Olde Review: Stage Door

The following was part of a series reviewing the ASUW film series at the University of Washington that were broadcast on KCMU-FM in 1976--I found the old scripts and thought it might be interesting to post them here--with no editorial alteration or comment. I have no doubt that my attitude to some of these films has changed over the years--ageing does that--but to just erase my opinions from back then and tack on my new-found objections would do a disservice to the reviewer who was just a "stinky kid" back then. It'd be like making Greedo shoot first.

Stage Door (Gregory LaCava, 1937) It's hard to say what I like best about Stage Door--not the story, it's pretty much the "tough-road-on-the-way-to-success" trope. But the dialogue is original--snappy and delivered at a break-neck pace, sometimes overlapping (and you don't see that very often in modern movies)* It all tends to make watching old-time movies invigorating.

Maybe it's the acting, delivered by an all-star cast headed by Ginger Rogers (again), Gail Patrick as a primary sufferer, Lucille Ball as a wicked-tongued Seattle-ite (but don't hold it against me), (and) Eve Arden as an aspiring actress who is permanently attached to a cat. All live together in various stages of animosity when Katherine Hepburn makes another of her grand entrances and proceeds to steal the movie as easily as candy from a bunch of talented babies. Her role is somewhat autobiographical--rich society girl trying to make it into acting because it's a thrill and it's different. To see newcomer Hepburn--a small strap of a girl squaring off against a star-since-silent-days Adolphe Menjou and run acting rings around him is a certifiable thrill. It's Hepburn that is best about this movie, but then Hepburn has always been one of the best things about the movies.
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* Well, you did if you saw any Robert Altman movies at the time, and I'm sure I did--at least Nashville and California Split and M*A*S*H and The Long Goodbye! But the last movie I saw where the movie was seriously over-lapping and going at this pace was Clooney's Leatherheads (and I think I was the only one...)

I notice I neglected to mention such stars of the future as Ann Miller and Jack Carson (one of my favorites). Well, these things could only be two minutes long...and it should be noted that this is the film where the Hepburn trademark line "The calla lilies are in bloom a-gain!" came from. Any actress or comedian who wanted to do a quick impression of Katherine Hepburn (in the days before Martin Short) would just say that line and people would immediately get the connection.

One interesting little piece of trivia:  Gail Patrick was the long-time executive producer of the "Perry Mason" TV-series.

Olde Review: Follow the Fleet

This was part of a series of reviews of the ASUW Film series back in the '70's. Except for some punctuation, I haven't changed anything from the way it was presented, giving the snarky, clueless kid I was back then a break. 

What was that line from Hondo? "Him very young. Will learn." "If he lives..."

Any stray thoughts and updates I've included with the inevitable asterisked post-scripts.

Follow the Fleet (Mark Sandrich, 1936) They begin this way: From the black the upper hemisphere of a globe revolves in a cloud-filled sky. Perched atop the globe at its very hub, is a gigantic radio tower that beeps out the insignia "An RKO Radio Picture." 

That trademark holds something special for me, for it announces that it was made by the RKO Studios--the studios that fostered such film classics as Citizen Kane and the truly original King Kong. RKO made its share of turkeys but even in those, RKO's studios put a certain feel into their films. It comes from their sets. It comes from the equipment. It comes from the team. That's why M-G-M musicals look so glossily over-produced, and current Universal films look so cheesy. 

The two films in 130 Kane Hall this Friday are both RKO films and they are Follow the Fleet and Stage Door.
Follow the Fleet is very generally a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musical. And it is a pleasant enough entertainment. Oh, there are some things that will not be tolerated, I'm sure--there are a few lines that a lot of feminists will hiss at, and you can chuckle over some of the clothes,* the dances and the more's displayed in the film. After all, we are so much more advanced and sophisticated nowadays and Saturday's films--The Rocky Horrow Picture Show, and Private Parts shows this to be so.**


But there are some very neat things here, too. Some familiar faces--Fred and Ginger, Randolph Scott, Harriett Hillyard (who would become world-famous as the TV and real-life wife of bandleader Ozzie Nelson), and in lesser roles, Betty Grable and Lucille Ball. There are the songs by Irving Berlin ("Let Yourself Go," "Let's Face the Music and Dance") orchestrated by film music great Max Steiner. 

And then there are the dance numbers--the reason this film was made, its the reason this film is structured the way it was, and it's what made Astaire and Rogers stars, doubly and singly. There is a mutual smash-up-your-partners'-work dance rehearsal about 3/4 through the film that will undoubtedly impress as a great number of stumbles, but is actually as well-choreographed as any of the other dance numbers in the film.*** 

So, gee whiz gosh, folks, why don't you forget your 70's whatever-it-is attitude and enjoy yourself.

There's not much I can add, other than to say that Follow the Fleet introduced the standard "Let's Face the Music and Dance," and that the choreography of Astaire (with Hermes Pan) and the dance performance of Astaire and Rogers (and remember, "she had to do everything he did...only backwards and in high-heels!") are some of the most sublimely beautiful things you will see in movies. In all the years since I've seen this film and the others, I've never seen anything that can compare. Sure, Gene Kelly had that ferocious athletic aggressiveness...but Astaire and Rogers achieved Grace with a capital "G."

