Friday's Old Fashioned: Love Crazy (1941)

In screwball comedies, the male protagonist is often self-impressed, set in his ways, only to have, in a series of farcical hijinks, a tough-talking, no-crap-talking female upend his status quo and broaden his worldview while simultaneously making him do what he heretofore thought impossible and fall head over heels. In Jack Conway’s “Love Crazy”, however, the male and female protagonists, Steve (William Powell) and Susan (Myrna Loy) Ireland, are presumably already well past this stage. This is because the film opens on the verge of their fourth wedding anniversary celebration, not even the faintest whiff of marital discord in the air. It's as if the crumbling of Steve's self-impressed ways happened in a non-existent prequel and we are now catching up with him in movie #2 where he is full-grown and respectful.

Therefore, the status quo in “Love Crazy” that requires toppling is Love & Happiness, which means the gods of machine must intervene. And they do in an elongated sequence to open the film set entirely within the couple's apartment building that finds the husband in question stuck on an elevator with his ex-flame of many moons ago, Kimble Grayson (Gail Patrick), who, per fate, lives one apartment below her former suitor and conspires to get him into her apartment for a cocktail while her own oafish husband is out. Steve, of course, neglects to mention this to Susan. She, of course, ascertains this info anyway and instantly becomes so suspicious that she conspires to pretend to be having an affair with Kimble's husband only to, of course, wind up in the apartment of a pompous archer (Jack Carson) instead.

Conway handles this rigmarole with deft professionalism, though it requires Powell to generally forgo quick-witted repartee for more physical hijinks. He's Buster Keaton as opposed to.....well.....William Powell. Which isn't to say Powell can't do Keaton - or a version of Keaton, I should say - but that we go to the cinema turn on Turner Classic Movies to watch Powell be Powell, not Keaton, don't we?

We also want to watch Loy be Loy, and yet she comes across more in this film like a supporting character than a co-star. The suspicions regarding her spouse’s infidelity drives the plot and, okay, yes, sure, there is something suspicious about discovering your husband of four years was just in the apartment of the woman to whom he was once engaged and that he purposely neglected informing you. But, I submit that Loy, in all her Loy-ness, would be able to ferret out the truth with but a few pointed questions.

Still, the greatest irony of “Love Crazy” is that splitting up Powell & Loy is not simply its singular weakness but also its singular strength. Because upon being split up, Powell is forced to resort to all sorts of wacky measures to win his way back into her heart, which includes an accidental detour to an asylum (“Love Crazy”) and him dressing up like a woman, because, you know, sure, amongst numerous other hijinks. It is a strength precisely because there is something whimsically reassuring in knowing that even when the universe conspires against his character to eradicate their courtship, he is willing to go such lengths to re-establish it.

Of all the uber-glorious romantic pairings of the Hollywood’s Golden Age, no one worked side-by-side as often as Powell & Loy, teaming up thirteen times in fourteen years, and kicking up some of the most entertaining sparks the silver screen ever saw. Yet only when the pairing is taken away midstream did I suddenly realize how much I took it for granted, how much I chose to watch this specific film to see them together. Absence only makes the cinephile's heart grow more desperate, and so by the end, I was rooting for the inevitable in spite of that very inevitability.

Friday's Old Fashioned: Reckless (1935)

"Don't forget that weakness of yours. Wanting to make people happy. It's a mean one."

This is what Mona Leslie (Jean Harlow) says to her suitor, Bob Harrison Jr. (Franchet Tone), even though she's really talking to herself, and in those words she neatly, sadly summarizes her own primary flaw, suggesting a fatal self-awareness. Harlow's character is a famed Broadway showgirl, drawing a clear-cut parallel with her own life, and, in fact, Harlow initially did not want to take on the role for fear that it hued too close to actuality. Still, she succumbed, and earned a role with singing and dancing - that is noticeably dubbed (even though, it seems, others testify that most of it was not dubbed) - but also rich with drama and pain.

Evoking the title rather insistently, "Reckless" opens with light-heartedly ominous tones when Mona is jailed for, ahem, reckless driving. Not to worry, as her longtime friend, Ned Riley (William Powell), a sports promoter, is on the scene to bail her out, albeit with a little back and forth. She has to make it to the stage in time for a charity event put on by the S.A.M.L. As it happens, the S.A.M.L. stands for Society for the Admiration of Mona Leslie and is run by and consists of a single man - Bob Harrison Jr., the sole audience member. He is the wealthy son of a wealthy father, and this is how the rich woo the women they love.

They also woo them tirelessly, and perhaps this should have been the warning to Mona that for all his affectations not everything is quite as it seems. But then, as established, her weakness is wanting to make other people happy, and it is that desperate need that drives her forward. It is also the need that threatens to leave Ned out in the cold. William Powell is known so well for his quick wit and one-liners, and those are on display in "Reckless", but so too is a cigarette smoke cloud of melancholy. He also pines for Mona, but can't quite bring himself to admit his feelings, perhaps from fear, perhaps from timidity.

A majestic sequence finds he and Mona kicking back with ice cream cones under the night sky, Powell gradually hinting at the genuine feelings underneath, and then imagining a marriage proposal to a theoretical girl free of all the timeworn pomp and bluster. "I'd simply say: how 'bout it, kid?" Of course, he's really saying it to her. Alas, she has gently dozed off. The Accidental Doze is usually for laughs, but here it's for all the pain Powell can muster. And so is another moment, when Mona jaunts off the rehearsal stage to sit side-by-side and crack wise with Ned, both trying to cover their belief that true love is but a poetic myth. Above all, notice the shot of Mona gently grabbing his arm, the tangible illusion of the physical touch they both crave.

