LENA HORNE: THE LADY WHO LUNCHED

In one of the few instances I can recall from my youth where everyone in my family was in agreement over what movie to see (and as there were five of us, this was a rare occurrence, indeed), one Friday evening my dad fired up the trusty Oldsmobile and took us all to San Francisco’s Northpoint Theater to see That’s Entertainment in 70mm and Six-Track Stereo.

It was 1974, and I was a 16-year-old, self-styled cineaste in the first blush of a full-tilt, head-over-heels love affair with The Movies. And if my adolescent over-earnestness was made obvious by a myopic preference for the films of the 60s and 70s above all others; I have Ken Russell’s charming 1930s musical pastiche, The Boy Friend (1971) to thank for opening my eyes to the joys of second-hand nostalgia and for awakening the latent classic film fan within.

The UK Quad poster added the "all" to the movie's tagline. Indicating
that the US wasn't the only country that could use a little escapism

That’s Entertainment, a compilation film highlighting 50 years of MGM musicals through clips and misty-eyed reminiscences by Golden-Age stars, was one of the few examples of the real thing to emerge out of the largely revamped/revisionist nods to the past that typified the 70s pop culture nostalgia craze (The Great Gatsby, The Way We Were, Happy Days, The Divine Miss M, et al.)

Released at a time when the public’s appetite in films ran chiefly to disaster movies, Black-themed dramas, irreverent comedies, and kung-fu actioners; That’s Entertainment – part Old Hollywood eulogy, part tribute to the very sort of escapist, purely-for-entertainment, studio-system fare the New Hollywood aimed to discredit – tapped into something in the cultural zeitgeist that sought relief from the tensions of Watergate, Vietnam, inflation, and the oil crisis. Its intentions made explicit by the poster tagline: “Boy. Do we need it now,” That’s Entertainment was originally conceived as G-rated counter-programming for the largely-ignored elder demographic; but the film’s reverent, gently self-mocking tone and invitation to “Forget your troubles, c’mon, get happy!” proved irresistible to young and old alike. The relatively low-budget That’s Entertainment became one of the top-grossing films of 1974.

Stormy Weather - 1943

For a youthful disciple of the auteur theory like me, That’s Entertainment represented an unexpectedly welcome change from all the sturm und drang of post-classical cinema, reminding me what a joy it was just to have FUN at the movies for a change.

I saw That’s Entertainment several more times that summer, standing foremost in my mind being the memory of the unrecognizably young Joan Crawford always drawing the film’s biggest laughs with her “spirited” Charleston; the way the lively “Varsity Drag” number from Good News always put a smile on my face; and how surreal and marvelously loony those Esther Williams water extravaganzas seemed to me.

But in the end, it was one of the non-musical moments of That’s Entertainment that ultimately made the strongest and most lasting impression on me. It's only a few seconds long, but it stood out like a beacon, and the image haunted me for many years after.

Greenbriar Picture Shows

In newsreel footage documenting a massive luncheon thrown by MGM in 1949 to commemorate its 25^th Anniversary, a slew of the studio’s biggest contract stars are lined up and seated … not unlike ducks in a shooting gallery  … at a bank of tiered dining tables. As the camera dollies along the aisles capturing the stars in various states of conviviality (Ava Gardner & Clark Gable), mortification (Errol Flynn), clowning (Buster Keaton), or chowing down heartily (Angela Lansbury); we’re given a fleeting glimpse of Lena Horne, seated between Katherine Hepburn and an actor I believe to be Michael Redgrave.

What burned a hole in my retina and seared a tattoo on my 16-year-old mind was the look on Lena Horne’s face: She’s not having any. Seriously. In stark contrast to That’s Entertainment’s sparse parade of subordinate Black performers (and regrettably, but inevitably, white performers in blackface) wearing beatific smiles, eager to entertain, grateful merely to be allowed to “sit at the table” (in Ms. Horne’s case, a term both literal and figurative); there sat this (very) solitary Black woman, poised, dressed to the nines, and displaying a self-possession and look of utter disdain that, in context with the place and time, looked to me like nothing short of an act of militancy.

Ziegfeld Follies - 1945

It was more than the fact that she wasn’t smiling. It’s that she held herself with this kind of removed, regal aplomb while assuming a wilfully casual posture that communicated to any and all that she wasn't on exhibit and wasn't going to be putting on a show for anybody’s benefit. Her expression: a raised-eyebrows/lowered eyelids combo familiar to anyone who’s ever been sized-up; her jaw: set; her gaze: cool. Lena Horne had flipped the script, folks. The one on display was doing the judging. Miss Lena Horne, to use the vernacular, was a diva throwing shade.

(Horne, whose ongoing battles with MGM have been well-documented in several biographies as well as her as-told-to 1965 autobiography, Lena, was at the end of her seven-year contract with the studio when this footage was shot, so by this point she was fairly fed up with the studio and obviously didn't care who knew it.)

