Strike Up the Band - 1940

Strike Up the Band (1940) is a rollicking pastiche of M-G-M Americana, which is probably a genre, but at the very least, a profitable theme for the studio.  Two of its prize properties, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, are back for their fourth paring, and once again, prove they can do no wrong.  The question is whether the studio wanted to make a teens in the Depression coming-of-age movie, a barn musical, a patriotic endorsement of our nation in that stick your fingers in your ears and go la-la-la period between the start of World War II in September 1939 and our eventual entry in December 1941—or just a nostalgic, warm, family comedy?  With nothing to lose, the studio decided to make it all of the above.

As for the family in family comedy, the few parents we see include Mickey’s widowed mother, whom he insists he will make “a queen” and June Preisser’s rich parents, who will bankroll Mickey’s ultimate success, which is very convenient.  Most of Mickey and Judy’s high school gang talk of parental rules but seem to run their own lives pretty well, to the point that the most important adults in their sphere are the school principal, played by Francis Pierlot, a longtime vaudevillian and stage actor whose film career in his senior years must have surprised and gratified him; and the real-life big band leader Paul Whiteman.

Mr. Whiteman’s orchestra played an important role in the 1920s when the well-mannered and sophisticated jazz of the era evolved into swing music in the early 1930s (Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee were among those who had their start with him). By the time this movie was made, one could say that, though he had a noted place in the history of early twentieth-century American music, his best years were behind him.  American kids going to the grand party for rich June Pressier’s 18^th birthday (How could they afford those rented tuxedos?) would have been thrilled to be listening and dancing to the famous Paul Whiteman’s orchestra; however, they probably had more Dorsey, Miller, and Kyser records at home and were probably wondering when the “boogie-woogie” would start.

Mickey and his pals play in the school band, which is dull and uninspiring to them, but the scene gives us an oh-so-brief comic glance at the disapproving, spinsterish music teacher played by Virginia Sale, who had a long career playing much older character parts.  She was the sister of vaudevillian comic Chic Sale.  She also wrote and played in a one-woman show called American Sketches, with which she toured from the 1930s through the 1950s, including a stint over in Europe to perform for the troops during World War II. 

Mikey Rooney, born in a trunk and growing up on a soundstage, was by now a veteran movie star, not just a movie actor, and could do this role in his sleep.  It does, however, give him a chance to exhibit yet another talent for us—he was a very good drummer, and his solo pieces in this movie are terrific.

Mikey’s dilemma in the movie is that he wants to be a big band leader but his sainted mother wants him to be a doctor.  Money is tight (or as Mikey says, “When’s bank night?”), so we don’t know how she thinks this is going to happen, but Mikey dreads disappointing her.  Still, on the sly, and with a polite, clean-scrubbed rebellious streak, he organizes his buddies on the all-male school band into a dance orchestra.  They want to perform at parties and dances and raise money to go to Chicago to audition for Paul Whiteman and get rich and famous.

Every big band needs a girl singer, and this is where Judy Garland comes in.  Judy is, as always, wonderful, multi-talented, tears your heart out with a look and a lyric, and seems to grow in her powers with each movie she makes at this period.

We are treated to Gershwin tunes and different settings, from the imaginative but weird fantasy where a bowl of fruit becomes an orchestra via stop-motion animation, to a spirited conga number in the high school gym, to a very long and overly produced finale that gives us—either as an afterthought or perhaps a cherry on top—the image of martial bands, Mikey in a white naval uniform, and a salute to the flag.  Clearly, the studio wanted to make sure, even in the last moments of the film, that all bases were covered.

Mikey’s solution to his problem dovetails with Judy’s problem—which is the effervescent June Preisser, the (as we mentioned in this previous post) “eye-rolling junior vamp” with the rolling acrobatic moves that always astound but that never seem to fit in with a musical number.  June’s making eyes at Mikey makes Judy miserable.  Judy pines after Mikey, but the fool never seems to notice.

Pining after Judy is the really funny and quite endearing Larry Nunn as Willie, a boy who is a freshman to their senior grade.  Larry Nunn had a brief movie career—this film was probably his best work—and died tragically at only 49.  Young Willie provides the dramatic crisis in the film when he is injured and requires an operation.  The gang turns over their earnings to him and, as we see in the melodrama play they perform as a fundraiser, virtue is its own reward.

A word about the melodrama, a Gay Nineties spoof called “Nell of New Rochelle.”  I think this is my favorite part of the whole movie, partly because of the silliness, and partly as a tribute to a long-ago form of entertainment.  It’s part of our American theatrical heritage.  When this movie was made, the Gay Nineties was only fifty years ago.  I say “only” because I have now reached the senior citizen stage of my life and to me, the 1990s was last Thursday, and the 1970s was the week before that. 

The spoof also gives William Tracy, one of Mickey’s pals, a spotlight role as the villain of the piece.  His overly made-up and sneering, sinister overtures to virginal Judy is a stark contrast to his somewhat goofy teen personality, always worried about whether or not he is on the outs with his girlfriend, Annie, played by Margaret Early.  Young Mr. Tracy’s most prominent role was likely the jokester junior shop clerk in The Shop Around the Corner, made the same year of 1940 (see this previous post.)

 

The silliness of this “mellerdramer” also served as an inspiration to me when, a couple decades ago, I directed a similar kind of show for my local community theater called “The Face on the Bar-Room Floor,” and we incorporated many of the gags in this spoof:  the counting of the chimes of the town clock always being wrong, using many of the same songs:  “She Is More to be Pitied Than Censured,” “After the Ball, “ “Father, Dear Father,” etc., and when the unfortunate child, like Willie in the movie, died and suddenly bore a white gown and cardboard angel wings, instead of “flying” him on a wire, we brought out two gum-chewing, bored-looking stagehands to hoist him on their shoulders and parade him off to “heaven.”  The audience loved it.  That community theatre show remains a warm and wonderful memory that returns to me when I see this spoof in Strike Up the Band.

A few other favorite moments: 

When June Pressier, new student, confidently slinks into the classroom, causing Margaret Early to whisper to Judy Garland, “She’s touched it up,” referring to June’s being a dyed blonde—Judy, half admiring and half dreading a competitor murmurs simply, “Yeah.”  It’s a quiet moment, and in moments like these and when she is singing the comic but plaintive, “I ain’t got nobody and nobody’s got me,” in the library is when Judy is at her most powerful, commanding the screen far more than in the frenetic moments when—one suspects at the insistence of Busby Berkeley—her forceful eye-popping enthusiasm is nothing more than a theatrical ploy.  It does not draw us in like the real acting does.

We might also note in the library scene a brief Charles Smith sighting as the boy who’s looking for a book on the fall of the Roman Empire.   We also see Charles in the above-mentioned The Shop on the Corner.

I also like Willie’s pathetic and funny marriage proposal to Judy just before his mother calls to tell him it’s his bedtime, and the long-suffering Willie’s remark to Judy, when he sees that Mikey has snubbed her again, “Just give me the word, Mary, and I’ll slug him,” and “Some birds just got to be shot twice before they stop flying.”

At some point between the high school dance and the big gig in Chicago, the kids have graduated from high school, but we never see the ceremony and it seems of secondary importance to their quest for fame and fortune.  It’s a world of homespun advice from Mom, played by Ann Shoemaker who offers in her society lady diction, “The top of the ladder is very appealing, and for my sake, be careful how you climb that ladder, because that’s very important, too.” 

Paul Whiteman offers his own advice, or something about dying and drumming, “When we get to the last eight bars of the big tune—the last thing to stop is our rhythm.”

It’s a world of neckties and sweater vests, and it’s a nice place to visit, and I wouldn’t mind living there, too.

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Our greatest gift from the Greatest Generation was freedom from fascism. Relive, and celebrate, how evil was faced, discussed, dramatized...and fought. Classic films were Hollywood's weapon.

