship boards and several scenes had to be excised,
including that fact that she was a kept woman. Also hitting the cutting floor
was her scenes with a cobbler who gave her Friedrich Nietzsche’s book, The
Will to Power. His character was changed to become the moral voice of the
film, being used to indicate that Lily was wrong to use her body to get ahead.
Originally he told her, “You must use men, not let them use you.” Warner’s also
changed the ending: Lily discovers Trenholm (Brent) on the floor, having
committed suicide because she wouldn’t sell her vast collection of jewelry to
bail him out of his financial crisis, and simply takes it in stride and looks
for her next “keeper.” In the more upbeat – and totally phony – ending, she
gives it all up out of her love for him. Also cut was a scene between Stanwyck
and a railroad brakeman that catches her hitching a ride on the freight train
and her confrontation with her father, who she accused of pimping her out to
the customers.
The expurgated film
might have been the only copy we would ever see, but in 2004 a “dupe negative”
copy of the film was discovered in the Library of Congress. The uncensored
version made its debut at the 2004 London Film Festival and is the version TCM
is showing. Look for a young Wayne as one of Lily’s conquests at the office.
9:30 pm Female (WB, 1933) – Director: Michael Curtiz. Cast: Ruth
Chatterton, George Brent, Lois Wilson, Johnny Mack Brown, Ruth Donnelly, & Ferdinand
Gottschalk. B&W, 60 minutes.
At one hour this is not
exactly a character study, but rather an exploitation film pure and simple.
Chatterton is Alison Drake, the CEO of Drake Automotive, a company she
inherited from her father. She runs the company brilliantly and with an iron
hand. Pettigrew (Gottschalk), the man who runs the company’s secretarial pool,
says, “She’s never found a man worthy of her and never will!”
But that doesn’t deter
her from shopping around for a man. She invites men who appeal to her to her
home, loves them, and then leaves them, sometimes with bonuses, sometimes with
transfers to other offices if they try to become too possessive. She finally
meets her match in engineer/inventor Jim Thorne (Brent). She tries the seduction
route on him, but he turns her down cold. Undeterred, she invites him on a
picnic and tries again. This time he succumbs, but later, when he asks her to
marry him, she says no. Furious, he quits and leaves town. At this point,
Alison realizes that she loves him and misses an important business meeting to
find him. When she finally catches up to Jim she admits she risked bankruptcy
to find him, and we have a happy ending.
Chatterton’s sexual
habits raised the ire of the Studio Relations Committee, which was charged with
enforcing the Production Code. They sent a letter to Warner Brothers detailing
their objections. The studio agreed to comply but simply ignored the complaint
and released the film as it was. When Joseph Breen rigidly enforced the Code in
mid-1934, the film was shelved, where it stayed untouched until the Breen reign
ended in the 1950s.
Trivia: It turned out to be quite a merry-go-round
in the director’s chair. William Dieterle was originally scheduled to direct
with cameraman Sid Hickox. But Dieterle suddenly fell seriously ill and had to
bow out of the film. He was replaced with William Wellman, who brought along
Ernest Haller as his cameraman. When Jack L. Warner saw the initial print, he
complained about the performance of George Blackwood, who was playing the “boy
toy” Cooper. He ordered him replaced and Brown was brought in for the role. As
Wellman was now busy shooting the Dick Powell/Ann Dvorak/Pat O’Brien
drama, College Coach, Curtiz was brought aboard to film Brown’s
scenes. As those scenes took up nearly half the movie, Curtiz ended up with the
directorial credit. So much for auteur theory.
The exterior of the
house where Alison Drake lives was later used as the mansion millionaire
Vincent Price hires for the night in House on Haunted Hill.
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the building, which was known as the
Ennis House.
8:00 pm His Girl Friday (Columbia, 1940) Director: Howard Hawks. Cast:
Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart, Ernest Truex, &
Roscoe Karns. B&W, 92 minutes.