And that’s precisely what struck me most about this sequence. Lena Horne at that table – subtly rebellious in the simple act of daring the camera to capture who she was at that moment, not what the studio wanted her to be – was the first glimpse of a contemporarily recognizable Black reality I had ever seen in the context of classic film.

As a teen, I’d watched many old movies on TV, but I'd never seen a single image of a Black person in any of those films whom I even recognized, let alone could relate to. The shuffling, smiling, obsequious Blacks that appeared on The Late, Late Show bore no resemblance to me or anyone I’d ever met or known. They seemed strange and alien to me, the blatant disrespect and caricature inherent in their depiction and representation in no way nullified by their frequently being imbued with near-superhuman levels of kindness and compassion. These images were lies, and my resistance to them inhibited my exposure to classic film (pre-1950s films) for many years.

Till The Clouds Roll By - 1946

So while I wasn't sure then, I now understand why Lena Horne in that brief bit of black & white newsreel footage from That’s Entertainment stayed with me over the years. I was responding to the "truth” she presented. In place of the fetishized ebony goddess segregated to stand-alone cabaret sequences in all-white musicals (all the better to be excised from prints screened in the South) or the ornamental siren in well-intentioned but patronizing all-Black epics, I saw a glimpse of a real Black woman reacting authentically and appropriately to her circumstances and surroundings: 

“I disconnected myself to shield myself from people who would sway to my songs in the club and call me ‘nigger’ in the street. They were too busy seeing their own preconceived image of a Negro woman. The image that I chose to give them was of a woman who they could not reach and therefore can’t hurt.” - Lena Horne

I would come to learn that such candor was a hallmark of Lena Horne, a pioneering actress/singer of astounding fearlessness whose battles with racism, sexism, and institutionalized ignorance have earned her the labels "embittered" and "hard" in many a biography, but which qualify her as a warrior and hero in my book. (Similar behavior attributed to an actress like Bette Davis is called being a "fighter" and a "survivor.")

"The only time I ever said a word (onscreen) to another actor who was white was Kathryn Grayson in a little segment of 'Show Boat' included in the film, 'Till the Clouds Roll By' "

This production still is proof that such a scene was shot, but in my copy of the film it appears to have been excised. Horne sings "Can't Help Lovin' That Man" (Lena was not about to use the offensive Black dialect, "dat" ) and is seen in an ensemble shot, but has no lines at all. Those familiar with Horne's biography know that "Show Boat"s Julie LaVerne, an archetypical "tragic mulatto" character, was a role Horne coveted. Although she was offered the part in a 1946 Broadway revival that MGM refused to release her from her contract for, but given the racial prejudices at the time and the essential "reveal" aspect of the role itself, it's unlikely Horne was ever seriously considered for the 1951 film version.

It’s not exactly the easiest thing being both an aware African-American man and a huge fan of classic film. Often it means finding ways to make peace with wonderful movies that nevertheless include disrespectful, ofttimes painfully degrading racial clichés and promote heinous stereotypes. It means having your comments on the topic downplayed by missing-the-entire-point comparisons (“The marketing of stereotypes is Hollywood's stock in trade!"), or minimized by over-broad generalizations (“That’s how they thought back then. You gotta overlook it!”).

Words and Music  - 1948

It means you sometimes have to be “that guy” who brings up the alternative point of view at a Gone With the Wind screening or Busby Berkeley film festival (Berkeley had a distinct fondness for blackface numbers), or you’re Mr. Buzzkill who’s accused of politicizing the arts when you contradict the suggestion that the largely all-white world depicted in classic films reflect a “simpler, gentler time.”  You're the wet blanket out to subvert people’s cherished memories of sweet-natured mammies, childlike slaves, and benevolent servants; and you’re the PC guy who insists on applying contemporary attitudes to works that are essentially historical records of cultural attitudes of the time in which they were created.

Lena with Eddie Anderson in Cabin in the Sky (1943), the film that made her into a star

But films are not frozen in time, they live. And to me, it's an important part of the cinema experience to continue to see the old through new eyes.

What I saw in Lena Horne's very contemporary rebellious spirit paved a way for me to see the humanity behind Black stereotypes in movies I'd previously felt so offended by, I simply shunned them. I have since developed a profound respect for the Black actors who had to play these roles, knowing that it couldn't have been easy, and in many instances, must have been soul-killing work. Lena Horne may not have been the first Black actor to refuse to play maids or servants, but she certainly must have been one of the few to still have her job after doing so.

Today, when I look at that clip from That’s Entertainment, I am impressed as hell with Lena Horne's attitude. She's a hero to me because at a time when nothing was expected of her but to be a sepia-toned fantasy object, she owned her anger, expressed her resentment, and voiced her outrage.  And that she did so at a time when so many others couldn't ... well, for me, that just made her the biggest star MGM had on the lot that day, and certainly the most memorable and inspiring woman I saw on the screen that Friday evening back in  1974.

Photograph © Carol Friedman

The complete 10-minute newsreel covering the MGM 25th Anniversary luncheon is available for viewing on YouTube  HERE

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2014

BLUEBEARD 1972

When it comes to the preserved documentation of talent squandered and the irrefutable evidence of an artist in decline, few actors have as nagging a filmography as Richard Burton. And boy did he know it.

