Hollywood Madonna (5 page)

Myrna Loy gave Loretta some competition in
The Truth About Youth
(1930). Loretta may have had star billing, but it was Loy who again walked off with the film. Loy was billed fourth as Kara, an exotic dancer who catches the fancy of an orphan, whose guardian (Conway Tearle) is disturbed that his ward, nicknamed “The Imp” (David Manners), is behaving too impishly for a responsible adult. Although engaged to Loretta’s character, he is so smitten with Kara that he marries her. Learning that The Imp is not a millionaire, Kara dumps him. To prevent scandal, the guardian convinces everyone that he was Kara’s lover. The real revelation—which would have evoked howls if Loretta had not played the final scene with such touching conviction—is her admission that her true love is not the ward, but his guardian. Cuddling up to the fifty-two-year-old Tearle, Loretta further demonstrated her talent for turning dross into silk. She even convinced cynical reviewers that a May-December (or
at least May-September) romance was possible. And, to top it all off,
she received $4500
for her efforts—$2250 more than Manners.

Of all Loretta’s 1930 films, the Samuel Goldwyn production
The Devil to Pay
, was her least impressive. Goldwyn, who had great respect for writers, particularly playwrights, happened to be in London, where he was introduced to Frederick Lonsdale, one of the foremost practitioners of drawing room comedy—the kind that was sophisticated and humane, but not acerbic. Unable to offer Goldwyn a play, Lonsdale provided him with a story that seemed perfect for Ronald Colman, whom Goldwyn had under contract.
Dissatisfied with the way
filming was proceeding under Irving Cummings’s direction. Goldwyn replaced him with George Fitzmaurice; Goldwyn did the same with the female lead, who was another Cummings, Constance. Constance Cummings was a fine actress who, although American born, resided in England. To Goldwyn, however, she did not sound British enough. Loretta inherited the role but could not master the accent. Goldwyn may have assumed, on the basis of her films, that Loretta was the ideal ingénue. She was that, but not as the fiancée of a grand duke. Despite the diction lessons Goldwyn ordered, Loretta was out of her element, although she was thrilled to be working with Colman, the fantasy lover of her girlhood. Rakishly handsome, he moved with masculine grace, wore suits like a second skin, and spoke in a voice that was soothingly urbane. He played William Leeland, the playboy son of a wealthy father, who falls in love with Dorothy Hope (Loretta), the daughter of another wealthy father. Once Dorothy encounters Leeland, the grand duke is only a memory. Complications arise with the appearance of Leeland’s ex-lover (Myrna Loy in a minor role). Since this is a Frederick Lonsdale story, the right couples pair off at the end. All that is lacking is a summary curtain line, Lonsdale’s specialty. But then, the playwright only supplied the plot, not the script.

Elegantly gowned, Loretta acted with an effervescence that at times threatened to bubble over. But what really detracted from her performance was her smile: She seemed to be smiling with her teeth. Part of the problem was lipstick that extended her lips, instead of just coloring them. Loretta was not meant for elongated lips. In time, she learned to apply lipstick—or insist that it be applied—more subtly and to smile more naturally. But any teenager who goes from film to film (Loretta had seven films in release in 1929, eight in 1930) is bound to encounter a road block, sending her on a detour until she could get back on the main road in a more suitable vehicle.
The Devil to Pay
was her detour. Goldwyn
disliked it. But even though the film was not a success, Loretta emerged unscathed. Who would quibble about the performance of a seventeen-year-old with the face of an angel and the form of a wood nymph?

