1936: The Overlooked -- MARCIA MAE JONES in “THESE THREE”

MARCIA MAE JONES in “THESE THREE”

It’s almost inevitable that when modern audiences watch William Wyler’s “These Three”, they’re astonished by little Marcia Mae Jones. Her name is hardly remembered today. But there’s a timeless quality to her performance - she projects tremulous sensitivity that builds to a startling emotional wallop. It’s quite outside the usual polite conventions of thirties screen acting. And she was only eleven years old when she did it. But Hollywood didn’t nurture Jones’ very special gift. She shone in Shirley Temple’s “Heidi”(1937), turning a potentially cloying role (as Clara, the invalid) into a thing of quiet beauty – and left the showboating to Shirley. Scuttlebutt has it that Fox pruned Marcia Mae’s role because she was putting Shirley in the shade. Whatever the case, she got few such chances in the years to come. Between them, Temple and Jane Withers had the little girl movie star slot sewn up. Jones didn’t sing. So Deanna Durbin was safe on her perch. As it happened, Marcia Mae milled around in the background of a few Durbin pictures, but with little scope to get noticed. She soon wound up at Monogram in a series of moth-eaten teen films with Jackie Moran and Frankie Darro. Threadbare efforts at best. As she grew up, Jones remained a pleasure to look at. But not in a conventional pin-up way. Big studios weren’t interested. And Marcia Mae was reduced to plying her wares at PRC and other Poverty Row pitstops. There she had to contend with five-day shooting schedules and fungus-covered scripts. Even when she landed a potentially meaty part like Jean Parker’s wayward sister in “Lady in the Death House”, the odds were stacked against her. She’s always special, though. There’s a little something in every performance to remind you of the moment when Hollywood got it just right. And channeled her gift into a breathtaking and fully realized little masterpiece.

………

Merle Oberon and Miriam Hopkins are ladylike and appealing in “These Three”. And it’s always fun to marvel at how they transform a ramshackle old dump into a country showplace armed with just $38 and nice manicures. Joel McCrea must have been one heck of a part-time handyman! They proceed to convert their showplace into the Wright-Dobie School for Young Ladies. And that’s where we encounter Marcia Mae Jones as Rosalie. She’s a pie-faced little creature with pig-tails, gentle eyes , heart on her sleeve. There’s a quick charming curtsy, Then some halting Latin translation in the classroom. But after she and Evelyn (Carmencita Johnson, also excellent) get caught doing some innocent eavesdropping, we follow them upstairs with budding sociopath Mary (Bonita Granville). Rosalie’s a little put out because she’s going to have to share a room with Helen, who “blows her nose all night”. But Mary will soon provide her with bigger things to worry about. As a matter of fact, when the vicious Mary raises a threatening hand in Rosalie’s direction, the girl does a very quick and convincing dodge. It seems Rosalie already has a pretty good idea that Mary’s bite is just as bad as her bark.

The real fireworks start when Mary tries to bully Rosalie out of her pocket money. Rosalie actually defies her at first. Until Mary discovers the stolen bracelet. And immediately twigs to the power of her position. Mary’s threats of exposure bring on the first of Rosalie’s remarkable exhibitions of hysteria. Quivering with desperation and terror, she hardly seems to be acting. This is no Neely O’Hara conniption. It looks and feels like the real thing. One wonders what Wyler did to extract it from the child. But it’s clear the brilliance was there inside her all along.

Once Rosalie’s in Mary’s power, she’s increasingly more helpless, dragged from pillar to post like a sack of feathers. The girl still has the urge to defy Mary and tell the truth . But she’s instantly paralyzed with fear everytime Mary menacingly dangles the pilfered trinket.

Rosalie’s second and even more spectacular emotional outburst comes when Mary forces her to swear the oath of the knight. Whatever the word “vassal” means to Rosalie, it clearly encompasses the torments of Hell.

A third breakdown – and again just as impressive as its predecessors – takes place when she’s confronted by the assembled grown-ups at Mrs. Tilford’s house. She aches to come clean. But Mary’s crafty bullying by suggestion sends her into one more paroxysm of shrieking terror. The adults, who remained unimpressed during Mary’s tantrums, stand slack-jawed in front of this display. One can only speculate what the actors thought watching such a bravura exhibition from a tot.

There’s an intimate scene between Rosalie and Miss Dobie(Hopkins) at the door of Rosalie’s house. But this time Mary’s not there and Dobie is able to coax out Rosalie’s natural instincts. No hysterics here. Just genuine purity of feeling. The scene fades into Mrs. Tilford’s home as Rosalie continues her confession. Mary arrives on the scene. But the cat is well and truly out of t he bag. She’s busted. The little conniver rails and screams but Mrs. Tilford (the great Alma Kruger) silences her with a magnificently shouted “STILL!”.