Indeed, it’s the occasion of my having just finished reading (more like devouring) The Richard Burton Diaries—wherein Burton attempts to rebuke the tiresome (to him) “myth” that his career is one of unrealized potential incarnate—that inspired me to revisit this cult film curio from the “anything goes” '70s. Cult film in this instance being the term applied to any movie of dubious merit for which one harbors an affection that defies logical explanation.

In 1971, just before starting work on Bluebeard, Richard Burton wrote: “My lack of interest in my own career—past, present, or future—is almost total. All my life I think I have been secretly ashamed of being an actor. And the older I get, the more ashamed I get.” 

Well, that explains a lot. 

In fact, combined with the obvious allure of travel (the film was shot in Budapest, Hungary...a place the globe-trotting Burton had never visited) and a hefty paycheck, only apathy, self-loathing, and a subconscious need to publicly humiliate oneself can be the possible explanation for Burton’s head-scratching participation in Bluebeard: a big-budget, yet awfully cheap-looking, black comedy/horror movie that by rights should have been a throwaway exploitationer from Hammer Films starring Christopher Lee or Vincent Price. In fact, Burton wrote of purposely hoping to emulate Vincent Price in the role: “It has to be done with immense tongue-in-cheek. I will try to remember how the master—whasssisname—Vincent Price plays it.”

Compared to the depths of degradation awaiting him with The Klansman (1974), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1976), and The Medusa Touch (1977), Bluebeard actually represents something of  late-career high-point for Burton, signifying as it does a movie that, at least partially, intends to be laughed at.

Richard Burton as Baron Kurt Von Sepper

Joey Heatherton as Anne

Basically a Playboy magazine pictorial disguised as a film, Bluebeard is a tongue-in-cheek, post-WWI retelling of the 17^th-century French folktale about a nobleman with a history of murdering his wives. Richard Burton plays Austrian (I think) war hero and famed fighter pilot Kurt Von Sepper, who, as the film begins, meets and hastily marries a spunky American cabaret performer named Anne, assayed—emphasis on the first syllable, if you get my cruder meaning—by '70s variety show stalwart, Serta mattress pitchwoman, and erstwhile Bob Hope USO Tour frug-er, Joey Heatherton. True to the very grim original fairy tale, the Baron’s bride soon comes to learn of the gruesome deaths of her six predecessors (and a stray prostitute, for good measure) at the hands of her literally blue-bearded husband, and, over the course of one very tense evening, is forced to rely on her wits(!) and assorted Scheherazadian ploys to avoid meeting a similar fate.

As movie set-ups go, this one isn't half bad. It's only in the execution (if you'll pardon the pun) where things start to go awry. The theme of the young wife suspecting her hubby of harboring a deep, dark secret has been used effectively in movies for ages. In The Stranger (1946) a slow-on-the-pickup Loretta Young discovers she's wed a Nazi (you'd think a little thing like that would have come up during courtship); in Conspirator (1949) teen bride Elizabeth Taylor learns much-too-old-for-her Robert Taylor is a Soviet spy; in the thriller Julie (1956), Doris Day weds a man who may or may not have killed her first husband (how inconvenient!); and Hitchcock requires Joan Fontaine to sleep with one eye open in both Rebecca (1940) and Suspicion (1941).

In this French/Italian/German production designed to showcase and undress its cast of international beauties, Miss Heatherton's unequivocal American-ness works rather well. Both as contrast (she has a delectably dissolute quality that makes her look like a debauched Sandra Dee) and in rendering her character believable as the one wife meddlesome enough to go snooping where she doesn't belong.
Richard Burton summed it up nicely: "Heatherton seems unbelievably ordinary, which might be good for the part. She has one of those one-on-every-corner, blonde, rather common, and at the drop of an insult I'm sure, rather bitchy faces."

Raquel Welch as Magdalena, the nymphomaniacal nun. Wife #4

Of course, top-billed Raquel Welch is also an American (total screen time: 8 minutes), but as Myra Breckinridge established, when Welch tries to be funny, she becomes so mannered and stilted that she barely even registers as human.

The device of having Heatherton forestall her execution by getting her homicidal husband to recount to her the whys and wherefores of each of his wives' deaths is also serviceable, for its fairy-tale framework is perfectly in keeping with Bluebeard's archly gothic tone, while the extensive use of lengthy flashbacks gives Bluebeard the feel of one of those jocular horror anthology movies popularized by Britain's Amicus Productions in the '70s (The House That Dripped Blood, Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, et al.).
Thus, with a solid horror film structure firmly in place and a script that asserts its dark/self-mocking humor at regular intervals, one would think that Bluebeard, in laying its "exploitation film" cards on the table, could effortlessly meet the low bar requirements it set for itself. Not so much.