Get your copy of my book Hollywood Fights Fascism here at Amazon in print or eBook, or FREE here for a limited time at Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a variety of other online shops.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism and Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We Hold These Truths - Hollywood Broadcast

A week after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a program celebrating the 150^th anniversary of the Bill of Rights was produced on all four radio networks of the day – CBS, NBC Red and Blue networks, and the Mutual network.  It was narrated by James Stewart, and a host of Hollywood players joined him in bringing to life not only the struggles of post-Revolutionary War America to come up with this Bill of Rights, but how important it was to reflect on it, and rely on it, in a time of modern troubles.  The program was performed live.

It is a remarkable and deeply emotional dramatization that not only speaks to us today, but sings, shouts, cries, and cheers.  Norman Corwin wrote the beautiful script, performed on December 15, 1941, and it is estimated over half the U.S. population listened to it.  Performed in a Hollywood studio, live hookups also included performances in New York City, and an address by President Franklin D. Roosevelt from Washington, D.C.  Bernard Herrmann composed original music for the program, and at the very end of the show, Maestro Leopold Stokowski conducted “The Star Spangled Banner.”

James Stewart was, at that time, a corporal in the Army Air Corps, loaned to the project for the occasion.  His fellow players included Edward Arnold, Lionel Barrymore, Walter Brennan Marjorie Main, Bob Burns, Walter Huston, Edward G. Robinson, Rudy Vallee, and Orson Welles.

Walter Huston, rolling his r’s, introduces the program.  Then, the familiar voice of Lionel Barrymore is brought to the mic.

“My name is Barrymore. I’m one of several actors gathered in the studio in California….”  He joins 130 million fellow Americans in praise of a document “that men have fought for, that men are fighting for…”

He announces the cast, and adds, “Our names are meaningless unless your names are added.”  

Then one by one, the cast fills in, leaving their Hollywood personas and adopting the guise, in our imaginations, of post-Revolutionary Americans.  Jimmy Stewart like his character in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939),which we covered in this post, leads us on a tour of modern Washington, D.C., and as he describes monuments and their inscriptions, we are reminded of the movie, for he is intentionally channeling Mr. Smith’s awe and wonder.  

Not only the message, but the script beams with elegant writing, no longer in fashion.  Perhaps it is too idealistic, and we have learned to distrust everything.  

On the National Archives building it is written,  “ What is past, is prologue.”  We hear the clicking of footsteps as Stewart climbs the stone steps to see the Bill of Rights in glass – the old parchment with faded writing.  Then Stewart and the other actors proceed to bring it alive.  “The words are dim, but not the meaning of the words…”  Perhaps not.  Perhaps we need this lesson.

Stewart brings us to the hall as the great men rise to speak and call the roll, to sign their names the draft when Constitution is written, which is then brought back to the states for review, but the people are suspicious.  They want guarantees of certain protections.  And so, this is the story of how the Bill of Rights came to be added as the most important addendum in history.  

Other actors jump in to be those common people in the different states who express their curiosity for the new document, but who want more guarantees, more explanations of just what they have won in the Revolutionary War.

Walter Huston is a blacksmith.   He doesn’t want anyone telling him he has to pray the way somebody else tells him.  Doesn’t like state religion.  Wants to make sure there won’t be any.

Others are suspicious of authority.  They know that just wanting law and order isn’t enough—Nero had such.   

Marjorie Main plays a woman whose husband died in the war.  She wants guarantees that he didn’t die  in vain.

Edward Arnold is a bricklayer who argues that the work is unfinished.  There’s only a foundation and no house.

So many voices, so much dissent, so much yearning for rights.   We are taken on a journey not only through history, but through the minds and souls of this nation.

Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, James Madison lend their voices, and George Mason warning us not only about a monarchy, but a “tyrannical aristocracy” taking over, the monied class.

Now the First Congress begins sifting through the amendments to the Constitution and hammering them out for the future.  It’s not an easy job, but it’s important and they persist.  Stewart passionately narrates, cajoles, shouts.

Most profound is Orson Welles’ impassioned speech.  He takes over at this point and adds the other voices to the founders of the Bill of Rights – not just the men in Congress, but from the victims of the ages – “They had much help, the many nameless and unknown – from bleeding mouths, burnt flesh – from numberless and nameless agonies.  The delegates from dungeons, they were there.  The delegates from ashes at the bottoms of the stakes were there.”

We hear a voice, weak, pleading.

Orson continues, “The gallows delegates, whose corpses lifted gently in the breeze, they too…”

His voice grows booming, horrified:  “The Christians killed for being Christians, Jews for being Jews, the Quakers hanged in Boston town, they made a quorum also… The murdered men, the lopped off hands, the shattered limbs, the red welts where the whip lash bit into the back.  Must you know what they said?  Must you know how they argued?  Must you be told the evidence?

“Listen, then!”

We hear a blood-curdling scream.

“That was an argument for an amendment.”

They are words for our times, how shockingly, sickeningly current.

“How much of all this must be told to be believed?  How much of this must be diagramed: X marks the spot where decency was last observed?”

Nero was there, Caligula, Cotton Mather, all the tyrants were observing in the hall.  “All the long and bloody history of fanaticism, murder in the name of God.”  

Christ was there too.  “He, too, sat in the Congress, the mild Man, with scars in His hands and feet where the spikes went through.  He was a consultant in the business at hand.  Had He not died because the rulers of the realm denied free speech?  Was He not nailed up on a cross between two thieves because His preachments were considered treason?”

Orson growls, wails his words.  “Out of the agonies, out of crisscrossed scars of all the human race they made a Bill of Rights for their own people…To stand against the enemies within, connivers, fakers, those who lust for power, those who make of their authority an insolence.”

Listen to Orson’s impassioned speech, and think of now.

The Bill of Rights “Threw up a bulwark…and made a sign for their posterity against the bigots, the fanatics, bullies, lynchers, race haters, the cruel men, the spiteful men, the sneaking men, the pessimists…”

The Bill of Rights is ratified!  Jimmy Stewart breathes easier and brings the document to the thirteen states.

Then Edward Arnold, Walter Huston, Marjorie Main, Walter Brennan and others join in as the amendments are read, each one, and voices answer to illustrate what each one means.  We go to the homes of farmers, the blacksmith shop, all the new citizens.  The war gave them separation from Great Britain, but the Constitution and the Bill of Rights makes them citizens.

We hear a woman tending the grave of her soldier husband.  We hear a Colonial folk tune.  Through all, James Stewart’s folksy ruminating weaves a thread to guide us to the present.  Edward G. Robinson is a political protester who praises the rights that allow him to speak and fight corruption in city hall.

“A promise is a promise,” Jimmy Stewart says, “Has America’s been kept?”

It is a fair question, but in only a short time Japanese Americans would have their rights taken away by virtue of their ethnicity.  It was not the Bill of Rights that failed them; it was their fellow citizens and a president and government who shamefully allowed their mistreatment.  Even in those days when war was declared and Americans were coming together for mutual support, even in times of great pride, patriotism and cheerleading, something monstrously unfair could occur.  How much easier it is to occur in times when we are not one, when we are fighting amongst ourselves?  When a foreign enemy knows how to divide and conquer.  Abraham Lincoln said:

“From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.” 

We've come to that suicidal brink, however, with the aid of Vladimir Putin’s mafia, and the fascism that is rotting our government. We have far superior technology in our media than they did when this radio program was broadcast in December 1941, but we have lost the gift of eloquence that they possessed then.  Such well-written and carefully crafted words would today seem to be talking above the heads of the crowds whom the spokesmen try to reach.  Maybe because they are above the intelligence of the spokesmen.

This was a live program, so neatly coordinated, so passionately and intimately put together.  Listen to this program and marvel not only at how it was written, acted, and produced according to the technology of the day when we were only a week at war, but marvel – for God’s sake, marvel at the message of warning, of love, and of integrity, of pride for our Bill of Rights.

At the end of the program, James Stewart introduces in a soft, gentle voice President Roosevelt, who then speaks live from Washington, D.C.   “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the people of the United States.”

Of the people.

It was reported by Screen Guide magazine in the March 1942 issue, from which some of these photos are taken, that after James Stewart introduced the President, he ripped off his earphones at the mic, and burst into tears.

