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The results are in on the latest Monkey survey, "What first brought you to the Mythical Monkey?" Not surprisingly, the majority of you said you first arrived here either while searching for a photo (22) or by way of a link from another blog (also 22). We here at the Monkey do tend to overstuff our posts with pictures. But what would you rather look at, Louise Brooks or a long gray block of impenetrable text? That's what I thought.
Among the other answers, five of you admitted to being a friend or family member, and six of you claimed brain damage—the latter of which strikes me as either way too many or not nearly enough. Three arrived here while searching for info or a movie-specific review, one got here by way of a review on the Internet Movie Database, and four chose "other."
The one vote for "an interest in alternate Oscars" was cast by yours truly. Although I think many readers find the whole "alternate Oscar" concept, first championed by Danny Peary in his book of the same name, confusing or frankly irritating, the truth is, I wouldn't have started this blog at all except for my own obsession with "who should have won," and what little forward momentum this blog has comes strictly from my own desire to get to the next award. So I think for the time being, I'll stick with the current format even if I do wind up tweaking it a bit.
Amazingly, no one picked "word of mouth." I would have thought sitting around in a bar talking about movie blogs would rank higher, especially when "Lets go back to my place and read the Monkey together" is a proven pick-up line. (Proven in the same sense that many things on the internet are proven, which is to say I made it up.)
Which reminds me of a true story from my law school days. At the end of one especially grueling semester, I held a film festival in my apartment—twenty-four consecutive hours of wholesome movie goodness, beginning at 11 in the morning and ending sometime after breakfast the following day. It turned into a bit of an event with something like fifty people showing up and camping out, including one woman I had never met who turned down a friend of mine for a date because she was "going to some guy's film festival."
There's a moral in there some place. I just don't know what it is.
... when you've got no content? Why, post a picture of Louise Brooks, of course. Here she is with actor Richard Arlen and writer Jim Tully on location in the Jacumba Mountains for the filming of William Wellman's Beggars Of Life. Wish I could remember where it came from ...
I'm taking the rest of the week off but you can always vote in the latest poll (about Greta Garbo) or you can catch up with my 12,000 word, eight-part essay about the Marx Brothers. Okay, I exaggerate—it's 11,885 words. But there are plenty of pictures.
And please add the word "slangsta" to your vocabulary—courtesy of Mister Muleboy who is tapping his foot impatiently.
If she'd just been another pretty face, a cut flower from yesterday's bouquet, she would have been forgotten long ago, one of the thousands of beauties who for a brief season capture the fancy of the paparazzi and the tabloids and the fickle paying public and then quickly fade from our memory. But more than just a platinum blonde beauty, Jean Harlow also possessed an unexpected gift for comedy and self-parody, and as the pre-Code era drew to a close, she became not only America's premier sex symbol but one of its premier actresses as well.
Of what I would call the five essential performances in her career—Red-Headed Woman, Red Dust, Dinner At Eight, Bombshell and Libeled Lady—three of them were released during the award year that ran from August 1, 1932 to the end of 1933, and she's my choice for the best actress in a comedy or musical.
The Girl From Missouri
Born to a Kansas City dentist and the daughter of a wealthy real estate developer, Harlean Harlow Carpenter tried out for the movies on a dare, got the job and later signed with the Hal Roach Studios. Working under her mother's maiden name, Jean Harlow played the "swanky blonde" in four Laurel and Hardy comedy shorts and appeared in uncredited bit roles in more than a dozen movies (including City Lights) before Howard Hughes cast her in Hell's Angels. Hughes epic about World War I flying aces proved to be Harlow's big break. Although she was as skittish as a newborn foal, barely able to speak her lines, the public immediately responded to her beauty—the expressions "platinum blonde" and "blonde bombshell" were coined to describe her—and she soon landed better parts, including that of James Cagney's love interest in William Wellman's The Public Enemy, a part initially intended for Louise Brooks.
On the set, Cagney couldn't help but notice that Harlow never wore undergarments and asked her, "How do you hold those things up?"
"I ice them," she answered matter-of-factly.
She played a similar kind of role—the beautiful, unobtainable society girl—in Frank Capra's comedy Platinum Blonde (retitled from Gallagher to capitalize on Harlow's popularity) and while critics called the performance no better than "competent," the public was already clamoring for more.
Directors clearly had no idea what to do with Jean Harlow in these early efforts and mostly she stood around, serving as a symbol of something the hero thinks he wants and learns the hard way that he doesn't. The bombshell image may have packed the theaters with the curious and the salivating, but it blinded directors and producers to her talent.
"The newspapers sure have loused me up," she complained cheerfully, "calling me a sexpot! Where'd they ever get such a screwy idea?"
