Birthright - 1938

Birthright (1938) would have astonished and enlightened white moviegoers, but unfortunately, it was produced for a segregated audience, for Black patrons in movie houses that catered to them.  Just as I mentioned in this previous post on Two-Gun Man from Harlem, made in the same year, one wonders that if such “race films” were seen by white audiences in the 1930s, the Civil Rights movement might not have been delayed so long.

There is a rawness to Birthright that strips away at the stereotyped depiction of African Americans in mainstream Hollywood films, where Black actors are seen only briefly and always in uncomplicated roles, their motives and their feelings unexplored.  The characters in Birthright and their problems are many-layered, where success is measured in the ability to cope rather than to triumph.

A recent Harvard graduate, who is a Black man played by Carman Newsome, returns to his small town in Tennessee with the intention to open an educational academy for young Black students, to lift their circumstances and opportunities in life.  He is thwarted by a white man who swindles him, and even by the African American community who have so long been kept down that they resist and mock his efforts. Mr. Newsome reminds one a little of William Powell in appearance, very handsome, with his tall, slender build, his homburg hat and his pencil-thin mustache.  What he lacks, however, is the wry and playful savviness of Powell’s usual characters.  Newsome’s Peter Siner is quiet, mannerly, but amazingly naïve about the social climate in his old hometown that makes him such an easy mark for white swindlers and untrusting Blacks in the “darktown” neighborhood. 

But his dogged determination is admirable, and his seemingly innocent demeanor allows the audience to see the difference an education in the North has made for him.  When he and his buddy, Tump Pack, played by Alec Lovejoy, are engaged in conversation with a white man, his friend—who continues to wear his World War I Army uniform—removes his hat and his physical posture becomes somewhat stooped, subservient, making himself pleasant and agreeable to the white man.  Newsome, however, without any belligerence or protest of this behavior, quite obliviously remains standing erect, looking down upon the white man, and keeps his homburg on his head.  He speaks with all, no matter their skin color, as an equal—though in fact, his education should make him their superior.

Ethel Moses plays Cissie, Alec Lovejoy’s girlfriend, who gets into trouble by stealing her employer’s broach and by refusing the advances of her employer’s son, and is arrested by the bullying sheriff.   Through the course of the movie, Newsome and Ethel Moses fall in love, are pursued by Lovejoy, who ultimately is killed by the sheriff (in his attempt to rescue Ethel from the sheriff, the old soldier hears battle sounds and prepares to go "over the top," a poignant scene of a man who cannot let go of the most meaningful time of his life) who is killed by someone else.  Newsome is hired by one of the town’s wealthiest citizens to edit his book, who will die himself and leave his fortune and property to Newsome to build his school.

The film is directed by Oscar Micheaux, who also co-produced and co-wrote the movie, which is a remake of his 1924 version.  That movie is considered lost, and it is interesting that both Alec Lovejoy and Carman Newsome are listed as being in that original cast, though in minor roles.

Though the acting is mostly stilted—except by the irate servant of the wealthy man who hires Newsome—irate because she does not want to serve breakfast to another Negro.  She’s a volcano of disgust, for he is, “Just as much spook as I am.”

Her reaction is only one aspect of the film that seems shocking for the day—the open illustration of racism and racial tensions, not only between Blacks and whites, but among the Black community that is divisive.  Some of the dialogue is crude.  A white man who says, “You can’t educate a Negro” more honestly attacks racism than the average mainstream movie that depicts a Black servant as dimwitted.

The wealthy man who hires Newsome and treats him well, still makes the insulting plea for Newsome to not marry Ethel Moses.  “You don’t want to marry a Negro…let your seed whither in your loins.  It’s better that way.” 

Miss Moses, distraught, tells Newsome, “They have no feelings for a colored girl, Peter. No, not a speck.  When one of us even walks down the street they whistle and say all kind of things out loud just as if we weren’t there at all…we just colored women.  They make you feel naked.”

When the sheriff comes to arrest her after an informant tails her, who is another Black man, the sheriff calls him “a black baboon.”

Skin color is commented on by the Blacks and used for insult and disparagement among themselves, and the whites are open in their condescension and racism.  When Newsome’s mother is dying, a white doctor refuses to help unless he is given ten dollars up-front.

The movie is missing its first 20 minutes, and the restored version summarizes the early sequences.  It is not a polished movie, there is certainly nothing of Hollywood glamour here (and a few scenes in a nightclub are diverting but detract from the plot), but is notable in that its unselfconscious ugly frankness would have been daring in a mainstream movie theater of the day.  It also features, unlike mainstream Hollywood films of the day, a fully integrated cast.  It would have opened the eyes of white audiences who were little exposed to the Black experience. It might have opened some hearts as well.

Wishing you a contemplative and celebratory Black History Month.

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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.