Listen to We Hold These Truths or download at the Internet Archive, or here at YouTube.

Evolution of the Classic Film Fan

Jack Lemmon arrives home late at night to his New York City apartment, a second-floor walk-up in an ancient brownstone.  It’s a cold, misty night in the late autumn.  He pops a TV dinner in the oven, and when it’s ready, he drops the hot aluminum foil slab on his coffee table and parks himself in front of the TV.  He is cheered by the prospect of Grand Hotel (1932) being broadcast, but is fed up with commercial sponsor interruptions by the announcer, and flicks channels (surprisingly, on an early cable manual remote dial), runs through a western and another show that do not hold his interest, before he lands back on Grand Hotel and finally gives up at yet another commercial.  He snaps off the TV, and it blips into a single white spot, as if the cathode ray tube has been engulfed in a cosmic black hole.

Had his character, C.C. Baxter ever seen this, then 28-year-old movie, before?  Or had he only heard of it?  He is clearly excited at the prospect of seeing it as the announcer trumpets the names of the cast, including Joan Crawford and Lionel Barrymore.

Most of us recognize this scene from The Apartment (1960).  It always fascinated me as possibly one of the first depictions of the old movie buff.  Today we discuss the evolution of the classic film fan, which, as we’ve mentioned on this blog before, was a result of television.

January 25, 1957

In this previous post we took a playful look at some pages of TV Guide from 1976 and the old movie listings.  Here are a few much older pages from the 1950s and 1960s.  Though there were only a few channels then, there was still a lot of time to fill on this new medium, and movies from decades past were pulled out of the vault and used as filler.

But it was also an exciting era of entertainment in a new format.  Dramas, many of them live, featured stars and character actors of Hollywood’s Golden Age.   We might wonder how they felt about sharing the airwaves with old movies featuring their much younger selves?   Here was graphic proof that they had aged—not something helpful in promoting a current career in middle age.  (Catch Claude Rains in an episode of The Naked City below, and Gloria Swanson starring in her own program.)  It's difficult enough to compete against other actors, but to compete against one's younger self?

November 9, 1960

February 8, 1955

The studios were breaking up or had broken up by this time, and the broadcast rights to these movies were sometimes held by no one connected with the making of them.  Certainly, none of the actors received residuals.

But it must have seemed amazing that these old movies—which most studio execs back in the day could never have imaged would have a life beyond the vault—were now being shown to a new generation.  A few “art house” movie theaters across the country might chime in with a retrospective  on a particular film or star, but none of these venues could claim the huge audience numbers of a single night of television.

The 1960s, so forward, fast-moving, and futuristic, was not a particularly nostalgic period, though we see on this TV Guide page an early documentary series, Hollywood and the Stars.  Most remarkably, though, have a look at Silents Please, a program which showed silent movies and listed the credits.

October 7, 1963

October 3, 1962

Most Baby Boomers, though having benefited from the Late Late Show, the Million Dollar Movie, etc., since the 1950s, would recall the 1970s and the curious nostalgia boom as the mechanism that really launched a generation of old movie buffs. 

That’s Entertainment! (1974) had a huge hand in launching it.  Originally intended as a television special for the 50th anniversary of MGM, producer and director Jack Haley, Jr. and the studio execs decided to gamble on a feature release, and its popularity surprised everyone and led to a soundtrack album of highlights.  (I don’t really remember, but I think it could have been one of the first albums I ever bought.) The tag line “Boy.  Do we need it now.” was both an acknowledgement of the fatigue over the political and social upheaval over the past several years, and a slap in the face to modern movie makers, whose style and subject matter were vastly different from the classic era.  It was one of the highest grossing films of the year.  

Aha.  There was a market for this old-time stuff.

The clips are wonderful, but some of the film's most powerful moments are the introductions to each segment hosted by stars of the Golden Age on the run-down sets of the back lot.  These scenes of aging star reviving warm memories of elegance -- on a dilapidated set rotting away -- hammer home the lure of nostalgia like nothing else.

Here is a clip of the festivities and roll call of the stars from the 1974 premiere.  These stars need not have worried about competing with their younger selves anymore. That was water over the bridge.  They could look back safely, and even enjoy being in the limelight for one more special evening.

And for the first time, their fans shouting at them as they walked the red carpet were not their contemporaries -- they were young enough to be their children and grandchildren.

But some modern movie makers, perhaps spurring the nostalgia era, perhaps capitalizing off it, paid tribute to Hollywood’s golden age.  What’s Up Doc? (1972) was a modern film, but a direct tribute to the screwball classics of decades past.  Paper Moon (1973) was not a parody, but a slice of life of Depression-era America, filmed in black and white.  The Sting (1973), decidedly in color, a planned art deco palette.  Young Frankenstein (1974)—also filmed in glorious black and white— represented the most common tribute to classic film in this era—the parody.  Add to this Neil Simon’s The Cheap Detective (1978), a knockoff on Casablanca (1943) and The Maltese Falcon (1941).

During this era we can thank The Carol Burnett Show for making us laugh with superb old movie parodies.  Parodies, and kitschy merchandise (Betty Boop was reborn as key rings and coffee mugs long before anybody thought of rebroadcasting the old cartoons.) fed the old movie nostalgia boom, and a few slim books that tried to cram names and facts if not a deep understanding or analysis of film at this time.

Such books include Richard Lamparski’s Whatever Became Of…? series, and Jerry Lang and Gösta Viertel’s Who Is That? and many others.  These were photo-filled books, lightweight, without much depth to them, but certainly a kind of survey course for newcomers.   Most had little substantive narrative, with a reliance on cliche, and sometimes, as in the case of Who Is That?, an awkward handling certainly in the "separate but equal" gallery of “Negro Actors” along with a roster of vamps and bad guys.  These high school yearbook-style books at least put a name to the face, long before IMDb gave us movie credits.  In all these ways, serious and spurious, the decade was waking up to classic films.

One could argue the chicken-and-egg scenario: did these items feed off the merchandising craze of the nostalgia boom, or did it create it?

Critics and film historians Pauline Kael and Jeanine Basinger wrote contemplative essays on classic film, and colleges began film appreciation courses.  Leonard Maltin published his first book of reviews, which would be updated for the first time during the decade, and, of course, Robert Osborne’s  Academy Awards annual became bibles in the homes of movie buffs.

The term "film noir" came into popularity in the 1970s.  

Those of us who were around then, educating ourselves on classic film from public library encyclopedias and biographies, and many late nights in front of the cathode ray tube, welcomed these and That’s Entertainment and it’s sequel.  It was fun to be reminded of great musicals in an era where they were dying and we were told they would never come back because they were too expensive, but mostly too corny.  Its success, and that teasing moniker, “Boy. Do We Need It Now.” seemed to legitimize our love of old movies.

Television remained our main source for classic film, and in an era where old movies were often shown on primetime, we recall that the very first showings on TV of Gone With the Wind (1939) in 1976 (engendering a famous Carol Burnett parody), and The Sound of Music (1965) in 1975 were huge events and received the highest ratings of the era.  Subsequent yearly showings continued to reap great ratings and became annual favorites for new generations.

Interesting that The Wizard of Oz (1939), another film that received a huge boost from TV and probably would have been forgotten without it, really took off with the advent of color TV, where its special effects could be better appreciated.

I don't believe The Wizard of Oz has been shown on broadcast TV in years.

Another TV tribute—and I’d love to see how many remember this—was the series run on PBS stations called Matinee At the Bijou  in 1980 and ran for five years.  It was probably a first for showing in each episode a cartoon, a short subject, and a serial or “B” movie.  Rudy Vallee was brought out of retirement to sing the show’s theme song.  It was a real treat for the old movie fan to have access to these less prestigious examples of the studio era.  All well and good to celebrate Casablanca, but for the serious film buff, the giants do not tell the whole story, nor satisfy our yen for what else is in the vault.

