1940s films | Cary Grant Won't Eat You

The Hottest Woman around in Her 40s: Mae West’s Age-Defying Career

05/06/2015 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com Leave a Comment

Amy Schumer’s hilarious skit about discrimination against middle-aged women in Hollywood has me wondering about Mae West. It’s true that modern films imply that women aren’t attractive enough past their 40s to be worthy of sex onscreen. But Mae West starred in Sextette in 1978; the film cast her as the object of all men’s desires in her eighties. While the movie was a box office failure, the simple fact is that no such film would be made today.

West’s role was hardly surprising, given that she was in her late 30s when her film career as a seductress began. She was, in addition, penning all of her own lines, and usually the whole screenplay. While many (Schumer among them) question why women haven’t made more progress in entertainment, few express the more disturbing possibility: Have we backtracked?

Mae West was a pioneer, it’s true. But pioneers are usually followed by those who accomplish more. The frontrunner’s courageous example and more hospitable times and environments usually lead to at least some progress. Maybe we all should be examining West, to figure out what this extraordinary writer/actress got right, what she still has to teach us. And why not? Who doesn’t want a regular dose of West?

Since her host of brilliant one liners overpowers me, I’ll highlight just one each month to savor it properly, starting with this bit from My Little Chickadee, co-written by West and W.C. Fields (the following scene is obviously of her creation).

The town’s school teacher has fainted after dealing with a class of “unruly” boys. Newcomer Flower Belle (West) has taken over the class for the day, and is attracting all of the hormonal adolescents (in her late 40s, I might add). She checks out the teacher’s lessons on the chalkboard. “I am a good boy,” she reads slowly. “I am a good man. I am a good girl.” She turns to the students: “What is this?” she asks. “Propaganda?”

Parenting Advice from Heaven Can Wait (1943)

03/26/2015 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 2 Comments

Ernst Lubitsch was known for his sexual farces. Heaven Can Wait is just one of his many movies spoofing marriage, and in the process illustrating a number of truths about what it means to say “I do.” But I was primarily engaged by the supporting characters in this film. Perhaps that’s why the parenting lessons Lubitsch liberally supplied struck me so much more this time than his marital wisdom. Here are a few lessons from the cynical director:

Expose Your Child to the Opposite Sex Early
A boy who falls for the ladies in his pre-teens will learn ambition early. He’ll discover, according to Lubitsch and screenwriter Samson Raphaelson, that gifts earn him affection, and the greater the number of gifts, the greater the love. This early training will motivate him to make a name for himself—and, of course, earn the big bucks.

You can build on this valuable training by hiring a comely French tutor to teach him more than one new language when he reaches his teens.

This hire will solidify his conviction that life is but a long seduction.

Spoil Your Child
You might fear giving your kid endless funds and no responsibilities. You might assume that he will become a hopeless waster, lying around and expecting others to cater to him. But if you’ve given him ambition via the ladies, you don’t need to fear. Indulge away.

If you instead raise him with rules and standards, he’ll grow up to become such a prudish dullard that he’ll actually compare himself to a suit, admitting, as cousin Albert does, that he’s not “flashy” or of a “stylish cut” but “sewed together carefully.” In Ernst Lubitsch’s world, a man like Albert (Allyn Joslyn), who brags that his “lining is good,” is never going to win the affections of a woman as vivacious and beautiful as Martha (Gene Tierney). He’ll get this bored response to his heartfelt wooing instead:

And the wooing by his spoiled cousin? Yeah, that’s a bit more successful:

Do Not Outcast Your Kid—Unless You Like Your Spouse
In her day, Martha’s elopement may have led to quite a scandal, innocent as it may appear now. But her parents’ decision to boot her out for life means they spend their days fighting over who gets the comics first. You know your life has reached a sad pitch when you can become this inflamed over the plight of the Katzenjammer Kids:

Spare yourself the misery of too much alone time with your spouse. Forgive your kid.

Keep Your Own Dad Around; He’ll Be Needed
If you were raised in a more structured household, you may be a little innocent about the facts of life, such as what your son has been up to with the French tutor you hired. At 43, you may need your father to enlighten you that your son is both drunk and debauched.

And when that son makes a wreck of his life after one too many dalliances, you may not be able to save his marriage for him (if you’re still around). But his wiser grandpa might just pull it off, especially if he’s hilarious and savvy and anything like Charles Coburn (who supplies at least 50 percent of the film’s best lines).

And there you have it. Valuable advice for the worldly parent, courtesy of Lubitsch. I hope you were reading carefully. You may need it one day.

Edward G. Robinson and My Cat

03/19/2015 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com Leave a Comment

“Suave,” the receptionist at my vet’s office said the other day, reacting to my cat’s name. “Sorry,” she added quickly. “I couldn’t resist.” I laughed, having forgotten that Gerardo’s infamous 1990 song is the first association most people have with the name Rico. My cat does share some traits with the character described by that one-hit wonder, but “suave?” Not so much.