Karin Schubert as Greta, the patient virgin. Wife #1

After viewing Bluebeard, the impression one is left with is that the filmmakers are more than up to the task of producing a low-rent Eurotrash skin flick, but just don't have their hearts in the horror side of things. Blacklisted veteran director Edward Dmytryk, who clearly has seen better days (Murder My Sweet, Raintree County, The Caine Mutiny), has produced impressive work in many genres over the years, but demonstrates little of his flair here.
Obviously finding it difficult to sustain a consistent rhythm of comedy/horror, the overlong Bluebeard frequently shows the strain of having to keep its featherweight premise aloft for its hefty two-plus-hours running time. Since we usually know right away which fatal flaw Bluebeard will find in his wives, the drawn-out scenes of his slowly reaching the end of his rope feel like overlong setups for jokes to which we already know the punchline.

In these moments Dmytryk tends to undercut what little suspense there is by seeming to telegraph the denouements long before they actually occur. He out and out flubs even the most cliché tropes of the genre, such as in a scene where the shock reveal of a character thought to be out of the vicinity is botched entirely by having the camera placed practically across the room from the action. Equally problematic: it's hard to be induced to laugh at the exaggerated, purple performances Dmytryk elicits from his cast when one is not entirely sure: 1) They're in on the joke, 2) They're capable of better.

Nathalie Delon (l.) as Erika, the latent lesbian babytalker. Wife #3
With her, Sybil Danning (r.) as a helpful prostitute

No, if Bluebeard can be accused of anything, it is of appearing to so aggressively court the lucrative softcore euro-sleaze exploitation market, it treats every scene which doesn't actively involve the gratuitous disrobing, display, or objectification of a pulchritudinous actress as necessary, but unwanted, filler.

Virna Lisi as Elga, the atonal songbird. Wife #2

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

It’s a strange thing indeed to find oneself drawn to a film specifically because of the disaster potential inherent in the collective interaction of its assembled particulars. I submit for your approval: A once-respected, bomb-prone, alcoholic Shakespearean actor not known for either his dramatic restraint or light touch with comedy; a legendarily "difficult," not excessively talented, reigning global sex goddess trying hard to hold onto the title after a string of notable flops; a pouty American perpetual motion machine and heir to the sex-kitten throne after Ann-Margret abdicated with Carnal Knowledge; a bevy of international "actresses" of varying degrees of stateside recognizability (translated: the more obscure the actress, the more extensive the nudity); and a director in his 60s taking a whack (pun again?) at trendy '70s permissiveness. All converging in a genre of film—an arch, basic black comedy and gothic horror movie gumbo—alien to everyone involved.

Marilu Tolo as Brigitt, the masochistic feminist. Wife #5

Marveling at the myriad ways in which these discordant ingredients interact in Bluebeard is like watching one of those chemical reaction science demonstrations from back when I was a kid. And it's just as much fun. There's the full-tilt sensory bombardment of having Richard Burton and Joey Heatherton "acting" together in the same scenes (so ill-matched they are actually MARVELOUS together). The visual clash of garish '70s art direction (one set looks like a furnished blood clot). And let's not forget the aural assault of the hollow, dubbed voices for many of the actresses colliding with Burton's free-flowing Austrian or Welsh or English accent; all buttressed unsteadily by Heatherton's flat, matter-of-fact, Yankee delivery on one side, and Welch's mechanical, mid-Atlantic elocution lesson whisper on the other. 

Agostina Belli as Caroline, the dispassionate free spirit. Wife # 6

The product of three screenwriters and no telling how many other collaborators (time and place is so inconsistent and poorly evoked in the costumes and makeup, each of Bluebeard’s wives appear to be a time traveler visiting from a different era...past and future), so many disparate ingredients are thrown into this Euro-sleaze potboiler that its working title could rightfully have been: Hungarian Goulash.

Audiences were puzzled by the insignia and flag used in Bluebeard. Although many thought it was a made-up substitute for a swastika, it is in fact a real-life crutch-cross (cross potent) symbol representing the Fatherland Front. An Austrian, anti-Nazi conservative group headed by Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in 1933

PERFORMANCES
Although the lovely Nathalie Delon gives what I think is Bluebeard's best performance (she was the only wife I was sorry to see go), and the stunning Virna Lisi the most beautiful (that she allows her beauty to be camouflaged by costuming and makeup designed to emphasize the ridiculousness of her character, perhaps speaks well of the actress' lack of ego and sense of humor); I have to say that I am thoroughly charmed by Joey Heatherton in this and she is my absolute favorite performer in the film.

Dream Project Never to Be:
A film of Chekhov's Three Sisters starring Joey Heatherton, Tuesday Weld, and Connie Stevens

With that perpetually open-mouthed, sex-haze look she falls back on whenever she finds herself at a loss for character motivation, Heatherton can be downright dreadful at times. But she also possesses that intangible, alchemic "something" that transforms bad acting, mediocre dancing, and a narcissistic self-absorption, into a special kind of camp, star quality.
Looking amazing and photographed most flatteringly (she first worked with Bluebeard director Edward Dmytryk in 1964s Where Love Has Gone), Heatherton may have you shaking your head in wonder as you see her dressed in a collection of anachronistic frocks better suited to one of her Hullabaloo TV appearances, but she nevertheless reveals a comic talent for the sarcastic throwaway line, imbues the sometimes sluggish film with a considerable amount of misdirected, giggle-inducing energy, and ultimately emerges the real star of Bluebeard. Oh, and did I mention she goes topless?

