Movie Review: Ziegfeld Girl (1941)

A musical drama, Ziegfeld Girl examines the consequences of sudden fame on the lives of three women thrust into the spotlight.

It's the 1920s, and legendary Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld (who is never seen) is recruiting girls for his next big "Ziegfeld Follies" show. Sheila Regan (Lana Turner) is spotted working as a department store elevator girl. She is in love with her truck driver boyfriend Gil (James Stewart), but anyway joins the show. Young vaudeville performer Susan Gallagher (Judy Garland) is also recruited, although she is reluctant to leave her father Pop (Charles Winninger), a long-time vaudevillian, behind.

Sandra Kolter (Hedy Lamarr) is supporting her husband and classical violinist Franz (Philip Dorn) as he desperately seeks employment when she is offered a role in the Follies. Franz cannot accept his wife wearing skimpy outfits and parading in front of strangers, and leaves her.

The three girls make their debut, and their lives change forever. Sheila attracts the attention of the wealthy Geoffrey Collis (Ian Hunter), and embraces an alcohol-fuelled and lavish but shallow lifestyle, leaving Gil behind. Her brother Jerry (Jackie Cooper) befriends Susan, who has to adapt her singing style to appeal to more sophisticated audiences. And Sandra starts a relationship with the show's lead singer Frank Merton (Tony Martin), although they are both married.

Ziegfeld does not appear in a movie carrying his name, the black and white cinematography takes away from the spectacle, the running time of 132 minutes is too long, the sappy melodrama sometimes drips off the screen and some of the song-and-dance numbers include recycled footage from The Great Ziegfeld (1936).

And yet, Ziegfeld Girl still works remarkably well as an elaborate and multi-faceted drama about the price of fame. MGM unfurls the full glamour treatment in showcasing burgeoning stars Stewart, Garland, Lamarr and Turner in the lead roles, and the film is a whirlwind look at the shockwave of stardom as experienced by women offered an opportunity of a lifetime but no guarantees about the consequences. The performance number do cause bloat, so director Robert Z. Leonard compensates by maintaining fairly zippy pacing in the narrative scenes, and teases out the dilemmas facing the women. For all three, the abandonment of their pre-fame man is a turning point.

It's almost possible to sympathize with Sheila as she luxuriate in her Park Avenue apartment, admiring her numerous evening gowns and expensive jewelry, and drowning her guilt at abandoning Gil in copious amounts of alcohol. Although her story is the most prominent, Susan and Sandra also get plenty of screen time. Sandra is more pragmatic, choosing a job and salary with the Follies over poverty and starvation with Franz. And 17 year old Susan has perhaps the most difficult separation to endure: her father will carry on his touring vaudeville show without her, and she will have to unlearn most of what he taught her.

Ziegfeld's shows are lovingly recreated in the musical numbers directed by Busby Berkeley, including the traditional descending-the-stairs moments and the ridiculous over-the-top costumes and head wear. But the movie's highlights are the unexpected nuggets on the sidelines of the main show: Susan salvaging her audition by quickly understanding the need for subtlety in delivering I'm Always Chasing Rainbows; and later her dad getting his unexpected chance to shine in Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean.

Ziegfeld plucked girls from obscurity, taught them how to prance on-stage, and gave them a shot at accelerated stardom. The bright lights were enlightening for some, but blinding for others.

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Movie Review: Boom Town (1940)

The adventures and loves of two oilmen over many years, Boom Town enjoys plenty of star power but sprawls for too long with predictable ups and downs.

The rural town of Burkburnett, Texas, is the bustling mucky centre of activity for prospective oil drillers. Wildcatters "Big John" McMasters (Clark Gable) and "Square John" Sand (Spencer Tracy) literally bump into each other and team-up, borrowing equipment they cannot afford from Luther Aldrich (Frank Morgan) as they try to strike it rich. Their first attempt is a bust, and they barely stay one step ahead of local sheriff Harmony Jones (Chill Wills). The two Johns cut Aldrich in on their next exploratory oil well, and this time they strike oil.

