Cole Porter (Cary Grant), a law student at Yale opts to discard a career as a jurist to take up songwriting in Night and Day (1946) a very loose interpretation of Mr. Porter's life and career.
Since the release of DeLovely (2004), Night and Day has had to bear the brunt of its claim to being a biography of Cole Porter. Quite frankly, it's not. It's a way of incorporating a vast array of Mr. Porter's glorious music into a film, and tell a story at the same time. Let's go over a few of the facts, and then we can talk about the film as a story, not a biography.
Cole Porter did attend Yale, and one of his classmates was Monty Woolley (Mr. Woolley, who plays himself, was NOT a professor at Yale). The sinking of the Lusitania had nothing to do with the failure of See America First, as the ship sunk in May 1915, and the musical opened in March 1916. Mr. Porter was not wounded in combat during World War I; he is listed as serving in the French Foreign Legion during the war (Broadway, The American Musical). He also spent time in Paris partying and met his future wife in Paris. Linda Lee Thomas was well aware of Mr. Porter's sexuality when they married - she had come from an abusive first marriage. Linda Lee Porter never officially left Cole - in fact, it was she that worked with the doctors to keep them from amputating his leg following his horseback riding accident. She continued as his health advocate until her death in 1954 (Cole Porter obituary). Following her death, doctors convinced him to allow the amputation, and he lived as a recluse for the rest of his life (as Linda feared). Mr. Porter was as openly gay as the era would allow (The New Yorker). Regardless, he and Linda loved one another and were inseparable - les Colporteurs (Smithsonian Magazine).
As you can see from the photo, The Porters looked nothing like their on-screen imitators. Linda wanted Alexis Smith to play her, and when she expressed her desires to Warner Brothers executives, Cole jokingly said that Cary Grant should play him (Cary Grant: In Name Only by Gary Morecambe & Martin Sterling). Mr. Grant and Ms. Smith are wonderful together, and Ms. Smith was thrilled to be working with him. Though he could be very definite in his opinions - for example, Mr. Grant demanded that his suit be cut so that only an eighth of an inch of cuff should show, Ms. Smith commented on his "care and attention" to the character (TCM article). This was Mr. Grant's first technicolor film.
Warner Brothers incorporated their best character people into the film. Eve Arden finally gets a chance to sing as French performer Gabrielle, who introduces Porter's song "I'm Unlucky at Gambling." Jane Wyman (Gracie Harris) also gets a chance to show her vocal talents. Dorothy Malone (Nancy) has some brief scenes with Donald Woods (Dr. Ward Blackburn) as her husband and Cole's friend and physician. Alan Hale (Leon Dowling) turns up as a theatrical producer who doesn't see the beauty of Cole's compositions. And Henry Stephenson (Omer Porter) is sympathetic as Cole's grandfather.
Monty Woolley gets to play himself, and get off some bon mots while he is at it. He pops in and out of the film, as Woolley wanders in and out of the Porters' lives (and back and forth from New York to Hollywood). There is some amusing banter as he goes off to film The Man Who Came to Dinner - he'd starred in the Broadway play (he almost didn't get the movie role - Warner Brother considered Fredric March, Charles Laughton, Robert Benchley, John Barrymore, and Charles Coburn).
Mary Martin, who got her start in Cole Porter's Leave it to Me, reprises her hit song from the musical, "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" (though this song, along with several of the others, are cleaned up versions of Mr. Porter's sometimes rather racy lyrics). Ginny Simms (Carole Hill), the woman who works with Porter in a music store in the film, is very loosely based on Ethel Merman. Ms Merman had appeared in earlier plays, but her first starring role was as Reno Sweeney in Mr. Porter's Anything Goes (AFI catalog).
The New York Timesreview by Thomas M. Prior (T.M.P.) was positive, though even Mr. Prior pointed out that it wasn't really a biography. When the film DeLovely was released in 2004, The Times again wrote about Night and Day as part of a discussion of the biographical aspects of the two movies.