My new non-fiction book, CHILDREN'S WARTIME ADVENTURE NOVELS - The Silent Generation's Vicarious Experience of World War II -- is now available in eBook here at Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a wide variety of other online shops.

Or here from my Shopify store if you want to buy direct from me and avoid the big companies.

And it is here in eBook, paperback print, and hardcover, from Amazon.

From Cherry Ames, to Meet the Malones, from Dave Dawson to Kitty Carter - Canteen Girl, the Silent Generation spent their childhood immersed in geopolitical events through the prism of their middle grade and young adult books.  From the home front to the battlefield, these books are a window on their world, and influenced their hard-working, conformity-loving generation.

 

 

Mary Field - What a Character! blogathon

Mary Field was a very good actress, with the ability to command a scene and entirely lose herself in a character, yet most of the roles she played were brief, uncredited, and leaves one wondering what her career might have been like had the Hollywood caste system not been so rigid.

This post is part of the11th Annual What a Character! blogathon, hosted by Paula of Paula’s Cinema Club and @Paula_Guthat, Kellee of Outspoken & Freckled and @Irishjayhawk66, and Aurora of Once Upon a Screen and @CitizenScreen.  Have a look here at the other great blogs on the roster.

Mary Field appeared in over 100 films, along with several television appearances in a career spanning 46 years before her retirement in 1963 at 54.  Many of her roles were spinster types: maids, shop clerks, librarians; many were comic, some were poignant, but all were unique individuals.  

The comic man-chasing spinster in The Great Gildersleeve (1942) who made Gildy’s life a wreck is unrecognizable from the quiet, concerned adoptive mother who brings her little Dutch-speaking orphan to see Santa Claus in a moving scene in Miracle on 34^th Street (1947).  You would not know they were the same actress.  Unlike many character actors, I think she is less recognizable because of her ability to play nuanced roles.

She is one of the boarders in Shadows on the Stairs (1941), a larger-than-life personality who steals scenes.  She is perhaps barely noticed in many other films, but she appeared in greats such as Ball of Fire (1941), Now, Voyager (1942), and Mrs. Miniver (1942).

Mary Field was what was called a day worker, someone reliable to plug into a small role at short notice, but seemingly stuck in that particular orbit of studio system hirelings.  Many struggling actors would be, and were, grateful for a toehold in the industry, but most would find that it also meant a dead end of not reaching supporting player status on a studio’s roster, let alone stardom.

Yet Mary Field, I think, had the ability, much like Lionel Barrymore, to be a character actor-star. 

My favorite role, so far, is her turn as the shop clerk in a women’s clothing store in Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948) which we covered here.  I’ll quote from that essay:

The funniest scene in the movie is when Mr. Powell heads to a women’s clothing store in town to purchase some sort of top for his mermaid.  His befuddled awkwardness sets the stage for a terrific scene, and he plays the straight man for Mary Field, whom you’ve probably seen uncredited in a zillion movie walk-on parts.  Here she gets a good role as the primly officious clerk, who delights in her soliloquy sales pitches to the uncomfortable Mr. Powell.  She sounds like a Banana Republic or J Peterman catalog description gone amuck. 

She displays a sweater, “Light as a whisper, gay as a sunbeam, wearing it will be an emotional adventure spangled with the moon glow of twilight.”  

Miss Field continues her merry prattle, “A gay spectrum of springtime hues—fuchsia, purple almond, banana, marshmallow, peach dream and licorice!”

 Mr. Powell replies, “Would you be good enough to tell me something?”

Miss Field: “Enchanted.”  (I love her over-the-top playfulness with proper speech.)

Mr. Powell: “Whatever became of blue?”

She finds he is going to be trouble, especially when he wants to know if someone can swim in her sweaters.

“May I ask is the young lady’s prejudice against swimming in a swimming suit quite deep-seated?”  (One of my all-time favorite lines.  I just love her.  In a way, her intonation and enunciation reminds me of a reformed Eliza Doolittle when she is carefully trying to explain to Freddy Eynsford-Hill that, “Them she lived with would have killed her for a hat-pin, let alone a hat.”  Her careful stroking of the difficult language as if to tame it.)

Mr. Powell just realizes he could buy his mermaid a two-piece swimsuit instead of a sweater and she could just wear the top part.  But Miss Field, Saleswoman of the Year, insists they do not sell half of a bathing suit.  She holds one up, “The diaper model.  Provocative, n'est–ce pas?”  (She’s straight-faced, slam-dunk hysterical.)

 

Here in Top o’ the Morning (1949), she plays a chambermaid who gets to sing a line or two with Bing Crosby.  She played against the greats, and held her own.

Miss Field’s personal life was something of an enigma.  Reportedly, she was a foundling left outside the doors of a church as a baby.  She was adopted, and went to school in Westchester, New York.  In her late 20s she went to Hollywood.  Perhaps there was some stage work in the interim, but I don’t know.  She married, had children, and evidently, was satisfied in middle age to leave her acting career.