McMasters meets and quickly marries Betsy McMasters (Claudette Colbert) unaware that Sand was also trying to win her heart. Over the years the two men embark on a strained on-again off-again partnership, their fortunes rising and falling with the wild fluctuations of the international oil business. Sand never loses his feelings for Betsy, but she sticks with McMasters through good times and bad. McMasters eventually moves into the big leagues of New York City corporate life, where he falls under the spell of exotic businesswoman Karen Vanmeer (Hedy Lamarr). His extramarital dalliances provide Sand with a further incentive to try and win back Betsy's heart by any means necessary.

Directed by Jack Conway, Boom Town re-teams Gable and Tracy from 1938's Test Pilot, as well as Gable and Colbert from 1934's It Happened One Night. With Hedy Lamarr adding silky seductiveness in the last third, the star power certainly helps but does not fully overcome the limited material. The John Lee Mahin scripts sets the tone early, then unfortunately just repeats the cycle of ups and downs with mechanical efficiency but without gaining genuine soul.

The love triangle dynamics between McMasters, Sand and Betsy are always just a bit off. Tracy was starting to get resentful of Gable's star billing and shows it by delivering a generally downbeat and disengaged performance. Colbert's Betsy goes through the film riding the fence between the two men, loyal to McMasters but never severing her emotional ties to Sand, an unconvincing role that comes across as both passive and indecisive.

Just as the romantic liaisons are interesting but not engrossing, the business aspects of the story are curious but superficial and quickly repetitive. The wealth and happiness of the two men ride the rollercoaster of oil booms and busts, test wells proving to be either duds or gushers, money made and money lost in an instant, fortunes sometimes riding on coin tosses. Conway keeps it all moving briskly and throws in one genuinely impressive fire disaster scene, but the cyclical fortunes all start to meld into each other and go on for longer than necessary.

The film often looks the part, and is aesthetically at its best in the early scenes. Conway recreates the chaotic muddy roughness of Burkburnett, a macho rough and tumble place where everyone has a claim and a dream of striking it rich, but few have the combination of resources and smarts required to turn paper and equipment into a fortune.

Boom Town sometimes ignites, but often marks time with predictable ticks and tocks.

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Movie Review: Dishonored Lady (1947)

A psychological crime drama, Dishonored Lady has some interesting themes but is severely frustrated by a low budget cast and an inability to explore its scandalous topic.

In New York City, Madeleine Damien (Hedy Lamarr) is a high-powered executive at a glossy fashion magazine. She leads a glamorous night life and is the subject of attention from various men, including fellow magazine executive Jack Garet (William Lundigan). After starting yet another affair with filthy rich jewelry executive Felix Courtland (John Loder), Madeleine finally hits a wall and attempts to kill herself. Psychiatrist Richard Caleb (Morris Carnovsky) rescues her and starts treatment sessions, asking her to confront her lascivious lifestyle.

Madeleine abruptly leaves everything behind, moves into a nondescript apartment and embarks on a new career as a fledgling painter. She meets and falls in love with young doctor David Cousins (Dennis O'Keefe), but he knows nothing of her past. Eventually Madeleine's old and new loves and lives collide, and she finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation.

Directed by Robert Stevenson, Dishonored Lady is slightly disorienting: it's a film both ahead and behind the times. For a 1947 production, the courage to tackle the topic of nymphomania is laudable, as is the natural introduction of psychiatry, a field still in its infancy in terms of public exposure. But the end product is also about 10 years behind in terms of a cinematic experience. Filled with awkward and unnecessary close-ups of Lamarr and shouty performances more suitable to the early talky era, Dishonored Lady has aged poorly despite its progressive subject matter.

Stevenson and screenwriter Edmund H. North (adapting a play) are tightly handcuffed by the moral police of the era, and are unable to dance around the censors. The central premise of Madeleine's sexual promiscuity is watered down to the point of silence. Her conversations with the psychiatrist Caleb ignore the elephant in the room while groping in the dark for things to say without causing offense. It's an unfortunate handicap for a film clearly willing to take on a controversial topic but comprehensively lacking the deft touch to properly test the limits.

