Movie Review of “Dancing
Lady” (from Eskimo 19 print edition)
Anytime we look at an old movie or read
an old book or listen to an old song, we are acting as
historians as well as critics. If we don't take pains,
deliberately or unconsciously, to understand the
conventions of that day and the different meanings that
words and actions had, then we will misunderstand it.
We will end up viewing it from an oblique angle, with
nostalgia or condescension or dismissive
incomprehension. The force of the picture will glance
off us instead of striking us head on and sinking in.
But it takes some effort to work ourselves around into
a position from which we can have a chance of viewing
the work directly, as its original audience did. Yes,
Shakespeare is universal and timeless in his
psychological insights, but a modern reader still has
to learn, one way or another, about Elizabethan
diction, customs, science, philosophy, etc., or else
these universal insights will just go over his head.
Back in the bad old days of the
early 1970s, before we were led out of bondage into the
promised land of cable television, the melancholy
Eskimo used to stay up and watch old movies on late
night network TV. The local affiliates in Boston showed
movies from the 30s, 40s and 50s, not from any
antiquarian impulse, but because they were cheaper than
more recent films. And we're not talking here about
“Casablanca” and “Ninotchka.”
What we got were the B movies. But these tended (as
they still do) to be more generic and indicative of
their times than the A movies and, as such, they gave
one, in some ways, a better de facto education
in film history. In this fashion, I managed to get
about a thousand old movies under my belt, washed down
with liberal amounts of Schlitz and Old Grand Dad, and
fumigated with Camels. At the very least, what this
exposure did was to get me over that intellectual gag
reflex that's generally triggered by exposure to the
unfamiliar.
Thus, when I recently watched a
tape of “Dancing Lady” (1933) that I picked up at a
local library sale, it felt like I was slipping on a
pair of old shoes: not that spiffy anymore but
they’re comfortable and no one is making
them any more.
The opening shot shows two
couples in evening dress, buying tickets for a
burlesque show. A decrepit old drunk stumbles up to the
leader of the party, Tod Newton (Franchot Tone), and
starts haranguing him incoherently. Tod handles the
matter suavely and graciously. They're out slumming and
encounters like this are all part of the evening's
program. Once inside, they sit back and enjoy the show,
a choreographed striptease by half a dozen dancers on
runways reaching out into the audience. When Tod sees
Janie Barlow (Joan Crawford) up there, he lights up
like a Broadway marquee.
A police raid ensues and the
girls are hustled off in a paddy wagon to night court.
The Tod Newton party tags along with the promise of an
even better show - which they get. In between the gags
(such as the arresting officer demonstrating the exact
nature of the offending dance routines), Janie meets
her accusers with defiance: she's a dancer and this was
the only job she could get. No matter. It's 30 days or
30 dollars. She hasn't got the fine, so she's got to do
the time. Then Tod bails her out.
Within the first ten minutes, the
movie has revealed its terrain (romantic comedy
musical) and laid down the battle lines of its dramatic
conflicts. Aristocracy vs. proletariat. Establishment
vs. newcomer. Marriage vs. career. Censorship vs.
freedom. Freedom vs. license. Wealth vs. hard times.
Defeat vs. defiance and struggle and prevailing against
the odds.
It's helpful to understand two
historical contexts in order to see this movie
accurately. In 1933 the country was in the teeth of the
Great Depression, when a quarter of the population was
out of work, out of luck and, often, out of a home.
These were hard times, the hardest since the Civil War.
Hollywood responded with movies meant to act as an
anodyne for the national pain. It is undeniable that
the gorgeous gowns and art-deco interiors of this and
hundreds of other films from the 1930s were designed
(and functioned) as magic carpets to whisk the audience
away from its often sordid realities for a couple of
hours. But wish-fulfillment and nightmare have always
stood as the archaic poles of literary experience, and
it is no less true that the same thing happens today.
Even without an economic depression, our lives still
contain enough squalor, boredom, desperation and chaos
to make us want to leave them behind every now and
then. To patronize a film like “Dancing
Lady” as escapist is only to brand oneself as
provincial. “King Lear” provides just as
much of an escape from our quotidian realities –
or more of one – and carries us into that
larger man-made universe that will always exist
parallel to this one. If the original viewers of
“Dancing Lady” were indulging in escapism,
then so were the farmers and artisans and merchants who
sat around listening to Homer's Iliad. And that goes
too for the “serious” readers nodding over
their Henry James.