My husband and I had seen Little Caesar a few months before adopting our cat. We’d wavered over a name, and then started noticing some familiar traits. Like our cat’s ego, which seemed to be vastly disproportionate to his size.

A head so big they'd need a "special sized noose" for him.

Cops say they’ll need a “special noose” to fit his “swelled head.”

We discovered that our newcomer wasn’t exactly sane, and that he felt entitled to what wasn’t his. He wanted our food as well as his own, and jumped up on the counter to paw some while we were eating it. That’s when we realized his actions reminded us of something, and that something was Edward G. Robinson’s breakout role.

Increasing acquaintance with my cat’s past and behavior has proven that those traits are just the beginning of his resemblance to Edward G. Robinson’s antihero. He was returned once to the shelter because he couldn’t handle associating with other dominant male cats. Sound familiar, Edward G. Robinson fans?

And then there’s his survival instinct. My cat is scrappy. He was discovered outside a dumpster in a New England winter he somehow survived. As if to prove his history, he has knocked over the trash can so many times seeking leftovers that we’re considering the metal tamper-proof kind others purchase to keep out collies and labs. And if a jalapeno potato chip, a piece of broccoli is dropped, he devours it before we can retrieve it. Rico never takes anything for granted, assumes he has to fight for everything he gets. Just like Little Caesar.

And like Robinson’s character, my cat is always voracious (despite a now hefty belly). Little Caesar hungered to be part of the “big time.” He begins the film envying Diamond Pete Montana, a successful gangster, not a nobody like himself, ripping off gas stations. “Money’s alright,” he says to his partner, who admits he’d quit crime if he had enough, “but it ain’t everything. Yeah, be somebody. Look hard at a bunch of guys and know that they’ll do anything you tell them.” He even expresses his longing with a butter knife.

As Little Caesar begins to rise, he can’t help eying others’ pins, diamond rings…

Of course when you think of Robinson, you can’t forget that voice, and how much he liked to use it. My cat too has a great desire for self-expression, and sees no reason to ever cease meowing. Maybe that’s why my husband and I started referring to him as “the Rico,” recalling Robinson’s famous line when he talks of himself in third person: “Is this the end of Rico?”

I think one of the reasons Robinson’s role made his career is because in spite of all of his criminal acts in the film, in spite of his arrogance, there’s something haunting and sympathetic about Little Caesar’s need to prove himself, to be envied.

He is in so many ways the embodiment of the American Dream filtered through a shaky understanding. He’s hardly the first—in fiction or real life—to be destroyed by his belief in it. Because he’s played by Edward G. Robinson, we are enthralled by Rico even as we condemn his actions. And in spite of everything, his loyalty to his best pal is always there, even when he most wants to lose it.

Perhaps Little Caesar’s real tragedy is that he was born into the wrong species. In feline form, the ambition, ego, hunger would all be endearing. We’d smile, hug, and pet him for those characteristics, and acknowledge his superiority without any need for proof. After all, it was the thirst for that recognition that inspired Little Caesar’s crimes. Poor man. He should have been a cat.

3 Characters I’d Like to Celebrate St. Patrick’s with

03/12/2015 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 2 Comments

The Hero of The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

While watching Errol Flynn play Robin Hood, you get the feeling he knows how ridiculous he looks in those green tights. But instead of embarrassing, his outfit energizes him. You can almost hear him thinking, “Well, the manliness contest is lost. Let’s party!” The whole cast seems to share his giddiness, making this one of the most entertaining movies I’ve seen in some time. Who wouldn’t want to spend the green holiday with someone this easygoing and gorgeous?

(It’s easy to trace the film’s influence on an early favorite of mine, The Princess Bride, not to mention the parody Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Neither movie captures Flynn’s delirious enthusiasm, but that same sly humor is on full display in both, with Cary Elwes a worthy heir to his predecessor’s effortless style.)

The Heroine of Sadie Thompson (1928)

Sadie (Gloria Swanson) likes to pull pranks, tell dirty jokes, sing, dance, and most of all, laugh. The rarity of female attention partially explains the marines’ enthusiasm for her company in the story, but that’s not the only reason she attracts them. This woman is just so much fun. Like many supposedly “fallen women” in film, she has an easy camaraderie with others, is just as good a pal as a lover. And her confidence (until it’s shaken by the film’s villain) is breathtaking.

Nick & Nora Charles

Nick Charles (William Powell) of The Thin Man series is the life of the party, without making any effort to be so. He is cool, debonair, sarcastic, with just the right smidgen of childish to never take anything seriously but his partying. His wife Nora (Myrna Loy) is the perfect hostess. Obnoxious visitors entertain rather than annoy her. Party crashers are welcome. She calls room service to deliver “a flock of sandwiches” for her intoxicated guests, hands newcomers a drink before they’ve even gotten into the room. When asked if Nick is working a case, Nora responds, “Yes…A case of scotch. Pitch in and help him.” Could any line sound more like St. Paddy’s Day than that?

