Movie Quote of the Week

Well, if we do get canned, we won't be the only ones to lose our jobs because of a machine.
--Joan Blondell, Desk Set (1957)

¡Feliz Cumpleaños, Joan Blondell!

AKA Rose Joan Blondell.

Born August 30, 1906. Died December 25, 1979.

She was one of my favorite actresses in the Busby Berkeley films and she was very memorable in a lot of films that were not made by Busby Berkeley. I am sorry her career was not more successful but at least she is still remembered -- even though most members of my generation probably know her more from her supporting role in the 1978 film Grease than from her starring roles in many an old movie.

¡Feliz Día del Amor y la Amistad!

My friend Joan Blondell wishes all my readers a Happy St. Valentine's Day and hopes that you all have a pleasant holiday. On her behalf, I wish the same thing.

Movie Song of the Week: “Remember My Forgotten Man”

This week I post a new version of an old song that I've posted on this site before. One of these days I'll find a movie tune more appropriate for Memorial Day but in the meantime, it can't be argued that this song is inappropriate. Besides, it's so rare to see choreographer Busby Berkeley putting political commentary into one of his musical numbers that it's kinda awe-inspiring to see how easy he makes such a number seem.

Hey, I Remember This Show: Here Comes The Brides

Wow! Spock's dad was on this show?

I knew about Ms. Blondell and Mr. Sherman appearing on this TV series but I kinda forgot that David Soul -- the future Hutch of TV's Starsky and Hutch -- appeared on here too. Apparently this was a TV version of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I had umpteen chances to see it in prime time and syndication when I was growing up but I do not actually recall making it through a single episode. And I must confess that intro seems a little weird to watch at a time when Seattle is no longer identified primarily with lumber camps.

Movie Song of the Week: “Remember My Forgotten Man”

Yes, I've posted this song from Gold Diggers of 1933 before but then again it is Memorial Day. Y yo amo Joan Blondell.

Here's hoping all my readers have had a pleasant Memorial Day weekend.

She's a Night Nurse and Proud of It

In many ways, 1931's Night Nurse is the type of movie critics love to ridicule. Never mind that it has memorable dialogue and memorable characters, it dares to have a sense of humor about it so obviously there must be something wrong with it.

The film starts off with a wild ambulance ride and then goes on to show us a busy city hospital. We peek at several characters in the hospital including a pair of expectant parents in the maternity ward and a Chinese family in the midst of a bilingual argument. Then we stop and focus on one character in particular: Barbara Stanwyck's Lora Hart.

Miss Hart wants very badly to become a nurse but she does not have enough academic credits to please the crusty nursing supervisor, Miss Dillon. She manages to gain the attention of Dr. Arthur Bell (played by Charles Winninger), the hospital's chief of surgery, and suddenly Miss Dillon warms to Miss Hart and agrees to let her start as a probationary nurse.

Miss Hart gets paired up with a fellow probationer (played by Joan Blondell) and even attracts the attention of a smarmy intern. But it is not until she graduates as a nurse and gets her first long-term assignment that she meets her most serious challenge.

Miss Hart starts working as a night nurse (hence the title) for two young girls, Nanny and Desney Ritchey. Both girls are allegedly under the care of a Dr. Milton Ranger yet they both show signs of starvation. The widowed mother never comes to see them and Hart has the girls to herself for the night. But she soon finds out that that is not an ideal situation.

On her first night in the house with the girls, she discovered Mrs. Ritchey to be passed out in a room across the hall. When Ms. Hart gets hassled by one of the mother's male callers, a mysterious bathrobe-clad figure (played by Clark Gable) steps in and punches out the creep, only to punch out Miss Hart as well when she tries to summon the police. This figure is Nick the Chauffeur, and it is one of the few roles I have seen thus far in which Clark Gable plays an out-and-out villain.

The next morning, Miss Hart tries to tell Dr. Ranger about the situation at Mrs. Ritchey's house, only to be scolded for acting like a troublemaker. In frustration, Miss Hart takes her concerns to Dr. Bell, and allows herself to be convinced to go back to Dr. Ranger and work undercover until she has evidence of wrongdoing.

Along the way, she makes the acquaintance of a golden-hearted bootlegger (played by Ben Lyon) whom she met while she was a probationer. Nick the Chauffeur finds out about her plans, things get serious, and of course, complications ensue.

Is this a good movie? Well, I liked it, and not just because Ms. Stanwyck and Ms. Blondell show more skin in this film than Ms. Stanwyck showed in any of the Hays-code movies in which she played an actual stripper. The dialogue is snarky, the 30s outfits Ms. Stanwyck wears are cute, and the plot actually resolves itself in an unexpected manner. The movie does stress the difference between ethics and humanity a bit much but never in a pretentious manner and I enjoyed it even when its humor came close to being unintentional.

If I had to pick the most memorable character in this flick after Ms. Stanwyck's, it would probably be a toss-up between Blondell's wise-cracking nurse and Mr. Lyon's good-hearted bootlegger. But I also have a soft spot for Charlotte Merriam's performance as Mrs. Ritchey, which is perhaps the best Harlow imitation I have ever seen done by anyone save Ms. Harlow.

Mrs. Ritchey is the type of dysfunctional mother audiences love to hate and it says something that her character manages to linger on in my mind for so long despite having some of the silliest dialogue in the movie. She laughs, she gets drunk, she shares her drinks with a dog, and she gets jealous. She talks down to Miss Hart in one scene but never even comes close to dominating her. I guess the saddest part about the Mrs. Ritchey character -- apart from the way she is so oblivious to her daughters' fate -- is the fact that I actually have known some real-life mothers who would make her seem like Mother of the Year. But that is a topic for another day.