On the horizon—a tsunami.  The VHS cassette.  Old movies were now being produced in video format to be purchased for home use.  To be sure, collectors of 16mm print films had enjoyed a select assortment of classic films, shorts and cartoons for decades (and some still prefer them), but the VHS cassette offered a less expensive alternative that was easier to use, required less equipment, and a larger variety of movies.  Icing on the cake was the ability to actually record on blank video tape at home.  Now the Late, Late Show offerings were funneled into our private collections.

Watching a particular movie anytime you wanted.  Mind blowing.  A Flintstones-era  “on demand” TV.

And THEN came the movie rental shop.  And “please rewind.”

DVD, of course, was the next big advancement, and Blu-ray, but even before this came on the scene, what I think was more profound to the evolution of the old movie buff and the perpetuation of familiarity with classic films to a new generation was the American Movie Classics channel, and its hosts Bob Dorian and Nick Clooney.   It ran from 1984 to 2002 and was our go-to network for classic movies.  Since AMC (now called American Movie Channel) abandoned classic film programming in 2002, there is always that reference to their going to the “dark side” and fears that one day Turner Classic Movies might follow their example. 

TCM, launched in 1994, I think we can all acknowledge, has been a giant in the appreciation of classic film.  No other TV source has promoted the wide array of studio era films—from features, to shorts, documentaries, live events such as the TCM Film Festival and the TCM Classic Cruise.  We may scorn its drifting into modern films, and the trite “let’s movie” slogan, but TCM is a haven for classic film buffs in a way no other venue has been, not since the old neighborhood movie house from the teens to the late 1950s.  Robert Osborne has earned the respect and love of millions of classic film fans for many reasons, most especially for the dignity with which he presents the movies, for the way he represents us.  Not since the “Boy. Do We Need It Now.” has the appreciation of classic films been raised to the level of esteem it deserves.

We may have reached a climax of sorts—for, as discussed in the first part of this series here, the demographic of the Millennials do not get their entertainment from cable television.  With few classic films shown on broadcast TV these days, younger generations are not apt to be introduced to classic film just by switching the dial, as we were, if they do not subscribe to TCM.

But there are some interesting new venues to promote classic films.  Blogs and websites certainly, but also the growing experiment of showing old movies in cinemas for special releases, allowing fans to see their favorites once again on the big screen.

There are also some intriguing home-grown programming—such as Dana Hersey, who hosted The Movie Loft on Boston-area TV-38 in the 1980s is launching an Internet classic movie streaming channel. Other hosts of online podcasts demonstrate that being a classic film fan is continually evolving according to the technology that allows us to appreciate old movies.  No longer content to be “programmed to”, the classic film fan is now taking the reins and doing the programming.  We'll talk about that more later in the year.

Come back next month, Thursday, May 5^th, for part 5 of this series when we discuss the TCM Classic Film Festival.

Come back next week for our regularly scheduled programming—the CMBA “Words! Words! Words!” Blogathon.  My entry is the use of letters in old movies.  Please join us next Thursday for this fun blogathon.

Part 1 of the year-long series on the current state of the classic film buff is here: A Classic Film Manifesto. 

Part 2 is here: Cliff Aliperti’s new book on Helen Twelvetrees. 

Part 3 is here: An interview with Kay Noske of Movie Star Makeover.

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"Lynch’s book is organized and well-written – and has plenty of amusing observations – but when it comes to describing Blyth’s movies, Lynch’s writing sparkles." - Ruth Kerr, Silver Screenings

"Jacqueline T. Lynch creates a poignant and thoroughly-researched mosaic of memories of a fine, upstanding human being who also happens to be a legendary entertainer." - Deborah Thomas, Java's Journey

"One of the great strengths of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is that Lynch not only gives an excellent overview of Blyth's career -- she offers detailed analyses of each of Blyth's roles -- but she puts them in the context of the larger issues of the day."- Amanda Garrett, Old Hollywood Films

"Jacqueline's book will hopefully cause many more people to take a look at this multitalented woman whose career encompassed just about every possible aspect of 20th Century entertainment." - Laura Grieve, Laura's Miscellaneous Musings

"Jacqueline T. Lynch’s Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is an extremely well researched undertaking that is a must for all Blyth fans." - Annette Bochenek, Hometowns to Hollywood

Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. 

by Jacqueline T. Lynch

The first book on the career of actress Ann Blyth. Multitalented and remarkably versatile, Blyth began on radio as a child, appeared on Broadway at the age of twelve in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine, and enjoyed a long and diverse career in films, theatre, television, and concerts. A sensitive dramatic actress, the youngest at the time to be nominated for her role in Mildred Pierce (1945), she also displayed a gift for comedy, and was especially endeared to fans for her expressive and exquisite lyric soprano, which was showcased in many film and stage musicals. Still a popular guest at film festivals, lovely Ms. Blyth remains a treasure of the Hollywood's golden age.

The eBook and paperback are available from Amazon and CreateSpace, which is the printer.  You can also order it from my Etsy shop. It is also available at the Broadside Bookshop, 247 Main Street, Northampton, Massachusetts.

If you wish a signed copy, then email me at JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com and I'll get back to you with the details.

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My new syndicated column SILVER SCREEN, GOLDEN YEARS, on classic film is up at Go60  or check with your local paper.

The Helen Morgan Story - 1957

The Helen Morgan Story (1957) is one of Ann Blyth’s best dramatic performances, indeed, the hospital scene is astonishing—more on that later—but she is remembered in this movie more for what seems viewed as an ignominious indictment of having her singing voice dubbed by Gogi Grant.  This was the last film Ann Blyth ever made.  Because the movie, for several valid reasons, has a reputation of not being as good as it could have been, and because she was dubbed, both the film and the conclusion of Ann Blyth’s film career seems shackled to an aura of defeat. 

This is unfortunate—and ridiculous.  Today we will take a good look at The Helen Morgan Story, Helen Morgan, and Ann Blyth.

And Gogi Grant, and Polly Bergen.  And Michael Curtiz and Martin Rackin and Jack Warner.

This may be the longest blog post you ever read in your life.  Take off your shoes.  Turn off your cell phone.  Leave a forwarding address.

Helen Morgan - Library of Congress, Prints & 
Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection

Helen Morgan was one of the most renowned singers of the 1920s.  She was enormously popular with the public, and beloved by those who knew her.  Despite a rise to fame from a girl with an eighth grade education learning to sing torch songs in Chicago speakeasies at the beginning of the decade, to starring on Broadway and even appearing in Hollywood films by the end of the decade, it is still difficult, exactly, to call her a success.

Helen Morgan was a shy, anxious young woman, who craved affection and belonging, but who made bad choices, suffered bad relationships,and could only find the approval of adoring audiences by wallowing in her vulnerability with sad songs that told tales of being lonely, abused, and heartbroken.  She was so moving in this persona that audiences ate it up, but it left a bewildered Helen, who was a meticulous singer and conscientious artist, wondering where her personal sorrow left off and the performance began.  It seemed one fed the other.

Mark Hellinger was writing his column for the New York Daily News at this time, news and gossip of the theatre world, Damon Runyon style, and was both a fan and friend of Helen Morgan, and had also written sketches for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 in which Miss Morgan appeared.  After Helen Morgan died in 1941 at only forty-one years old, Mr. Hellinger, then in a new career as a writer and producer in Hollywood, bought the rights to her story intending to make the film biography of her life for Warner’s.  He died before they found the right person to play her. 

At the time he was writing his column in New York, when Helen Morgan was starring at the Ziegfeld Theater on Sixth Avenue and 54^th Street (long since torn down) in Hammerstein and Kern’s colossal hit Showboat (our old friend Edna May Oliver played the role of the overbearing Parthy), Ann Blyth was a baby on the other side of town, in a considerably lower rent district, an area along East 31^st Street that has also since been bulldozed away in the slum renewal projects of the 1960s.  In twelve years Ann would be on Broadway herself while still a child, and in fifteen she’d be in Hollywood, where she got to know Mark Hellinger when she appeared in his productions of Swell Guy (1946), which we discussed here, and Brute Force (1947), here.  Hellinger would say of Ann:

“Outside, she’s as untouched as a convent girl—and inside, she’s as wise as a woman of 50.”