Hat's off to the day workers, and to Mary Field, who deserved more screen time and a higher notch in the caste system (and the cast).

Check out the other great characters actors being paid tribute in this 11th Annual What a Character! blogathon here.

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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.  Her latest book is Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

For the Defense - 1930

For the Defense (1930) presents a gritty Depression-era drama, but very much on the cusp of the 1920s “era of wonderful nonsense” and a semi-biographical take on one of its outrageous characters.  It is grim, fatalistic, but with that cheeky spark of chip-on-the-shoulder humor that marked the character needed to survive the Great Depression, and which we see abundantly in films of this era.

William Powell stars as a clever, charming, hard-drinking New York attorney whose tactics sometimes actually skirt legality.  He is immaculately dressed and performs in court with Shakespearean flourish, never loses a case, but he is flawed, and eventually must suffer the consequences.  Despite his eventual downfall, he is not, however, a tragic figure in the sense that he is the master of his own destiny.  He gambles with his clients’ lives, with his own, and refuses to take life on anything but his own terms.  No hero, but we can’t help but smile at his success, particularly during a long-played out courtroom scene where he takes a vial of nitroglycerin that is a piece of evidence and smashes it on the floor to the horror of everyone.  He knows it is not really nitroglycerin (and so do we, as the scene telegraphs that to us beforehand).  His greatest courtroom trick, however, is his bribing of juries.

Far more shocking than the nitro scene, at least to modern sensibilities, perhaps, is Powell’s self-destructive drunkenness.  It is not played for comic effect, despite his wisecracks.  The real  ugliness of the drunkenness is its treatment as being normal, being necessary to fuel the engine of a driven man.

The character is based on real-life New York champion lawyer and marathon inebriate William Fallon, who is said to be the inspiration as well for the rogue lawyer Billy Flynn in the stage and screen musical Chicago, as well as other films.  His life of hard drinking left him dead in 1927 at only forty-one years of age.

More tragic, perhaps, is the character played by Kay Francis, who loves Powell and wants to marry him, but his uncomfortable, gentle response is, “After all these months, don't you think that would be rather silly?”  He clearly loves her, but it’s a slap in the face, and we feel her humiliation. 

Kay Francis, who would go on the make six films with Mr. Powell in all, plays an actress, and her flapper’s severely short bob make her look more devil-may-care than Powell in his conservative three-piece-suits, though she is far more traditional, at least as regards her feelings about marriage.  She really looks startlingly modern compared to Powell and stands out in appearance from the Depression-bedraggled cast, as if she hasn’t gotten the memo that the 1920s are over.

Obviously, noting their relationship, the drinking, and Powell’s clever flouting of the law, we are distinctly in Pre-Code era, unrepentant and blasé about rules.  It’s also a marvel to note that Mr. Powell’s screen presence is magnetic and, unlike his cast mates, really quite natural.  Even Kay Francis, who had a strong screen presence, comes off as extremely mannered in performance compared to the smooth William Powell, who never plays to the camera, and seems not to know there’s a camera in the room.

The plot takes us from Powell’s many victories in the courtroom getting criminals off, to a tragedy when one of Kay’s admirers, played by Scott Kolk, tries to lure her away from Powell by proposing marriage.  Kay and Kolk get into a car accident which kills a pedestrian, and Kolk goes on trial, though Kay was driving.  He tries to protect her, and Kay tries to keep her involvement with him a secret from Powell, knowing he will never forgive her for being out with his rival.  Powell refers to Kolk as her raccoon coat, because that is what he wears—more shades of the previous decade.  Their scenes in a speakeasy also flout the law, and remind us that Prohibition was not repealed until 1933.

Powell will lose his first case, and find himself shipped to Sing-Sing for his chicanery , but the sordid tale ends on a note of hope when Kay promises to wait for him.  He promises to marry her, if she does.

Director John Cromwell gives us a lean and strong, quickly shot story.  Look for him also in a bit part as a reporter.  The dogged district attorney is played by William B. Davidson.  Also popping up in the cast is George “Gabby” Hayes as a waiter.

There is a sense—I wonder if it was perceived even when this film played in theaters—that we were stuck treading water in a period of time where one era was finished, but the new one had not yet acquired a personality of its own.  We were waiting warily to be introduced.  Rather than a sense of foreboding, there was a only a weak smile and a shrug of the shoulders.  We hadn’t touched bottom yet as a society; we were still in the freefall, waiting to land. 

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Come back next Thursday when we shift gears to an era of another kind of anxiety but a greater message of comfort – the gentle wartime home front story of Happy Land (1943) starring Don Ameche.

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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.

Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid - 1948

Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948) is a whimsical tale of true love, wherever you happen to find it—in a fantasy, or your wife.  Or both.

Another long post.  Go long.  I'll hit you in the end zone.

