The Esther Blodgett Story

George Cukor’s mutilated musical masterpiece A STAR IS BORN is so gorgeous it makes it hard to choose anything to watch afterwards — such an excess of beauty is hard to top. In the end we went for a Japanese movie, since the aesthetics seemed a good match, but THE MYSTERY OF EDOGAWA RAMPO proved unsatisfying by comparison.

William Wellman “originated” the story of A STAR IS BORN for the Gaynor-March version, but he kind of stole it from Cukor’s earlier WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD, so it seems only fair for Cukor to steal it back. You can argue that it’s a story of male fragility by the very macho Wellman (whose actress wife gave up her career for him): Norman Maine is relentlessly humiliated by his wife’s success, and when he kills himself she responds with self-abnegation: “Mrs. Norman Maine.” But even in the earlier version, though the co-dependent dynamic is clear, the thing doesn’t play as misogynistic or even particularly chauvinistic. And Cukor’s writer, Moss Hart, resolves the one glitch in the earlier version, where Lionel Stander’s press agent suddenly becomes a louse for one scene in order to drive our anti-hero back to drink. As played by Jack Carson in the musical, his behaviour is consistent throughout: he’s merely kicking a man when he’s down, Standard Operational Procedure in the studio system.

Festive Charles Bickford

Fiona did find the film overly long, with too many numbers, but this wasn’t Cukor’s fault. In Gavin Lambert’s interview book GC reports that, even as the studio was fussing that the movie was too long, they were adding the “Born in a Trunk” number, making it longer. Cukor had insisted he could “sweat out” twenty minutes via small trims, but this wasn’t allowed: whole scenes of character development got the chop.

So the restoration, which puts those scenes back, some of them as sepia-tinted stills, some as out-of-sync combinations of different outtakes, is way longer than Cukor ever intended it. A truer restoration would keep “Born in a Trunk” as an extra feature, and the film might play better, but that wasn’t an option back in 1983 when the restoration was done. And then again, that sequence is maybe the most stunning in the film —

(Sadly, Cukor died the night before he was scheduled to view test shots of the restoration.)

Stunning performances from James Mason and Judy Garland, as you’d expect, but more surprising, Cukor gets people like Jack Carson, Tommy Noonan and Grady Sutton to drop or modulate their usual schtick and approach sideways the portrayal of recognisable humans. It’s amazing to watch: like the moment in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS when Cary Guffey’s toys come to life.

Lambert praises this shot:

Cukor tells him it was essential, since there WAS NO BEACH HOUSE. Just a studio set and a beach location. Artful use of reflections helps sell the illusion. The sound design is also stunning here: as Judy sings, Mason heads into the surf. We expect her voice to grow more distant but remain audible: boldly, the filmmakers allow it to diminish until its being completely drowned by the waves, just cutting through a little in between each roar. Tremendously effective, and, like so much else in the film, atypical of the period.

I was interested in how tended to Cukor keep the various film director characters out of shot. The chap barking instructions to Mason from a boat is cut off at the neck. Garland’s auteurs are shadowy backviews. And then suddenly one of them is seen full-frontal, so I wondered if I were reading too much into Cukor’s stated tendency to “shoot the money.” But then there’s the movie-within-the-movie number with clusters of literally faceless suits, so I’m inclined to think there WAS a deeper plan.

A STAR IS BORN stars Dorothy Gale; Prof. Humbert Humbert; Wally Fay; Black MacDonald; Gus Esmond Jr.; Walt Spoon; Dr. Bulfinch; Sweetface; Coroner Wilbur Strong; Detective Dickens; The Dear One; Coffer; Big Bertha; Johnny Portugal; Wainscoat; and Og Oggilby.

Fifty Shades of Kathryn Grayson

ANCHORS AWEIGH! may not be ON THE TOWN, but then, what is? It’s jolly good, and George Sidney directs with colossal, cartoonish energy. The score is so enthusiastic, so animated, it’s no surprise when Tom & Jerry turn up in person (though it’s a somewhat disturbing surprise when Jerry speaks, with a woman’s voice.

However, despite enjoying the wit and visual invention of the storytelling and filming, and the songs, and Gene Kelly’s dancing and the relentless portrayal of Frank Sinatra as an utter chump, which does not seem, in retrospect, like an obvious idea — I *did* feel occasional pangs of existential angst at Kathryn Grayson’s insanely chirpy countenance and incessant trilling and twinkling. And when the screen faded to black leaving only her eye-gleams, like pinholes into the Beyond, I was somewhat chilled.

But here’s a lovely transition caught halfway —

And this bit is hilarious. Fascinatingly so, since it shows our heroes forced to improvise a song for plot reasons. Now, characters in musicals seem able to improvise songs at the drop of a hat, and we never question their preternatural skill. Now, just because the story requires it, Gene and Frank really have to struggle — even though the basic song, “If You Knew Susie,” is a familiar one. Think about it. What gives?