The Debt Actresses Owe William Somerset Maugham: from Gloria Swanson to Annette Bening

02/19/2015 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 8 Comments

I’ve read many glowing tributes to the stars of The Letter, Being Julia, Of Human Bondage, and Sadie Thompson over the years. While I’ve never questioned the talents of these actresses, I have always credited much of their brilliance in these parts to William Somerset Maugham. Their strengths are on display largely because of the characters he created in his stories, plays, and novels: women so complex, morally conflicted, modern, and real that 130 years after his birth, Annette Bening was Oscar nominated for playing one of them.

And she’s not alone. Before I get into the reasons, let’s start with the data. Here’s a list of Oscar nods to women in his films; if I’ve missed any, please let me know. It’s quite possible. The number of his film credits, and of stars listed in those movies, is astonishing. Here we go:

Academy Award Nominations for Actress in a Leading Role:

Gloria Swanson: Sadie Thompson (1928), based on the short story, “Rain”
Jeanne Eagels (first posthumous nomination), The Letter (1929), based on the short story and play. (She also made her name in the play version of “Rain.”)
Bette Davis, two nods: Of Human Bondage (1934; by write-in vote), based on the novel, and The Letter (1940)
Annette Bening, Being Julia (2004), based on the novel Theatre.

Other notable female roles include Gene Tierney’s in the Oscar-nominated The Razor’s Edge (a novel), Greta Garbo’s and Naomi Watts’s in The Painted Veil (a novel), and Madeleine Carroll’s in Alfred Hitchcock’s Secret Agent, based on Ashenden, a collection of stories.

Even fine actresses need a vehicle, and in the last fifteen years, one of the few amazing leading roles I’ve seen for a woman over the age of 30—Bening’s—was written by Maugham in 1937. I wasn’t surprised. He specialized in complex characters making immoral decisions: They cheat on and leave spouses and children, prostitute themselves, admit to irreligious or cruel behavior without guilt, contribute to or directly cause the death of others. Since Maugham resists moral judgments, his women are free to react to the traumas they’ve created rather than simply being punished for them. No wonder they’re so fascinating to watch on the screen.

In fact, Maugham is as likely to admire as condemn. As his (seemingly autobiographical) narrator in The Razor’s Edge explains, “My dear, I’m a very immoral person….When I’m really fond of anyone, though I deplore his wrongdoing it doesn’t make me less fond of him.” Thus the attention given to selfish characters such as Mildred in Of Human Bondage. Certainly, her character would have been less nuanced—giving Davis less to work with—had Maugham not empathized with Mildred and therefore made her traits and actions so interesting and believable.

Davis is Davis, but it took a number of roles before she reached this breakout one.

Maugham frequently explored the contrasts between how men and women seek to appear and who they are. While he may be gentle on others’ immoral actions, he can be scathing about their hypocritical ones. Sadie Thompson is a prostitute, but it’s the reformer trying to condemn her, unwilling to admit his own sexual appetite, whom we are led to despise. Sadie, gradually moved by the reformer, ultimately learns to appreciate her own values over his—an unexpected ending for the type of character who is usually just a one-note in a film. Swanson, not surprisingly, captures the flair, passion, and contradictions of this woman.

In Being Julia, we root for the heroine in spite of (or even because of) her extramarital affair with a younger man because we enjoy her confidence. Despite her vanity and delusions, she owns and even enjoys most of her flaws. The surprises in her behavior are quite funny, and Bening takes full advantage of the humor.

How wonderful is it, how gloriously human, that in the midst of her midlife crisis, Julia is obsessed with breaking her diet? How much do we love that she wants to savor her victory over a younger wannabe actress in solitude, since it’s a private triumph? What a feminist scene it is when she does, and how interesting that a man created it so very long ago. Curious to see how much the film differed from the source material, I reread Theatre, only to find it was even closer to the movie than I’d remembered: the dialogue, the focus, the character, the morality, even the final scene—all the same.

And Leslie in The Letter? Most authors would have focused on the murder and the passion leading up to it. It would have been a fairly typical noir, with an unremarkable femme fatale. But Maugham again proved to have a deeper interest in human nature than his peers, wondering not just about the crime itself, but Leslie’s efforts to conceal it, to retain that image she wants to present to the world. She is an interesting character because of her willingness to reside in her own lies, a trait that Maugham, with his typical regard for truth, seems to find more blameworthy than the murder. Thanks to his interest in motives, Davis and Eagels were granted a woman of enormous complexity to work with, which contributed to each’s stunning performance.

Of his roles that have yet to win actresses Oscar nods, I find Kitty in The Painted Veil the most intriguing. Kitty’s husband Walter catches her cheating, and forces her to travel with him to a cholera-infested region of China as punishment. He offers her an out if her lover will marry her, knowing it won’t happen. Rejected by the man she loves and facing a death sentence from the one she doesn’t, Kitty spends much of her time alone, reflecting on her actions as Walter heals patients—quite a departure from her youth as a superficial beauty. She learns to admire Walter’s generosity, even as she pities the love for her that has turned to hatred. She wants to forgive him, and for him to do the same for her, but she can’t bring herself to love him.