Perhaps one could say the opposite about Helen Morgan.

The Helen Morgan Story has always been a tale of two reputations: Helen Morgan’s and Ann Blyth’s.

It was a shock to many in December 1956 when Ann was chosen for the role over several who were tested, and a few hundred other wannabes.  Even director Michael Curtiz, for whom she had performed brilliantly in Mildred Pierce (1945) covered here, did not consider her for the role.

Syndicated columnist Aline Mosby noted:

Movie-goers will be in for a surprise when they see Hollywood’s perennial ‘good girl’ sitting on a piano to portray Helen Morgan, the sensual torch singer of the ‘20s.  Ann will do a hula and sob in the drunk scene.  Ann Blyth?

“I didn’t want to test Ann at first,” Curtiz admitted, “…I tested 25 girls and interviewed another 25.  I talked to Olivia de Havilland, Jennifer Jones…singers Julie London, Connie Russell [who would cut her own tribute LP to Helen Morgan].

“After everybody was exhausted, I took a chance and tested Ann.  She made just a brilliant test!”

Apparently, columnist Hedda Hopper urged Curtiz to test her, and Ann’s agent, Al Rockett, pushed hard.  In an interview with Miss Hopper, Ann acknowledged with some chagrin that her quiet personal life evidently made her viewed as a poor choice for a torch singer.

“But why is it that producers and directors find it so hard to separate an actress from her private life?  Unless you’re a flashy person they never think of you for the colorful parts.  If you lead a quiet life in your own personal existence, they give you only sticky, sweet roles.”

Ann had to live down not only her reputation, but Helen’s.  Because Helen Morgan lived a much less stable life, got in trouble with gangsters and the law for her activity with speakeasies during the Prohibition, and sat on pianos and sang torch songs and was a hopeless alcoholic, it was reckoned she was a pretty tough customer.  She wasn’t. 

Helen Morgan was very quiet and soft-spoken, and leaned heavily on her mother, with whom she was inseparable as a girl—rather like Ann Blyth.  She was recalled by her friends as being sweet and overly generous, but insecure.  According to Hedda Hopper:

Helen always spoke softly and with dignity, even when she was drinking—you couldn’t tell she was intoxicated—and how quiet and wistful she was when under contract to Warner’s in 1935.

But other columnists who either forgot that or else never knew Helen Morgan, knew only that she drank herself to death, imagined her to be more hard-bitten, and took the first surprising news of Ann Blyth’s being cast in the role and played it to the hilt.  Syndicated columnist Bob Thomas:

A lot of eyebrows were raised when it was announced that Ann Blyth would star in the life of Helen Morgan…After all, Helen Morgan was a symbol of the ‘20s, a hard-drinking, fast-living party girl.  Ann—well, Ann is just about the epitome of sweetness.

Some fans also rebelled, fearful this was a turn to the dark side for their favorite actress.

Ann Blyth is still a good girl, despite what some of her fans think…Ann is receiving critical mail from some fans who fear that Hollywood’s “little lady” compromised her own moral principles in taking the part.

To which Ann responded:

"There are always people who can’t disassociate an actor’s personal life from her screen life…I just couldn’t go on playing any more sweet roles; it would be career suicide."

It was called “the shock casting of the year,” but producer Martin Rackin explained in the same article the reasoning behind their choice of using Ann:

There are some actresses in this town who can roll in the gutter and it won’t move you.  They look at home there.  But when you put a good girl like Ann in the gutter, it tears your heart out.

Doris Day went up against similar prejudice when she was cast as torch singer (and Helen Morgan colleague) Ruth Etting in Love Me or Leave Me (1955).  Before her death in 1978, Miss Etting said she thought Doris Day’s portrayal of her was too tough, and that she would have preferred Jane Powell in the role.

Doris Day received good reviews for her excellent work in that film (which we’ll have to discuss in more detail sometime or other).  Interestingly, Doris Day refused to make the biography of Helen Morgan when it was offered to her in 1950 because of the presumed sordidness of Morgan’s lifestyle, which she felt would go against her wholesome screen image, yet the Ruth Etting character she portrayed was much less sympathetic than Helen Morgan.  (Hedda Hopper broke the news that Miss Day would play Morgan for director Michael Curtiz as early as 1948; Louella Parsons broke the same news in 1950.)  Apparently, Doris Day changed her mind about unwholesome roles by 1955 when she played Ruth Etting.  Her name came up for the Helen Morgan role again in 1956 when this movie was undergoing “the biggest casting search since Scarlett O’Hara.”

The 1950s inexplicably launched an era for nostalgic films about female singers on the rocks.  With a Song in My Heart (1952) gave us Susan Hayward as Jane Froman (Hayward was also up for the Helen Morgan role), who was injured in a plane crash, but managed to continue her singing career on crutches.  Interrupted Melody (1953) put Eleanor Parker, as Marjorie Lawrence, in a wheelchair with polio.  Susan Hayward took another turn at bat as the alcoholic Lillian Roth in I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955).  Peggy Lee received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her alcoholic torch singer in Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955).

Incidentally, Hedda Hopper had also publically barracked for Ann to get the Susan Hayward role as Lillian Roth in I’ll Cry Tomorrow in 1955:

Why not Ann Blyth for Lillian Roth’s story I’ll Cry Tomorrow?  Ann made her initial success as the nasty daughter of Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce.  Her dramatic talent has been smothered in sweet costume ickies, and I’d like to see her emerge again as a dramatic actress.  This would do it.

I’m not sure if the critics or the public were battling girl singers’ tragedies fatigue by 1957 when The Helen Morgan Story was released, but they had already seen one other version of her life.  In May 1957, some five months before the film’s release, the television show Playhouse 90 produced an original script on Helen’s life as told by her mother.  Polly Bergen played Helen Morgan, and received very good reviews.  You can see a clip of the program here on YouTube.  I especially like the way she acts out the mood of the song, creating an unselfconscious intimacy with her audience.

Polly Bergen did her own singing.  Ann Blyth signed on to the film project with the understanding she would do her own singing.  It was decided afterward that she would be dubbed by pop singer Gogi Grant, whose hit single the previous year, “The Wayward Wind” reached number one on the Billboard chart and held the position for a record eight weeks.

Syndicated columnist Erskine Johnson interviewed Gogi Grant, who mused:

“It’s funny too…I wasn’t asked to listen to any of Helen’s old records.  The studio didn’t even suggest I change my style of singing.  They just said, ‘Sing like YOU sing…I guess I was the only girl singer in America who wasn’t after the role of Helen Morgan…the studio called me one day right out of the blue.”

She was hired by Warner’s studio musical director:

“At first the studio figured that Ann, known as a singer, might skip by unnoticed with a dubbed-in singing voice.  Even after hiring Gogi for the chore, the studio worried about the box-office appeal of a non-singing Ann Blyth in the role of Helen.”

But Gogi’s agent sweetened the pot, and suggested that Gogi would work for less money if they gave her screen credit.  There was no attempt to hide the owner of Helen’s screen singing voice, nor could there have been.  From that point, Ann’s being dubbed influenced the reputation of The Helen Morgan Story.

Ann praised Miss Grant’s work and told columnist Bob Thomas:

“Gogi has done a wonderful job on the songs…she’s not only a good singer; she has a dramatic quality that the songs require.”

Determined to look at it in a positive light, she acknowledged after filming got under way:

“I’ve been hoping for a role like this for a long time.  I’m a little disappointed about not being able to sing, but Helen’s character and the story really are more important.  Her greatest appeal was her personality.  To do a good job and be convincing is all I ask.”

It was a generous and professional attitude to take, but in terms of lending legitimacy both to the film and to her career, the decision to dub her was a punch to the gut. 

Ann Blyth wasn’t an actress who couldn’t sing and therefore needed to be dubbed; she was a singer, moreover, a richly talented singer with a powerful voice.  She had sung on film, she had sung in nightclubs, just as Helen Morgan did.  One could imagine that for a trained singer to have her singing dubbed, to act her songs and lip-synch to the playback of another woman’s voice might have been demoralizing.  It certainly would have felt strange.  It also left her with only half a characterization - she couldn't work through the mood of the lyrics the way Polly Bergen did because she wasn't creating the mood - she was only able to follow the template laid down by Gogi Grant.