If you are not a stickler for facts, and would like to see some fine acting, pleasant singing, and spectacular songs, this film is worth a viewing or two. We'll leave you with the trailer:
Composer Lewis Dodd (Charles Boyer) is frustrated with his current composition, an atonal work that does not seem to be gelling. He decides to visit Switzerland, the home of her dear friend Albert Sanger (Montague Love), a musician of sorts and the father of three young daughters, Toni (Brenda Marshall), Paula (Joyce Reynolds), and Tessa (Joan Fontaine). Lewis brings with him a little musical piece he composed for the children; when he plays it for Albert, Albert encourages him to expand on THAT piece, and forget the atonal work. But when Albert dies suddenly, Lewis takes on some of the responsibility for the girls, especially after he meets - and marries - their cousin, Florence Creighton (Alexis Smith). There is, however, a big problem. The ethereal Tessa is deeply in love with Lewis. The Constant Nymph (1943) is based on a 1924 best-selling novel by Margaret Kennedy. This was the third iteration of the story to be presented on film - it had been done as a silent film in 1928, with Ivor Novello, Mabel Poulton, and Benita Hume as the three leads (and adapted by Alma Reville), and again in 1933, with Victoria Hopper, Brian Aherne, and Leonora Corbett. This version of the film sticks pretty close to the novel, which in some ways may work to its detriment, especially in our modern age. As is pointed out by fellow blogger at Paula's Cinema Club, it's a bit difficult to look past the fact that, by the film's conclusion, Tessa is about 15 years old. The idea that this so much older man has fallen in love with her is uncomfortable, to say the least. If only screenwriter Kathryn Scola had made Tessa a BIT older, the film would be more palatable.
Yet, when I initially saw the film (on TCM, after it had mostly disappeared from view), it reminded me of a film and a novel that I really love. Because the theme of The Constant Nymph is very much that of an unattainable love. The other film, Portrait of Jennie (1948) and the novel, Tryst by Elswyth Thane, both focused on young women in love with men that time and fate had removed from their grasp. The difference between them and The Constant Nymph is that the characters are just enough older to make the relationships acceptable. As viewers, we really wanted to look beyond Tessa's age, but this was difficult, as she herself kept alluding to it. Nevertheless, the performances of Joan Fontaine and Charles Boyer were excellent. Ms. Fontaine is convincing as a teen-ager (though she does appear to be in her late teens, not really 14), and Mr. Boyer is romantically intense. Ms. Fontaine was nominated for an Academy Award for her work in this film (she lost to Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette; the other nominees were Jean Arthur in The More the Merrier, Ingrid Bergman in For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Greer Garson in Madame Curie); she succeeds in creating a characterization that is both young and unworldly, enthusiastic and frail. Boyer was not enthusiastic about the script (TCM article) - he felt Lewis was being booted about by the women and had no real strength. Warner Brothers, however, met his price ($150,000 and top billing) so he accepted the role, and gave a sympathetic performance.
The same cannot be said for Alexis Smith, who is unimpressive as Florence. Ms. Smith affects a rather odd accent which is more snooty than truly English. It's genuinely difficult to understand what Lewis could possibly see in Florence - from the moment we meet her, she is a nag and a shrew. She has no understanding of his music or his ambitions, and is more concerned with the fame that marriage to him might bring her. As a result, her epiphany at the film's conclusion is forced. Peter Lorre is delightful in the small role of Fritz Bercovy. Mr. Lorre plays the part as a man genuinely in love with Toni Sanger (though it's hard to say why. Ms. Marshall's portrayal gives us a woman who is almost as unlikable as Florence!). Fritz also deeply cares for his two little sisters-in-law, and though he is a tad absent-minded, he is also kind. Peter Lorre began his film career in Germany, with the highly-regarded M (1931). By 1933, however, he had left Germany - as a Jew, he knew the dangers that were facing him with the rise of Fascism. He worked in England for awhile, and eventually emigrated with his wife, Celia Lovsky, to America, where he found work, often as a villain. But what a villain - All Through the Night (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Casablanca (1942) are just the tip of an impressive resume. Mr. Lorre and Ms. Lovsky divorced by1945; though he would remarry twice, they remained friends, with Ms. Lovsky often serving as his publicist and manager. Because of chronic pain, he became addicted to morphine, an addiction he fought and conquered, but it did affect his ability to get roles. He died in 1964 from a stroke, leaving behind his wife and daughter.
Music is very much a factor in the film; the lovely score and Lewis' concert piece were composed by Erich Marie Korngold. Mr. Korngold was on the set, and was involved in the story development and provided the piano dubbing for Mr. Boyer and Mr. Love. The tone poem, "Tomorrow," became quite popular, and Mr. Korngold published it as his Opus 33 (Korngold Society) You can listen to the suite below.
Charles Boyer was not the first choice for Lewis - the film rights were originally purchased as a vehicle for Errol Flynn. One wonders if the January-February 1943 trial of Flynn on charges of statutory rape had something to do with the change in the lead (it certainly would have been an even more problematic film with Flynn playing Lewis). Other roles were also in flux - Joan Leslie was, at one point, cast as Tessa, and both Wendy Barrie and Eve March tested for the role. Margaret Sullavan, Merle Oberon, Bette Davis and Olivia De Havilland were also considered for parts in the picture. (AFI catalog). In 1944, the film would be adapted for radio as part of the Lux Radio Theatre, with Charles Boyer repeating his screen role and Maureen O'Sullivan taking on the part of Tessa.