As Bluebeard, the man who invented Your-Fault divorce, Richard Burton is certainly game, and sometimes even appears to be enjoying hamming it up. But it's hard to laugh at an actor of his stature actually trying to emulate Vincent Price (who is the master of this sort of thing, but it IS this sort of thing). His Bluebeard doesn't really have any madness at his core. In fact, in too many scenes Burton appears to be either drunk, distracted, or bored...take your pick.

Edward Meeks as Sergio, Anne's unlikely partner in her cabaret act 

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
Contemporary horror fans discovering Bluebeard are likely to find both the nudity and gore of this R-rated film to be well below even PG standards. But as for me, not having been weaned on Saw or whatever brand of torture porn passes for horror these days, I don't mind a bit that, outside of a pretty unwatchable hunting scene, the violence in Bluebeard is pretty bloodless.

Mathieu Carriere as the mysterious character known only as The Violinist

Where Bluebeard works best for me is in creating a suitably bizarre gothic atmosphere (silly and fun, but creepy) and in building suspense around how long it's going to take Heatherton to catch on to Bluebeard's "secret," and how, if possible she's is going to escape that castle. (Certainly not for lack of velocity. When Heatherton runs, floor-length gown or not, the woman seriously floors it).

 "Oh, I love the castle! I love the park. The woods. These curtains. These walls. The furniture. I even like these strange photographs!"  Joey Heatherton, folks.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

When Bluebeard was first released, both Burton and Dmytryk went out of their way informing/warning everyone that the film was intended solely as a lark and a laugh (as if anyone seeing a movie titled Bluebeard [starring an actor wearing a literal blue beard] could mistake it for anything else). When critics and audiences failed to find much comedy, black or otherwise, in the sadism of the violence directed toward women; little humor in the grim choice of anti-Semitism and neo-Nazi fascism as a backstory plot point; and sat stone-faced at images of real-life animal slaughter in the hunting scene, their complaints were summarily dismissed as being born of taking it all too seriously, missing the point, and failing to understand that the movie was…here we go again…a black comedy designed as escapist entertainment.

Von Sepper gets it in die nüsse 

A great many cult films, especially those poking fun at taboo/serious topics like murder and death, can come off as offensive. Of course, if it's a film by John Waters, Paul Morrissey, or David Lynch, causing offense is likely the whole point. But sometimes a film can cross a line for a viewer, in which case I think—so long as that individual doesn't try to censor a film or stop others from enjoying it —differing opinions should be respected. Often it's a matter of taste, not a matter of who has or hasn't a well-developed sense of humor.
Researching Bluebeard online, I read several reviews by individuals citing many of the above reasons for why they didn't ultimately enjoy the film. Of course, this being the internet, those observations were met with caustic rejoinders citing said reviewer's inability to understand the film's satirical intentions, or claims that the disapproving soul simply took it all too seriously.

Anne attempts to distract Von Sepper with a delicious dessert

I have a tendency to roll my eyes—with a vengeance—any time I hear a filmmaker or movie fan launch into variations of the overworked stock defense, “It’s not Shakespeare for Crissake! It's pure escapism...you're not supposed to take it seriously."
Well, just because something isn't "serious" doesn't mean it can't be deeply offensive. Indeed, when it comes to depictions of violence toward women, cruelty to animals, and a certain casual attitude regarding our culture of oppression; the inability to take any of it seriously can be precisely what lies at the core of its distastefulness.

Many considered a violent scene depicting Burton's character spearheading a fascist pogrom against Austrian Jews to be out of place (or at least poor taste) in a film Dymytrk described as being "Made purely for entertainment"

As comedian Ricky Gervais said (Oh god, I'm quoting Ricky Gervais...and using the word god in the bargain): "Just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right." And on the topic of reacting to potentially incendiary films, maybe I should add to that: Just because you take no offense doesn't instantly imbue you with the benefit of having a more profound understanding of the content. No movie worth its salt doesn't divide audiences.

I think that Bluebeard is a great deal of gaudy, campy fun. A real "only in the '70s" oddity that is definitely worth a look, but for many, it's not even that. In spite of how entertaining I find it to be, I'm aware that it is very much a dated relic of a time when male-centric Hollywood sought to counter the cultural one-two punch of Women's Lib and the sexual revolution with movies that were troublingly anti-woman (Roger Vadim's repellent Pretty Maids All in a Row [1971] being the worst offender).

Richard Burton would go on to embarrass himself onscreen for years to come, his rare, first-rate performances in films like Equus (1977) and 1984 (1984) reminding us just how good he can be when he tries. Meanwhile, Joey Heatherton made a lot of camp film lovers' dreams come true when she appeared as Joe Dallesandro's wife in John Waters' Cry Baby (1990), her last film to date.