"One look at Harlow," screenwriter Frances Marion replied in print, "and whether you were male or female you could get no other idea; she was the Scylla and Charybdis of sex, from her provocative come-hither expression to the flowing lines of her beautifully proportioned body."
Red-Headed Woman and Red Dust: Red-Hot Harlow
It was MGM's legendary producer Irving Thalberg who determined to mold a screen image for Harlow beyond that of sex symbol. Thalberg bought Harlow's contract from Howard Hughes and cast her in the screen adaptation of Red-Headed Woman, Katharine Brush's racy novel about a woman who sleeps her way into high society. F. Scott Fitzgerald took the first crack at the screenplay, but couldn't solve the puzzle of how to make the audience like a character he himself didn't approve of, and it was instead Anita Loos, a veteran screenwriter and author of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, who drafted the final screenplay.
Although Harlow's Lillian Andrews is a manipulative gold digger—she seduces her married boss, poor sap, and breaks up his marriage—there was a sincerity to Lil's transparent scheming, and with Harlow serving up the brassier bits with humor and wounded pride, audiences found themselves rooting for her. The result was one of the biggest hits of 1932.
It was a remarkably nuanced performance from an actress who before this had always shown more leg than promise. Variety summed up the general reaction: "Jean Harlow, hitherto not highly esteemed as an actress, gives an electric performance."
Next up was an even better vehicle for Harlow, one that would both display her talent for comedy and pair her with fast-rising star Clark Gable.
Based on a failed stageplay, MGM had purchased Red Dust as a vehicle for Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, the studio's two biggest stars of the silent era. Once the couple's relationship ended, however, Garbo backed out and Thalberg cast Harlow to replace her. While adapting the play for the screen, writer John Lee Mahin recommended that Thalberg replace Gilbert with Gable, and his suggestion proved to be an inspired one. Harlow and Gable had an undeniable chemistry on screen and ended up making six pictures together, including Harlow's last, Saratoga.
Clark Gable is Dennis Carson, the overseer of a rubber plantation deep in the jungles of French Indochina. As the movie opens, Carson is on edge—production is behind schedule, his crew chief (Donald Crisp) is a drunk, and if that weren't enough to worry about, a prostitute on the run from the law decides to hide out in Carson's bed.
"You've got your yearly case of nerves," says his friend and mentor (Tully Marshall). "Why don't you go down to Saigon and blow the lid off. ... As a matter of fact, what came up from Saigon isn't so bad looking."
"I've been looking at her kind," Carson sneers, "ever since my voice changed."
But as Carson notes, the prostitute, Vantine (Harlow), is a "cute little trick" and she makes him laugh and, well, she's there and why not. Things get a bit complicated when she falls for him, but Carson is oblivious and at the end of the month, he puts her on the boat and hands her a wad of cash she doesn't want. "It isn't half enough," he tells her as her eyes fill with tears. "And when I get down to Saigon, there'll be plenty more." Harlow is terrific in this scene as we glimpse Vantine's vulnerability while never letting down the guard a woman of her profession would necessarily have developed.
And then things really do get complicated. As Vantine gets on the boat, Barbara Willis (Mary Astor) gets off it, and though she's the wife of his latest hire, Carson is immediately smitten. Mrs. Willis represents everything that he, as a poor kid with his nose forever pressed against the glass, has ever wanted and he sets out to seduce her.
When the boat soon after runs aground and Vantine is thrown back into Carson's care, a worldly-wise Harlow immediately sizes up the situation. "What a pleasant little house party this is going to be." The women's rivalry is not just one of sex and love but of class, education and manners—everything Mrs. Willis takes for granted, everything Vantine has struggled to survive without—and this is where Harlow really hits her stride as an actress. As Vantine competes with Mrs. Willis (and Harlow with Astor) with gestures both subtle (a mocking description of a fictional blue-blooded background) and not so subtle (bathing in the company drinking water), Harlow is funny, bawdy, hurt, angry, and then as much as her Vantine wishes she weren't, compassionate, too, protecting her rival when she could just as easily destroy her.
As the Movie Diva put it in her review of Red Dust, Harlow's "uniquely effortless vulgarity, humor and slovenliness create the rarest of Hollywood goddesses, the beautiful clown." It's one of the best performances of the pre-Code era.
The movie itself has been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Despite being known as a "man's director," Victor Fleming was remarkably adept at getting strong performances from actresses—Clara Bow in Mantrap, Judy Garland in The Wizard Of Oz, Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind—and he probably deserves more credit than he usually gets for establishing Harlow as an actress (he also directed her in Bombshell and Reckless). He liked to create onscreen the sort of women he preferred to spend time with in private—"resourceful, strong-willed and sexual," as David Denby put in The New Yorker (May 25, 2009).
Harlow's Vantine was all that and more.
[To read Part Two, click here.]