Ann had meticulously researched her role preparatory to making the film: speaking with people who knew Helen Morgan, reading newspaper accounts, and, unlike Gogi Grant, listening to her recordings.  Helen had a high, thin soprano, with careful diction, a delicate sound and articulation that hearkened back almost to the style of lady songstresses of the turn of the century.  That was the irony in this tale of two reputations: Ann Blyth’s robust soprano was not considered “torchy” enough for a public the studio felt would expect a more brassy, pop sound—and Helen Morgan’s thin, sweet voice was unlike the nasal boop-a-doop warblings of the cutie pies or the throaty and gin-soaked moaners of the 1920s.  Her vocal style didn’t match what was currently popular in her own era, and yet she was still a star.  Her personality while singing made her so; not necessarily her voice.

Gogi Grant, as people seem to frankly acknowledge now, did not sound at all like Helen Morgan, but then as she said in her interview quoted above, she wasn’t supposed to even try.  Polly Bergen, who played Helen on television, with a deeper voice sounded even less like her. 

Ann Blyth’s rich voice, her range, her precise articulation and skill in holding a note for its full value would have been entirely compatible with Helen Morgan’s singing style.

(Mildred Pierce - 1945 - Ann at 16)

Besides, if the studio really wanted vampish and torchy, who was it that sang “Oceana Roll” with torrid suggestiveness, a bare midriff and a scarf in her hand (à la Helen Morgan)?  Veda Pierce—nobody but 16-year-old Ann Blyth.

As we noted in this previous post on The Student Prince (1954), when Edmund Purdom was called in to replace Mario Lanza, but was dubbed using Lanza’s singing voice, it pretty much sunk any hope of Purdom’s making the role his own.  The Student Prince suffered for it, its reputation tarnished before filming even began.

Just as with Edmund Purdom, being dubbed took away from Ann Blyth’s owning the role. However, Ann’s remark that it was really the dramatics of the story that mattered was, in part, true.  The role still presented a thrilling challenge for her.  She mused for Photoplay in December 1957:

“I know everybody’s going to think the drunk scenes were the toughest for me,” she says with a grin, “They weren’t.  People don’t realize that, for an actress, a good drunk scene is an emotional field day.  You can just sort of let out all your stops…”

The movie has its strengths and weaknesses.  Ann acknowledged in the same interview:

“After all, no one motion picture can really do full justice to a person’s life.  How can it, when often the person doesn’t do justice to himself?”

This hints at one of the major problems of The Helen Morgan Story, and which really is nobody’s fault—Helen was passive, insecure, and a self-destructive person, who came to a miserable end.  It is difficult to craft a film that will entertain an audience, to keep them emotionally involved in the story even when things get very grim. (Though I think her story deserves another treatment, a documentary at least.)  Nobody saved her, and she could not save herself.  It does tear your heart out, as producer Martin Rackin predicted, but it is depressing.  Despite a lump-in-the-throat ending scene where Helen’s friends pay tribute to her, there really is no uplifting message.

Other problems with the film could have been corrected, and are the result perhaps of first, too many writers stitching together a project that had been on the Warner’s shelf for nearly 15 years, and second, an unfortunate collaboration between those writers and director Michael Curtiz to hammer every 1920s cliché they could think of in order to make us remember we are in the Jazz Age.  It feels a little heavy-handed in some spots.  Some scenes border on parody and some of the dialogue is quite hokey.

One scene at the very beginning, I confess, has always bothered me for the incongruity of a strong actress and a moment of weak direction.  A very young Helen, just starting out in show business, sings in a carnival side show for Paul Newman, who is a barker trying to sell phony lots in the famous 1920s Florida land scams.  A torrent of rain scatters the fairgoers, the carnival breaks up for the day.  As Newman says goodbye to Ann, he suddenly suggests she stay the night with him and impulsively pulls her into a smothering embrace.  She struggles for a moment, taken aback, but after his first forceful kiss, she hesitates, and then hungrily kisses him again.  She’s lonely and it is thrilling to be desired.  The two actors have terrific chemistry together, as will be evident in all their scenes.

The problem is the morning after scene, when Ann wakes, lying across a bed that clearly has not been slept in, which the director keeps prominent in the foreground.  She is alone, looks around, and finds a note Newman has left her, a curt kiss-off.  Her reaction is powerful, a wordless, explosive mixture of hurt and horror. 

Director Michael Curtiz, however, has let his leading lady down by carelessly putting her in an odd setting: we have been given to understand she slept with Newman, yet she wakes fully clothed on a bed that isn’t even rumpled, as if she had inexplicably passed out cold after their conversation.  When she gets up to walk to the window to look for Newman, we hear the clunking of her high-heeled shoes.  She hadn’t even taken off her shoes.  Then she discovers the note he has left on the pillow.  

Her expression tells us this is a woman who has been used and thrown away.  This isn't a case about being sad she didn't get to say goodbye to Mr. Newman because she overslept; she's been humiliated. 

While I’m not calling for a graphic bedroom scene to prove they have been intimate, I would suggest there are other ways, more subtle but certainly on-point to give support to Ann’s devastated reaction to the note.  Perhaps the scene could have begun when she is waking alone in bed, or perhaps while she is dressing, looking expectantly for Newman as if assuming he has only stepped out of the bungalow for a moment, a shot of the bed (which through this scene remains prominent in the foreground) unmade, and then discovering the note on a table. 

Other moments of Mr. Curtiz’s direction are quite good, and he moves the many episodes of Helen Morgan’s life along at a brisk pace.  I especially like the quick cut from the tense scene on the fire escape (where, crying through her lines, she begs him, “Tell me you love me, please!”) to a shot of a mirror ball and a blast of a nightclub act singing the bouncy hit, “The Girlfriend.”   The montage of her European tour is good, and Mr. Curtiz uses music as a motif throughout the film with incredible and exciting skill.

The movie is flooded with delightful snippets of songs that capture the ebullience of the 1920s, and the despair of Helen’s darker moments.  Gogi Grant’s glossy rendition of the songs is enjoyable; she had a smashing voice, big and brassy.  Ann Blyth’s lip-synching is believable, possibly aided by the fact that she sang in public herself and knew about breath control and presentation, so much so that even today newcomers to the film are often confused about whether she did her own singing.

Unfortunately, the movie makes only a brief nod to her Broadway role as Julie in Showboat --easily the most important role of her career, and there is no reference at all to her time in Hollywood.  The main focus are the Chicago speakeasies and the no good bum who keeps popping up her life, Paul Newman.

Paul Newman’s character is fictional.  He is meant to represent the men who done her wrong.  Mr. Newman was not keen on doing the film, and it was never one of his favorites.  According to biographer Shawn Levy in Paul Newman – A Life:

He didn’t exactly bond with Curtiz, complaining that the director would tell him to “Go faster,” rather than give specific counsel as to the emotions that were required in a scene.  But he admired Blyth’s work ethic…

His character is forceful and dynamic, but has very little dimension.  Only one scene where he, exasperated over Ann’s anguish over a friend’s suicide, tries to wise her up with his philosophy on survival, mentions he won medals in the war but now they’re worthless.  But the moment is dropped and we never really see inside him again.  We don’t really see him develop—he’s as much an opportunistic skunk at the beginning of the movie as at the end.  His final scene, when he has a change of heart and arranges a tribute to Helen, telling her that from now on she comes first in his life, is not really believable.  We have, unlike Helen, learned not to trust him.  Newman’s work in the picture is fine; it’s the script that leaves him hanging.  Curtiz, too, might have strengthened Newman’s character, given him more depth with some strategic close-ups, but this is CinemaScope, and we know about CinemaScope and close-ups.