The New York Timesreview was ecstatic, calling the film "a fine tribute to the virtues that have made the book endure." In many respects, it is an excellent film; we found that we wanted to find ways to mentally change Tessa's age to make the story more acceptable to a 21st century audience. We'll leave you with this trailer:
Our film for this week, The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947), opens in a bucolic setting. We meet Sally Morton (Barbara Stanwyck) and her beau, Geoffrey Carroll (Humphrey Bogart) as they vacation in the Scottish countryside. Though they only met a week ago, they appear deeply in love. Geoffrey is a painter, and is happily sketching his new love. It begins to storm. The couple race for shelter; Geoffrey covers his beloved with his coat, then ventures back into the rain to help their guide. When he returns, he finds Sally cold and distant. She has inadvertently discovered a letter in his pocket - addressed to Mrs. Geoffrey Carroll. Sally runs out into the storm and leaves Scotland. Geoffrey, however, is now obsessed by Sally. He sees her as his muse, and determines that he must get her back. So, on his way home, he stops at a chemist's shop and manages to purchase a supply of poison. Within a year, he is married to Sally. Within two, he has lost his interest in his wife, and has discovered a new muse in the person of Cecily Latham (Alexis Smith). And it seems that Sally is destined to follow the first Mrs. Carroll to the grave.
As this TCM article points out, The Two Mrs. Carrolls was not well received upon its release (It had, in fact, moldered in the Warner Brothers vaults for two years before its release). Time magazine felt Bogart was miscast as an artist, while the New York Times's Bosley Crowther called the film 'a monstrosity" (they also stated that its release was delayed by the Warner Brothers for two years). We, however, could not disagree more. We found The Two Mrs. Carrolls to be an enjoyable film, with a strong cast that really pulls you into the action. The film is based on a play that ran for 585 performances on Broadway, (with Elisabeth Bergner as Sally and Victor Jory as Geoffrey; produced by Bergner's husband, Paul Czinner). Let's start with
Humphrey Bogart, who is wonderful as the insane artist. Bogart plays
Geoffrey with a delicacy that makes you at times doubt he could possibly
BE a murderer. His devotion to his daughter, Beatrice (Ann Carver) is
sincere. And his early scenes with Stanwyck exhibit a true love. But,
like Mr. Hyde, his dark side is quickly revealed, and the violent
underbelly of the character is apparent. Time's comment that "Bogart appears uncomfortable. Violence and murder are old stuff to him,
but madness and paint brushes are not quite his line," is a bit odd. For one thing, Bogart was well acquainted with "paint brushes" - his mother, after all, was the noted artist Maud Humphrey and baby Humphrey was her frequent model. (For more on Maud Humphrey, visit this website from the Winterthur Museum). And he was no stranger to playing insane characters either - his Joe Gurney in King of the Underworld and George Halley in The Roaring Twenties are not exactly poster children for mental health.
We know that Geoffrey's passion for Cecily would eventually head down the same road as his love for Sally, though Alexis Smith plays Cecily as such a viper, it's doubtful anyone would really care. While Sally runs from the possibility of an affair with a married man, Cecily relishes it. And while Geoffrey is quite insane, one wonders if Cecily's disregard for Beatrice would have been the eventual cause of her demise. We'll never know.
We loved Stanwyck as Sally. She's a strong woman, who, overwhelmed by her discovery of her husband's perfidy, still takes charge of the situation. Is she afraid of him? You bet, but she doesn't give in to being a victim. She fights to the very end. One also never doubts that Sally is a woman of integrity. We know that Cecily is a manipulative witch, but Sally is a loving mother and wife who is supportive of her husband when his career is on a downturn, but is not a doormat. That her warm relationship with her former fiance is believable is due to Stanwyck's sincerity as an actress. Also impressive is Ann
Carter. The actress had a short film career, and is remembered especially for The Curse of the Cat People and I Married a Witch (as Veronica Lake's daughter). She makes Bea a remarkably knowing child, but manages to avoid that smart-alacky attitude over-intelligent movie children often have. Her career was over by 1953. Around that time, she contracted polio. She eventually recovered, went to college, married, and had three children. When she died in 2014, at age 77, ovarian cancer, she had been married to her
husband (Crosby Newton) for 57 years.