So, if you're inspired by this post to give Bluebeard a look, please proceed with caution. 

And be very, very afraid...

BONUS MATERIAL:
See Joey Do Her Thing!
A mouth-watering collection of fantabulous Joey Heatherton variety show clips from the '60s and '70s await you on YouTube.

Joey's Best Performance.
In 1986 Joey Heatherton was acquitted on charges of having assaulted a passport office official. Heatherton should consider the verdict her unofficial Oscar for the absolutely incredible impersonation she does of her accuser. Her entire film career might have taken a totally different turn had she infused her performances with this much character detail. Here.

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2014

CALAMITY JANE 1953

A look at Doris Day’s filmography doesn't exactly yield (at least on the surface) a kaleidoscopic portrait of versatility when it comes to the kind of roles the extremely underrated actress has undertaken throughout her career. From her debut in 1948’s Romance on the High Seas, the studios made it their business to place Day in movies in which audiences were encouraged to partner the sunshiny implications of her alliterative stage name with the homespun effervescence suggested by her strapping good health; freckled, apple cheeks; and pleasantly toothsome smile. This, coupled with Day’s well-scrubbed sex-appeal and soothing, honey-coated voice—–which in spite of its clear-as-a-bell virtuosity, rarely strayed convincingly into the sultry or sensual—helped her to become one of the reigning boxoffice stars of the day (pun not only intended, but shoehorned). It also saddled her with an image of such strenuous and unrelenting wholesomeness, that for years term “Doris Day movie” was a pop-culture punchline signifying a certain brand of clean-cut cinema artificiality.

Famously, director Roman Polanski used the term “Like a Doris Day movie” to describe the disconcertingly sunny look he wanted for the early scenes of Rosemary’s Baby; and only recently I've come to learn of the existence of the slang phrase, “Doris Day parking,” which apparently is the name given to a miraculously open parking space found exactly in front of the point of one’s destination. (An allusion to a familiar movie trope, by no means restricted to Doris Day films, in which characters always seem to find available, convenient parking near, or right in front of, the place they need to be…even in crowded cities.)

The rather tragic particulars of Doris Day’s real life, pooled with her personal values and a loyalty to her sometimes rabidly image-sensitive fanbase, has led Day, throughout her career, to shun some of the darker, more against-type  material offered her (Mike Nichol’s The Graduate, for example) that might have better showcased her range. For example, her fans reacted strongly to Doris smoking and drinking in Love Me or Leave Me, and as late as 1968, when the actress was well into her 40s, some fans bristled when, in her last film, With Six You Get Eggroll, her character—a widow with three children, not the constant virgin she usually played—goes to bed with suitor Brian Keith before they marry.

But Doris Day never set out to be a character actress. She was a star. And if the limitations of her squeaky-clean image and light-as-a-feather roles conspired to create in the public’s mind the impression that she was more a personality than an actress (especially during the “kitchen sink realism” era of the late '50s when her style of films began to fall out of favor), it’s nice to know that the passing of time has ultimately brought about a much-deserved reevaluation of her body of work. A reevaluation which rightfully places Doris Day amongst the most talented of Hollywood’s Golden Age stars.

Doris Day as Calamity Jane (nee Martha Jane Canary)

Howard Keel as Wild Bill Hickok (James Butler Hickok)

Allyn McLerie as Katie Brown

Philip Carey as Lt. Daniel Gilmartin

Calamity Jane, a tuneful, quadrilateral romance fashioned around the highly-fictionalized lives of real-life Old West figures Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok, fools no one in its actually being a blatant, rather bald-faced, carbon copy of  Irving Berlin’s Broadway hit Annie Get Your Gun; a show which Day's studio, Warner Bros., lost the screen rights to in a bidding war with MGM. The 1946 Ethel Merman musical was made into a film in 1950 starring Betty Hutton and Howard Keel, he playing essentially the same role he plays here in Calamity Jane, albeit under a different name.

Dick Wesson as Francis Fryer

Calamity Jane was released to great success in 1953, and were not for the merit it earns on the strength of its own unique gifts, I’m certain its “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” similarities to Annie Get Your Gun would have branded it an embarrassing copycat. I've never read anything about what the creators of Annie Get Your Gun thought of Calamity Jane, but I’m surprised that two such similar products didn't lead to some kind of courtroom shootout at one time or another. That being said, as much as I like Betty Hutton (an acquired taste, to be sure) and think she acquits herself very nicely in a role she had to step into when an ailing Judy Garland was sacked, I much prefer the more modestly-budgeted Calamity Jane to Annie get Your Gun.

Deja Vu All Over Again
Howard Keel's face-off with Doris Day in the number, "I Can Do Without You," is a dead-ringer for Annie get Your Gun's "Anything You Can Do"

A staple of Saturday afternoon TV programming when I was a kid, Calamity Jane is the very first Doris Day movie I ever saw. And, discounting Love Me or Leave Me (1955) which features Day giving a standalone, powerhouse dramatic performance, Calamity Jane is perhaps my favorite of all of her films. Absolutely nothing else I've ever seen her in has matched Calamity Jane for flat-out, lift my spirits, always-puts-a-smile-on-my-face, double-barreled (to use the vernacular of the trailer) enjoyment.