What did Hollywood do with this story (Garbo’s and Watts’s versions)? Turned it into a love story. We’re meant to root for a reconciliation between the two, whether they both survive cholera or not. I don’t know about you, but once a guy tried to kill me via a deadly epidemic, I can’t imagine thinking, “Yeah, but I cheated on him; we’re cool now.” These plot alterations might have helped with commercial viability, but the result was to diminish realism and a powerful female part.

Kitty’s disappointment in herself for continuing to desire her vain, worthless lover is an essential part of the story. In the book we see enough of her life beyond the epidemic to discover that her enhanced self-awareness doesn’t lead to moral behavior. The self-deprecation and compassion she develops as a result of her failures are intriguing to witness. While Watts captured Kitty’s vulnerability beautifully, I suspect had the screenwriter more faithfully rendered the character’s complexity, he would have netted Watts the Oscar nomination, as with so many women in Maugham’s roles before her.

Maugham’s skill with character development is often attributed to his history: he stuttered in his childhood and struggled with his homosexuality. Did feeling like an outsider and being morally out of favor in his time contribute to his empathy for others? Probably. He gives another possibility, crediting his early medical training for giving him access to “life in the raw,” saying the work enabled him to see “pretty well every emotion of which man is capable.” While I suspect both of these reasons are relevant, I’ve always preferred to take as autobiographical his narrator’s confession in The Moon and Sixpence: “the fear of not being able to carry it through effectively has always made me shy of assuming the moral attitude.” Ultimately, perhaps in spite of himself, Maugham is amused by human behavior, in all of its foolish and ugly iterations, and therefore captivated by it. No wonder, with an author who claims he is “more likely to shrug his shoulders than to condemn,” that four of the women in his films have been nominated for Oscars, one twice. Let’s hope other gifted actresses take note, and give his excellent stories another run.

Turning My Sister into a Classic Movie Fan, Bout 1: Rachel 1, Me 0

12/28/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 8 Comments

Christmas night I made my sister watch Body and Soul (1947), her first viewing in fulfillment of our bet (if she watches 10 classic films, I will watch Breaking Bad). During the movie, she alternately complained about the music, stared blankly, and dozed off. Afterward, she said, “Well the acting wasn’t good,” and when I asked that she at least subtract my beloved John Garfield from that assessment, said, “He was fine. But it’s not like he’s Robert De Niro. You don’t actually think he’s that good, do you?”

Deflated. It’s a good word, isn’t it? Maybe I should have considered Rachel’s crankiness first: it was late, and she had just lost at Scene It; my sister does not take movie trivia loss well.

You might ask why I care that my sister won’t give classic movies a chance. I have, after all, plenty of others to convince. But Rachel and I otherwise share a movie brain, at least with dramas. I text Rachel right after I leave a theater with my commentary, and will go see almost every film she recommends, which is why she occasionally messes with me, sending me to a movie she knows is lousy so that she can call and say, “Yeah, awful, right? Thought you’d agree.”

I hadn’t viewed Body and Soul first (a risky move), but it came highly recommended, it was a sports movie, it was Garfield, and it was good—not as neatly edited or as intriguing as The Set-Up, but with similar themes and a dark mood she couldn’t dismiss as cheesy. I had hoped it would chisel a bit into her seemingly implacable beliefs about classic film: acting is better now, production quality is better now, any sequel would therefore be better than the originals, so why bother?

The film had no effect on her whatsoever, though she was intrigued by Garfield’s blacklisting. But in the interest of others who haven’t seen it, I’ll share a few things about the film, which my sister should have appreciated:

Good Supporting Characters
The story revolves around Charley’s (John Garfield’s) treatment of friends and family, and how that echoes his own deeper entanglement into the shady underworld of boxing.

He gets into the sport at the urging of his quick-talking friend, Shorty (Joseph Pevney). Disappointed he won’t pursue an education instead, his mother reassures herself he’s at least honest and has good taste in women, preferring a sweet artist, Peg (Lilli Palmer), to a bombshell (Hazel Brooks). Of course, he quickly succumbs to the temptations that have already sunk his one-time-rival, now trainer, Ben (Canada Lee).

I agree with Rachel that most of the women didn’t add much to the film; neither Palmer’s nor Brooks’s acting was notable, but neither subtracted from the film, and Peg’s independent spirit made her character a surprising one. How many boxers do we see—in any generation—courting an aspiring painter? She’s far more interesting than this supporting player in another boxing film Rachel likes better:

And while the other two actresses were solid, but not deserving of any accolades, no one can beat Anne Revere (another blacklist victim) when expressing disappointment in a son.