Rosalie is freed from Mary’s tyranny. But Marcia Mae Jones still has time for a couple of eloquent close-ups, gazing up at Hopkins in gradually dawning relief and gratitude. Then she races out of the room. Gone but not forgotten. Not ever.

1936: The Overlooked -- ALMA KRUGER in “THESE THREE”

ALMA KRUGER in “THESE THREE”

Though Alma Kruger’s name was never a household word, her talent was of the highest calibre. She was sixty-seven when she made “These Three”. It was her first film. But she’d spent her whole life on the stage. And the experience showed.

The role of Mrs. Tilford offers rich possibilities to an actress equipped to exploit them. She’s not a villain. She’s a proud woman, priding herself above all on always trying to do the right thing. In this case, good intentions produce very bad results. 1961’s incarnation gave Fay Bainter a memorable swan song. Alma Kruger’s interpretation, twenty-five years earlier, gives her an equally memorable debut.

We first encounter Mrs. Tilford in the back seat of her chauffered car as she meets Karen and Joseph (Oberon and McCrea) on a country road. A beautiful speaking voice. A sense of authority. A person of consequence – but self-assured rather than condescending. Mary’s disruptive behavior in the car (just a faint preview of what’s to come) tips us off to the fact that Mrs. Tilford is coming back from what was probably a very abrupt and unpleasant end to Mary’s last scholastic situation. It’s clear that Mrs. Tilford enjoys helping people. But she’s also quick to see that a new school in her vicinity may offer a solution to what she no doubt already sees as a tricky problem – what to do with little Mary.

The girl’s parents are never mentioned. I sense a back story where Mrs. Tilford’s son has given her grief. Maybe he was like Mary. He broke away. Perhaps there was an unsuitable marriage. Estrangement from his mother. The couple lived fast. Died young. Leaving behind a baby girl. Inevitable feelings of guilt on Mrs. Tilford’s part. Determination to do right by her granddaughter. Fear she’ll repeat her mistakes. Not quite sure what they were. No wonder the Wright-Dobie School for Young Ladies looks like a godsend.

Mrs. Tilford’a not gullible. When Mary runs home with Rosalie in tow, she initially dismisses the girl’s melodramatics. But when Mary whispers some salacious specifics in her grandmother’s ear, Kruger justifies her close-ups with a masterful display of genuine shock. She simply can’t believe a little girl could invent details like this. Rosalie’s apparent corroboration brings out the protectress in Mrs. Tilford. She girds her loins to do her duty. She’s sad – but firm – when the three adults confront her.

“You’ve been playing with a lot of children’s lives. I did what I had to do.”

When Mary’s lies momentarily trip her up, Mrs. Tilford begins to doubt her.

“I want the truth!”, she demands, engaged – as she says it – in some impressive physical wrangling with the writhing child. But it’s Rosalie once again whose very genuine terror convinces her that she is doing the right thing. And who wouldn’t be swayed by Marcia Mae Jones’ performance?

When she wins the court case, there’s no sense of victory in Mrs. Tilford’s face. It’s not just the unpleasant publicity that seems to disturb her. Is it the nagging feeling,perhaps, that Mary has somehow manipulated her?

Finally, when Martha brings Rosalie to her for a full confession, Mrs. Tilford sits almost catatonic – defeated, discredited, ashamed. Her ringing, wounded cry of “STILL!” silences Mary’s final tantrum. But she sinks to quiet anguish with her next words.

“All my life the mistakes I’ve made have been honorable ones. You’ve made me make the first that was dishonorable.”

In the end Mrs. Tilford is framed alone in a doorway, with Martha’s words ringing around her.

“For the rest of your life, there won’t be a word she says or a move she makes that doesn’t frighten you’”

Kruger captures it all – the dignity, the warmth, the pride, the fall, the regret and the fear. A great actress can perform wonders even in an ordinary part. But there’s nothing like seeing a great actress in a great part. She takes you soaring with her.