I'm not big on spoilers, but the picture above was too good to resist, as actress Stanwyck observes the artistic results of Geoffrey's tormented mind. The revelation of Sally as The Angel of Death is a shocking moment - much more powerful on the screen. No details here, but suffice it to say, it's a scene to look out for. The blog The Last Drive-In has a number of photos from the film (many are spoilers, so beware); this photo was one of them. The director
of the film is Peter Godfrey. He had already directed Stanwyck in Christmas in Connecticut and Cry Wolf (which we will look at next time) and had directed Alexis Smith in The Woman in White. One wonders if he was familiar with Hitchcock's Suspicion - the scenes of Bogart carrying the poisoned milk to his wives is very reminiscent of Cary Grant on the same mission. Godfrey's career was respectable - he appears to have retired after directing some television episodes in the 1950s, and died in 1970. We'll leave you with a trailer from the film. Next week, another Peter Godfrey/Barbara Stanwyck mystery.
The setting is a small English village in the 1850s. A young man arrives by train late at night. No transportation is available, so he walks to his new residence, Limmeridge House, where he will be working as an art instructor. En route, he meets an odd young woman, dressed all in white, who disappears when a carriage approaches. Thus begins the mystery that is The Woman in White (1948), based on the novel of the same name by Wilkie Collins. As a huge fan of Wilkie Collins and of the novel, I have mixed feelings about this film, which changes so many aspects of the original story (later on, I'll detail some of those changes). My colleagues were not familiar with the book, nor with the 1997 BBC production (which appeared on PBS); as a result of our discussion, one member is planning to read the book, the other to take a look at the more recent adaptation. Since our discussion of the film did look at the book as well, readers should be warned that spoilers will be included. I usually try to avoid them; in this case, it would be impossible. By and large, the group felt that the movie was disjointed, and once information about the book was included, they all said they would have liked a film that more closely followed the novel. However, the change in the character of Laura Fairlie (Eleanor Parker) from namby pamby to someone who actually has a backbone, was a vast improvement. Wilkie Collins painted his main heroine as the helpless blonde female - she is gorgeous and gentle, and therefore does not have a brain in her head, or the ability to do much more than faint in the face of adversity. Eleanor Parker does a good job of portraying Laura, and of showing her attempted resistance of the dastardly Count Fosco. Her Anne Catherick is a bit more mannered, and resulted in a number of jokes about "identical cousins". In the novel, Anne and Laura are probably half-sisters.
Both book and film give us a strong, capable Marian Halcombe (Alexis Smith), here described as Laura's cousin; in the novel they too are half-sisters (Mr Fairlie was a busy man!) But Ms. Smith is a beautiful woman, and Marian really should not be. Walter Hartright (Gig Young) describes her thus in the novel:
The lady is ugly. . . . [her] complexion was almost swarthy, and the dark down on her
upper lip was almost a moustache. She had a large, firm, masculine
mouth and jaw; prominent, piercing, resolute brown eyes; and thick,
coal-black hair, growing unusually low down on her forehead.
However, Walter also says that Marian appears "bright, frank, and intelligent." And while Ms. Smith certainly appears "bright, frank, and intelligent," she is NOT ugly. So, it is no surprise that at the end of the film, Walter ends up with the lovely, smart Marian, while in the novel, he weds the gorgeous, vapid, helpless Laura. Alexis. Smith is excellent in the role; she projects an intelligence and engagement that is essential for the role to be successful.
Sydney Greenstreet as Count Alesandro Fosco, stays very close to the character as written in the book. He has the same rather overpowering charm, and the same sinister demeanor. His sincere admiration for Marian is also retained. We meet him almost immediately, and, of course, are immediately suspicious of his intentions. In the novel, we are not introduced to the character until after the marriage of Laura and Sir Percival Glyde. He is not married to Anne Catherick's mother (the Countess Fosco, as played by Agnes Moorehead), and it is Walter, not Marian, who forces him to confess his intentions.
All of these changes, and others, serve to diminish some of the power of the book, and it is unfortunate. The book is quite cinematic; like Dickens, his friend and sometime collaborator, Collins was a very visual writer, and his descriptions would lend themselves well to film. We spoke at some length about Gig Young. The actor had changed his name about 6 years prior to this film, from Byron Barr to Gig Young, adopting the name of his character in The Gay Sisters. This is the second film he made after returning from WWII, where he served in the Coast Guard. He had a long and very varied career. He was a talented comedic actor (in films like That Touch of Mink and Teacher's Pet), and a powerful dramatic actor, finally winning an Oscar in 1969 for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? His death, at his own hand, at the age of 65 (he also murdered his new wife) remains a mystery to this day. We leave you with an early scene, in which we get to meet several of the main characters:
