Wonderland Burlesque's
Let's Go To The Movies:
All That Is Gay Edition- Part 1 of 6
Well, as I am like to do, this month is Gay Pride Month - and I had planned to do these posts to honor that celebration - but due to timing, and the previous series of posts running long, it's now the last week of the month and I'm just getting started on this. Oh, well... it's not like gay pride is only for a month. No, it's a lifelong thing. So, let's keep celebrating!
This week Hollywood goes all gay with a decidedly female perspective. Yes, most of these films are gay in name only, but... isn't it it the thought that counts?
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The Gay Bride
(1934)
A real gangster happens to be the producer of the show in which a beautiful actress is appearing. She marries him even though she can't stand the man, knowing that in his line of work he may not be around for long. She's right. Amidst the comedy, love and death ensues.
Based on the novel Repeal by Charles Francis Coe, which was originally serialized in the Saturday Evening Post, this gangster/screwball comedy was directed by Jack Conway and stars Carole Lombard and Chester Morris.
This was originally a vehicle for Jean Harlow and Clark Gable. Other actors considered for the male lead were Lyle Talbot, Ricardo Cortez, Russell Hardie, and Richard Arlen. Una Merkel and Isabel Jewell were considered for the role played by ZaSu Pitts.
This was one of Lombard's least favorite of her films. Chester Morris also felt that the movie was a "turkey." It's all the fault of the newly enforced Production Code, which scrubbed the script beyond recognition, and dulled its comedy. Had it been filmed nine months earlier, it would have been a completely different film.
Carole Lombard
The enchanting Carole Lombard made a name for herself playing energetic, often off-beat women in screwball comedies. She began her film career at the age of 12, and it almost came to an end when, at the age of 19, a shattered windshield resulted in a scar on her face. She overcame it, appearing in a dozen Mack Sennett comedies. Her first marriage, to actor William Powell, improved her profile in Hollywood, though their union ended amicably after only two years. She then starred in a string of screwball comedies - receiving an Oscar nomination for best actress for her work in My Man Godfrey. Her marriage to Clark Gable gave her career an additional boost, and for a time. As part of Hollywood's first super-couple, she became obsessed with winning an Oscar. However, her career was cut short when she died at the age of 33 aboard TWA Flight 3, which crashed on Mount Potosi, Nevada, while returning from a war bond tour.
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It Was A Gay Ballnight
(1939)
AKA: The Life And Loves Of Tchaikovsky, It Was a Lovely Night At The Ball
(In 1865, a wealthy woman goes to a ball in Moscow where she runs into Tchaikovsky, her first and only love. Now married to a wealthy industrialist she does not love, the woman has never gotten over Piotr Illich, whose musical genius remains undiscovered. Though she is married and he is engaged to a dancer, their feelings for one another are instantly rekindled. Unable to leave her husband, she decides to secretly financially sponsor the young composer - a fact Tchaikovsky will only learn of many years later. When life conspires to set the woman free, she seeks out the composer - but it is too late, for Tchaikovsky is dying of cholera and she only has time to close his eyes.)
(This German historical drama was directed by Carl Froelich and stars Zarah Leander, Aribert Wäscher and Hans Stüwe.)
(Leander's character is very loosely based on Nadeschda Filaretowna von Meck, a friend of Tchaikovsky who was never his romantic partner. Throughout his career, she provided financial support. In kind, Tchaikovsky wrote music for her. She would die a few months after Tchaikovsky in January 1894.)
(Even though Tchaikovsky's homosexuality is a matter of historical record, this film portrays him caught up in a love triangle with two women.)
(The film was a box office hit when first released in Germany, but banned due to its positive portrayal of Russia and Russian culture once Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.)
Zarah Leander
(Leander was often questioned about her years in Nazi Germany. Though she would willingly talk about her past, she strongly rejected allegations of having sympathy for the Nazi regime. She claimed that her position as a German film actress had merely been that of an entertainer working to please an enthusiastic audience during a difficult time.)
Zarah Leander
(However, in an interview recorded shortly before his death in 1996, the senior Soviet intelligence officer Pavel Sudoplatov claimed that Leander had in fact been a Soviet agent with the codename 'Stina-Rose'. Recruited by the Soviet Union before the outbreak of war, she was said to have refused payment for her work because she was a secret member of the Swedish Communist Party and therefore conducted the work for political reasons. Leander staunchly denied this allegation.)
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The Gay Sisters
(1942)
(After their mother dies on the Lusitania and their father is killed in France, three sisters must manage their Fifth Avenue mansion by themselves. One marries a man in order to get an inheritance, and when he begins a campaign to obtain the mansion to level it for real-estate development; she and her sisters fight him tooth and nail.)