Ann Blyth was still in production on Another Part of the Forest (1948) –which we’ll discuss in a later post—when she was given over to the mad scientist ministrations of makeup genius Bud Westmore to attach a four-foot long mermaid’s tail to her lower body. 

 State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/8893

These were very busy and prolific years for her, from 1948 to 1952.  Half the 32 films she made in her entire career were in just this four-year period, when one production rolled right on into the next.  After Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, that summer she was slated for location shooting in Utah for her first western, Red Canyon (1949).  Her career was thriving, with what must have been a gratifying variety of roles to display her freshness and versatility.

Ann was 19 years old when the film was made, and William Powell was 55, but the 36-year difference between them did not really make for any awkwardness in the crush the mermaid and the man had for each other on screen, mainly because the crush was so innocent and so was the mermaid. 

For his part, William Powell strolled through his character’s screen midlife crisis with the panache and bemused sophistication of The Thin Man, with that sly humor that uses discretion as a springboard to irony.  He’s perfect in the role.

And in real life, Mr. Powell’s wife, former actress Diana Lewis, who we saw here in Cry Havoc (1944), was 27 years his junior.  So much for impossible age differences.

As for any possible off-screen awkwardness, that was apparently dispelled by the good humor of both leads.  An article by Sheilah Graham in 1949, in a half-mocking, half-admiring tone, noted that Ann Blyth “a devout churchgoer with an innocent smile, peach blossom skin and a wolf-whistle figure” was known at this stage of her career for being shy about kissing too passionately onscreen, or at least, “refuses point blank to go all-out.” 

Mr. Powell, as discreet as his character, Mr. Peabody, apparently handled her discomfort as well any of his own, by remembering first and foremost that they were making a comedy.

Ann said in the interview, “He was kidding all of the time.  I was always afraid he was going to make me laugh as he started to kiss me.  It was such whimsical make-believe that I wasn’t embarrassed when I had to kiss him.”

Mr. Powell’s problems about their age difference ultimately had more to do with his age than hers; he had to carry the mermaid around a lot, which was a remarkable, and exhausting, feat for a man of his years.

The Montreal Gazette felt that William Powell was good but should have been better, but thought Ann “…wears the fishtail as if born to it, gives the just the right suggestion of an untutored but not unknowing denizen of the deep.  It’s her best performance.”  I think they were wrong about Mr. Powell, but Miss Blyth earned the praise.  It’s interesting reading the different reviews how critics seemed not to know how to take this movie.  It was such an offbeat charmer that I don’t think they could categorize it into any familiar pigeonhole.

The New York Times, however, (in a review NOT written by the easily irritated Bosley Crowther) called Mr. Powell’s work “an engaging and highly polished performance” and noted of Ann, “Her costuming places her beyond criticism.”  It’s signed T.F.B., and whoever he was, that’s as stylish a piece of leering as I’ve ever read.

Now, about that costuming.  The effort it took to make the film is as delightfully whimsical as the story.  William Powell may have caught his mermaid fishing, but makeup man Bud Westmore had to create her from scratch.

Photo credit unknown at this time.  I think that's Bud Westmore.

First, you need a young woman, about 5’2”, who doesn’t weigh very much because everybody, not just William Powell, is going to have to carry her around a lot when she’s wearing the tail.  Just as fish are immobile when they are “beached”, so is Ann Blyth when she’s wearing her fish tail—which, despite its inconveniences, she apparently didn’t mind too much.  She recalled in a 2006 interview with Eddie Muller (referred to in our intro post here):

“The good part about that was that I got to be carried around all day long.  Everyone was so good to me on that movie.”

You drop the cooperative girl on a table and get your mad scientist buddies to make a mold of her body by smooshing clay or Play-Doh or Silly Putty, or whatever you have in the junk drawer, from her torso to her toes. 

Photo credit unknown at this time.

Once you’ve got that done, you start covering her with plaster.  

Thus is an actress turned into an arts and crafts project. 

According to an article by Gene Handsaker in the Milwaukee Journal, the fish tail cost $23,000 to make.  (Life magazine says $18,000.)  “Ann lay on a sort of operating table for three hours while being molded in clay and plaster for the four foot mermaid tail of sponge rubber, she told me on the set of Another Part of the Forest.

“To each scale of Ann’s tail will be sewn a glass jewel for further sparkle—some 4,000 jewels in all…The upper part of this, the biggest rubber ‘appliance’ ever made for a movie, will blend into her torso in a chaste, piscatorial nude effect—if U-I can get that past the Johnston office.”

This “piscatorial nude effect” has to do with the fact—if you can call it a “fact” when we’re talking about a mythical creature—that a mermaid’s upper body is that of a human woman, so there’s a running gag in the movie about covering the mermaid’s naked breasts. 

