Sassmouthdames

Next time you hear someone blather on about method acting, please remind them that it wasn't all a boy's club. Brando and Jimmy Dean had a lot to learn from Shelley Winters. She gives a bravura performance as a woman in a post-war malaise of self-loathing in My Man and I (1952). Shelley's character Nancy uses men to pay the bar tab. When a decent man comes along (Ricardo Montalban) she snaps 'I'm poison for saps'. An ink-worthy line if there ever was one.

Theresa Harris played supporting roles next to some of the biggest names in woman's pictures: Barbara Stanwyck, Ginger Rogers, Jean Harlow, and Bette Davis. But in The Flame of New Orleans, she steals the picture outright from Marlene Dietrich, without the benefit of elaborate makeup and costumes. Harris's character Clementine speeds the plot forward with a vibrant joie de vivre. Criminally overlooked by Hollywood, left to languish in thankless roles playing a maid, Theresa Harris shines the brightest in Rene Clair's picture.

Best known for being fancied by a gigantic ape, in real life, Fay Wray contended with a beast far worse--her first husband, screenwriter John Monk Saunders. She gave strong performances even when her home life was less than desirable. In Ann Carver's Profession, she plays a hot-shot attorney who routinely lands on the front page. As her career progresses, her on-screen husband (played by Gene Raymond) suffers untold misery because she forgets that he doesn't take sugar in his coffee. I close the episode with a brief passage from Fay Wray's memoir, On the Other Hand: A Life Story.

Only a few months after she signed a contract with Fox Studios, Joan Collins landed the coveted role of Evelyn Nesbit, in a story adapted from a notorious society murder in 1906, which had been billed 'the trial of the century'. Although the picture makes Ray Milland's Stanford White into a paragon of virtue (rather than a serial abuser), The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing reminds viewers that Evelyn Nesbit survived the men who dragged her name through the mud. I share two brief excerpts from Nesbit's memoir 'Prodigal Days' (1934).

After decades of men who couldn’t keep it zipped, tried to cheat her, undermined or underestimated her professionally, Joan Crawford stored enough wattage behind her eyes to illuminate Madison Square Garden. By the time Joan made Female on the Beach in 1955, she developed an intense glare that had more force than the tracking beams of a prison yard on lock down. Joan wields a pair of snow-white eyes so cold that polar bears caught frostbite. Matched with luxuriant brows, strong ridge cheekbones, and a chiselled jawline, Joan Crawford has in real life what the men on Mount Rushmore needed granite and scale to achieve: she is monumental. I finish the episode with a passage from A Portrait of Joan: The Autobiography of Joan Crawford

Between 1940 and 1950, Rosalind Russell made a dozen pictures that explored the challenges for career women. Too many critics view the careerist plots in woman's pictures as terribly dated. In our current era of precarious work and short term contracts, the allure of watching a smart woman tackle problems on the job with finesse and style should not be underestimated. As a literary agent who dabbles in Hollywood casting, Roz learns not to judge a book by its cover. I close the episode with a brief passage from her memoir, Life is a Banquet.

The number and variety of stories collected about Paulette Goddard far exceed the wildest plot of any picture she starred in. Paulette was a siren with a serious business acumen. She parlayed her beauty, charm, and intelligence into a very comfortable living. In her first picture for MGM, the year before the crown jewel of woman's pictures (The Women), she takes a cue from Katharine Hepburn's imperious performance in RKO's gem Stage Door. I close the episode with a brief excerpt from 'Anatomy of a Siren', an essay by Anita Loos.

Soldiers are equipped with helmets, rifles, and uniforms to fight in the trenches in James Whale's picture set during WWI in London. Sass mouth dames such as Mae Clarke's Myra have lipstick, a cloche hat, and an ermine stole to survive the blackouts and shortages. Myra keeps her chin up when a string of bad breaks wear a groove into her tiny attic flat. When she meets an innocent recruit, does she dare hope for a fresh start? Mae Clarke's life story is more dramatic than the plots of her pictures. After the crushing demand of dual studio contracts left her physically and emotionally shattered, she was confined to an asylum against her will, and financially ruined by shady doctors. Mae was a ride or die performer who deserves a greater legacy.

If we look at Otto Preminger's adaptation of Vera Caspary's novel as a woman's picture, instead of film noir, we gain insight about the obstacles in store for a professional woman. Laura Hunt rose from a 17 year-old girl in the steno pool to an advertising executive in only five years. She earned a plum office, stylish New York flat, a home in the country, a glamorous wardrobe, and her own portrait over the mantle. And yet men either want to own her or see her dead. They traipse about her flat like they own the joint. The characters, dialogue, setting, props and the standout score all contribute to an exquisite production

One way to bypass the scolds in the Production Code Administration was to set a picture in the tropics instead of Park Avenue. A dame of nature can have sex on the brain all she wants because she hasn't been indoctrinated into shame and double standards (or what the censors called 'morality'). Dorothy Lamour's star vehicle is an enduring classic woman's picture, because she is self-possessed, and just so happens to be besties with a tiger. I close the episode with an excerpt from Dorothy Lamour's memoir 'My Side of the Road', from 1980.