1936: The Overlooked -- MARY ASTOR in “DODSWORTH”

MARY ASTOR in “DODSWORTH”

Mary Astor was a successful leading lady in silent films, starring opposite Barrymore, Fairbanks and other prominent names. She made the transition to sound with distinction, although Astor herself preferred supporting status to stardom. And it was as a superb supporting player that she enjoyed a long, distinguished career. Her work in “Dodsworth” is not just accomplished. It’s rich and luminous. The picture was a big hit. And the quality of her performance was recognized at the time. So Astor’s failure to land an Oscar nomination for the role is a puzzler. Unless, maybe it’s because she was involved at the time in a highly publicized scandal and was momentarily considered too hot to handle by the guardians of Hollywood’s morality. No matter. To this day, first-time viewers of “Dodsworth” are invariably bowled over by Astor’s work in it. The film’s maintained its sterling reputation for seventy years now. And certainly Mary Astor’s contribution is one of the reasons why.

…………

Sam and Fran Dodsworth (Walter Huston and Ruth Chatterton) are at a crossroads in their lives. He’s an affluent Midwestern businessman. She’s a restless, aging Bovary who’s talked him into early retirement so they can chase off on a glamorous spree abroad. Sam’s a clear-sighted, plain-speaking man – Will Rogers with a lot more snap in his suspenders – while Fran has her eye on the perfumed salons of Europe. Although she doesn’t fully realize it at first, Sam’s unlikely to fit into her plans. But the only area in which his usual horse-sense deserts him is in his devotion to his wife. So she gets her way. And they’re off.

“You have the most childish misconception of yourself. You see yourself as a woman of the world and you’re nothing of the sort.”

So says shipboard gigolo David Niven, delivering the first of several buckets of ice water to be dumped on Fran’s pretentions. Sam is boyishly excited when he spots the lights of England from the deck. But Fran’s only response is flibbertygibbety impatience. And she scoots back to the dance floor with Niven in tow.

Enter Mary Astor as American widow Edith Cortwright.We hear her before we see her. She’s been sitting alone on a deck chair in the background unnoticed till now. Observing Sam’s excitement, she good-naturedly prescribes something soothing. Prophetic words. Because that’s just what Edith’s going to bring to Sam’s world. As a matter of fact. Her gentle assimilation into his life has already begun. We didn’t know. He didn’t know. But she’s been there for awhile, observant and interested, already quite up to speed on some of the dynamics and specifics of his situation.

In a few words and gestures, exquisitely captured by Astor, Edith reveals herself to be kind and sophisticated in a way Fran will never be. A true cosmopolitan – but, in spite of the polished veneer, basically a plain-speaking person like Sam. She has no inflated sense of herself.

“I live in Italy by the thousands – it’s cheap!” And she has no trouble cutting to the heart of the matter. “One drifts for the lack of a reason to do anything else.”

Meanwhile Fran’s in a royal huff at Niven’s failure to play by her rules. As a result, she announces to Sam they’re going to skip England. The fact that he’s been genuinely looking forward to going there doesn’t even register on her radar. They’re off to Paris. Fran is all girlish.

“You’ve got to look after me, Sam. I can’t trust myself”

She abdicates all responsibility for her actions. If anything goes awry now, it’ll be Sam’s fault.

Once in Paris, of course, Fran’s swept up in frippery and frivolity, busily dropping French phrases like anchors crash-landing on concrete. And Sam is pretty much left to his own devices. Lounge lizard Arnold Iselin (Paul Lukas) hovers around her. He’s Johnny-on-the-spot at a dinner party Fran throws. Edith’s there too, looking elegant and relaxed. Fran, on the other hand, is trussed up in a busy frock with what appears to be a cellophane Christmas ornament on her head. Edith is interested in everything Sam says. Fran, as usual, spends most of the time shooting embarrassed, condescending looks in his direction, under the mistaken impression she has to do damage control for him, when it’s she doing all the damage.

Fran stops the party cold by baldly claiming to be thirty-five. Edith scarcely misses a beat before responding with a compliment. And Fran doesn’t know quite how to reply.

“I only hope I look as young as you when I’m your age”

“You’re almost certain to, my dear”, says Edith with a barely detectable trace of castor oil in the cordial.

Fran clearly doesn’t know how to react. The best she can do is to call Edith a frump behind her back a little later.

Edith, for her part has no trouble sizing up Iselin. And though Sam’s welfare is her main concern, there’s genuine kindness in her discreet short-hand advice to Fran.

“My dear …don’t.”

Fran only bristles.

Before she leaves, Edith passes on her address in Naples. It’s clear she hopes to see Sam again. Certainly the audience hopes to see her again too.

Ruth Chatterton, by the way, gives a brave and resourceful performance. She’s willing to appear unsympathetic and silly, but she captures the touching and desperate elements in Fran’s character too – and she’s never less than convincing, often riveting. Providing another puzzling Oscar oversight, this one in the Best Actress category. She plays one of her best scenes wrestling with chin strap and cold cream.