Actually, it’s an interesting thing about Paul Newman and what I guess we would term “star quality.”  Unlike some of the other young actors in the 1950s like Marlon Brando and James Dean who suddenly blazed on the scene and became instant stars, Newman manages to be both charismatic and yet still blend in with the setting and acting style of the other actors, a seamless part of the whole.  Wherever he is, he belongs.  Brando and Dean, with their so-called natural style of acting had a screen presence like a black hole – they absorbed all the spotlight, but never reflected it anyone else.  Newman did not demand our attention, but he got it, and it strikes me that if he had come along in the 1920s, or 1930s, or 1940s, he still would have been just as much a star.  Plunk him into any decade and he would fit.  He had that quality, but entirely without gimmick like the other gentlemen, and it’s no wonder he remained a star for decades until the end of his life.

Richard Carlson is the well-heeled, but married attorney with whom Helen also becomes involved.  He is a gentler companion than Newman, but ultimately their relationship is just as destructive to the lonely singer’s quest for a stable relationship.

Cara Williams lends strong support as her best friend, a hoofer with a heart of gold and a big mouth, who keeps her boyfriend, played by Alan King, in line.  King is quite good in his minor role, funny and natural as Newman’s good-natured henchman.

Real-life figures in Helen’s life, including her accompanist Jimmy McHugh, Rudy Vallee, and columnist Walter Winchell make appearances.  The late Mark Hellinger is played in two brief scenes by an actor.

Bess Flowers shows up at the U.S. Customs checkpoint on the pier.  Not only did she have the costumes to get all these walk-on roles, she must have had the luggage too.

A few things of note: Ann’s slight hesitancy of speech in this role is an empathetic and intuitive gesture to Helen Morgan’s own speech, described as halting, and Ann’s voice in the later scenes grows raw as if with smoking and drinking.  They didn’t let her sing, but she still did a lot with her voice.

In a noir-ish scene Paul Newman lurks in the dark in her apartment when she arrives home, and watches her undress in the other room (mostly behind a screen).  She discovers him, and they argue.  She wants to get him out of her life, tired of being used by him, bone weary and a little drunk.  She tells him with heartbroken ferocity that she hates him, but he forces her to admit her desire for him by crushing her to her bed with another steamy kiss.  All their scenes are quite intense (he slaps her around a few times), and we would write off Newman’s unpleasant one-note character except for his powerful screen presence and her always passionate response to him.  Whether wrapped in each other's arms or standing on opposite sides of a room, these two are always locked into each other.  (His character as written is just not as interesting as, say, James Cagney’s bullying yet insecure gangster in Love Me or Leave Me.)

Another scene where Richard Carlson, as Newman’s polar opposite – gentle, but weak and ineffectual, comes upon Ann in the wee hours, drinking at a bar, alone.  She is bitter, as hard-edged as the critics thought Helen Morgan should be, and pretty near the end of her rope.  In between sips and a drag on her cigarette, blowing the smoke over the rim of her glass, she growls her lines and slurs her self-loathing.  “It isn't you or Larry, it's me, only me.  Something terrible happening inside me..."

And I would be remiss if I did not point out the black beret she wears at the beginning of the film as young woman starting out on her own, in a train on her way to Chicago.  See our previous post on the stylish and cinematically necessary beret.

The most powerful scene comes toward the end of the film.  First, we see Ann in a dive of a bar, unkempt, dressed in rags, no makeup, and half-drunk, in the cozy, if boisterous, company of winos.  She hears a recording of herself on the radio, and she attempts to sing along.  I believe, because of what would have been difficulty of matching the audio interspersed with the spoken lines, this is not Gogi Grant butchering the song, but Ann herself mimicking Miss Grant doing so, and it has to make one smile that though Jack Warner wouldn’t let Ann sing as Helen, here she sings for Gogi singing for her, with a rusty, gin-soaked screech.  Please correct me if I’m wrong.

She is on the edge psychologically, and a physical wreck, her halting words come trembling out of her throat, and when she leaves the bar, Curtiz follows her with a tilted camera down a wet and dirty alley.  She walks away in a haze, seemingly without any idea where she’s going, and collapses, where a cop finds her face down in the gutter.

Curtiz, with dazzling skill and artist’s eye, and absolutely no mercy, swoops us immediately to a charity hospital psych treatment room, where Ann, lying restrained and naked under a sheet, is suffering delirium tremens, shivering, sweating, and screaming in agony while a stoic staff observes her in this cold and sterile environment, as we do, like a bug in a jar.  Her tortured expression, her wailing is all-out, heartbreaking, and really quite shocking.

Her last hoarse scream of “Help me!  Somebody help me!” is agonizing to watch, a reprise of her earlier confessed memory of an episode of childhood panic.

For these few gutsy moments alone, never mind the consistent strength of her other scenes, Ann Blyth should have been nominated for an Academy Award. 

Most of us classic film buffs, being as familiar as we are with movie greats who never won an award, nor were even nominated, do not keep score on talent by awards.  Far from it.  Nor do I.  However, stepping aside a moment to look at the nominees of that year, we find Deborah Kerr in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, Anna Magnani for Wild is the Wind, Elizabeth Taylor for Raintree County, and Lana Turner for Peyton Place.  We may discuss the merits of the other nominees, agree or disagree, but…Lana Turner for Peyton Place?  Hardly a demanding or large role, and her work not of the same caliber of Ann Blyth’s in The Helen Morgan Story.  The winner that year was Joanne Woodward for The Three Faces of Eve.  Her performance was splendid, and she deserved to be singled out.

It is ironic to note that Ann Blyth was originally up for Miss Woodward’s role in The Three Faces of Eve—and turned it down.

“Big mistake,” she noted in interview with Classic Images in February 1995, but, “I think you can only regret momentarily.  You can’t hang onto those regrets.  But it was a mistake.”

At that Academy Awards ceremony that year, she sang one of the nominated songs, “April Love” in company with Shirley Jones (who, like Ann, was one of the celebrity guests on the recent TCM Classic Cruise), Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jimmie Rogers, Tommy Sands, and Tab Hunter (also on the recent TCM Classic Cruise).

Ann Blyth was, however, nominated for a Laurel Award (conducted by Motion Picture Exhibitor magazine) for Top Female Musical Performance in The Helen Morgan Story.

“I was a little sad to see it end,” Ann said of the movie, “It’s the most exiting picture I’ve ever done and we had a great cast and crew.”

Reviews were mixed, but one by Harold V. Cohen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette typifies the negative response pretty well:

…practically everything about this lumbering biography of the Roaring Twenties’ misty-eyed torchbearer is drenched in dreariness.  The lachrymose story is a corny commissary of stringy sentiment and Miss Ann Blyth has no business whatsoever in the title part.

He felt she was miscast.  The Daytona Beach Sunday News-Journal praised her work:

Preview audiences have acclaimed Ann’s performance of the tragic Helen as one of the most brutally honest yet seen on screen.

From the Pasadena Independent, September 1957:

“The important thing,” says Ann, "is to find a role that gives one a satisfying feeling of achievement.  To know that you have brought a difficult characterization to life is the accomplishment I have longed for over a period of years.”

Director Michael Curtiz and producer Martin Rackin, who were dubious at first that she was the right girl for the part, are now loudest in praise of her performance.  They say she is embarking upon a new and more brilliant career.

..those who watched the picture being made were amazed and enthralled at Miss Blyth’s tremendous enactment of the fabulous torch singer…

“I never wanted a particular role so much in my life,” says Ann. “And I never worked so hard to make a part perfect.  I did everything I could to submerge myself into the characterization of the real Helen.  Everyone connected with the picture has been very kind.”

It may be that with the passing of the decades as we get farther away from both the 1920s and the 1950s, The Helen Morgan Story has grown in stature, deeply moving younger, new audiences, who are able to emotionally connect with a story of a gentle, kindly, but hopelessly trapped soul without comparing any memory with the real Helen Morgan or the knowing much about the 1920s.  I rather think that this movie is even more approachable, and more timeless, to modern audiences than The Three Faces of Eve for different reasons, but we can discuss that in the future.

Ann Blyth wanted a challenge, and since her own shy childhood, liked to immerse herself in a role with that imagination she compared to “a deep well.”