Even Rachel praised Shorty (Pevney), the friend who helps broker the deal to get Charley into the business, and then comes to regret it due to Charley’s dealings with the immoral Roberts (Lloyd Gough). Shorty’s lively presence added much-needed humor to the proceedings, and his later absence from the film definitely hurt it.

An Intriguing Sparring Partner
But far more interesting than any of these other relationships is Charley’s with his rival, the champ, Ben (Canada Lee), who has a medical issue Charley isn’t told about before their first bout. Ben later befriends the newcomer, and starts to train Charley instead of fighting himself.

Ben comforting Charlie before a fight

This made me wonder, as I’m not in on the usual trends of the boxing world. Is this, we-fight-to-the-death, now we train together a thing?

Interestingly, Charley seems to be unfazed by Roberts’ treatment of others, but his boss’s continued harshness toward Ben (racism? or just his usual cold-bloodedness?) begins to finally erode his nonchalance about his own complicity in the corruption, especially after Roberts asks him to be in on a fix.

Lee’s part in the film should have been greater, as the movie’s start makes it clear just how important he is to Charley. But even what we get is interesting, and Lee captures both the pathetic nature of an older fighter, and his impressive inner strength; Ben is the representative of the soul that Charley has been abandoning in the pursuit of the perfect body, and foreshadows Charley’s likely future.

The Fights
There should have been more to the fights, which is my usual complaint. (Don’t even get me started on the lack of boxing scenes in the dreadful Million Dollar Baby). But I like how Body and Soul, which can go overboard with sentimental music, suddenly becomes silent in the last bout, enabling viewers to more fully take in the brutality.

As I watched, I kept hearing Rocky’s soundtrack, and realized the music in that later film had in many ways numbed me to the violence, counteracted it in some way by suggesting a possible victory. But here, I could feel the impact on the skin, the muscles, the bones.

In Conclusion….
I can hear my sister asking me—which she actually didn’t—do you actually think this is better than Rocky? I didn’t. But I don’t think that’s the point. The film had something else to say, and I liked how it said it, and found Garfield as riveting as I usually do.

“I can’t decide,” Rachel said at one point, “if he’s good looking.”

“He’s attractive,” I answered, “not really handsome.” Her comment made me smile because you can’t stop asking yourself that when you watch him; you can’t keep your eyes off the guy. So something, at least, sank in.

As for our bet, I fear that at best my sister will regard any of the 10 movies she likes as exceptions to her classic-movies-suck rule, rather than as proof she’s wrong about them. But it’ll make her see some just the same, which is good in itself.

There was one moment of consolation, as I watched my sister’s disappointing response to Body and Soul. I’d shared a Miranda Lambert song with my mom earlier that week, and to my horror, heard her playing Rachel the video, urging her to like it too. My sister is a Beatles fanatic and has performed rock music since the age of five or so. She has ALWAYS despised country. My sister’s outraged response to my mom was as comic as I would have anticipated, and far more animated than her objections to my film choice. I could hear her spitting “twang” and “seriously?” and “that loser Blake Shelton” from the other side of the house.

So at least I’m not trying to convince her into country.

Bout 1: Rachel 1, Me 0, Country Music -1

The Moment I Fell for Eve Arden

12/18/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 4 Comments

In the early eighties, all the girls I knew pined for large hoop earrings, curly hair, and tight pants just like the changed Sandy in Grease. We piped “You’re the One that I Want,” with its requisite “oooh, oooh, ooohs,” imagining we could lure Danny into the sky with us.

Grease had a staying power thanks to the number of times it was replayed on TV. Although my attention was drawn to all of the figures who rocked leather, one of the administrators made an impression too. Something about those ringing tones of Principal McGee’s (Eve Arden’s) reached me. Her combination of idealism, exasperation, and cynicism echoed adults I knew as she alternately disciplined and inspired Rydell High’s seniors. In a throwaway part, this actress had developed a fully realized character, one for whom I could imagine a history of victories and frustrations with students. She made an impact even on the beauty-enthralled kid that I was.

I didn’t make the connection years later when I listened to Eve Arden’s verbal wizardry in Mildred Pierce (1945). But I looked her up on IMDB, hoping to find her elsewhere, and knew then why Principal McGee had affected me. This was Eve Arden, people, the master of the one liner, the woman who could annihilate a victim with one breath of her scathing tongue. Of course she could match wits with teenagers. Of course they couldn’t fool her and thus convert her into another of the anonymous adults in teen flicks. She was humoring them. She was holding back. She was—dare I say it—so much cooler than they were.

Take the scene when Sonny (Michael Tucci) decides he’s going to stand up to her when he inevitably lands back in her office. “This year she’s gonna wish she’s never seen me,” he tells his buddy. “I just ain’t gonna take any of her crap, that’s all, I don’t take no crap from nobody.”

“Sonny?” she interrupts.

“Hello, ma’am,” he says, all bluster gone.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in homeroom right now?”

“I was just going for a walk.”

“You were just dawdling, weren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Even funnier are her remarks and reactions to her incompetent and slightly insane assistant, Blanche (Dody Goodman). Her resignation when Blanche overreacts to the coach’s pre-game enthusiasm is just one example of her understated genius.

