Confidence. Always
a useful thing to have. Certainly most
of us want more of it. Some seem born
with it; to them, their own success appears inevitable. They picture it instinctively. And - when it comes – accept it as their destiny.
It’s the rest of the world’s job to
simply come to terms with the fact. Believe you’re successful and you’re
practically there.
40’s
film queen Maria Montez seems to have had an abundance of confidence. From the get-go. She erupted into the world (Maria Antonia
Garcia Vidal de Santo Silas) June 6, 1912 in Barahona, Dominican Republic, the
length of her name suggesting (rightly) a prominent and prosperous family
background. Her father was the Spanish consul. The girl grew up pretty,
pampered, clever and strong-willed. When
she was a teen-ager, father was made consul to Ireland and the family relocated
to Belfast. The seeds of Maria’s cosmopolitan,
globe-trotting future were already being sown. With her blossoming
beauty and lively energy, she was – not surprisingly - a magnet for male
attention. An eminent marriage seemed a natural step in her ascent and in ‘32
Maria wed a wealthy banker. The union must have entailed some perks and
privileges, but eventually Maria yearned for a wider field of activity and
probably a wider field of admirers. That crystallized into a driving ambition
to be a movie star. Certainly, a look in her mirror was enough to convince her
she had the goods. At twenty-seven she
exited the marriage, hired an agent, knocked eight years off her age and as the
30’s turned into the 40’s, headed for Hollywood.
In a town full of beauties, Montez had an
edge on most of the others. She was
gorgeous, of course. But unlike the
majority, she was also comfortably well-off. No Sword of Damocles dangled over
her head whispering “where’s next month’s rent coming from?”. Montez was used to sophisticated society and
the luxury that went with it; So Hollywood execs and movie-land smoothies
didn’t faze her. Plus – and it was a big plus - few of her competitors could
match her for self-assurance; she approached her Hollywood campaign with conquistador-like focus, radiating the
message that any studio would be lucky to have her. And the powers that be at
Universal decided she was right, handing her a contract. Initial screen appearances in tatty black and
white B’s weren’t all that promising. But a loan-out to Fox in ’41 proved lucky
for her. It was really only one scene –
but the picture, “That Night in Rio” (with Alice Faye & Don Ameche) was an
opulent A. In color. And in color Maria Montez was a dazzler. The
picture became one of the year’s biggest hits – and Montez returned to her home
studio accompanied by a sudden – and very positive - buzz . It was a case of being in the right place at
the right time. Because, enviously eyeing the massive grosses of Alexander
Korda’s Arabian Nights spectacle “The
Thief of Bagdad”, Universal elected to put all its eggs in one brightly
Technicolored basket called “Arabian
Nights”. Assessing the studio’s female contractees,
mostly girl-next-door types, the grand Poobahs
at Universal decided that Montez was the only one exotic enough to adorn the thing. Suddenly top-cast in a major Hollywood production (the studio’s
first in full three-strip Technicolor), Montez simply accepted it as her due
and moved grandly through the complicated shooting without the slightest doubt
that she and it would be hits. Turns out
she was right. Wartime audiences ate the thing up. Overnight Montez joined
Abbott & Costello and Deanna Durbin as one of Universal ‘s top money-makers. “Arabian Nights” was artfully packaged silliness
and irresistible fun; it was well- paced, and plushly mounted, the
nicely-judged fairytale tone enhanced by a combination of fanciful matte shots
and stunning outdoor location work( much of it in Utah). For the next several years, the studio cast
Montez opposite various combinations of her “Arabian Nights” co-stars (Jon
Hall, Sabu, Turhan Bey) in one preposterously engaging Saturday matinee
extravaganza after another. And somehow –no matter what Grumpy Gus critics said about her supposed thespian shortcomings - Montez seemed
completely at home in them. Parading statuesquely
through each as
queen, princess, glamour-puss native or gypsy wildcat. Imperious, narcissistic,
fully committed, her persistent Latin accent wrestling grandly with whatever
comic-book dialogue she was handed. Her screen outfits, never-land gowns seen
through the prism of high 40’s fashion were often absurd but always knockouts. And she wore them with haughty assurance.
Alongside Montez, competitors generally looked like knock-kneed wallflowers. Universal
named her “Queen of Technicolor”. And like most aspirants to that particular
throne (O’Hara, Dahl, Fleming), Maria Montez was (generally) presented
on-screen as a redhead. Unlikely considering the exotic ethnicity of
most of her roles, but undeniably attractive. She may not have been genuinely regal. But she certainly had a gift for looking
royally pissed off. You knew the hero would have to work his tail off to even
get her attention. And - unlike fellow Latinas Lupe Velez and Carmen
Miranda – who invariably went for laughs, specializing in tempest in a teapot
tantrums - Montez demanded to be taken
seriously. Imperious gravity -resolutely attuned to the penny
dreadful conceits of her projects - was her go-to setting. We were the voice in the mirror she addressed to
ask, “who’s the fairest of them all?”. And she never doubted what our answer would be.
