Wonderland Burlesque: Wonderland Burlesque's Let's All Go To The Movies: She's A Lady!

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Wonderland Burlesque's Let's All Go To The Movies: She's A Lady! - Part XXV

Wonderland Burlesque's

Let's All Go To The Movies

She's A Lady!

Part XXV

Yes, sometimes? It takes a lady.

And sometimes that lady doesn't necessarily comply willingly!

Or so these films would have us believe.

They promise lots of drama, the occasional comedy or musical, and a little bit of dirt!

Let's take a walk down Hollywood Blvd. and shine a light on these magnificent classic films.

This way, if you please. But remember...

Ladies first!

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Satan Met A Lady

(1936)

Sardonic detective Shane is looking for a place to set up shop after being thrown out of town for causing trouble. He sets his sights on his ex-partner's troubled detective agency in a neighboring town. Fortunately, on the train there, Shane meets an old lady who has a quest (and a commission) for him, so he is welcomed with open arms. The next day, pretty Valerie Purvis walks in willing to pay to put a tail on the man who did her wrong, But then things start to sour. Shane's partner is found murdered, and Shane himself comes home to find his apartment ransacked. The gentlemanly crook responsible returns to apologize and to tell Shane a fascinating tale about the fabled Horn of Roland. As Shande tries to make sense of it all, Miss Purvis wants protection, the police want answers and all sorts of people want the 'French horn'! Can Shane stay one jump ahead of it all?

This American detective film was directed by William Dieterle and stars Bette Davis and Warren William.

Apparently, the third time is the charm! This is a remake of The Maltese Falcon (1931), with the character of Sam Spade renamed Ted Shane, while the falcon becomes a ram's horn filled with jewels. Warner Brothers, who had bought the rights to Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel, would remake it a third time: The Maltese Falcon (1941) - the latter being the most famous version of all.

Filming began on December 1, 1935, although leading lady Bette Davis, upset that she was being forced to film "junk", failed to report to the set. "I was so distressed by the whole tone of the script and the vapidity of my part that I marched up to Mr. Warner's office and demanded that I be given work that was commensurate with my proven ability," she recalled in her autobiography. "I was promised wonderful things if only I would do this film." She complained directly to Jack L. Warner and was promptly put on suspension. But, after three days, and needing the money to support her mother and sister as well as herself, Bette reported to work.

After the film wrapped, Davis stole away to London, having been placed on suspension, yet again, for refusing to portray a lumberjack in God's Country and the Woman. In later years, she recalled insisting "I won't do it! Satan Met a Lady was bad enough, but this is absolute tripe."

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times called the film "a cynical farce of elaborate and sustained cheapness" that "deserves to be quoted as a classic of dullness". He observed: "Without taking sides in a controversy of such titanic proportions, it is no more than gallantry to observe that if Bette Davis had not effectually espoused her own cause against the Warners recently by quitting her job, the Federal Government eventually would have had to step in and do something about her. After viewing Satan Met a Lady... all thinking people must acknowledge that a Bette Davis Reclamation Project (BDRP) to prevent the waste of this gifted lady's talents would not be a too-drastic addition to our various programs for the conservation of natural resources." He concluded, "So disconnected and lunatic are the picture's incidents, so irrelevant and monstrous its people, that one lives through it in constant expectation of seeing a group of uniformed individuals appear suddenly from behind the furniture and take the entire cast into protective custody. There is no story, merely a farrago of nonsense representing a series of practical studio compromises with an unworkable script. It is the kind of mistake over which the considerate and discreet thing is to draw the veil of silence."

Bette Davis frequently referred to this as the worst movie she ever made.

Bette Davis and Warren William

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Make Way For A Lady

(1936)

Pulp novelist Valerie Broughton moves close to her publisher, Christopher Drew, and gives him her latest novel, titled Our Story. She explains that it means only that she couldn't have written it without his help. But when Drew's daughter, June, reads the book and sees the inscription, she jumps to the conclusion that her father is the man and Valerie the woman in her story of unrequited love. Further, she overhears her friend's mother say that Drew would get married if it weren't for his devotion to June. So June resolves to bring Valerie and her father together, not knowing that her father feels Valerie is too pushy, and that he's much more fond of June's English teacher, Eleanor Emerson. In fact, he's even proposed marriage to her! June continues to meddle, only to find out the truth of Valerie's story. With that, she collapse on her bed, in tears, but soon dreams up a scheme to put it all right.