Like any good comedian, Arden knows just how to give words emphasis, just how to raise that eyebrow, just how to make what could have been a passing moment snap. Oh, how I love the woman.

I think I fell for her from the start of Mildred Pierce, but I didn’t realize I had until near the end of the film.

She plays Ida, the business manager for the restaurant owner (Joan Crawford) who repeatedly sacrifices all of her money, time, and hope for her spawn-of-Satan daughter, Veda (Ann Blyth).

Ida’s humor is evident from the start, as when she agrees to give Mildred a job as a waitress just after she separates from her husband. “Kind of a nervous gal, aren’t you?” Ida observes. “Well, you wanna watch that, it’s tough on dishes.”

Ida is the ultimate sarcastic sidekick; her dry delivery is a great foil to Crawford’s sentimental, feminine performance. “When men get around me, they get allergic to wedding rings,” Ida explains when asked about her single status. “You know, big sister type. Good old Ida, you can talk it over with her man to man.”

“I hate all women,” Mildred’s business partner, Wally (Jack Carson), says to Ida after Mildred rejects his romantic overtures. “Thank goodness you’re not one of them.”

Ida smirks. “Laughing boy seems slightly burned at the edges,” she observes to Mildred. “What’s eating him?” In fact, every scene between Carson and Arden makes me wish for more, as when Ida gives Wally orchids to put away, saying, “Here, muscle.”

Ida’s critiques of Mildred’s boyfriend, Monty, are always amusing too, even though the man (and actor) is no match for her. When the aristocratic Monty says, “Oh, I wish I could get that interested in work,” Ida drawls, “You were probably frightened by a callus at an early age.” Later, after he’s been milking Mildred and expresses surprise that she might have business problems, Ida retorts, “Don’t look now, but you’ve got canary feathers all over your face.”

But she reserves her greatest slam for Mildred’s parasitic daughter. “Why don’t you forget about her?” she asks Mildred after watching the abusive pattern between the two for years.

Mildred babbles about what a daughter means to a mother, leading Ida to this classic response: “Personally, Veda’s convinced me that alligators have the right idea. They eat their young.”

I’m not sure why it took me that long, but that’s when I knew for sure I’d found an actress I’d never tire of watching—and more importantly, hearing. I think we can all be thankful Arden was never a huge star, as it meant she would wring everything she could from each line, each expression, and never stop making us laugh.

Lucille Ball and Arden hilarious in Stage Door

A Film Celebrating Bad Cooks: Christmas in Connecticut

12/13/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 2 Comments

I come from a long line of bad cooks. My mother was way ahead of her peers with the natural foods craze, but, like a new vegan, she never learned to substitute anything for the bacon grease she’d been raised with; everything she made was bland. When we visited my maternal grandmother’s, all of our cousins would drop by with food. I remember the day I discovered why, when I witnessed Grandmother putting mayonnaise in macaroni and cheese. My fraternal grandmother supposedly was a good baker before her illness set in, but the only real meal I remember from the Williams family recipes was courtesy of an in-law.

For some women, this deficiency would be a source of shame, but it wasn’t for my grandmother, who bragged about her recipes as she put ketchup in her ratatouille, knowing no one was bold enough to contradict her. As for my mom, she took Greek salad to every holiday potluck, shrugged at all the better fare, and returned to her studies afterward. Who cared about culinary proficiency, when she could be mastering Aristotle? I’ve followed my family’s example, neither worrying about my lack of ability, nor feeling an impulse to remedy it.

With these tendencies and antecedents, it’s perhaps unsurprising that one of the few domestic comedies I find relatable is Christmas in Connecticut (1945), starring Barbara Stanwyck as Elizabeth Lane, a food writer who can’t cook. The publisher of her magazine (Sydney Greenstreet) wants to please a hero who craves good eating and satisfy his own stomach in the bargain. He invites the sailor—and himself—to Christmas dinner at the columnist’s country home, forcing her to quickly accede to a friend’s proposal and thus be able to pretend owning the home—and baby—she’s been writing about for years instead of the actual tiny New York apartment she lives in as she spins stories about rocking chairs and fireplaces and pet cows.

A view Lane pretends to be “the broad front lawns of our farm, like a lovely picture postcard of wintry New England”

A view Lane pretends to be “the…front lawns of our farm”

The premise is absurd, of course, but with Stanywck as the faux-Martha Stewart, Greenstreet as the busybody, and S.Z. Sakall as Felix (the enterprising buddy whose recipes she’s been using for her articles), this film is a lot of fun. When Lane falls for the sailor (Dennis Morgan), she plots to avoid the promised marriage to her stuffy friend, John Sloan (Reginald Gardiner). She boldly flirts with the handsome hero, Jefferson Jones (Morgan), freed by his engagement and her own supposed marriage.