(Based on a novel by Stephen Longstreet, this drama was directed by Irving Rapper, and stars Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Donald Crisp, Gig Young and Nancy Coleman.)
(When Warner Bros bought the film rights to the novel for $35K, it was intended as a vehicle for Bette Davis. Mary Astor was considered for the role of Evelyn, one of the sisters, but Davis objected, feeling Astor, who subsequently assigned to The Maltese Falcon, too old for the part. Davis, who was tired of playing hard, bitter women - qualities she felt were too similar to her role in The Little Foxes - sent a memo to Jack L. Warner, saying, "I do wish you'd give 'The Gay Sisters' to someone else." She got her wish and was eventually replaced by Barbara Stanwyck.)
(Katharine Hepburn was offered the film, but declined. Then Irene Dunne and MGM's Norma Shearer were under consideration for the lead before Stanwyck was given the role. Nancy Coleman replaced Olivia de Havilland as one of the sisters when de Havilland was put on technical suspension so she could take a vacation.)
(Similarities between the film and the real Vanderbilt family were noted by both critics and the audience, as were similarities between the film's 'Barclay Square Project' and New York's Rockefeller Center.)
(A sequel was planned, reuniting Stanwyck, Coleman and Fitzgerald, but never made.)
(Actor Byron Barr took his film character's name, 'Gig Young', as his new screen name. In initial releases of the film, Young was billed as Byron Barr, his actual name.)
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The Gay Senorita
(1945)
(A property developer is hoping to turn the Mexican section of a California town into a factory site. But love intrudes on his plans when he falls for The Gay Senorita, who causes him to abort his plans, thus saving the Latin American community and their homes.)
(This comedy-drama was directed by Arthur Dreifuss and stars Jinx Falkenburg, Jim Bannon, and Steve Cochran.)
Jinx Falkenburg
(Jinx Falkenburg was a hugely successful model during the first part of her career. While on a photo shoot, she fell through a balcony, landing 30 feet later on top of a table. While recuperating in the hospital, she met fellow patient Al Jolson, who offered her a role in his upcoming Broadway show. Her bit was small, but effective - with fans lining up outside her dressing room after the show every night. She then did a dozen films for Columbia films, mostly B-movies.)
(She married journalist and publicist Tex McCrary in 1945. Known as "Tex and Jinx", the couple pioneered and popularized the talk show format, first on radio and then in the early days of television. They hosted a series of interview shows in the late 1940s and early 1950s that combined celebrity chit-chat with discussions of important topics of the day.)
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The Gay Lady
(1949)
AKA: Trottie True
(A Gay-'90s British music-hall performer has her sights set on moving from rags to riches. She loses her heart to a an honest, kind-hearted balloonist, but continues her upward drive to improve her social status. She settles for Lord Landon Digby who has lots of assets and a very stiff upper lip. She gets a lot of the latter and very little of the former, and decides that her first love. the balloonist, might have been the better choice.)
(Based on a novel by Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon, this British musical comedy was directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and stars Jean Kent, James Donald and Hugh Sinclair.)
(Jean Kent called this her "favorite film. And Harry Waxman was a marvelous cameraman. They weren't good with the music, though. I had a battle about that. We were scheduled to start and I hadn't heard a word about the music, so I rang up whoever was the head of Two Cities. I finally managed to get half the music done and then I had another argument about the first number. It dissolves from the brown-eyed young Trottie to the hazel-eyed big Trotttie, which was hysterical. They wanted me to sing something in schottische. I said, 'It's a very nice number but I come from the music halls and I tell you you cannot use a schottische at this point.' So he changed it to 6/8 time.")
(Kent said she had to prevent the filmmakers from cutting away from her singing, "which they used to be very fond of, in British films. The whole point of somebody singing the song is for the audience in the cinema, not the people in the movie. So I had to devise ways to keep moving all the time so they couldn't get the scissors in, particularly during the Marie Lloyd number in the ballroom scene after I'd become the duchess.")
Jean Kent
(In 1931,Kent started her theatrical career at the age of ten as a dancer. She was eventually signed to Gainsborough Pictures during the Second World War, where she appeared in the lead roles other actresses wouldn't play. "There was a pecking order at Gainsborough. First Margaret (Lockwood), then Pat (Roc) , then Phyllis (Calvert), then me. I was the odds-and-sods girl. I used to mop up the parts that other people didn't want." She made her mark with the movie going public by playing sexually aggressive young woman. At one point, she was the 8th most popular movie actress in the UK.)
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And that's all for now.
Tune in next week...
Same time, same channel.
When I Take My Morning Promenade - Jean Kent
from the motion picture The Gay Lady