This American romantic comedy/drama was directed by David Burton and stars Herbert Marshall, Anne Shirley, Gertrude Michael and Margot Grahame.

Margot Grahame was an English actress most noted for starring in The Informer (1935) and The Three Musketeers (1935). Educated in South Africa, she made her screen debut in 1930. Hollywood came calling, impressed that, in Europe, she'd made 42 films in three years! She was signed to a long-term contract with RKO. She made her last screen appearance in 1958.

Grahame married twice. She moved into a home in the Hollywood Hills after her separation from British actor Francis Lister in 1935. She then married Canadian millionaire Allen McMartin in 1938. They divorced in 1946. In 1948, Grahame began a relationship with the British literary agent A. D. Peters that continued until his death in 1973.

Margot Grahame and Ann Shirley

In her later years, Grahame was reportedly "full of bitter regret and resentment" at, amongst other things, the fact that Peters had never married her. She frequently complained that she was "bloated" and had her hair colored, in her own words, "'red as flaming fires of hell'". Her housekeeper at the time of her death was Lily (née Budge), wife of the impoverished 13th Earl of Galloway. Grahame died in London on New Year's Day of 1982, aged 70, from chronic bronchitis. She had no survivors and was cremated.

Margot Grahame

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The Lone Wolf Meets A Lady

(1940)

A hardworking secretary for a rich woman is engaged to the woman's son and then finds herself accused of a murder she didn't commit. Lanyard, the Lone Wolf, and Jamison set out to find the real killer.

This American drama was directed by Sidney Salkow and stars Warren William, Eric Blore and Jean Muir.

The Lone Wolf character dates back to 1914, when author Louis Joseph Vance invented him for a series of books, later adapted for twenty-four Lone Wolf films (1917–1949). Warren Williams starred in nine of the films (1939–1943), with The Lone Wolf Meets a Lady being his third such picture.

The film also introduces a sidekick for Lanyard, his bumbling valet Jamison, played by Eric Blore. Blore would play Jamison in seven more films.

In February 1940 the MPAA/PCA informed Columbia that a number of changes in the script were necessary before the film could receive certification. Among the many demands by the PCA were that the "radio announcer must not be characterized, in any way, as a pansy"; that the drinking in the film must be "held to an absolute minimum"; that all hiccupping be eliminated; that the "business of Pete slapping and cuffing Joan" be eliminated; that the film not reveal the details of the crime; and that there be "no showing of panties or other particularly intimate garments."

Warren William and Jean Muir

This film can be viewed in its entirety for free on YouTube!

Jean Muir

Jean Muir was an American stage and film actress and educator. She was the first performer to be blacklisted after her name appeared in the anti-Communist 1950 pamphlet Red Channels.

Muir's Broadway debut came in The Truth Game (1930) at age 19. She was signed by Warner Bros. in 1933 and made 14 films in her first three years there. She played opposite several famous actors including Warren William, Paul Muni, Richard Barthelmess and Franchot Tone, but she returned to Broadway in 1937 because she was unsatisfied with her film roles. Muir invoked the disfavor of studio executives because of her involvement in formation of the Screen Actors Guild, her tendency to question the way the film business operated, and her resistance to posing for publicity photographs.

In 1950, Muir was named as a Communist sympathizer by the notorious pamphlet Red Channels, and immediately removed from the cast of the television sitcom The Aldrich Family, in which she had been cast as Mrs. Aldrich. NBC had received between 20 and 30 phone calls protesting her being in the show. General Foods, the sponsor, said that it would not sponsor programs in which "controversial persons" were featured. Though the company later received thousands of calls protesting the decision, it was not reversed.

On December 20, 1940, Muir married entertainment attorney / television producer, Henry Jaffe in New York. They had three children. She went on to teach drama at two universities. In the mid-1950s she reportedly suffered from alcoholism and cirrhosis of the liver.