Beau Ideal
(RKO, 1931) fared better as
Beau Geste
(Paramount 1939). Loretta was only in the film because she was on loan to RKO. At eighteen, she was unable to express the emotional state of a young woman whose lover is imprisoned in a North African cistern where inmates either die or slit their wrists—details that she (but not the audience) is spared. Her inability to connect with the character is the result of the male-centered script, which details the deliriously implausible story of a man who enlists in the French Foreign Legion to rescue his boyhood friend. The plot is so tightly knotted that the unraveling requires an even greater suspension of disbelief than the entwining. The rescue mission is accomplished, thanks to an Arab woman determined to leave the desert and move on to Paris! Loretta is wasted as the object of both men’s affections. She tended to resort to silent screen acting whenever she was saddled with a part to which she could not relate: face averted to suggest reluctance, hand against brow to indicate grief/dismay/despair, and a voice so hysterical that the dialogue was inaudible, perhaps because it was not worth hearing. The problem may also have been her director, Herbert Brenon; this was the second, and last, time she would be working with the chair-thrower. Brenon started in the silents in 1912, winning an Oscar nomination for
Laugh, Clown
,
Laugh
. He was less successful in the sound era, and although he lived until 1958, his film career ended in 1940. He may well have coached Loretta in the only brand of emotional expression that he understood. Fortunately, Loretta only had a few scenes in
Beau Ideal
, which was not her finest hour—or anyone else’s.

No one who makes eight movies in one year, as Loretta did in 1931, can expect an octet of winners. The nadir was the provocatively titled
I Like Your Nerve
, intended as a showcase for Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Fairbanks’s name appears above the title, with Loretta’s heading the supporting cast as the stepdaughter of the finance minister of an unnamed Latin American country who attracts the fancy of an American playboy (Fairbanks). His attempts to liberate her from an arranged marriage strain credibility to the breaking point, as the narrative keeps sagging like a rotting tennis net until it collapses in tatters. Except for the playboy’s blazer, white pants, and sexy smile, it is hard to know what Loretta’s character saw in him. Orry-Kelly, who usually knew how to dress Loretta, designed a wardrobe that may have been chic, but which was more suited
to a runway model than a convent-educated virgin, who should have been dressed demurely in a plain skirt and high-necked white blouse set off by a cross. Instead, Loretta looked like a budding fashionista. Even her makeup was ill conceived. If the film were in color, her lips would have photographed as lush red. Her eyes were dramatically lined and her lids visibly shadowed, her hair looking more sprayed than combed. As a contract player, Loretta had no choice but to take the role. After all, that was her job.

“Whoever breaks the Divine Law forfeits the right of way,” warns the opening title of
The Right of Way
(1931). The film proves its thesis indirectly. Charles “Beauty” Steele (Conrad Nagel, sounding as effete as Clifton Webb in his heyday), is a cocky lawyer who prides himself on being a showman in the courts. Steele is mired in a loveless marriage and saddled with a debt- ridden brother-in-law, who has stolen money from a trust fund. Attempting to regain the money, Steele is attacked by thugs and tossed into the river, from which he is rescued by a man he has successfully defended. Now an amnesiac, Steele is nursed by a postmistress (Loretta). The inevitable happens: They fall in love, his memory returns—and Steele ends up getting shot by his brother-in-law, who in those pre-code days, when social and sexual mores were loosely enforced, gets away with it. Nagel has a great death scene, envisioning the angel of death dressed in white, whom he asks: “Have we been properly introduced?” Eyes close, hand goes limp, Loretta tears up. Fade Out.

The Right of Way
jacks the Enoch Arden story up a notch, asking what might have happened if Enoch had developed amnesia, found his perfect mate, and been murdered. The film is quite the opposite of Tennyson’s poem, in which Enoch’s wife, Annie Lee, believing him dead, remarries. Upon his return, Enoch takes a last look through the window of her new home, disappears into the night, then tells his tragic story to a tavern owner’s widow, and subsequently dies. Nagel overacted at times. Loretta, to her credit, seemed to believe in the script’s creaky contrivances. She was effective, even convincing, although the film was not.

CHAPTER 4
Sacrificial Wives, Shop Girls, and Proud Proletarians

Ever since 1906, when the first nickelodeons made their appearance, exhibitors had looked for ways to lure women to their theaters. Initially, these were converted storefronts, which were stuffy and often uncomfortable—particularly those in working class and immigrant neighborhoods. In time, the nickelodeons improved and looked more like typical movie theaters, but they were never on the order of the movie palaces. While the theaters had no problem attracting children, who at least in 1907 comprised
a third of the audience
, women tended to avoid them, particularly because they seemed disreputable. Once exhibitors realized that female patronage could give their theaters respectability, they wooed these patrons outrageously: A Boston nickelodeon began “offering
free admission … to women for prenoon shows
.” Other exhibitors offered women and children half-price admission, a policy that soon became widespread. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, “dish night” was common in neighborhood theaters; included in the price of admission was a piece of dinnerware—a plate, a cup, a saucer, a gravy boat, a dessert dish. Today, these pieces are antiques, labeled “Depression dishware” and priced accordingly.