2020 Addendum: Oh, there's a LOT I can add: Astaire (originally Frederick Austerlitz—on imdb.com, he is "nm0000001/") had a disastrous screen-test at RKO: "Can't sing. Can't act. Balding. Can dance a little." read the card-synopsis; producer David O. Selznick—who signed Astaire to his RKO contract wrote in one of his famous memo's "I am uncertain about the man, but I feel, in spite of his enormous ears and bad chin line, that his charm is so tremendous that it comes through even on this wretched test." Astaire's first film for RKO, Flying Down to Rio, had him fifth-billed—right after Ginger Rogers. He didn't want to be part of another dance duo (he started out on-stage with his sister Adele); he wrote his agent "I don't mind making another picture with her, but as for this 'team' idea, it's 'out!' I've just managed to live down one partnership and I don't want to be bothered with any more." But, they made nine films together in one of the greatest pairings in film.

Katherine Hepburn (who'd worked with Rogers on Stage Door) said of them: "He gives her class and she gives him sex appeal." Astaire said of her: "Ginger had never danced with a partner before Flying Down to Rio. She faked it an awful lot. She couldn't tap and she couldn't do this and that ... but Ginger had style and talent and improved as she went along. She got so that after a while everyone else who danced with me looked wrong." Part of that is Ginger Rogers proved to be a consummate actress. Yes, she could get the routines "down," but most importantly, she could act the dance and its emotional effect—like a good opera singer who can hit all the notes, but also emote beyond them to touch the audience. It's athleticism and skill to hit the marks, but the acting makes it less of a spectator sport and brings the audience in to become part of the experience.  Astaire was likable, but Rogers made him a romantic lead—just by her acting.

One might not like musicals. One might not like dancing in films. But, watching Astaire and Rogers is experiencing artistry...and that is thrilling, whatever one's prejudices.  Excellence always beats them.

* Now, bear in mind, I was writing this during the "disco" 70's! Everybody was wearing platform shoes and bell-bottoms, fergodsake.

** I believe I was being sarcastic here, but I'm not sure. I think I was merely pandering to the audience of a 10 watt rock station on the University campus and this was the first review I'd written (I think).  I was being unsure and general—why else would I start with an explanation of RKO Radio Pictures" (it would be "explained" musically in Rocky Horror on the next night, after all), plus I thought I had to "sell" an Astaire-Rogers musical to the "hipsters" on campus. Balderdash. Anyway, the review of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is here and the one for Private Parts is here. 

Stage Door, we will represent next week.

***

Roxie Hart

Roxie Hart (William Wellman, 1942) Think of it as Chicago without the music and dancing (except for a couple numbers), because that's exactly what it is. This version, adapted (by Nunnally Johnson and Ben Hecht,) from the play and 1927 movie version called Chicago, tells the same story of a dancer, Roxie Hart (Ginger Rogers) near the end of her career, who decides to take the rap for the murder of booking agent Fred Casely, found dead in Roxie's apartment. Roxie didn't do it (a difference from the other versions, thanks to the Production Code), but like a certain hotel developer, when things are sagging somewhat, you should do something really crazy to get attention.

The movie is done in flashback in a bar (one run by William Frawley) that's a hangout for newsies. "The new kid" (Ted North) is working a murder investigation and is full of stories. In an ink-stained version of "Can You Top This?" veteran newsman Homer Howard (George Montgomery) tells him the story to end all bets—a murder case he covered in 1927.

George Montgomery serves as the Teller of the Tale at a bar frequented by newsies.

He tells the story of Roxie Hart and how, when the agent is murdered in the Hart apartment (presumably by her husband as the police suspect), she is persuaded to "takes the fall" because a woman would never be convicted of murder in Chicago. Besides, any publicity is good publicity. Her husband, Amos (George Chandler) hires courtroom sheister Billy Flynn (Adolphe Menjou) to defend Roxie by using the press to gain sympathy, depict her as a weak woman who acted in self-defense...and show a lot of leg to the all-male jury.

Roxie enjoys the headlines and the attention, confident that she'll never hang. But, then disaster strikes—another woman is convicted of a horrible crime and calls are made to be less lenient on female criminals and it knocks Roxie out of the headlines. The only thing to do is up the ante with more salaciousness and hearts and flowers.

For Rogers, who, after letting Astaire lead for most of her career, it was another opportunity to do something a little different and show off her comedy and acting gifts. With Roxie Hart, she takes a big gamble—looking unsympathetic to the audience. Roxie Hart is a deeply, cynical black comedy with a lot of laughs (it made Stanley Kubrick's "Top Ten Favorite Films" in 1963) and an assured directorial hand by veteran director William "Wild Bill" Wellman (who'd already straddled many genres with The Public Enemy, Nothing Sacred, A Star is Born, Beau Geste, and the first "Best Picture" Oscar winner, Wings). Its stinging farcical tone still resonates—enough for Bob Fosse to update it in 1975, where the unholy marriage of justice, news-mongering, and fame felt remarkably contemporary.

But, even the resultant musical doesn't diminish the sense of raucous, crass fun in this film version of Roxie Hart.

In 1963, when asked by Cinema Magazine what his favorite films were, director Stanley Kubrick chose these:

I Vitelloni (Federico Fellini, 1953) 
Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, 1958) 
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) 
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948)
City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
Henry V (Laurence Olivier, 1945)
La Notte (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961)
The Bank Dick (W.C. Fields, 1940)
Roxie Hart (William Wellman, 1942) Note: at one point, he said this was his favorite film
Hell’s Angels (Howard Hughes, 1930)