The other thing to remember about
1933 is that the Hays Office, the movie industry
institution for self-censorship that sprang up after
one too many roaring 20s Hollywood scandals, was just
getting established and hadn't much real power as yet.
“Dancing Lady” is very much a
pre-Hays movie. Of course, the whole era of silent
films is pre-Hays (and a woefully ignored resource
today) but this phrase usually refers to that narrow
opening after the advent of sound (c. 1930) and before
the widespread adherence to the Hays code of decorum
(c. 1935). The movies from this period may seem quite
tame by today's standards, but audiences at the time
would have been well advised to enjoy the silhouette of
Joan Crawford undressing for bed and her
double-entendres with Clark Gable as well as the
general moral sophistication of the themes, because it
would be another 30 years before they saw such things
again.
AFTER JANE IS SPRUNG from jail by
Tod, she deflects his amorous overtures in an amiable
manner than makes it clear that she's run around this
couch before. At first we think she is just defending
her honor, but later, when Tod gets serious and
proposes marriage, she refuses again, in defense of her
career. She's a dancer. It's in her blood and she means
to obey its call. Another conflict between them is
class. He wants to polish her up so she will be
presentable in high society. She's tempted but
ultimately chooses to affirm her class identity. She
likes shoes with bows and dresses with zippers and
she's not going to give them up. But, underlying these
reasons is another one that's buried in the subtext and
exemplifies the kind of thematic daring found in
pre-Hays movies. It becomes obvious at some point that
Jaimie doesn't want to make love to Tod, with or
without a ring, because he's simply not man
enough for her. He's too soft and pampered. He's a
Franchot Tone kind of man. She wants the Clark Gable
kind.
Anyone who first encountered Joan
Crawford in the later stages of her career - as the
pathetic victim in “Whatever Happened to Baby
Jane?” (1962), or, even earlier, as the sturdy
pioneer in “Johnny Guitar” (1954), or the
stolid matron in “Mildred Pierce” (1945),
will be shocked to see what a volatile siren she was in
the 30s in films like this and “Rain”
(1932) and “Grand Hotel” (1932). What you
notice first about her are the big hypnotic eyes, the
wide carnal mouth, the broad shoulders and purring alto
that suggest the dominatrix, and her tall, lithe body
and quick movements, as she tosses her mane this way
and that. But she also strikes you as shy and
vulnerable, a Molotov cocktail that could just as
easily go off by accident as by design. She is a
predator only because she is so irresistible as a prey.
She is at once a tigress and a lost kitten.
After getting out of jail, Jamie
decides to go uptown and try to break into a legitimate
musical. The doors are slammed in her face but she
stalks the director, Patch Gallagher (Clark Gable), in
and out of the theater. (This includes one of those
“leg chase” episodes that I've made fun of
before as an old cliché, with the camera cutting
back and forth between shots of two different pairs of
accelerating legs.) By contrast with Tod, Patch is the
sort of man that Jamie is attracted to – though
his characteristics are impossible to separate from
those of Gable himself and the rough masculinity he
exudes. Patch, however, is not especially interested in
Jamie, either as a dancer or a woman, and this
completes the third pole of the classic romantic
triangle: Tod wants Jamie, Jamie wants Patch, and Patch
wants a little peace and quiet. The rest of the movie
works out the resolution of the triangle into a line, a
single string vibrating between two fixed points. In
the process, Jamie finds her artistic fulfillment, is
made star of the show, and finally nails Patch, the
aggressor to the very end, though, significantly, she
waits to make her move until after she's landed the
job, a shrewd move both professionally and
romantically.
There's a wonderful scene where
we sees the sparks between these two, a scene that
wouldn't have made it past the Hays office a few years
later. Patch goes to the gym to get in a workout. There
he finds Jamie in sweats doing the same thing. He
complains about her following him around. She grits her
teeth and carries on. A medicine ball breaks the
tension. He tosses it to her and they play catch. She
stubs her finger on one of the tosses and he comes over
instinctively (as the physical therapist of his
dancers) to hold her hand and rub out the soreness. She
doesn't mind, and a minute later she misses another
throw, which hits her shoulder. Again he comes over and
stands behind her to apply some therapeutic massage.
We're the only ones who can see the little
conspiratorial grin that escapes from her face, a
signal that she engineered that one. A minute later,
with her back turned, he flings the ball at her butt.
She laughs and promptly sits down with a teasing little
“Unh-unh-unh,” signifying that she isn't
ready for that massage – not just yet anyway.