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Sandy Is A Lady

(1940)

The Phillips Family (Joe, Mary, and Baby Sandy) invite Joe's boss and a city official over for dinner in order to secure a pay raise. While Joe is off trying to get the city to accept a bid to build a bridge, Mary must gather the items necessary for an impressive dinner. Needing her hands free, she leaves Baby Sandy with the next door neighbor, an out of work construction foreman. When an inventor friend of his stops by with a parachute for construction workers, the two decide to go pitch the idea to the construction company Joe works for, leaving Sandy in the care of two street performers. Baby Sandy quickly loses interest in street performing and crawls into a nearby restaurant where she witnesses the owner being shook down for protection money by a pair of mobsters. When the owner orders the gangsters to leave, they place a bomb in the cloak room. Baby Sandy is left in the care of the cloakroom girl, who notifies the police about the lost baby. In the chaos which ensues once the bomb is discovered, Baby Sandy crawls away and climbs into a garbage truck. Meanwhile, the owner of the construction company Joe works for is approached for money by his shiftless nephew and wife who claim it is for a son they do not have. Joe's boss agrees to meet them at the restaurant for lunch. After driving around the city in the garbage truck, Baby Sandy is returned to the restaurant, where the shiftless nephew claims her as his child. When the boss meets Baby Sandy, he is quite taken with 'the boy'. He agrees to give the pair the money they need, but only if they allow him to raise 'the boy'. They agree. The boss then takes Baby Sandy to a nearby construction site where he is distracted by the inventor and former foreman regarding their parachute for construction workers. Baby Sandy crawls into an elevator headed skyward. When the boss attempts to rescue Sandy, he slips and falls from a girder - but never fear! The parachute saves his life - thus proving its value and the boss buys the idea from the inventor on the spot.. The former foreman then recognizes Baby Sandy as the next door neighbor's little girl he was supposed to look after, but the boss insists it's his nephew's son. They make a wager - if the child is a girl, then the foreman will gain lifetime employment at the construction company. To settle the argument, the police are called and an officer is to take Baby Sandy to the local precinct. However, the officer gets caught up chasing the mobsters who had planted the bomb at the restaurant, and in the excitement Baby Sandy crawls away. She is found by the street performers, who take her to her home. That night, Joe loses his pay raise when the city official claims he submitted the highest bid. But Baby Sandy comes to the rescue, revealing documents in the officials pocket that prove Joe submitted the lowest bid. The company wins the contract to build the bridge and Joe gets his raise!

Released on May 21, 1940, by Universal Pictures, this American comedy was directed by Charles Lamont and stars Baby Sandy, Billy Lenhart, Kenneth Brown, Eugene Pallette, Nan Grey, Tom Brown, Mischa Auer, Billy Gilbert and Edgar Kennedy.

Although Universal initially cast John Sutton, he was replaced by Tom Brown.

Nan Grey, Baby Sandy, and Tom Brown

Baby Sandy (real name Sandra Lea Henville),is a former American child film actress. Henville was born, prematurely, in hospital in Los Angeles, California. She performed in her first film at the age of 15 months. She was considered "Universal Pictures' wonder baby" and their answer to Shirley Temple. She appeared in a total of eight pictures. Her last film was before her fifth birthday, made for a second rank studio, Republic Pictures. She grew up and worked in the legal department of a local government. She married and divorced twice, and had two sons.

Baby Sandy

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The Captain Is A Lady

(1940)

Because of a bad investment, Captain and Mrs. Peabody are evicted from their home. Mrs. Peabody finds lodging at a retirement home, but, since only single women are allowed, the Captain has to make other arrangements. However, after witnessing their tearful goodbye, the home's residents vote to allow the couple to move in together. The Captain is a reluctant lodger, uncomfortable at being surrounded by so much femininity, and bristles when his pals start referring to him as 'Old Lady'.

Adapted from the play by Rachel Crothers, this American comedy film directed by Robert B. Sinclair and stars Charles Coburn, Beulah Bondi, Virginia Grey, Helen Broderick, Billie Burke and Dan Dailey.

This supposed 'B' film features a truly remarkable supporting cast - Marjorie Main, Beulah Bondi, Virginia Grey, Helen Broderick, Billy Burke, Cecil Cunningham and Helen Westley.