One of director/producer
Hawks’s best ideas was to re-cast The Front Page as a battle
between the sexes. Getting the permission of his good friend Ben Hecht, who
wrote the original, to adjust the remake, Hawks got Charles Lederer to write
the script. His first choice for the male lead was Grant, who gladly signed
aboard before seeing the script. He and Hawks worked together previously, and
Hawks was one of Grant’s favorite directors. The female lead, however, proved
more difficult. The director’s first choice for the role was Carole Lombard,
but the studio balked at her salary demands. The script was then passed to
Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Jean Arthur, Margaret Sullavan, Ginger
Rogers, and Irene Dunne. They each passed on the project. Finally, the part was
given to Russell, formerly a supporting actress at MGM; one whose name could be
found way down on the credits. The film not only made her into a leading lady,
but also gave her the reputation as a gifted comedienne.
During the first few
days of filming, Russell sensed that Hawks was treating her like the
consolation prize in a contest. She took him aside one day in between takes and
told him, “Well, you’re stuck with me, so you might as well make the most of
it.” He was so impressed with her brass that they got along swimmingly the rest
of the shoot. As with other films directed by Hawks, listen for the overlapping
dialogue and ad-libs. While the average rate of human speech is 100-150 words a
minute, the dialogue in the film was timed at 240 words a minute. As for
ad-libs, there were two great ones by Grant. When asked if he could describe
his ex-wife Hildy’s new fiancée, he says that her fiancée looks like “That
actor – Ralph Bellamy.” Later, when cornered by the mayor he tells him, “Listen
the last man that said that to me was Archie Leach just a week before he cut
his throat.”
Trivia: Russell’s striped outfits were inspired by the look of
newspaper reporter-turned- screenwriter Adela Rogers St. John . . . During
filming Grant introduced Russell to theatrical agent Frederick Brisson. They
married a year later, the first – and last – marriage for either, and stayed
together for the rest of their lives.
12:30 am Woman of the Year (MGM, 1942) Director: George Stevens.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Fay Bainter, Reginald Owen, Minor
Watson, & William Bendix. B&W, 112 minutes.
With the success
of The Philadelphia Story at the box office, Hepburn was
riding high at MGM, feeling vindicated for her years spent at RKO, where her
pictures consistently lost money. Friend Garson Kanin steered her to a script
his brother, Michael, had written with Ring Lardner, Jr. Hepburn loved it and
acted as agent, selling it to Louis Mayer for $100,000 (she pocketed $11,000 in
commission). The story then goes that a reluctant Tracy was recruited (he was
Hepburn’s first choice for co-star, and according to Hepburn, had to be
convinced to work with her). The rest, as they say, is history, as they not
only went on to star together in eight more films, but also had a relationship
that only ended with the death of Tracy in 1967.
Most every film buff has
seen this picture and knows the plot: crusty sports writer Sam Craig (Tracy)
takes umbrage to remarks made by political columnist Tess Harding (Hepburn)
that baseball should be suspended until the war is over. A peacemaking date
takes place and gradually develops into a romance, and then marriage. However,
the fundamental differences between the two go unresolved and Sam begins to
resent Tess’ attention to her career, feeling she’s neglecting their marriage.
Finally he’s had enough and leaves, which awakens Tess to try to win him back,
which she does at the end with a horrible attempt at cooking breakfast. Sam
embraces her and tells her that he doesn’t want to change her, only that she should
put their marriage first. She agrees and they live happily ever after.
Trivia: Garson Kanin got the idea for the story
after receiving a letter from sportswriter Jimmy Cannon. Kanin had spent the
evening before in the company of political columnist Dorothy Thompson and began
to muse about a story of two very different people falling in love and what
would happen. He saw the story as a natural for Hepburn, whom he earlier met
through his good friend Vivien Leigh during the Broadway run of The
Philadelphia Story. When he was drafted he gave the idea to his brother
Michael, who wrote the script along with Ring Lardner, Jr. When they showed it
to Kanin, he loved it and set up a meeting with Hepburn.
2:30 am They All Kissed the Bride (Columbia, 1942) – Director: Alexander
Hall. Cast: Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Roland Young, Billie Burke, Helen
Parrish, Allen Jenkins, Andrew Tombes, & Emory Parnell. B&W, 86
minutes.