Yesterday I mentioned that I saw a picture of Louise Brooks on the cover of a magazine recently, which prompted a question from Thomas Gladysz, director of the Louise Brooks Society website and editor of a new edition of The Diary Of A Lost Girl (which you can order here).
"Pray tell," he asked, "what was it?"
To which I replied with my usual precision, "I think it was some sort of fashion magazine, maybe a vintage fashion magazine."
Actually, it was Somerset Studio, a magazine devoted to "The Art of Paper and Mixed-Media." Close, huh. In my defense, I will say that the word "fashion" does appear somewhere on the cover. So I'm not a complete idiot.
The cover photo is a piece called "Fearless" by artist Anahata Katkin, who has her own blog and online store here.
Without having ever talked to the artist or the magazine, I'm going out on a limb and saying that the collage piece was based on this photo of Louise Brooks. Can't say for sure. But I will say as a general matter that if that's not Louise Brooks, I'll eat the magazine, all 160 pages of it. Which incidentally, you can buy here, or, if you prefer, at the Barnes and Noble three miles from my house.
I'll meet you for coffee.
P.S. You should check out Anahata Katkin's work. I think she's on to something.
The numbers are in on the latest Monkey Poll and the results were decidedly mixed. In answer to the question "Of the previous winners of the Katie-Bar-The-Door award for best actress in a lead role, who is your favorite?" 10 of you chose silent film star Louise Brooks, while 8 each went for Lillian Gish and Marlene Dietrich. The always controversial "Queen of MGM," Norma Shearer, picked up 7 solid votes, while "America's Sweetheart," Mary Pickford, polled 5.
In a way I wasn't surprised that Brooksie won, albeit narrowly. Of the five choices, her face is the most famous, even among people who have no idea who she was or what she did. I was in a bookstore the other day, for example, and saw her image on the cover a magazine that had nothing to do with movies whatsoever. And last Christmas, I bought a pair of earrings for Katie-Bar-The-Door from a salesclerk wearing a Louise Brooks bob. Not to mention a new edition of The Diary Of A Lost Girl prepared by film historian Thomas Gladysz, the host of the Louise Brooks Society, the best site devoted to all things Brooks.
Louise Brooks is hot, in more ways than one. Pretty good for an actress who appeared in only 23 movies, with frankly no more than half a dozen worth talking about.
"A well dressed woman, even though her purse is painfully empty," she once said, "can conquer the world." And conquer the world she did. Just not in her lifetime.
I've written about Louise Brooks extensively here.
Working on the award for best director. In the meantime, happy birthday to Louise Brooks, born on this day, 1906, in Cherryvale, Kansas.
No time for blogging today. Busy doing something close to nothing. Here's a look at those who almost got a Katie nomination for 1930-31 ... but didn't.
Jackie Cooper (actor, Skippy)
Bela Lugosi (actor, Dracula) (almost forgot him—MM, 11/2/09)
Irene Dunne (actress, Cimarron)
Louise Brooks (actress, Prix de Beauté)
Mary Astor (actress, Other Men's Women)
William A. Wellman (director, The Public Enemy)
Raoul Walsh (director, The Big Trail)
Luis Buñuel (director, L'Age d'Or)
Dwight Frye (supporting actor, Dracula)
Harry Myers (right, with Charles Chaplin) (supporting actor, City Lights)
Paul Ollivier (left) (supporting actor, Le Million)
Mae Clarke (supporting actress, The Front Page)
Virginia Cherrill (supporting actress, City Lights)
Marjorie Rambeau (supporting actress, Min and Bill)
John Monk Saunders (with wife Fay Wray) (screenplay, The Dawn Patrol)
The results are in on the latest Monkey survey, "What first brought you to the Mythical Monkey?" Not surprisingly, the majority of you said you first arrived here either while searching for a photo (22) or by way of a link from another blog (also 22). We here at the Monkey do tend to overstuff our posts with pictures. But what would you rather look at, Louise Brooks or a long gray block of impenetrable text? That's what I thought.
The one vote for "an interest in alternate Oscars" was cast by yours truly. Although I think many readers find the whole "alternate Oscar" concept, first championed by Danny Peary in his book of the same name, confusing or frankly irritating, the truth is, I wouldn't have started this blog at all except for my own obsession with "who should have won," and what little forward momentum this blog has comes strictly from my own desire to get to the next award. So I think for the time being, I'll stick with the current format even if I do wind up tweaking it a bit.
Which reminds me of a true story from my law school days. At the end of one especially grueling semester, I held a film festival in my apartment—twenty-four consecutive hours of wholesome movie goodness, beginning at 11 in the morning and ending sometime after breakfast the following day. It turned into a bit of an event with something like fifty people showing up and camping out, including one woman I had never met who turned down a friend of mine for a date because she was "going to some guy's film festival."