Eventually, having eloped, Mona returns home with Bob to meet his parents, including his requisitely disapproving father, dismissing Mona as a mere "Broadway Bride". But she also learns Bob had been set to marry his childhood sweetheart, Jo (Rosalind Russell), only to jilt her for Mona instead. On the surface, Jo appears to have squared with it, and is nothing but nice to Mona, only to quickly turn around and marry the first guy that asks. This drives Bob to depression and Mona to confusion and will eventually drive Ned to desperation in order to protect his friend.

David O. Selznick produced and concocted the story, and he based the story on the real-life tragedy of Libby Holman, whose husband Zachary Smith Reynolds, heir to a fortune, committed suicide - supposedly - after an argument with Holman upon learning she was pregnant. Harlow's own husband, however, Paul Bern had also committed suicide roughly three years before the release of "Reckless", which is precisely what made Harlow reluctant to do it. Indeed, when Bob commits suicide in the film, the public turns against Mona

Unfortunately this third act dissolve into scandal, combined with the film's song and dance numbers and its relentless reliance on Exposition Via Newspaper Headline, result in tonal inconsistency that prevents "Reckless" from officially achieving greatness. Even so, it's hard not to obfuscate its faults in your mind and merely focus on the good stuff.

The insatiable need of the artist to please everyone, and the eternal inability to do so (at least, in his/her mind), weaves throughout the whole narrative. It is the need that would appear to leave them so emotionally unlucky, Mona observing with a wryness only a stage performer could manage, "The joy of real love is not for us." Oh, how my heart weeps to hear it. And it weeps at the final shot, Powell making one more plea and Harlow reaching out to take his hand.

Friday's Old Fashioned: Libeled Lady (1936)

As I watched "Libeled Lady" I could not stop thinking of Will Smith and how he claimed to have turned down the title role of Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" specifically because the role was not, to use his words, the lead. A theory that gets posited an awful lot is that the movie star - and all that glorious term contains - is "dead." That really is not true, however, partially because Hollywood is still so insistent on attempting to manufacture movie stars and, in turn, shove them down our throat.

Consider romantic comedies of today. They generally require a couple stars that get top billing and then a bunch of hangers-on for support who cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed equal footing of those stars. The art of the ensemble, in other words, often seems to be lacking. Even in a movie like "Ocean's Eleven" with a great many talents there is still a clear hierarchy - Clooney and then Pitt and then everyone else.

"Libeled Lady", director Jack Conway's delightfully rabble rousing screwball rom com from 1936, on the other hand, opens even before the opening credits with its quartet of high voltage stars - William Powell, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy - dressed up and strolling arm-in-arm. That is telling.

I dare say that if a cinematic sabermetrician (God help us) was assigned to the case, he/she would deduce that William Powell was the principal of "Libeled Lady." Ah, but then look at the poster. Whose name comes first? Why, it's Harlow's, not Powell's. Granted, Powell and Harlow were married at the time and perhaps Powell, nobly, conceded top billing to his better half. But there have been legendary conflicts in Hollywood over top billing and, thus, I don't think this is should pass by unnoticed. Even so, Harlow, despite being Powell's real life better half, did not play his better half on the screen in order to capitalize on the "Thin Man" chemistry of Powell and Loy. Harlow is instead Tracy's better half even though she ends up feigning as Powell's better half while Powell is attempting to feign as Loy's better half.

Tracy is Warren Haggerty, editor of The New York Evening Star, who, unbeknownst to him, has just splashed a scandalous headline involving socialite Connie Allenbury (Loy) on its front page. Thus, he is forced into the office to deal with accusations of libel made by Allenbury's father (Walter Connolly). This is made more problematic because to do so he neglects his marital ceremony scheduled for that day to Gladys Benton (Harlow) who, in a stone cold classic moment, storms into his office still in her bridal gown and, in that hard-charging but mellifluous Harlow voice, lets him have it.

Oh, but it's gonna get worse, dear Gladys, because Warren calls upon an ex-reporter, the wily Bill Chandler (Powell), to help him out of this jam. The scheme: Bill will sail home from England aboard the same vessel as Connie and her father, pretend to be married to Gladys, woo Connie with this William Powell-ness and then, at a delicate moment, have Gladys walk in on them. Voila! Libel begets Libel!

You can see where this is going. But can you? Well, sort of. Connie will fall for Bill, of course, but Loy, thankfully, was never one to play second fiddle to Powell - they played co-first fiddles - and so her title as "socialite" betrays her true nature as a thinking, feeling human being. She can see what Bill is up to and is only eventually drawn in for real at the same time that he is being drawn in for real. Gladys, meanwhile, is forced to deal with her dolt of a fiancé forcing her into a sham marriage to protect his own reputation. Harlow plays the part reluctantly but not as a pushover and, in time, falls for her pretend husband on account of his William Powell-ness.

The film is a dizzying array of ruses and double crosses and best laid plans, as good a time as the actors on the screen seem to be having simultaneously. It concludes with a lengthy, kicky scene in a hotel room between our quartet as the upper hand continually switches from person to person/couple to couple in the face of revelation upon revelation. In his review of "Before Midnight" the don't-call-me-a-contrarian Armond White wrote: "No doubt this talkathon appeals to indie geeks who haven’t realized that cinema is a visual medium." Oh, Armond, you perturbed bastard, I guess Jean & Will & Myrna & Spence were just a bunch of indie geeks then several decades before the term "indie" even came into being since this scene is nothing much more than a spectacular talkathon with a camera that just happens to be rolling.

It is such a perfect coda because it subtly refuses to shine the spotlight on any one person and lets it rest on all of them instead. Warren seems set to get the best of Bill & Connie until they seem set to get the best of Warren until Gladys seems set to get the best of all three of them until......on and on it goes. It ends with all four of them talking over each other at once.

The whole ensemble wins.