She told Photoplay in 1957:

“An actress shouldn’t get too comfortable in her professional life—she’s liable to get lazy and won’t fight for the roles she wants and won’t fight against those she doesn’t want.  I’m free of all studio commitments for the first time since I arrived in Hollywood.  I can choose the roles I want, and if I want them badly enough, I’ll fight for them, just as I did for Helen Morgan.  I hope though that I’ll be offered three-dimensional roles from now on…It may shock some people, but I can honestly say that Helen Morgan is my favorite role…of course, that could be because it’s the one I’ve just done!  But seriously, I’m grateful just to have the chance at last to show that I have developed as a woman and I’m not just a goody-goody.  And I hope this role will lead my career into new and exciting channels.”

She did head for new channels, but not on film.  There were decades of performances ahead on TV, theatre, and concerts, which she was able to work around her family's needs.  Another legacy of The Helen Morgan Story is the apparent myth that she retired after doing this movie, as if she punched out her time card and said, “I’m outta here.”  She wanted to do more movies.  Two decades later she replied to interviewer Lance Erickson Ghulam’s question on why that was her last film:

Good parts just never seemed to come to me.  Rather than waiting for them, I decided to return to the stage and do that again.  I’ve done some television through the years as well, and I’ve been happy ever since.  That’s the main reason why we’re doing what we’re doing, right?

A tiresome legacy of the film was that Ann would repeatedly field questions from interviewers, for decades, who wanted to know if she did her own singing in The Helen Morgan Story, or why didn’t she do her own singing?  Nevertheless, her transcendent performance is the strongest element in this flawed movie, for there is a glowing warmth beneath the sadness, an appealing vulnerability and continues to affect today’s audiences.

Polly Bergen won an Emmy for her TV role as Helen Morgan.  She also released an album in 1957: Bergen Sings Morgan. 

Gogi Grant also released an album of Helen Morgan’s songs from the movie, which sold well, climbing to #25 on the Billboard chart. 

Ann finally got a chance to sing some of those songs on TV guest spots, maybe just to prove she could, and in her own concert and cabaret career in the 1980s and 1990s.  Sometimes, she sat on a piano, as she did in New York’s swank Rainbow and Stars.

Helen Morgan is all but forgotten today, and even most theatre buffs may not be able to tell you why in the much-produced stage musical Showboat, the character of Julie climbs on a piano to sing “Bill.”  It’s because the part was played by Helen on Broadway, and since she was known for sitting on top of a piano to sing in her nightclub act, she was asked to repeat her signature gesture in the play.  Even today, if you see a revival or touring production of Showboat, Julie is often sitting on a piano.  When you see that, think of Helen Morgan.  It is an homage to her.

Below…Miss Helen Morgan singing “Bill,” from Showboat, recorded the year Ann was born, 1928:

The Helen Morgan Story is available on DVD, and is occasionally shown on TCM.



The 1936 Showboat with Helen Morgan as Julie is also finally available now on DVD, and has been shown on TCM after a long period of being almost completely unknown to younger generations who were familiar only with the 1954 version. I think it's coming up again in January if you want to keep on the lookout for it.

Ann Blyth performed in Showboat many times on stage in the 1970s, as mentioned in this previous post on her stage career.  However, she did not play Helen Morgan’s supporting role of Julie; she played the lead, Magnolia.  An undisputed soprano part for an undisputed soprano.

The Helen Morgan Story was Ann Blyth’s last film, and this is our last film in the Year of Ann Blyth.  Come back next Thursday for one final post to wrap up with a few thoughts on Ann’s career and on this series.

©Jacqueline T. Lynch, 2007-2014. All rights reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Another Old Movie Blog, please be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission. 

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Beaver Valley Times (Beaver County, PA), January 18, 1957, syndicated column by Aline Mosby, “Steps Out of Character- Ann Blyth Gets Sexy Movie Role,” p. 11.

Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, June 9, 1957, “Happy Girl on a Piano,” by Hedda Hopper, p. 24.

Classic Images, February 1995, “Ann Blyth: Ann of a Thousand Smiles” by Lance Erickson Ghulam, p.22.

Daytona Beach Sunday News-Journal, September 15, 1957, “Good Girl in Movie Gutter,” p. 12A.

Deseret News, November 27, 1950, column by Louella Parsons, p. F3

The Independent (St. Petersburg, FL) September 1, 1948, column by Hedda Hopper, p. 16.

Levy, Shawn.  Paul Newman – A Life (NY: Harmony Books, 2009), p. 121.

Milwaukee Sentinel, October 28, 1956, column by James Bacon, p 9, part 2.

Modern Screen, December 1949, article by Kirtley Baskette, p. 43.

Pasadena Independent, September 11, 1957, “Ann Blyth Plays Exotic Torch Singer,” p. 8.

Photoplay, December 1957, “You Don’t Know Ann Blyth”.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 7, 1957, review by Harold V. Cohen.

Reading (PA) Eagle, February 7, 1957, “Ann Blyth’s Role in Morgan Story Raises Many Eyebrows,” syndicated column by Bob Thomas, p. 2.

Register-Guard (Eugene, Oregon), September 25, 1978, “Ruth Etting, Early Radio Star, Dies at Age 80,” p. 13A.

The Spencer (Iowa) Daily Republican, July 25, 1957, syndicated column by Erskine Johnson, p. 5; May 21, 1957, syndicated column by Erskine Johnson.

Valley Morning Star (Harlingen, Texas), March 19, 1955, syndicated column by Hedda Hopper, p. 7.

Wiley, Mason and Damien Bona.  Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards (NY: Ballantine Books, 1986), p. 287.

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THANK YOU....to the following folks whose aid in gathering material for this series has been invaluable:  EBH; Kevin Deany of Kevin's Movie Corner; Gerry Szymski of Westmont Movie Classics, Westmont, Illinois; Ivan G. Shreve, Jr. of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear; and actor/singer/author Bill Hayes.  And thanks to all those who signed on as backers to my recent Kickstarter campaign.  The effort failed to raise the funding needed, but I'll always remember your kind support.

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UPDATE:  This series on Ann Blyth is now a book - ANN BLYTH: ACTRESS. SINGER. STAR. -

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The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon, CreateSpace, and my Etsy shop: LynchTwinsPublishing.

 "Lynch’s book is organized and well-written – and has plenty of amusing observations – but when it comes to describing Blyth’s movies, Lynch’s writing sparkles." - Ruth Kerr, Silver Screenings

"Jacqueline T. Lynch creates a poignant and thoroughly-researched mosaic of memories of a fine, upstanding human being who also happens to be a legendary entertainer." - Deborah Thomas, Java's Journey

"One of the great strengths of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is that Lynch not only gives an excellent overview of Blyth's career -- she offers detailed analyses of each of Blyth's roles -- but she puts them in the context of the larger issues of the day."- Amanda Garrett, Old Hollywood Films

"Jacqueline's book will hopefully cause many more people to take a look at this multitalented woman whose career encompassed just about every possible aspect of 20th Century entertainment." - Laura Grieve, Laura's Miscellaneous Musings''

"Jacqueline T. Lynch’s Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is an extremely well researched undertaking that is a must for all Blyth fans." - Annette Bochenek, Hometowns to Hollywood

Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. 
by Jacqueline T. Lynch

The first book on the career of actress Ann Blyth. Multitalented and remarkably versatile, Blyth began on radio as a child, appeared on Broadway at the age of twelve in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine, and enjoyed a long and diverse career in films, theatre, television, and concerts. A sensitive dramatic actress, the youngest at the time to be nominated for her role in Mildred Pierce (1945), she also displayed a gift for comedy, and was especially endeared to fans for her expressive and exquisite lyric soprano, which was showcased in many film and stage musicals. Still a popular guest at film festivals, lovely Ms. Blyth remains a treasure of the Hollywood's golden age.

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A new collection of essays, some old, some new, from this blog titled Movies in Our Time: Hollywood Mimics and Mirrors the 20th Century is now out in eBook, and in paperback here.