State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/8894

But teasing the censors is the last thing on the agenda.   First, we still have to finish our mermaid.  Once you have the sponge rubber tail, then you’ve got to wrestle it onto the cooperative young woman.  Can’t have been easy to slide into. 

 State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/149884

You need help.  A team of three is good.  Hoist the girl in the air between you and yank that tail onto her.  This pit crew is also available for hire.  Can’t get into those tight jeans anymore?  These boys are professionals.  They know what they’re doing.  Having trouble wrestling your wiggling five-year-old child into a snowsuit?  Just give them a call. 

Ed and Whitey McMahan carry M'lady to the set.

 State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/8892

Then, as we mentioned, the young woman can’t walk in this thing, so she has to be carried like Cleopatra by obliging handsome slave boys to her watery home.  Where she is unceremoniously dumped in the drink.  This is likely not a good time to tell people you have to go to the bathroom.

One more thing.  Lead weights were placed in the bottom of the tail by her feet, some references say 30 pounds, some say 50 pounds—to keep the rubber tail, and the person wearing it, from floating to the surface of the water.  Sounds as ominous as stories of mobsters fitting their victims with “cement shoes”. 

Here are more photos from Life magazine, February 1948.

Newt Perry and Ann

 State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/149882

Once the actress looks like a mermaid, she’s got to be trained to swim like one.  Here’s where Newt Perry and the team from Weeki Wachee Springs in New Port Richey, Florida, come in.  Weeki Wachee Springs was one of those roadside tourist attractions long before we had fast food chains lining every stretch of highway, before expensive theme parks and innumerable corporate-owned enterprises were devised to part you from your money.

Established in the fall of 1947 by Newt Perry, it wasn’t long before Universal-International came in December to build a special set onto Perry’s showcase of “mermaids.”  They were just local high school girls—not in mermaid costumes—frolicking under the water doing tricks and demonstrating scenes of, as the book Weecki Wachee Springs by Maryann Pelland and Dan Pelland notes, “eating, drinking, and even typing underwater.”  Perry devised a system for the beauties to remain under water for longer periods by sneaking breaths of compressed air through rubber hoses.

Newt Perry and Ann

 State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/149879

Most of these photos are from the State Archives of Florida as displayed on the FloridaMemory.com site.  Newt Perry also trained Navy frogmen, helped out on several Tarzan films, and taught his nephew to swim—who was Don Schollander, 1964 and 1968 Olympic Gold Medalist.  A champion swimmer himself, Mr. Perry knew his stuff.

According to author Tim Hollis in Glass Bottom Boats & Mermaid Tails:Florida’s Tourist Springs, “Perry coached Ann Blyth in the proper techniques of underwater breathing, and according to all reports, she was a quick study and a natural athlete.  Though she performed the necessary water close-ups, her acrobatic swimming in most of the long shots was done by the Weekiwachee regulars, primarily Nancy Tribble.”

Mermaid doubles Nancy Tribble and Flo Wilkinson with Ann.

 State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/149877

According to gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, “Between scenes she swam and dived just for the heck of it, while Powell, fully dressed, clung to a rope and shivered.” 

Ann does her own swimming here.

 State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/8897

The cast of Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid arrived in February 1948, and filmed some of the underwater scenes here, and some back at Universal in a water tank.  Andrea King, who played the rival for the affections of Mr. Powell—a rival, as it turns out, for his wife and his mermaid—is quoted on a website devoted to her career as recalling the weather in Florida that February to be cold and rainy, and much of the cast fell ill, including trouper William Powell, though, “you never would have known it.”

Back at Universal to finish up some water scenes between her and Ann Blyth—including a spectacular fight scene we’ll discuss below—Miss King recalled that though the tank was supposed to be heated, the water heater malfunctioned and the water was quite cold in the tank.  “So we tried anyway for about half an hour, but Annie and I just went numb.  I think she got terribly sick after that.”

 State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/149881

And now, the movie…

Directed by Irving Pichel, written by Nunnally Johnson, adapted from the novel Mr. Peabody and his Mermaid.  I lead off with the title card here because this graphic of a mermaid, so coyly curled up with the credits, is the only time you will really ever see a mermaid naked from the waist up in this movie.  Ann Blyth is artfully covered by the edge of a pool and a fortunate camera angle, by a robe, by seaweed, by her flowing curly blonde hair, by a bubble bath, and by her own expressive arms.

William Powell plays Arthur Peabody, a man about to turn 50 years old, a fact which surprises him and depresses him.  He is also just recovering from a long bout of flu, so he and his wife have taken off to restore his health at a Caribbean paradise where it’s warm.

Irene Hervey is his wife, wry and understanding, and we can see from the outset that theirs is a good marriage, with comfortable bantering. 

She is no shrew from whom he is trying to escape, indeed, the only “other woman” he leers at in this entire movie is her, when she is partially hidden from view and he does not at first realize the legs he’s ogling are his wife’s.  She looks good in a bathing suit.  His demonstrated attraction to his wife also takes the smarmy edge of his “romance” with the much younger mermaid.