The courtroom scenes come late and exemplify much of what is good and bad about Dishonored Lady. Madeleine willing to punish herself is an intriguing topic worth exploring in a better film, but the awkward trial mechanics and lack of judicial logic defy belief and undermine any good intentions.

Also hindering enjoyment is the underwhelming support for the game Lamarr. She is surrounded by a stiff cast of B-listers, the likes of Lundigan and O'Keefe getting by on towering masculinity and good looks, but unable to do much in terms of actual acting.

Brave but hampered, Dishonored Lady is a clumsy curiosity.

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Movie Review: Algiers (1938)

A sweltering romantic drama set in a faraway and mysterious land, Algiers marked Hedy Lamarr's first Hollywood film, an appropriately exotic debut for an alluring beauty.

Pepe Le Moko (Charles Boyer) is a jewel thief, wanted in his native France for a series of daring robberies. Pepe has taken refuge in Algeria, and specifically the sprawling, labyrinthine Casbah portion of the capital city Algiers. A pompous French detective arrives to lead a determined search to flush out the fugitive. But Pepe is well protected by the Casbah residents and his inner circle, including the gypsy Ines (Sigrid Gurie), and manages to escape and disappear into the convoluted alleyways. Local police officer Inspector Slimane (Joseph Calleia) is more practical and more patient. He interacts with Pepe everyday, but awaits his chance to lure the criminal out into the City proper, where he can be easily apprehended.

Rich French tourist Gaby (Lamarr) stumbles into Pepe while exploring the sights of the Casbah, and they are immediately smitten with each other, arranging to surreptitiously meet over several days. Gaby finds Pepe suave and dangerous, while she reminds him of all that Paris has to offer, and he begins to feel imprisoned within the suffocating narrow passages of the Casbah. With the clumsy help of informant Regis (Gene Lockhart), Slimane senses an opportunity and tries to devise a plan that will tempt Pepe into the open.

A predecessor to more famous foreign adventures such as Casablanca, Algiers is perhaps not as perfectly magical but just as captivating. The film is tightly scripted by John Howard Lawson with additional dialogue by James M. Cain, and efficiently weaves a character-rich story of policing, crime, romance, jealousy and double-cross.

Lamarr has little to do except flash a lot of jewelry, stare rather awkwardly into the camera, and deploy a stately and somewhat sad smile. She is a regal presence rather than a performer, but she also undoubtedly adds a touch of class to a production filled with otherwise scrappy characters.

While Lamarr's step up to glamorous movie roles is Algiers' most famous calling card, the real star of the film is the set design. The Casbah is the playground of the unwashed and those who want to remain visible but outside the law's reach. Director John Cromwell glides through the nooks, tight corners, steep staircases, hidden passages and cascading roofs to capture a world within a world. It is both a place to keep out intrusive influences and a prison that suffocates its inhabitants, as Pepe gradually finds out.

Charles Boyer as Pepe is the perfect noble criminal, surrounded by a clutch of unsavoury associates tasked with the dirty work, all the better to make him appear more sophisticated, a director of plots who makes sure that it is others who get their hands smudged. Joseph Calleia delivers the most memorable performance, his Slimane carrying a patience for the ages, a detective playing the long game with a smile, confident that the field is ever so slightly tilted in his favour and it's only a matter of time before the ball rolls into his court. A colourful, well-developed set of secondary characters helps to turn Pepe's circle into fertile grounds for conflict and chicanery.

Algiers cleverly sets up its central location as both a melting pot for locals and a curiosity for tourists, a place where foreigners can visit but not necessarily stay. Both Gaby and Pepe will need to leave the Casbah, at different times and under different circumstances. They can taste the pleasures and enjoy the shelter offered by the secret world, but ultimately they both belong elsewhere, and the old city has the wisdom to send them on their way to meet their destiny.

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