Bonus: a wildly improbably Grady Sutton as love rival.

These bloody women they will not stop bothering you

Irene prepares to get things Dunne.

Don’t worry, I haven’t gone all misogynist on you. Just quoting Pete & Dud, while also gearing up to take a look at some of John Cromwell’s monster women.

Bette Davis (see yesterday) is probably the most awful, but she has some stiff competition. Hope Emerson in CAGED is practically a literal she-monster, and Cromwell’s noir outings featured the occasional femme fatale. But the trio of Laura Hope Crews (mother), Constance Cummings (lover) and Kay Francis (wife) have an unexpected amount in common.

THE SILVER CORD (1933) seems to be the first Hollywood film to aim at that great American holy cow, motherhood, with Laura Hope Crews shrill and fluttering as the controlling, near-incestuous mother of Joel McCrea and Eric Linden. McCrea’s role is almost unplayable, since he has to appear blind to what kind of a family set-up he’s from, while retaining some measure of the audience’s respect — he gives it the old college try, though, and comes out better than he does in BANJO ON MY KNEE. Eric Linden was probably pre-code cinema’s pre-eminent pisspants, and is made to measure as the (even) more spineless son, easily manipulated into giving up the adorable and beauteous Frances Dee because she doesn’t live up to mama’s standards.

A pensive, festive Linden.

It takes Irene Dunne (in one of several lead roles for Cromwell) to unmask mother, taking her down with surgical precision (Dunne is a biologist — she’s told in Scene One that she’s one of those women who CAN have a career and family, and this news is delivered by Gustav von Seyffertitz, so it is AUTHORITATIVE). McCrea STILL can’t see what’s staring him in the face until Mummy Pittypat flat-out confesses that she’s put all her romantic yearnings into motherhood, and she’s PROUD of it, goddamn it.

Upon that same rear projection screen, KONG would roar!

The thing is a giant creaking play (by Sidney Howard), but Cromwell, working as was often the case from a script by Jane Murfin, applies long, fluid traveling shots (gliding crabwise  through those weird doorways that seem to have only half a door frame, to admit the camera crew) and takes advantage of RKO’s early facility with rear-projection for a dramatic accident on the ice. It’s not actually a Christmas film, but it’s one of several Cromwell’s suited to this time of year, with its snowy backdrops (see also MADE FOR EACH OTHER, IN NAME ONLY, and especially SINCE YOU WENT AWAY).

THIS MAN IS MINE stars Dunne again (who doesn’t get enough credit as a great pre-code dame along with Stanwyck, Bette & Joan &c), battling the deliciously wicked Constance Cummings (above) who wants to steal away her husband, Ralph Bellamy (but WHY, for pity’s sake? Because he’s there, I suppose). Dunne has her delicate, piano-playing, landscape-painting hands full with all these Constance Cummings and goings.

Amusingly, this also has Sidney Blackmer, making it a kind of ROSEMARY’S BABY pre-party for Dr. Sapirstein and Roman Castavet.

ALL OF THEM WITCHES! Dunne & Bellamy/Sapirstein, Blackmer/Castavet and Cummings.

The low-key melodrama is leavened with considerable humour, most of it from the beastly Constance’s more sensible sister, Kay Johnson (Mrs. Cromwell at the time). Describing CC as “a sort of cross between a tidal wave and a smallpox epidemic,” she keeps the whole, dignified thing from getting too self-serious. Slightly surprising third-act violence when Bellamy slugs Constance unconscious with a sock in the eye, and Dunne brains him in turn with a picture frame. Well, civilisation must be preserved.

As in THE SILVER CORD, the villainess condemns herself out of her own mouth, destroying the illusion she’s built up, and the exact same thing happens a third time in the later IN NAME ONLY (1939). Kay Francis, at the tail-end of her career as leading lady, is hanging on to Cary Grant in a loveless marriage, because she wants not only his money but his dad’s (Charles Coburn, by some genetic prodigy of mutation). Grant meets and falls for widow Carole Lombard, lighting a nice fire under the whole scenario.

This is the most satisfying of the three, though they’re all worth seeing. It’s like Grant and Lombard are trying to be their own dazzling movie star selves, and every bastard around them is trying to drag them down to ordinary unhappiness with the rest of humanity. Oddly, Grant shines brightest when sparring with catty Helen Vinson (another survivor of the pre-code era, with her sharp little teeth) as a subsidiary bitch. Memorable action involves the worst hotel in the history of cinema, and Francis condemning herself out of her own mouth exactly like her predecessors. A door shuts on her with awesome finality.

Also: Peggy Ann Garner, Grady Sutton. (“Do you drink? How do you stand it?”)