With the appearance in 1912 of
Photoplay
, the most popular of the fan magazines, women could enter the magical world of Hollywood. They could read about the stars’ favorite recipes, beauty creams, complexion soaps, shampoos, face powders, and lipsticks. They could see pictures of their palatial homes and of the stars themselves dressed informally. Twenty-five cents could get a fan a copy of the February 1939
Photoplay
with a picture of Claudette Colbert on the cover. Inside, there was something for everyone, including stories about the plight of young women
trying to succeed in the movie business, typified by Myrna Loy’s tough climb to the top. The issue was well worth a quarter: There was the latest gossip; a preview of spring fashions; candid shots of the stars at a rodeo, playing golf and tennis, and doing calisthenics. Naifs might have assumed that movie people were just plain folks at heart. Others knew better, but that did not stop them from plunking down their quarter.

As the number of female patrons increased, the industry gave them their own genre,
the woman’s picture
—sometimes termed the “three-hankie movie” or “weepie,” because they feature women suffering nobly at the hands of nature (consumption in
Camille
, a malignant brain tumor in
Dark Victory
), men (
Rain
,
Autumn Leaves
, in which Cliff Robertson threw a typewriter at a crouching Joan Crawford), a parent (
Now, Voyager
), or a teacher (
The Seventh Veil
). Eventually, a gallery of female character types emerged, and they were not just limited to the woman’s picture but transferred easily to other genres. These character types included the virgin (Lillian Gish, Mary Pickford, Doris Day) and the whore (euphemistically called the “hostess,” like Bette Davis in
Marked Woman
and Donna Reed in
From Here to Eternity
). But even “the whore” was not a monolithic category: Sometimes she went from sinner to saint and back again (Joan Crawford in
Rain
); sometimes from saint to sinner (Vivien Leigh in
Waterloo Bridge
)
.
There was also the “tart,” a cute and perky hooker (Shirley MacLaine in
Irma La Douce
); the high maintenance call girl (Elizabeth Taylor in
Butterfield 8
); the noble whore (Claire Trevor in
Stagecoach
, who helps deliver the baby of a “respectable” woman who otherwise might have died in childbirth); vamps (Theda Bara, Pola Negri); and sex symbols (Jean Harlow, Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe). “Working girls,” sometimes called shop girls or department/dime store heroines, were a diverse lot of hoofers (Ruby Keeler in
42nd Street
), secretaries (Jean Arthur in
Easy Living
), servers (Linda Darnell in
Fallen Angel
), and salespersons (Ginger Rogers in
Kitty Foyle
).

Equally significant is the sheer number of films produced during Hollywood’s Golden Age (again, not just woman’s films) that featured women in a wide range of professions: restaurant chain owner (
Mildred Pierce
), magazine editor (
Lady in the Dark
), journalist (
His Girl Friday
), aviator (
Christopher Strong
), concert pianist (
September Affair
), opera singer (
One Night of Love
), stage actress (
Stage Door
), movie star (
A Star Is Born
), ballet dancer (
The Red Shoes
), commercial artist (
Laura
), high school teacher (
Cheers for Miss Bishop
), college professor (
The Accused
), college dean (
Woman of Distinction
), dress designer (
Daisy Kenyon
), novelist (
Old Acquaintance
), poet (
Winter Meeting
), playwright (
Sudden Fear
), lawyer
(
Adam’s Rib
), scientist (
Madame
Curie), athlete (
Pat and Mike
), physician (
The Girl in White
).

Loretta played many of these types, although she was never identified with the woman’s film, as were Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and Barbara Stanwyck. Yet, like many actresses in the 1930s and even 1940s, she made a significant number of women’s films, two of which have achieved classic status,
Man’s Castle
and
Midnight Mary
, and one that should have,
Life Begins.
The significance of the others lies in the mixed messages they sent to women.