There was self-absorption there and plenty of it. But it kept her level of engagement sky high, usually
raising the audience’s as well. Maria Montez could always be counted on to
bring a formidable no-nonsense quality to the nonsense.
Certainly
that was the case in “Arabian Nights”, the film that established the template –
and remains the best of the lot. Not that Montez was the film’s only selling
point. The movie successfully casts its
net to bring in all the expected elements- including fanciful faux-oriental
sets (the whole thing’s a kind of bejeweled coloring book come to life). Familiar
Arabian nights characters jostle their way across the screen. Haroun-al-Raschid, Aladdin and Sinbad all make
appearances. And most of the action happens in and around – where else? – Baghdad.
The scripts’s liberally sprinkled with
the kind of flowery pseudo- desert poesie
that’s catnip to fans of the genre.
Examples:
Harem guardian to his chattering charges: “Silence!
Daughters of foolishness.”
Sabu to Billy Gilbert: “Pull in your neck, o brother to the wine barrel!”
Jon Hall, playfully deferential to Scheherazade: “I shall
be practicing how to salaam when you pass by.”
Or slave merchant Thomas Gomez talking up Scheherazade’s
charms to his clients:
“A vision of beauty beyond your dreams, a foretaste of
paradise itself; she is a young moon mounting the stairway of the stars”
When this kind of dialogue fails, it just lies there clogging
up the pipes; but -when it works – it’s a burst of powdery, fairy-tale fragrance. Here it works. There’s also plenty of
fighting, riding, swordplay, a shuddery trip to the torture chamber , black treachery
and, of course, love under a silvery desert moon. Plus some kiddie-friendly
Three Stooges brand humour (most of it courtesy of Shemp Howard and sneeze-meister
Billy Gilbert) that somehow manages not
to upset the applecart, mood-wise. Eternal juvenile Sabu earns his paycheque and then some - agile,
optimistic and likeable as ever, reminding us just why 40’s audiences were so
fond of him. Jon Hall’s manfully heroic (and comfortable with the dialogue),
while marvelous Edgar Barrier takes time to savour each shaft of seasoned
malevolence as he dispenses it.
Montez
is dancing girl Scheherazade, around whom most of the action whirls. The
credits dumb down the name to Sherazade, but when pronounced onscreen the
missing syllable’s always present and accounted for. We hear about her before
we see her, first learning that someone’s risked a grisly death to gain her
favor. Then we see an audience (of men) clamouring to see her perform. Finally,
we’re in her dressing room – where we glimpse her first through a filmy golden
translucent surface, as if to accustom our eyes gradually to so much beauty. As
she begins to speak we get the full-focus image and if ever the word ravishing
were appropriate it’s here. Montez is a knock-out. She impatiently primps with that red hair. And before we’re finished marveling at her
casual indifference to the complex bees’ nest of beads and fabric that adorns
her face, she hurls out her first lines:
“Let them wait, fools! I detest them. I’m their servant,
their slave. But one day ... one day ... when I’m above them all ...”
Basically this is her manifesto, her calling card. Not
just Scheherazade’s, but Maria Montez’s too.
A star was born in those few seconds. A new kind of heroine. One that dispensed with the conventional charm offensives,
not so much wooing audiences, but warning them to watch out. There was no
stopping her. And the fact is that, though her beauty was an essential part of
her appeal, it was her unflappable, unapologetic confidence that made her unique.
Somehow she made vanity compelling. That imperturbable self-esteem of hers also seemed
to make her characters brave. Things
that would crush a meeker flower only make her more fearless. When someone
threatens her maid, she blazes into protective tigress mode. If there's a fight to be waged she never backs down. When she rejects a
suitor, she doesn’t mince words. And when she accepts one, it’s not a surrender
– merely acknowledgement that she’s found someone who’s (possibly) her equal. Yet there was a coolness to her fire, something that made
audiences buy into her belief in herself. What would have come off as impudence
in most others was enticing in her. She
dared you to resist and knew you couldn’t. Montez retained that curiously complicated
persona through a string of 40’s releases, insuring that whatever else these vehicles
lacked, beauty, glamour and compelling self-assurance were never in short
supply. Relocating to Europe near the
end of the decade, she left Hollywood behind. But not that singularly confident personal
magnetism of hers. That went with her everywhere. Onscreen and off. She was fierce decades before the term took on
its current glamazon connotation. Maria Montez created and maintained a unique
space. Whether you see it as attitude or authenticity, it was never less than
fun to watch. It came naturally to her. And it remains
mesmerizing . Watch “Arabian Nights” again some time and I think you’ll see - resistance
is still futile.
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