Even more entertaining than their flirtation is the treatment of Lane’s poor cooking as she pretends to be Mrs. Sloan. When he hears Felix will be handling dinner, the publisher complains, “…I won’t feel quite the same as if you’d cooked it, Mrs. Sloan.”

“Believe me,” quips Felix, “you will feel much better.”

In a famous scene, Felix teaches Lane to flip a flapjack, which she’s described in great detail in her writing. Repeatedly, she screws up, hitting the ceiling with the batter.

Lane, viewing the pan like it’s a tarantula

While she dodges having to display her bad aim at first, she’s finally put on the spot, and her shocked face when she succeeds—by a sheer fluke—is priceless.

**spoilers below, for anyone who still thinks it’s possible to spoil a predictable romantic comedy***

She may be a poor pancake maker, but Lane’s courage and quick wit are worth witnessing when she finally confronts her bullying publisher, who tries to convince her and her faux-husband Sloan that they should reproduce again for the good of the magazine’s circulation. Once he discovers the deception, the publisher urges her to marry the “bore” (Sloan) and proceed quickly to child bearing. Even though she’ll likely lose her job and a promised raise, Lane still decides to have her say: “Listen to me. I’m tired of being pushed around, tired of being told what to do, tired of writing your galldarned articles, tired of dancing to everybody else’s tune, tired of being told whom to marry. In short, I’m tired.”

Of course, this exchange sets Lane up for becoming the housewife she’s been pretending to be, but in feminist fashion, it’s a choice, not a default—and quitting is in her case an act of liberation. I like to think of her using that big imagination to write the next great American novel while Jones, who already likes washing babies, tends to the children. (She knows what she’s doing, falling for this sensitive type.)

Surprisingly, the film is no more judgmental about her culinary failures than I would be. “Well, young man, I spose you know what you’re doing,” the publisher says to Jones once it’s clear the two are altar bound. “But I warn you, she can’t cook.”

Jones asks her if it’s true. “No, I can’t cook,” Lane admits, without a trace of embarrassment.

“She can’t cook,” Felix repeats. Then he adds for all of us who’ve fallen for her during the film, “But what a wife!”

Please Keep the Hair: Keri Russell, Rita Hayworth, and Veronica Lake

12/07/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 4 Comments

All the wig-switching in the KGB thriller The Americans has me thinking about hair. Of course, my musings must be rooted in the show’s star, Keri Russell, she of the infamous haircut that made Felicity stars everywhere wish her beautician Sweeney Todd.

But Russell was not the only star blamed for tanking a production with her shorn tresses. I’m thinking, of course, of The Love Goddess herself, Rita Hayworth, who made not one, but two hairy decisions in that barber chair. After all, her fans had fallen for her after this famous hair-flip in Gilda (1946), later celebrated in The Shawshank Redemption (1994):

Audiences liked their WWII pinup just the way she was. But given that Hayworth’s former experiments at a stylist’s hands—a hairline move and a red dye job—had led to her fame to begin with, it’s not surprising she was willing to make a change to help her soon-to-be-ex Orson Welles with his noir, The Lady from Shanghai (1947). She changed the hue of her beloved hair, as seen in its usual glory in Cover Girl (1944):

And she also, like Russell after her, chopped it off. The bizarre results: a platinum dye job was blamed for low ticket sales. (Brunettes everywhere, take note: it did happen once.)

It’s true that Hayworth looks better as a redhead, but the film still features one of her sexiest performances. Admittedly, this woman could probably have pulled off a mullet.

Of course, of all the hair-disaster stories, my favorite is Veronica Lake’s. She was known for that peek-a-boo, hair-in-front-of-eye sexy look models have been attempting since.

This hairstyle was so popular that it even reached spoof status. One of my favorite moments in The Major and the Minor (1942) is when a cadet mocks the girls at a nearby school: “May as well warn you, there’s an epidemic at Mrs. Shackleford’s school…[T]hey all think they’re Veronica Lake.” The film’s heroine (Ginger Rogers) tries to repress her smile when she sees what he means:

In a bizarre twist of fate, Lake undid the do in the interest of national public safety during WWII—all of those fool imitators getting their hair stuck in factories’ machinery. (Check out this staged photo warning her wannabes.). And—not surprisingly—Lake lost her star status soon after the change (though there were other, perhaps more likely reasons for her decline, as there were for the poor box office receipts of Hayworth’s film and lower ratings of Russell’s show).

I know more rational folks would claim that these outcries over hair are outrageous and silly, but having suffered the pains of fine, limp hair all my life, I do get a bit annoyed when a woman with a thick, luscious mane doesn’t appreciate what she has. Sure, if it’s too much for your delicate face, à la Audrey Hepburn, hack away. But if not, don’t pain all of us with wilted mops by throwing your riches away. Have a little pity. At least let us envy from afar.