In the year 1942, Crawford’s
career was on the downslide at MGM. Before her success in The Women in
1939, Joan had embarked on a string of films that kept the public home and
earned her the moniker of “box office poison” by movie exhibitors. But after The Women, Joan took on three films
that, while fine in their own right, did not attract the public: Strange
Cargo (1940), Susan and God (1940), and A
Woman’s Face (1941). Adding to the woes was Joan’s attitude. In
Strange Cargo, she drove Louis Mayer crazy in a fit over billing with Clark
Gable; and in A Woman’s Face, she played a woman whose face was
badly scarred, a remake of the 1938 Ingrid Bergman film and a picture Mayer
expressly did not want her to take on. With the financial returns diminishing,
Mayer decided she was no longer worth the trouble she caused and so he did
something unthinkable a few years ago: he loaned her out to another studio.
The studio to which she
was loaned was Columbia. And to rub salt into the wound, the picture she was
loaned out for was not even a vehicle written for her. Instead it was to be
Carole Lombard’s follow-up to To Be Or Not To Be, but before
filming could begin, Lombard was tragically killed in a plane crash while
returning from a War Bonds tour. With Lombard gone and every other possible
star already on another set, the decision was made to reach out for an actress
that could play the lead. So, enter Crawford.
From what I’ve written
so far, it looks like those that haven’t seen this film are expecting a bomb.
Quite the opposite: it is a very funny film with Crawford playing in new genre
for her, a screwball comedy. She is Margaret J. Drew, a woman who has taken
over her late father’s trucking company. (As with Female, women
must inherit their position. These were the days before a woman’s ability would
be taken seriously.) Reporter Michael Holmes (Douglas) is publishing scathing
attacks about the Drew financial empire, and Margaret, known to her employees
as “M.J.,” has Holmes investigated. Holmes has been getting his information
from driver Johnny Johnson (Jenkins), and while riding with him, runs into
M.J., who promptly fines Johnny for carrying a passenger and stopping his
truck. Furious about M.J.’s tactics, Holmes crashes her sister Vivian’s
(Parrish) wedding. Through a series of misadventures and mistaken identity,
Mike and M.J. get together, fall in love and marry at the end, as Mike has
“tamed the shrew.”
Trivia: When Crawford accepted the role, she
donated her salary for the film ($10,000) to the Red Cross in Lombard’s name.
Her agent demanded his commission nonetheless, so Crawford paid him out of her
own pocket and then fired him.
4:00 am Front Page Woman (WB, 1935) Director: Michael Curtiz. Cast: Bette Davis, George
Brent, Roscoe Karns, and Winifred Shaw. B&W, 82 minutes.
Following her triumph as
the sluttish Mildred in Of Human Bondage and losing the Oscar
for that year to Claudette Colbert for It Happened One Night,
Warner Brothers rewarded Davis with a string of forgettable B movies.
Immediately following the release of Bondage, she was cast as a
homewrecker (Housewife, 1934), the loony wife of club owner Eugene
Palette, in love with Paul Muni (Bordertown, 1935), a shopgirl who takes
pity on a drunken lawyer and marries him (The Girl From 10th Avenue,
1935), and this movie, where she plays a reporter. At least it’s a step up from
where she had been.
Front Page Woman, at least, is a thoroughly entertaining B with
the young Davis standing in where we would usually expect to find Joan Blondell
or Glenda Farrell. Her co-star, Brent, is in a role where we expect Warren
William, Jimmy Cagney, or Pat O’Brien. Davis was still in her ingénue days, and
this movie at least offers her good exposure as a “sob sister” trying to prove
she’s every bit as good an investigative reporter as the man she loves, who
just happens to be Brent – and who just happens to work for her paper’s rival.
Brent, for his part, believes that a woman’s place is in the kitchen and works
to undermine her at each and every turn.
It’s Davis who drives
the film. She may be unhappy with the films she’s been assigned, but her
performances do not show it. Had this film been made before the Production
Office clamped down, Davis’ character would have been deliciously subversive.
As it is, she’s forced to tone those aspects down, but still manages to shine
in her scenes. For instance, at the beginning she’s been assigned to cover her first
execution. Brent points out how horrible it can be and we can see the reaction
perfectly in Davis’s eyes. She faints before she can write the story, so Brent
does her a favor and covers it for her. Unfortunately, he neglects to have the
story re-written, so the same story appears in both papers, getting Davis’s
character into hot water.