“I’m sick of apologizing for you to my friends”

“You’re simply rushing at old age and I’m not ready for that! You’ve got to let me have my fling!”

She more or less orders Sam back to America for awhile so that youth can have that fling. And now, encumbered only by what little’s left of her good sense, she rents a villa in Switzerland. Iselin and other Continental phonies dance attendance on her. At this point, she’s dyed her hair and her general look’s an uneasy blend of late Marion Davies and not so early Fanny Skeffington.

We discover her on the terrace, sporting a sort of clear plastic dust cover over her dress. The sense that she’s transparent to those around her is pretty much inescapable. And Iselin removes even that. With no Sam around, Fran’s defenceless. She lets Iselin burn Sam’s last letter to her. And as it disintegrates in flames, the die is cast. She’s running as relentlessly at youth as she claims Sam is at old age. But he’s got a chance of reaching his goal. She hasn’t.

Sam returns; she’s momentarily ashamed of her behaviour and they set off for Vienna. But her semi-repentance is short-lived. When young Kurt proposes to her, she rails at Sam for her freedom.

“I’m fighting for my life! You can’t hold me back!”

With a divorce in the offing, Sam drifts around Europe, ending up in Italy. Which is Mary Astor’s cue to reappear. She and Sam bump into each other in Naples and both are delighted. Across a table, she sits back assessing and responding to his situation with tact, concern and generosity.

“Could you let yourself enjoy life for awhile?”

She makes no romantic claims on him. But offers warm companionship. He blossoms in her company. We see her gardening – a clear reflection of the nurturing environment she creates for him. That nurturing reawakens Sam’s energy and enthusiasm. He dreams of new projects, new adventures – and of sharing them with Edith. She’s become his compass and his anchor. Fran had only been a millstone.

Edith realizes that Sam loves her. And Astor makes the moment memorable. Her face really does glow. And it’s not just clever technicians at work. Astor has an inner light – and it’s something to behold.

As a matter of fact. Astor, always a handsome and regal-looking woman, never looked so utterly beautiful as she does throughout “Dodsworth”. The first time we hear Sam actually call her “Edith”, he takes her hand and lifts her up into what promises to be a wonderful new beginning for both of them. She wouldn’t be human if she didn’t try to keep him from answering the frantic phone call from Vienna. It’s Fran. She’s been Ouspenskayed. And she wants Sam back, pronto.

Now Edith fights openly for their future.

“I won’t let you! I won’t let you go back to her! I won’t see you killed by her selfishness! I love you and she doesn’t! You’re content with me. You’re miserable with her!”

He knows she’s right, but he’s still bound to Fran by invisible chains.

Cut to shipboard: The Dodsworths prepare to head back to America. But it’s becoming clear that Fran has gone past the point of no return with her silly, selfish discontent. She hardly even feigns repentance.

“You know, as I look back,I can’t blame myself. You were a good deal at fault yourself.”

The invisible chains shatter apart once and for all. Sam resolves to disembark.

“You’ll have to stop getting younger someday!”

Fran is flabbergasted – and hurls shrewish imprecations at him.

“Are you going back to that washed-out expatriate?”

“You know you’ll never get me out of your blood!”

“Maybe not”, says Sam, ‘but love has to end someplace short of suicide!”

It’s Independence day for Sam – as Fran crumbles with rage, frustration and finally
cold fear.

Cut to a lovingly photographed Astor, leaning against her balcony wall, looking out to sea. She’s disconsolate – till she spots Sam’s sailboat skimming over the water towards her. He’s waving – and the heavens instantly lift her right arm in a soaring gesture of hope that takes the audience with it. Astor’s is the final face we see onscreen – an image that’s glowing, infinitely optimistic and absolutely indelible.

1936: The Overlooked -- GAIL PATRICK in “MY MAN GODFREY”

GAIL PATRICK in “MY MAN GODFREY”

I’m not really a screwball fan. Largely, I guess, because the heroines in them tend to pitch infantile tantrums, hold their breath, stamp their feet and prattle, prattle, prattle.
Carole Lombard embodies all these things in “My Man Godfrey”. For lovers of screwball, she’s pure bliss. For me, no. I guess it’s the role I don’t like. Because I can’t think of an actress who might have made it work for me. After all, Lombard’s heavy-duty. And she doesn’t pull it off. Periodic injections of helium into her voice are no help. And I don’t think endless run-on sentences are a perpetual hoot either. Delivery (and dialogue) trumpet the theory that imbecility’s adorable. Random eruptions of dithery laughter are flat-out embarrassing. And Lombard’s Irene doesn’t even stick to her own silly guns. Every once in a while, the Hollywood goddess pops out in full bloom. Maybe with a quick spritz of that silver satin voice. Or a line reading that’s just too damn incisive. Pleasurable. But it makes Irene Bullock look like a sham. Annoying as she is (to me), Irene’s meant to be some sort of screwball cherub, her transparent attempts at guile merely underlining the authenticity of her innocence. That’s the plan, anyway. But whenever Super Lombard shows up, Irene’s credibility collapses. She’s a put on. And if that’s the case, she’s also a royal pain.