Actors Too Pretty for Their Parts

11/21/2014 by leah@carygrantwonteatyou.com 4 Comments

I would like to say that an actor’s performance always trumps any preconceptions of mine about a character from a book I’ve read, that I can set aside my firm conviction that a character was blonde or tall or curvy. But the truth is, sometimes my assumptions ruin a performance for me, no matter how adept and nuanced the acting, no matter how much that performer captured, even enhanced the essence of a character. And for some reason, I am most frustrated when an average-looking book character suddenly becomes a knockout in the movie.

Sometimes, I know this reaction is foolish. But in other cases, the character’s looks were essential to the character/story. Hollywood often mistakes delicacy for sex appeal, or assumes we’re all afraid to see someone onscreen who isn’t dazzling. Here’s my list of the most annoying casting choices in terms of beauty, from least to most irritating:

Fourth Runner Up: Alan Ladd as Shane (1953)

Shane is meant to be dark and mysterious. Alan Ladd could be a disturbing, haunted character, and he nails the cowboy’s reticence, humility, reserve. But I couldn’t see in him the forbidding man who managed to overcome my eighth-grade reluctance to read a western. When the teacher showed the film in class, I remember my fury: Come on. We’re not casting for New Kids on the Block here! (i.e., One Direction for you youngsters). Admittedly, the hairstyle and clothing designers didn’t help:

In the battle between him and the bad guy, played by Jack Palance, I am so distracted by that pretty face that I’m sure the gunman would be too.

This casting decision also tainted the almost-romance between him and Marian (Jean Arthur). In the book, she is so drawn by his strength of character that she can’t help developing feelings for him. But in this film, it was hard not to believe Marian just found him hotter than her husband, Joe (Van Heflin).

Third Runner Up: Lawrence Olivier as Darcy in Pride and Prejudice (1940)

Lawrence Olivier is a good Maxim de Winter in Rebecca. The character is described as aristocratic and cold, like a painting of a fourteenth-century nobleman: “His face was arresting, sensitive, medieval in some strange explicable way….Could one but rob him of his English tweeds, and put him in black, with lace at his throat and wrists, he would stare down at us in our new world from a long distant past…” Olivier fits this description perfectly; in fact, he always seems most at home in period dramas.

But when it comes to bringing to life the imposing Fitzwilliam Darcy, this short Englishman looks too much like a toy soldier to me. I don’t see him as gathering all eyes due to his “fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien.” There needs to be some rugged in Darcy’s handsome, and delicate Olivier doesn’t cut it. I see this actor as the snob cutting down a girl for wearing thrift store clothes, not a man whose very presence could intimidate a woman as sassy as Elizabeth Bennett.

Second and First Runners Up: Joan Fontaine as Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca (1940) and Jane Eyre (1943)
Given, the narrator in Rebecca is a very humble sort, unlikely to recognize her own charms. And Fontaine’s looks are less sexy than those of the striking Anjelica Huston type I always imagined Rebecca to be. But she certainly doesn’t appear to be the mousy, flat-haired woman she’s described as in the book:

A girl this lovely surely would have gotten more attention from Mrs. Van Hopper’s friends. For the story to work, she needs to have been belittled and underestimated throughout her life, and I’m just not buying it. Does Fontaine capture the hesitancy and insecurity of the wife? Absolutely. Did the filmmakers try to tone down her considerable looks through makeup and hair style? Yes. Did I ever forget those looks enough to believe her as Mrs. de Winter? Not at all.

While the choice of Fontaine for Rebecca was a poor one, the decision to make her Jane Eyre was far worse. There’s no way a woman this ravishing would ever utter these famous lines to her love (bolding mine): “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! – I have as much soul as you, – and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!”

Yeah, this woman looks plain:

All of us less-than-beautiful little readers out there were thrilled to discover in Jane a heroine who wasn’t gorgeous but was strong-willed, proud, passionate. Too bad Hollywood doesn’t get that ordinary girls like their heroines to look like they do…..

Winner: Lana Turner as Marianne in Green Dolphin Street
Of all the silly selections I’ve listed, the most ludicrous by far is this one, especially since the film’s preview made a bold claim that it had not altered the source material:

Let’s see if you agree with MGM’s statement. In the novel, two sisters, Marianne and Marguerite, fall for the same guy, William (Richard Hart). He adores Marguerite, the sweet, gentle beauty (Donna Reed).

After moving to New Zealand, he sends for the sister he wants for his bride, but instead of writing the name of his girlfriend, Marguerite, in his proposal letter, he writes Marianne instead because he’s drunk and kind of an idiot. To his shock and dismay, he’s stuck with marrying his love’s prickly, smart, unattractive sibling, portrayed by this actress:

’Cause when I’m trying to come up with the gal all the boys choose girls-next-door over, Lana Turner is first on my list. Of course, the movie changed the plot a bit to make this casting choice look a bit less ridiculous. But since the reader likes Marianne in part because she’s so much more than she seems to outsiders, this va-va-voom choice doesn’t exactly convey novelist Elizabeth Goudge’s meaning.

And there you have it. My choices for actors and actresses far too pretty for their roles. What are yours?