Her big break comes when
she’s dispatched to cover a fire. It turns out that the fire is only a cover
for the murder of big shot Marvin Q. Stone (Huntley Gordon). Whodunit? Both
Brent and Davis spend the rest of the film trying to outscoop and flim-flam
each other looking to solve the case. The maturing of Davis’ character as she
seeks out clues and interviews witnesses is fun to watch and Davis makes her
character believable in a film that is wholly unbelievable. (For instance,
later in the movie Brent walks up to the police lieutenant in charge, hands him
two photos and tells the officer to arrest these two for the murder of Marvin
Q. Stone. And the lieutenant does, without question.)
When it looks as though
Brent has won, however, Davis turns the tables at the end. It’s directed by Curtiz
and comes in at a nice and fast 82 minutes. While comedies were not Davis’s
forte, having Brent around to help makes any actress look good.
* - In all fairness, though, Drew Barrymore
has been something of an unexpected surprise. She is certainly an improvement
over the rantings of Alec Baldwin and she does now something about the move
screened each week. Her passion and exuberance comes through and she clicks
well with Osborne.
OTHER
FILMS FOR YOUR NOTICE
June
11
2:45 pm Detour (PRC, 1945) – Director: Edgar G. Ulmer. Cast: Tom Neal, Ann
Savage, Claudia Drake, Edmund MacDonald, Tim Ryan, & Esther Howard. B&W,
67 minutes.
Ulmer did more with less
than any other director in Hollywood history. A prime example is this movie,
shot in a shoestring. There was so little money that the car used in the film
was actually the director’s own car. Hollywood lore says the movie was shot in
only six days, but in truth the shooting schedule was 28 days.
It’s a great story of
fate, as the poor protagonist (Neal) picks up the wrong hitchhiker (Savage).
One thing leads to another and he accidentally strangles her. Savage gives one
of the best performances an actress can give. Too bad it was for PRC, so no one
noticed. Years later her performance was praised by director Wim Wenders as
being “30 years ahead of its time.” She should have had a bigger career, but
languishing in the Bs was not exactly a prime advertisement at the time, as the
studios were beginning to break down.
Again, this is a movie
many film buffs have seen and one that is probably owned by many. I’m not
preaching to the choir here, but reaching out to those who haven’t seen it and
were wondering whether it was worth their time. It is.
June
12
6:00 am Scared to Death (Golden Gate Pictures, 1947) – Director: Christy Cabanne. Cast:
Bela Lugosi, George Zucco, Nat Pendleton, Molly Lamont, & Joyce Compton.
Color, 65 minutes.
This quickie from an
independent producer has the distinction of being Lugosi’s only starring role
in color. (He also appeared in the 1930 Technicolor film Viennese
Nights, but was not the star.) Other than that, it’s a cheap little mystery
about a woman literally scared to death, hence the title. It’s no Sunset
Boulevard; apart from the fact both films begin with narrations from
the dead victims. It was also the only horror film released in 1947. Horror
films had declined since the wars end, being replaced in the scare genre by the
emerging sci-fi film. For completists, it’s a must. For those others, watch at
your own risk.
June
14
11:30 pm The Burglar (Columbia, 1957) – Director: Paul Wendkos. Cast: Dan Duryea, Jayne
Mansfield, Martha Vickers, Peter Capell, & Mickey Shaughnessy. B&W, 90
minutes.
The best quote about
this movie comes from Michael Weldon in The Psychotronic Encyclopedia
of Film: “Jayne Mansfield film noir!” And if that’s not enough to sell you,
nothing is. Duryea and Mansfield are part of a gang that steals a priceless
necklace and then holes up in a seedy apartment until they can fence the goods.
Duryea is great, Mansfield is sexy, and Mickey Shaughnessy, best known as
Elvis’s cellmate in Jailhouse Rock, is noticeable as the gang’s
muscle who can’t stop pawing Mansfield.
Trivia: The Burglar was actually
filmed in 1955, but not released until 1957 to cash in on the burgeoning fame
of Mansfield.
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