So needless to say, “Godfrey” is not a favorite of mine. Yes, I’m perfectly aware that it ranks as Lombard’s greatest triumph. Box-office success. Oscar nomination. Critical praise then and now. Posterity’s judgment and mine part company on this one. And posterity seems likely to outlast me. But I’m determined to go down swinging. So let the public record show one dissenting vote on Lombard’s Irene.

“Godfrey” also gives us Alice Brady to contend with. Rattling along behind Lombard like noisy cans tied to a bumper, she’s not funny, just nerve-jangling. A whistling tea-kettle someone forgot to shut off.

Jean Dixon, as the family maid, is much easier to take. But she’s still always going to be Ruth Donnelly lite. Every move she makes, every line she delivers inevitably stirring up thoughts of how much better Donnelly would probably have done it. The two look alike. And they sound alike. But that tartly crazy space Ruth Donnelly’s head is at – balancing exasperated practicality with life time seating privileges at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party – is slightly out of Dixon’s reach. Donnelly’s Duse, Dixon just a highly efficient road company version.

And then there’s Gail Patrick. A cool customer if ever there was one. She actually gleams. Wearing beautiful clothes with aplomb, she knows just how to glide through the rooms of a thirties mansion. In fact, she’s something of an art-deco masterpiece herself. Elegant, beautiful, streamlined, sophisticated – she’s also smart, observant and probably dangerous. And she plays it all at a chic laid-back tempo. Result: an irresistibly languid unpredictability. She’s a plush lazy Persian cat. But heaven help the mouse she decides to toy with.

Patrick’s amusing too, deftly using that low musical voice of hers to full effect. Give her a good line and she’ll effortlessly morph it into a very dry – and possibly lethal – martini.

“I could have you fired, you know … but I like to watch things wriggle.”

Patrick’s Cornelia is ostensibly the heavy in “Godfrey”. But of the three Bullock girls, she seems to be the one least in need of a good slap in the face. That’s largely because Gail Patrick’s so much fun to be around. Furthermore, Cornelia actually calls Irene on her inane behaviour. And for those of us who find Irene basically insufferable, that pretty much makes Cornelia the voice of the people. Yes, that’s a dirty trick she plays with the necklace. And she does bristle when Godfrey criticizes her. But, hey, she’s recognizably human. Another characteristic that sets her apart from mother and sister.

She’s usually saying or doing something delicious. As an elegant nibbler of hors d’oeuvres she has no peer. And watch her stalk Irene’s tea party – a smiling Park Avenue panther.

Cornelia: “Would you do me a favour?”
Johnny: “Who do you want me to kill?”
Cornelia: “I’ll do my own killing.”

I have major problems with the condescending social solution that wraps up “Godfrey” - with the city dump turned into a swanky nightclub, the more presentable “forgotten” men allowed to stay on as flunkies, holding doors open for the swells. And Lombard, Brady and Mischa Auer misfire big-time for me. But the movie’s not without its delights. Most of the men in “Godfrey” are very good – Powell urbane and understated, Pallette everybody’s favorite bullfrog. Franklin Pangborn plays his patented society hummingbird with hilarious precision. And Grady Sutton makes a welcome appearance to supply some inspired doughiness. A special nod, too, to Robert Light, as Johnny, Cornelia’s everpresent tagalong escort. The role’s practically impossible to play without coming off as a silly ass. But Light’s quite likeable. Vanilla, yes. But high quality vanilla – and just the right unobtrusive but effective seasoning for Patrick’s airy crepe Suzette.

Gail Patrick never did get an Oscar nomination. For anything. But in the select thirties sisterhood of sublime Other Women, she occupies a place of honor. Perfectly lit, perfectly coiffed, languorously posed in satin or silk, coolly comparing notes with Claire Dodd, Helen Vinson and Mona Barrie. All, needless to say, in the penthouse of some ivory tower, gleaming against the night sky, looking down on an endless art-deco Manhattan.