Made at a time when original movie musicals were fast being replaced by adaptations of Broadway shows, Calamity Jane is, at 101 minutes, a brisk and snappy far cry from the butt-busting  roadshow behemoths that musicals would become in later years, and is an example of the Hollywood musical at its entertaining and unpretentious, best. (Historical and artistic merit notwithstanding, I've never been too enthusiastic about the arty self-seriousness that overtook the movie musical in the post-Agnes de Mille/An American in Paris years).

Gale Robbins appears briefly as sagebrush songbird, Adelaid Adams

As befitting the time, the genre, and the film’s featherlight approach, Doris Day gives a performance that is oversized, but never overdone. Liberated from having to be all sweetness and light, Day is allowed to give full vent to the tomboyish, outdoorsy quality (read: butch) that has always lurked beneath even her most glamorous screen appearances. Calamity Jane gives us a Doris Day at her most rambunctiously appealing, and, in being given lively support by a score of catchy songs by the Oscar-winning team of Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster (Love is a Many Splendored Thing), Calamity Jane ranks among a short roster of films I think provide near-ideal showcases for a particular star’s talents and strengths. A list which includes: Meet Me in St Louis for Judy Garland, Singin’ in the Rain for Gene Kelly, Funny Girl for Barbra Streisand, The Unsinkable Molly Brown for Debbie Reynolds, Mary Poppins for Julie Andrews, and Cabaret for Liza Minnelli. 

Doris Day croons the Oscar-winning song, "Secret Love"
Thanks to its gleefully butch heroine and subversively playful preoccupation with gender-normative behavior, Calamity Jane has grown into something of a Queer Cinema cult-favorite over the years. All that repressed, '50s-era skirting the issues of sex and gender allows for the contemporary attribution of gay-coding subtext  to the mismatched romances at the center of the plot. For years, "Secret Love" has been regarded as something of a gay anthem, with pop singer k.d. lang recording a rendition to play over the closing credits of the 1995 documentary, The Celluloid Closet.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS MOVIE

I’m not sure when it happened, but of late it has become a subtly dismissive form of insult to label anything as fun or purely entertaining. Crowd-pleasing pop stars Madonna and Lady Gaga became crashing bores after they stopped making infectious dance music and took up the mantle of serious artiste; likewise, Jerry Lewis ceased being even remotely funny (and he wasn't all that funny to begin with) once he and the French came to a meeting of the minds regarding his genius status.
Pretentiousness and self-seriousness has killed a lot of what is lively about the lively arts, so when a film like Calamity Jane comes along, devoted as it is to providing its audience with a rollicking good time and plenty of toe-tapping music, it is by no means a minor statement to assert my fondness for this film chiefly because it succeeds in being such a cheerful and thoroughly captivating entertainment.

The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away)
You'll have to look hard to find a sprightlier opening sequence for a movie musical than this bouncy, marvelously economical little ditty that gets across a staggering amount of expositional information while showing off Doris Day as a consummate musical performer. Her energy and charm is totally winning. And just check out how effortlessly she glides through Jack Donahue's athletic choreography and manages the timing of all those props!

The list of what works in Calamity Jane extends to the music (joyous, not a clunker in the bunch), performances (sharp as a tack), and pacing (glides along at a clip). But Calamity Jane starts out way ahead of the game by merely avoiding a few Musical 101 pitfalls which trip up filmmakers to this day:
Hire actors who can sing and dance
Seems a no-brainer, but after the mid-'60s, Hollywood adhered to a perverse prerequisite of ONLY making musicals with individuals devoid of musical skill of any kind (see: Camelot, Man of LaMancha, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Paint Your Wagon, Lost Horizon).
Give songs a melody
I’m not calling for nursery rhymes or jungles, but hummable tunes of the sort that made the songs from The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins ones children remembered and wanted to sing along with. Too many musicals today are hamstrung by atonal, over-sophisticated melodies songs designed to either earn the composer a spot on the Billboard charts ("Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas), or land the composer an Oscar nomination. The latter often resulting in songs so lacking in distinction, they could be inserted into any number of films with no loss of relevance (pretty much everything written by Randy Newman).
Entertain
I don't mean keep it light or frothy; I simply mean keep in mind that things like pacing, good humor, and energy go a long way with audiences. When Vincente Minnelli excised each and every uptempo song from his film adaptation of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, one had to wonder, was it his express purpose for audiences not to have a good time?

Above: Character actor Dick Wesson's reluctant drag number, "Hive Full of Honey," is a comic highlight in Calamity Jane. Below: Wesson in drag again, fifteen years later in an episode of That Girl with Marlo Thomas.