Andrea King is a visitor to the vacation villa, a singer and performer who blatantly chases after Powell with la-de-da joie de vivre, perhaps with no real design on him except for the fact she’s bored and there apparently seems to be a lack of other men.  And he really is charming.

Clinton Sundberg, who we’ve all seen in minor kindly “everyman” roles—I think my favorite is Judy Garland’s bartender pal in Easter Parade—here gets a larger role as a publicity man for the villa, one of the few Americans on this British protectorate, who is cynical, funny, and even surprisingly a little sinister.  There’s a running gag about his doctor forbidding him to drink or smoke anymore, and how miserably Mr. Sundberg copes with this.

Art Smith, seen at the beginning and the end of the movie, is the psychiatrist to whom Irene Hervey takes Mr. Powell to get him over this mermaid fantasy.  Mr. Smith is an especially understanding fellow, who, like Powell, also likes to fish and is amazed he could have caught a mermaid on a 12-thread line.  A wonderful old character actor (though actually younger than William Powell), he was one of the unfortunate victims of the infamous blacklisting in the 1950s when Elia Kazan threw him to the wolves. 

I won’t go play-by-play with the plot, but here are some delightful scenes to mention: At the beginning of the film when William Powell sits in the waiting room of the psychiatrist’s office and a small boy stares at him, asking his mother, “What’s the matter with him, Mommy?  Is he crazy?”

I like that it’s snowing outside in the city, which gives a great contrast to the sunny paradise he retreats to, representing a rebirth of spirit.  It would have been lovely to have the film in color, but it still manages to take us away to tropical splendor without it. 

Almost the moment he arrives, he hears a musical trilling from some far distance—he alone hears it and we presume it is the fabled siren’s call—but he suspects no mermaid, even when he takes a sailboat to a deserted rocky key and finds an ornamental hair comb.  We will soon see it belongs to the mermaid, whom he hooks on his fishing line.

The fishing scene is good; it takes time and plays out nicely, building suspense.  He hooks the tail of what he presumes to be a large sport fish.  From what we see of the tail, it could be a marlin or a swordfish, or a tuna.  Even in just these scenes of exploring, sailing, fishing—indeed, struggling to land a big fish—William Powell is already exorcising the demons of turning 50.  He’s already proving to himself that life is still exciting and he’s still man enough with strength and vigor to enjoy it.

He manages to pull the fish close enough to grasp its tail and flip it into the boat.  He’s won the fight.  Hemingway would be proud.

Then he is astonished to discover at its other end is a pretty young woman.

No more astonished than the dazed mermaid is to discover herself in a boat with a strange two-legged creature.

At first, the mermaid is only a fishing prize to him, and he gleefully carries her into the rented vacation villa as a specimen he hopes to produce before scientists.  She’s a bit faint and peaked lying on his bed, then he realizes this creature needs to be in water, so he fills the tub, while she looks around his room with the wonder of someone who’d never been on land before.  Right at this moment to us, Ann Blyth as the mermaid stops being a myth or a plot contrivance, but a person with whom we can identify, and that goes a long way towards our caring about the relationship between her and Mr. Powell.  Moreover, she is mute, so our compassion rises for this lost soul in a strange place.

At first, Powell has no romantic notions about her, though he warms from regarding her as a fishing trophy to referring to himself as “your old Uncle Arthur” when he swiftly becomes her caretaker.  He is giddy not with love (even when his robe slips from her bare shoulders when she slides into the tub and grins at him from under the water), but in anticipation of the fame and notoriety his accomplishment in landing her will bring—and in a celebratory mood gets a bit tipsy by the time his wife comes home.

Irene Hervey, though she has teased her husband about turning 50, nevertheless is jealous over his attention to Andrea King at the party the night before.  She suspects the splashing she hears in her tub is Miss King, but when she opens the door to confront the other woman, all she sees is an enormous fish tail protruding from a bubble bath.  It seems the mermaid, with childish curiosity, gotten into the toiletries.

Miss Hervey thinks her drunken husband has played a joke on her, and she wants that fish out of her tub.  I like the scene when she’s on the phone talking to a man she’s met at the party (she’s been making friends too) while William Powell carries the mermaid down the stairs.  He’s had a little too much to drink and, in the doghouse with his wife, so he carries the mermaid outside intending to release her back into the ocean. 

But he gets tired hefting her.  “You’re no guppy.”  (One of my favorite lines.)  He sits on the edge of the enormous ornamental fishpond to rest, with the mermaid in his lap, and finally takes a long look at her.  His fishing trophy, his scientific discovery are only a popped balloon—popped by his wife—and he now regards the mermaid in a second look, a second chance at a first crush.

“You don’t want to go back in the sea, do you?  It’s so big, and you’re so pretty.” 