Before she put her trademark on screwball comedies, Irene Dunne was the queen of melodrama. Irene's Sarah Casanove decides she's had enough of a husband (Nils Asther) who holds her at gunpoint. What saves her in this picture is work. Sarah opens an antique shop and finds purpose. Since this is a Pre-Code, she can take up with a married man (Clive Brook) without any consequences. Irene Dunne showed women in the audience how to absorb the slings and arrows from living in a man's world without losing their wits.

Somehow Parnell (1937) is often included on 'worst ever' film lists, but there's much about this MGM production to recommend. Pearl Quinn (RTE archives) and Celina Murphy (One Fab Day podcast) join me to discuss the picture that Myrna Loy said contained Clark Gable's best romantic performance.

Instead of looking at Joan Fontaine as a noir dame, let's think of her as a post-war Baby Face. Somewhere along the line, Fontaine's character Christabel Caine internalised the mantra 'use men to get the things you want'. Men fall for the sweet looking blonde without second-guessing her true motivation. I wrap it up with a chapter from Fontaine's memoir No Bed of Roses (1978) where she talks about Howard Hughes, her boss at RKO.

This picture boasts a trinity of sass mouth dames: Ruth Chatterton as the star, it was directed by Dorothy Arzner, with a screenplay by Zoe Akins. Chatterton plays a high-stepper who confesses the only man she ever loved was the lawyer who had defended her against public indecency charges, after she danced half-naked in a burlesque. When she winds up married to the lawyer (Clive Brook), it's nothing like the fairy tale she had imagined. Dorothy Arzner made cautionary tales about marriage her business. I close the episode with a brief passage from The Pride of the Peacocks, the novel Ruth Chatterton published in 1954.

Joseph Losey’s creepy noir stars Evelyn Keyes as an unhappy wife who spends every night alone, a captive audience to her husband’s voice on the radio. Losey’s picture blends a thoughtful social critique, which anticipates ‘the problem that has no name’, as well as men who chase material wealth, and the pernicious way the line between entertainment and advertisement is blurred by the media. I close the episode with two chapters from Scarlet O’Hara’s Younger Sister, the juicy bestseller from Evelyn Keyes, where she recalls the time when her boss Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Studio, vowed to make her a star.

Hands Across the Table (1935), strikes the perfect balance of screwball antics and romantic drama between Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray, the first of four pictures they made together. It was a hit that confirmed Carole Lombard’s stardom. This was the first project Ernst Lubitsch supervised in his role as head of production for Paramount Studio. Mitch Leisen directs a gem full of brilliant gags, sets, and costumes. I read a brief interview with Mitch Leisen and Fred MacMurray, included in David Chierichetti’s brilliant mix of biography, criticism, and interview, Mitchell Leisen: Hollywood Director.

For this episode, I'm delighted to welcome Pearl Quinn (an archivist), and Sandra Godkin (a librarian), to talk about the film where Bette Davis plays a small town librarian who safeguards free speech. Bette refuses to fold when the city council full of stuffed shirts orders a book removed from the shelves. This picture offers so many contemporary parallels on issues such as freedom, privacy, scapegoating, and sexism.

By this point in her career, Barbara Stanwyck was such a pro that she could have done the picture blindfolded and still hit every emotional nuance required for the part. Frank Capra was dead right when he called her the greatest emotional actress the screen has known. Watching Stanwyck absorb men's low opinions of her and carry on is devastating. Enmeshed in criminal rackets on one side and married into a snobby blue blood family on the other, it seems as though Stanwyck's character is the only one with a functioning moral compass. Supported by Joel McCrea, Pat O'Brien, Claire Dodd, and C. Aubrey Smith, Gambling Lady showcases Barbara Stanwyck's supreme craft at the close of the Pre-Code era.

Ryan Murphy's show Feud may have created new fans of Joan Crawford's film career, but one episode suggests that Above Suspicion was a bomb that doesn't merit viewing. On the contrary, Joan Crawford, Fred MacMurray, and Conrad Veidt deliver a rock-solid spy caper filled with bawdy comedy and moments of suspense. It may have been the end of Joan's career in MGM after 18 years as a star of the studio, but she sails out on a high note. And two days after she left, Joan started a new contract with Warner Brothers.

Dr Gwenda Young joins me to discuss her study of Clarence Brown's life and work. Often overlooked or dismissed as the consummate MGM company man, Brown had a singular talent for blending artistic flourishes into formula pictures. He also forged innovative techniques that relied upon symbolic images to show the story rather than tell it with wordy dialogue. Young's book illustrates how integral he was in woman's pictures. Clarence Brown coaxed fascinating performances from Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy and many other women. Young's book is an important contribution to film studies. Add it to your collection.