PERFORMANCES

The price of being a Doris Day fan is having to resign oneself to the fact that only occasionally do her films measure up to her talent. Calamity Jane is such an occasion. Always a fine singer and actress, what’s impressive about Day in Calamity Jane is the sheer athleticism of her performance. Leaping about in form-fitting buckskin (which makes her resemble William Katt in Butch & Sundance: The Early Days) she displays a boisterous physicality that perfectly matches her full-throated brand of singing. A particular jaw-dropper is when she's singing while sitting crossing-legged on the bar, then raises herself to he feet by pushing off of her ankles. Amazing!

My partner and I take particular pleasure in poking fun at Calamity Jane's over-emphatic, inconsistent western dialect; which consists of terms like "cigar-reets" and "sarsparilly," yet accommodates words like "malign." And don't get me started on her adjective/verb/noun formula for insults: "You mangy pack of dirt-scratchin' beetles!"

Growing up, strikingly handsome Philip Carey was more familiar to me as Granny Goose—the cowboy spokesman in a series of popular TV commercials for the potato chip company in the '60s. But it was several years before I came to associate Calamity Jane's Katie Brown, engaging comedienne/singer/dancer Allyn McLerie, with Red Button's sardonic marathon dance partner in They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, or as Tony Randall's comically stern secretary, Miss Ruebner, on his eponymous 1976 sitcom.

On the topic of the natural beauty of the Dakota Black Hills, Calamity Jane inadvertently proves that a lack of education  (ignorance) has always played a big part in Manifest Destiny and the legacy of entitlement. I saw Calamity Jane at a revival  theater once where I'm happy to say this exchange was met with a deafening chorus of "boos" from the audience

Howard Keel (who always seems to be on the losing end of a battle in trying to navigate his lips over his gorgeous but sizable teeth [caps?]) makes for a very appealing co-star. As was the case with Annie Get Your Gun, he has the curious ability of making chauvinism look charming.


THE STUFF OF DREAMS
It’s easy to see how Calamity Jane gained a reputation as a paean to gender independence and a coded, gay-identity musical viewed through the prism of '50s repression. The amount of time the film invests in comedy centered on identity, drag, and gender role reversal is certainly intentional, as are the gender-normative romantic complications that don’t quite gel: tomboyish Calamity is in love with hyper-masculine Lt. Gilmartin, who has eyes for ultra-femme Katie Brown. Calamity’s best buddy, Bill Hickok, relentlessly teases Calamity about her lack of womanly virtues, and he too is smitten with the girlish Katie. But the overall (unintentional) impression it leaves is that it is a film about the oppressiveness of traditional gender roles, and that the day-to-day "drag" of feminine clothes and masculine clothes doesn't define how much a woman is a woman and a man is a man.

Hickok has to appear in public in female Native-American costume as a form of shaming

Calamity Jane doesn’t know it, but it sets up a “Born This Way” dynamic with Calamity’s character. She is happiest and most at ease when she is just being herself (the only person she knows how to be) and the fact that her natural way of living is labeled “masculine” comes as news to her…she’s just being Calamity. In fact, it’s not until she visits “Chicagy” and gets a dose of the crossed messages her demeanor and mode of dress elicit (women flirt with her, men regard her as either an unsophisticated male or female curiosity), that it evens dawns on her that there is a different way for a woman to be.

Wannabe showgirl/full-time maid Katie Brown returns to Deadwood with Calamity, becoming her roommate once landing a job at the local saloon. And if the cohabitating pair are revealed to share a livelier and more palpable chemistry than what has thus far been exhibited by either of the women with their rather stolid male love interests; that fact has nothing to do with what the film is intentionally trying to convey, and everything to do with the natural, unforced butch/femme synergy Doris Day and Allyn McLerie.

Female duets are rare in musicals, and McLerie and Day shine in the marvelous, "A Woman's Touch"

Sure, Doris Day arguably looks “better” to our glamour-trained eyes after she gets her feminine makeover, but Calamity never again appears as carefree or seems to have as much fun as she did in the earlier part of the film. The otherwise playful film suddenly gets all misty-eyed and slow, as if both Calamity and the movie itself are reined in by her corset.

In the end, heterosexual love wins out and the gender roles realign, but I don’t think it takes a Queer Eye to see that the two lantern-jawed males make a more appropriate-looking pair, just as the duo of Katie and Calamity look made for each other.

Seriously, who wouldn't have wanted to see these two hook-up?

Calamity Jane predates Some Like it Hot by five years, but both films, in poking fun at sex, cross-dressing, and gender roles, manages to unintentionally—through the adherence to the standardized cultural norms of the day—make revealing (and subtly subversive) statements about the liberating aspects of not always having to conform to society's rules of accepted gender behavior.

Bonus Material
In 1963, Carol Burnett starred in a TV adaptation of Calamity Jane. See a clip HERE.

Philip Carey in a Granny Goose Potato Chips commercial  HERE 

In 1963 Doris Day teamed with Robert Goulet for a studio album of songs from Annie Get Your Gun. Listen to their duet "Anything You Can Do" HERE

Hear Gil Peterson sing an ersatz rock & roll rendition of "Secret Love" in The Cool Ones  HERE

Copyright © Ken Anderson