People Will Talk
A little more from me on the subject of pre-code cinema over at The Daily Notebook, where I find myself in extremely good company — other contributors include Kent Jones, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Dan Sallitt, Dave Kehr, Zach Campbell, Kevin Lee and Ben Sachs. “Zowie!” as Joe E. Brown is always saying.
If you haven’t seen the above scene from ROMAN SCANDALS before, keep a glass of water to hand to catch your eyeballs when they pop out of your skull in amazement. If you have seen it before, you KNOW you want to see it again. And best keep the glass of water handy, just in case.
July 22, 2011 at 2:01 pm
I absolutely adore that number. Eddie Cantor is my dearest Guilty Pleasure. He won my heart in the amazing Thanks Your Lucky Stars and has been in my tenderest thoughts ever since. He’s the first — and the best — Pee Wee Herman.
What’s fascinating about his blackface is the way he deals with it as a mere mask. He doesn’t “act negro” or go into dialect the way Jolson does. Moreover he acknowledges it as a mask. In Ali Baba Goes To Town he has a scene where he interacts with a group of “Africans” by corking-up — right on screen — and going into the film’s big number “Swing is Here To Sway.” There’s no guile to his disguise.
July 22, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Yes, to give them some credit, there’s no pretense that the disguise is anything other than silly. What makes the scene sort-of acceptable is the way wrongness is piled on wrongness: nudity, sexism, blackface, camp, miniaturization…
July 22, 2011 at 3:41 pm
And then there’s the perfect pre-code line: “O Death where is thy sting? I don’t care cause I’ve seen everything!”
July 22, 2011 at 3:50 pm
July 22, 2011 at 4:29 pm
“Goin’ to Heaven on a Mule” in WB’s WONDER BAR (34) is a whole epic of Jolson wrongness.
July 22, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Very Nicholson Baker
July 22, 2011 at 4:40 pm
I’m pretty sure that’s Lucille Ball at 0:17 in the clip, just after Cantor ends his “rap” intro. She’s missing a tooth, poor thing.
July 22, 2011 at 4:45 pm
What was the deal with Berkeley’s dwarf fetish?!
July 22, 2011 at 4:46 pm
Probably just uneven teeth, in those pre-perfection days of dental waywardness.
July 22, 2011 at 5:56 pm
Lucille Ball is defintely in that number. Toby Wing too, of course. But Lucy also has lines in the present-day section of the story. Toby just sits there and looks cute.
July 22, 2011 at 6:22 pm
Here’s the piece I wrote for Slant Magazine on Film Forum’s pre-Code series:
http://slantmagazine.com/film/feature/essential-pre-code/266
Here’s me on the air discussing the same:
http://www.wqxr.org/programs/artsfile/2011/jul/15/
July 22, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Lucy’s need to paint her eyebrows on after shaving them off for this movie accounts for her slightly disturbing clown-like appearance on TV.
Toby Wing is always a welcome face!
July 22, 2011 at 7:06 pm
Example: Ian Hunter has his real pre-flouride era original teeth in Hitchcock’s THE RING (27). Lo and behold, Hollywood capped what was left of his rotted gnashers and ten years later at WB he looks all swoonsomely distinguished.
July 22, 2011 at 7:13 pm
But still boring! It’s a real shame, since his stuff in Stolen Holiday flattens an otherwise zesty piece.
Thanks, Jaime, listening to the broadcast now!
July 22, 2011 at 9:42 pm
My grandmother Leona swooned to Ian Hunter, John Loder, and George Brent. She definitely had a certain “type.”
July 22, 2011 at 10:31 pm
Here’s the type I swoon to.
July 22, 2011 at 10:48 pm
I notice the Lucy dental irregularity, and it put to mind Mary Brian’s (it’s fairly obvious in early ’30s films only it’s on the left side – if she smiles, you’ll see it).
I saw the Film Forum program for the precode series and it seemed to track almost exactly the films I would have shown if someone wanted me to show a series of precodes. I came across some of these films (like Me And My Gal) only months before.
July 22, 2011 at 11:25 pm
David E: Oh you rascal you!
I like wonky teeth, it makes Gene Tierney even more beautiful. Of course, you can take it too far, and I do.
Mark: ditto! It’s a fantastic season, I wish I were there seeing it. Instead, I’m at home seeing it. Next up: Hot Saturday!
July 22, 2011 at 11:52 pm
Lucy had plenty of opportunities to reshape her eyebroaws after Roman Scandals. Note her appearances in Dance Girl Dance, DuBarry Was A Lady, Lured and above all the opening number of Ziegfeld Follies.
Gene Tierney’s overbite is most alluring — as is James Franco’s.
July 23, 2011 at 12:52 am
According to the bio I read, none of those eyebrows are Lucille’s, they never grew back after Roman Scandals so she painted them on like Groucho’s mustache.
July 23, 2011 at 12:55 am
more cute gals
July 23, 2011 at 2:46 am
Interesting, as Lucy identified most closely with Harpo.
July 23, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Her rejection of Groucho is the rage of Caliban seeing his face in the mirror.
July 25, 2011 at 11:52 pm
I first saw Roman Scandals upon its re-release around 1948 when I was ten, and the impression of that film stayed with me to this day. No matter how often I view it, – it is like the first time, the laughs come pouring out. I understand it was made as a spoof to DeMille’s The Sign of the Cross, the year before (1932). Roman Scandals reflect the 1930s in its set designs, burlesque stage comments with their double-entents and suchf great Harry Warren musical numbers. And what about the speculation about those girls in the slave market scene, with long flowing hair, are they nude underneath the hair? Too bad the stuffy censlor could not appreciate a bit of spice.