He lightly kisses her, off to the side of her mouth, and the astonished mermaid, uncomprehending eyes wide open, is gobsmacked.  Trying to figure this out, she parts and closes her lips as if to taste the kiss he’s left there.  She likes the sensation and wants to kiss again.

He leaves her in the fishpond, half-pet, half-mistress.

William Powell is so entertaining and so sweet in his role, which is basically comic, but lends it such skillful depth and poignancy. 

Ann Blyth’s work here is luminous and captivating.  It is a non-speaking role, but there is remarkable and touching eloquence in the way her eyes roam over his face, as if trying to read him, trying to understand his words and his facial expression.  Middle-aged Mr. Peabody is wondrous and fascinating to her, and her unlikely crush for him alone adds another level to the comedy, and the poignancy.  We can see why he might take a fancy to her, but her radiant and achingly silent adoration of him is charming.

The funniest scene in the movie is when Mr. Powell heads to a women’s clothing store in town to purchase some sort of top for his mermaid.  His befuddled awkwardness sets the stage for a terrific scene, and he plays the straight man for Mary Field, whom you’ve probably seen uncredited in a zillion movie walk-on parts.  Here she gets a good role as the primly officious clerk, who delights in her soliloquy sales pitches to the uncomfortable Mr. Powell.  She sounds like a Banana Republic or J Peterman catalog description gone amuck. 

She displays a sweater, “Light as a whisper, gay as a sunbeam, wearing it will be an emotional adventure spangled with the moon glow of twilight.”  (I swear, if just one sales clerk ever spoke to me that way, I’d buy everything in the store.  I am so heartily sick of, “How you guys doin’?” when I am not a guy, and they never know the answer when I ask a question and too lazy to find out.  They discuss their personal lives in grating voices with coworkers and I am just a shadow who hands them money when they've paused to notice me.  Oh, for the days of professional sales help.  Call me ma’am, just once, please.)

Miss Field continues her merry prattle, “A gay spectrum of springtime hues—fuchsia, purple almond, banana, marshmallow, peach dream and licorice!”

Mr. Powell replies, “Would you be good enough to tell me something?”

Miss Field: “Enchanted.”  (I love her over-the-top playfulness with proper speech.)

Mr. Powell: “Whatever became of blue?”

She finds he is going to be trouble, especially when he wants to know if someone can swim in her sweaters.

“May I ask is the young lady’s prejudice against swimming in a swimming suit quite deep-seated?”  (One of my all-time favorite lines.  I just love her.  In a way, her intonation and enunciation reminds me of a reformed Eliza Doolittle when she is carefully trying to explain to Freddy Eynsford-Hill that, “Them she lived with would have killed her for a hat-pin, let alone a hat.”  Her careful stroking of the difficult language as if to tame it.)

Mr. Powell just realizes he could buy his mermaid a two-piece swimsuit instead of a sweater and she could just wear the top part.  But Miss Field, Saleswoman of the Year, insists they do not sell half of a bathing suit.  She holds one up, “The diaper model.  Provocative, n'est–ce pas?”  (She’s straight-faced, slam-dunk hysterical.)

Nobody in the movie calls these two-piece suits a bikini, but the name, as well as the design, was still quite new.  They arrived in 1946, about a year and a half before this movie went into production, and were named by the designer for the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific, where the U.S. conducted its first peacetime nuclear test explosions.  He wanted the swimsuit to similarly bear (or is that bare?) the reputation of an intense "reaction".

Mr. Powell buys three bikinis, and next we see him sitting by the fishpond, separating the panties from the bras with delicate thoroughness as the mermaid solemnly watches. 

He gently begins his lecture: “Darling, I don’t want to offend you, but you’re not dressed for company.”  (Another favorite line.)  He tries to explain modesty to her, but she is uncomprehending. 

She plucks one of the bras he has displayed on the edge of the pond for her perusal, and she places it on top of her head.  She has no idea what to do with it.

He stretches a bra across his own chest to demonstrate, but she’s not interested.  She wants attention.  She wants him to kiss her again, but he won’t and gently remonstrates her, too, that she must also stop eating the expensive rare tropical fish in the fishpond.  The camera cuts over to a neat lineup of fish skeletal remains on the side of the pool.  He wants her to eat canned sardines instead.

She is upset and starts to tear up (and for me, as silly as this scene is, it’s as heartbreaking as when you see a toddler’s face fall when he is told “no”).  She just wants to be loved.  She just wants this wonderful male two-legged creature to talk sweetly to her again and leave soft kisses on the side of her mouth.

He comforts her and is amazed by her.  “My age means nothing to you, does it?”  She explores his face with her adoring eyes, and now he’s a goner, pleasantly lost in the first flush of his second spring.