I Love a Footlight Parade But I'm Not So Sure About Those Dames

I have always considered 1933's Footlight Parade to be the last of my personal holy trinity of Busby Berkeley movies (the first two being, of course, 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933). I fell in love with it the first time I watched it and my affection for it has grown with subsequent viewings.

I never realized how well Jimmy Cagney could dance until I saw this movie. For that matter, I never really appreciated how funny he can be. Joan Blondell plays his Girl Friday, Ruby Keeler plays the usual girl-next-door-who-goes-out-there-and-becomes-a-star, and Frank McHugh plays a director whose inevitable response to almost any situation -- “It can't be done, Mr. Kent, it can't be done” -- gets funnier and funnier every time.

The movie is not quite as politically correct as it could be (there is some acting in yellowface as well as a Jewish stereotype) but then again there are signs that it could have been worse. At one point, the Cagney character talks quite seriously about staging a blackface number but fortunately, we never see it. And when one black character appears in the final musical number, “Shanghai Lil,” he actually speaks in a normal voice instead of the stereotypical Amos and Andy style of speaking that was so often forced upon black actors of this period.

Hugh Herbert also appears as a nepotistic censor and I got the feeling that his character was meant to be a not so subtle negative comment on censorship. Of course, that still does not change the fact that Herbert comes across as the same poor man's Edward Everett Horton that he plays in most of his movies, but it was an interesting point. (As you might guess, I do not think a lot of Herbert, and I tend to like the movies in which he appears in spite of him.)

Anyway, I can watch this film over and over again. And I just might do so again tonight.

Busby Berkeley's 1934 followup, Dames, however, is a film I am not quite so fond of. Not only do we get a lot more of the would-be-funny-but-more-often-just-annoying Hugh Herbert (this time playing a moralizing millionaire) but we also get a surprisingly bad musical number by Joan Blondell called “Girl By the Ironing Board.” To be fair, there are two musical numbers in this movie that I liked: the title number and “I Only Have Eyes for You.” But I do not quite have the same affection for this movie that I do for Footlight Parade.

Movie Song of the Month: “Remember My Forgotten Man”

I didn't mean to post another Busby Berkeley song again so soon but, hey, Memorial Day is coming up quite soon. And this is the most appropriate movie song I can think of. Even though it was originally written about World War I veterans, it still packs a heck of a wallop today.

From the 1933 movie Gold Diggers of 1933:

Things I Loved About Gold Diggers of 1933

1. The “We're in The Money” number.
2. That Möbius strip shot in the “We're in the Money” number in which the camera pans from singer Ginger Rogers to a chorus girl on her right, and then to the chorus girl on her right, and then so on until the camera gets back to Ginger Rogers -- without once going left.
3. The way Ginger maintained her dignity through that “We're in the Money” number despite having to sing one chorus in Pig Latin -- and while wearing apparently nothing below the waist save heels, a body stocking and a giant coin.
4. The pre-Code antics of the “Pettin' in the Park” number.
5. Ned Sparks's big speech about the Depression.
6. Joan Blondell's “Remember My Forgotten Man” number. Very easily the highlight of the movie, and deservingly so.

Escapist Quotes from Gold Diggers of 1933

Because, of course, people of the 1930s knew nothing of real problems:

I was down on Times Square watching those men in the breadline... standing there in the rain, waiting there for coffee and doughnuts. Men out of a job, around the soup kitchen.
--Dick Powell, Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

That's it! That's what this show's about! The Depression, men marching, marching in the rain. Doughnuts and crullers, men marching, marching... jobs, jobs, and in the background, Carol, spirit of the Depression. A blue song. No, not a blue song but a wailing. A wailing. And this gorgeous woman singing this song that'll tear their hearts out. The big parade. The big parade of tears.
--Ned Sparks, Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

I hate starving in bed.
--Ruby Keeler, Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

It isn't smart to make gags when girls are starving.
--Aline MacMahon, Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

If you don't, God knows what will happen to those kids. They'll have to do things I wouldn't want on my conscience and it will be on yours.
--Aline MacMahon, Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

Remember my forgotten man.
You put a rifle in his hand.
You sent him far away.
You shouted, “Hip, hooray!”
But look at him today.
--Joan Blondell, “Remember My Forgotten Man” from Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

Busby Berkeley: Social Realist?

The depression, dearie.
--Ginger Rogers, Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

Whoa! Where did that line come from? I thought good old-fashioned Busby Berkeley musicals were too escapist to mention anything as humdrum as the Great Depression.

And what's up with that “We're in the Money” number that opens Gold Diggers of 1933? Film anthologies cite that song so often as evidence of 1930s Hollywood's obsession with escapism that it is a bit ironic to note that that number ends with the local sheriff's men coming in to confiscate the singers' props and costumes in order to make up for all the producer's unpaid bills. I'm sorry but that does not seem very escapist to me.

You could argue that some of the movie's other numbers (“Pettin' in the Park,” for example) are a bit more escapist, but then you get to the show's big finale, “Remember My Forgotten Man,” in which young Carol King (played by Joan Blondell and not to be confused with the songwriter with a similar name) laments the fate of unemployed WW I veterans while receiving vocal accompaniment by Etta Moten Barnett, and suddenly this whole escapism argument seems at best dubious.

True, one is never likely to confuse any Busby Berkeley movie with the works of John Steinbeck. But they do not seem as disconnected from reality as one would expect.

And I, for one, consider that a good thing.