Sassmouthdames

Paris Model (1953) isn't the best of Eva Gabor's pictures, but it has a delightful spoof of her older sister, Zsa Zsa, and is a true gem. Eva Gabor stars in the best of four stories about the fortunes of one dress in the lives of different women. Eva had years of studio system training before she developed serious acting ambition for the stage. She should be better known if not for her family name, for her dedication to the craft and a writerly memoir.

Dancing was often used as a stand-in for sex on the big screen, as it was for Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, but when Carole Lombard and George Raft move to Ravel, it *is* sex on the dance floor. Their ecstasy makes Bolero (1934) the filthiest pre-Code on record. Sally Rand performs her famous fan dance to add to the lusty flavour of the picture. Ray Milland appears in his first film with Paramount.

An executive in Universal studio turned down Yvonne De Carlo's request for the part of the waitress in A Double Life. He explained the way the system worked--Yvonne was rock candy, not dipped chocolates. They wanted to keep her in the stuff that sold and sold. Robert Siodmak felt otherwise and fought to keep her in the role for Criss Cross that producer Mark Hellinger had promised her before his tragic death. Siodmak doesn't ask Yvonne to play rock candy or a paint by numbers noir dame. In this picture, she proves she was a great actress--and wasted in those sand and sandals pictures.

Zsa Zsa Gabor belongs to a legacy of modern wit from sass mouth dames such as Anita Loos, Dorothy Parker, Mae West, and Tallulah Bankhead. She argued for a career--that there was more to life than just being a wife--three years before Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. By her third picture, Moulin Rouge, Zsa Zsa became a star. She is uncorked champagne, bubbly and vivacious. And she steals everything but the camera.

Dolores del Rio choreographs a plot for revenge against Pat O'Brien with as much style as she exhibits in a Busby Berkeley dance number. In Caliente (1935) has a steady 'soak the rich' theme, along with a woman's thirst for revenge. Add in a superb cast and amazing white gowns from Orry-Kelly, the picture is as soothing as a day by the pool.

Carole Landis referred to her role in Turnabout (1940) as the only time she had 'more than an even chance to demonstrate ability rather than matter'. In a screwball picture where husband and wife swap bodies, Carole moves differently and takes up space. Carole's performance makes a farce of the decorous feminine ideal. Joseph Breen and the Legion of Decency gave Hal Roach so much grief over the production that the studio nearly shut down for good.

Film historians often point out that 1946 was a record year at the box office. Producer Joan Harrison offered to remind the moguls and audiences that Hollywood was still a woman's town after the men returned from the war. Nocturne is jammed with women who make the dream factory run. In one scene after another, George Raft talks to a collection of sass mouth dames who put him on notice during his murder investigation. Lynn Bari might be as hardboiled as they come, but she's no film noir cardboard cut out. She gets the best lines and the best of George Raft.

Although many critics dismiss A Woman's Secret (1949) as a misfire in the Ray canon, it gives viewers something we don't see often enough on the big screen--an intense relationship between two women that men find inscrutable. The coded affair between Maureen O'Hara and Gloria Grahame sours and ends up with a shot fired. Unfortunately, production was distracted by the drama of Howard Hughes's takeover bid for RKO, which resulted in a delayed release at the box office.

My guest for this episode is Matt Harris, archivist and fellow Joan Crawford obsessive. Matt raises questions about camp, stardom, and how fans engage with a star's legacy. My biggest preoccupation in the film is with the Erik Guide Haupt portrait of Joan from 1931 that appears throughout the picture. Joan Crawford stands in front of it to remind the audience that she's the real work of art.

Before she became the first woman television mogul, Lucille Ball was queen of the 'B' pictures in RKO studio. Beauty for the Asking might have a low budget, but it carries a far more subversive message than many prestigious 'A' pictures. Loosely based on the life of Helena Rubenstein, it shows how Lucy moves from beauty operator to a business magnate once she invents a cold cream. Just imagine what The Women (1939) would have been like had Mary Haines and Crystal Allen joined forces and showed Stephen the door. That's what we find here in this little gem.

As part of the 'unholy trio' of gossip columnists, including Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, Sheilah Graham wrote juicy articles about the stars during the golden age of Hollywood. In 1937, she began a passionate affair with F Scott Fitzgerald that lasted until the author's death in 1940. The film version, based on Sheilah's bestselling memoir, gives us a glossy romance, rather than the reality of Scott's addiction. Deborah Kerr gives a lush performance as the columnist. Gregory Peck gets to the heart of why Sheilah fell for him, and why she stayed, despite his epic benders.

Whether in a rubbish heap or grey industrial horizon of the Panama Canal, love blooms wherever Carole Lombard shines her blonde halo. Carole plays Maggie King, a nightclub singer who poses as a beauty operator for free passage to California. When she meets a soldier on his last day in the Army, she falls for him like a ship's anchor. Swing High, Swing Low balances screwball and melodrama better than any other picture, and arguably, Lombard gives her best performance. Maggie King makes a star out of a mug, played by Fred MacMurray. And what does he do to thank her? He forgets about her the minute it happens.

After Gypsy Rose Lee finished the biggest show of her career for the 1940 World's Fair, she decided to finally write that novel she had in mind--a murder mystery set in a Burly-Q theatre. Gypsy's book, The G-String Murders, became a massive bestseller. It was adapted to the screen with Barbara Stanwyck playing Gypsy's role, renamed 'Dixie' to appease the scolds in the production code office. The result is an epic sass mouth dames crossover. The backstage dialogue is bawdy, deliciously bitchy, and a tribute to hard working dames who always made the curtain.

Not since Joan Blondell vowed that she knew all the answers and the only thing worthwhile was dough have we seen a more vital queen of the rackets than June Havoc in The Story of Molly X (1949). Molly takes over a crime syndicate. She plans the heists, hires the muscle, and even joins them for the safe cracking. June Havoc was a performer from the age of two and grew up as a headliner in the vaudeville circuit. And boy could June write. I close the episode with a scene from her memoir about her first dance marathon, which lasted for four months. She's the definition of trouper.

In her best picture from the 1930s, Joan Crawford absorbs slings and arrows from men. Men call her cheap, a chiseller, a tramp. She's abandoned on her wedding day. Punched in the face by a drunk husband. But with the help of Jean Dixon, who plays a hardboiled dame, Joan's Sadie fortifies herself with courage and exquisite style. I live inside the scene set in the Automat, where Joan conceals her desperation with great style. Sadie McKee (1934) has everything a woman's picture needs.

The subtext of Virginia Van Upp’s script asks what kind of a society forbids ex-cons to fall in love and marry? Sylvia Sidney paid her debt to society, then risks her freedom for marriage with George Raft. Both are employed at a busy department store owned by a man who thinks good works mean more than a donation to the community chest. Once Raft learns that his wife was a jailbird, his double standards stink worse than clams at low tide. Who could give out to Sylvia Sidney, who has a face like a Valentine, heart-shaped with bow lips?

Instead of going for an obvious three-hanky approach for a story about a single mother out of work at Christmas, screenwriter Norman Krasna gift wraps a screwball delight. Ginger Rogers was riding high at the box office in a series of hits for RKO. Bachelor Mother proved that Ginger’s comic timing was as steady and accomplished as her foxtrot or carioca. As a shop girl with a sass mouth, she shows a man that he doesn’t know half as much as he thinks.

Among the stars of woman's pictures, Irene Dunne was arguably the most scandal-proof, even when she lived apart from her husband during the first six years of her career in Hollywood. But Irene often played women who were carried away by passion. During a transatlantic voyage, her character meets Charles Boyer, a man whose romantic conquests dominate international news. Irene shakes up the great lover's flirt game with some quality sass mouth. Boyer is the ultimate swoon merchant, a man who starts out with pick up lines, yet in time, transformed by love, wants nothing more than to be worthy of her. Love Affair remains a standout because of its fearless embrace of love, faith, and pure emotion.

Mary Astor plays an American living alone in Italy. She embodies the fantasy Bette Davis had in Now, Voyager to 'live alone in single blessedness'. A chance encounter with an American businessman (Walter Huston) leads to a surprise romance. The hardship her character endured onscreen paled in comparison with the real drama in Mary Astor's life. After filming all day, she spent the evenings in a courtroom locked in a vicious custody battle. Astor's ex-husband attempted to sway the ruling in his favour by feeding excerpts from Mary's diary to the press. You can imagine the media frenzy at the news that Mary kept a scorecard which ranked the sexual performance of Hollywood's top leading men. The episode closes with a brief passage from Astor's memoir.

If stories about glamorous women who destroy men make your heart gladsome, Ruby Gentry will be your queen. Sure, she's sexually obsessed with Charlton Heston, but she's also willing to ruin him for being a grubby developer who pumps chemicals into the land, She's the hero we need these days. Ruby survives the men who wanted to control her, just like Jennifer Jones survived the controlling men in Hollywood.