But the mermaid can also be quick to anger.  She does not like Andrea King messing with her male two-legged creature.  She hisses when Mr. Powell talks about Miss King.  Here Ann Blyth is dubbed (not for the last time in her career—but we’ll get to The Helen Morgan Story eventually).  According to a syndicated article in the St. Petersburg Times, Gene Fowler, Jr., assistant producer, could not find a suitable sound for a mermaid snarl, so they took a crew to the San Diego Zoo and found the sound they wanted from an irritable ocelot.  They recorded him on tape, and the sound of the ocelot snarl, played backwards, is apparently what we hear on screen.

When Andrea King stops by, the mermaid spies on her overt flirtation with Mr. Powell and becomes jealous.  When Miss King teasingly strips off her evening gown and dives into the fishpond in her unmentionables, the mermaid sneaks up on her in the murky depths of the pool, and grabs her.  There’s a vigorous fight underwater between them, no doubles here—it’s really Ann and Andrea in an oxygen-deprived soggy girl fight—and the mermaid bites her leg.  Andrea can kick her way to the surface, but Ann’s got 30 to 50 pounds of lead weights in her tail keeping her nicely submerged.

In the middle of the night, Powell hears the mermaid’s trilling, and sneaks out to the pond to find her sitting on the edge of the pool in Miss King’s gown as a trophy (Miss King, terrified, has run off without it), which she wears like a debutante to impress him.  With great tact and understanding, he compliments her appearance, and she clings to his hand, kissing it.

But his wife is fed up with him, sure that he’s carrying on with Miss King, so she leaves him.  When she disappears, the local authorities think he murdered her, and now poor Mr. Powell has to get the mermaid back to the ocean and get back his wife.

A nice shot here when the mermaid overhears Powell telling the sardonic Clinton Sundberg that he’s in love with a mermaid, and she responds silently with a brilliant, ecstatic smile.  The only thing better than your male two-legged creature telling you he loves you, is hearing him talk about how much he loves you to somebody else.

Ann Blyth has some clever and remarkable stunts to perform underwater, most especially the fight scene, but also a bit where she swims around an enormous castle-like structure, where she cries underwater into a handkerchief and blows her nose, and gathers up her comb collection when Mr. Powell tells her they have to leave this place.

Their adventure culminates on a rock at sea, with the British authorities after them.  It is a tragic moment when he sees he cannot stay with the mermaid, and must let himself be taken back to the land.  He reunites with his wife, and gives her a present: one of the mermaid’s ornamental combs.

I think the above–mentioned New York Times reviewer hit the nail on the head when it comes to the ending of this movie: “Mermaids are not good subjects for cinematic comedy, since they just can’t settle down and live happily ever after.”

True, for though we may be happy for the Peabodys’ reunion, there is a sense of sadness that we don’t know what happened to the mermaid, and wonder if she will ever find another male two-legged creature to love her.

Ann Blyth and William Powell parted with a happier mood.  In the 2006 interview with Eddie Muller, referred to in our intro piece and posted on The Evening Class blog transcript of the event, she recalled of Powell:

He was so dear, tender…I had asked him for a picture at the end of the movie and he took several lines from the movie and wrote them on the picture.  Actually he taped it to the picture and said, "I like you.  I like you very much."

You can watch Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid currently here at YouTube.

Come back next Thursday when we jump eleven years later to 1959 and a new medium—television—for Ann Blyth’s first of five appearances on the western Wagon Train.  It’s The Jenny Tannen Story, where she has a dual role of a cold, bitter woman, and the young daughter who travels across the continent to see her.  This one’s dedicated to your friend and mine, the Caftan Woman, for her particular fondness for this episode.  It was during the filming of this episode that Ann was surprised by Ralph Edwards on This Is Your Life.  We'll talk about that too.

____________________________

Andrea King website 

Evening Class blog, July 28,2007, transcribed interview of Eddie Muller with Ann Blyth at the Castro Theatre, San Francisco, July 2006.

FloridaMemory.com website, Florida Photographic Collection of the State Archives of Florida.

Hollis, Tim.  Glass Bottom Boats & Mermaid Tails: Florida’s Tourist Springs, (Mechanicsburg, PA, 2006) p. 99.

Life magazine, February 9, 1948, pp. 91-94.

The Milwaukee Journal, article by Gene Handsaker, December 18, 1947; article by Sheilah Graham, August 22, 1949, p. GS1.

The Montreal Gazette, October 23, 1948, p. 21.

The New York Times, review by T.F.B., August 14, 1948, p. 6.

Ocala (Florida) Star Banner, April 14, 1981, p. 10A

Pelland, Maryann and Dan Pelland.  Weecki Wachee Springs (Charleston, SC., Chicago, Portsmouth, NH, San Francisco, 2006), p.7

St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, December 10, 1947, p. 14; April 4, 1948, p. 34

Youngstown (Ohio) Vindicator, syndicated article by Hedda Hopper, March 8, 1948, p. 16.

 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.