Watchingwell
Curated classic films
March Musings – ---
Thinking about Women’s Roles -- Again
A
lot of screwball comedy depended on characters doing things that normal people
(like you and I) would never do. For
example, today I watched The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer (1947),
directed by Irving Reis. In this story, an overly-amorous, teenager, played by
Shirley Temple, makes life miserable for Cary Grant, for a time, while he is
being judged by her sister, a judge, played by Myrna Loy. I have seen this film several times and
always thought, Cary Grant, Myrna Loy – how can this not be entertaining? But today, my mood was foul and I saw that no
one would
have allowed a character to act like Shirley Temple was allowed to
act without a pretty powerful rebuke. The Myrna Loy character – a judge – shows
very poor judgment in how she handles her sister, but her profession is only
there to decorate the plot, not to demonstrate how a woman operates in an
important career.
In
another Myrna Loy film, Double Wedding (1937), directed by
Richard Thorpe, Loy runs a business, but she is not just a successful business woman,
she is a controlling business woman
who runs her sister’s life and that of her sister’s fiancé. The male lead, who saves her from herself
this time is William Powell, with whom we expect to see the great rapport they
displayed in The Thin Man films.
Unlike, The Thin Man, where if she is occasionally silly, she is mostly
respected by her husband, in Double Wedding she has to be
discredited and disgraced to turn into an acceptable mate and sibling.
In
a lesser-known 1940 comedy, directed by Robert Z. Leonard, Third Finger, Left Hand,
Myrna is the editor of a popular women’s magazine, who wears a wedding ring to
protect her from unwanted advances from her publisher boss
and others. It seems other women have failed to hold onto
their positions in the firm because of these compromising complications, and Myrna
likes her job. Her plan falls apart when
Melvyn Douglas discovers that she is not married. From that point, the plot is all about how
the romance gets resolved, and Myrna Loy might just as well have been
unemployed for all we see about her editing work.
Another
female star of career-woman comedies, Rosalind Russell, also played a judge –
twice. The first one, the 1941 Design For Scandal, directed by
Norman Taurog, Roz plays an impeccable, well-respected jurist who has just
imposed an expensive settlement in a divorce case. The husband, rich publisher, Edward Arnold,
takes exception and wants a different judge in family court so he can get a
favorable ruling on his appeal. He
embarks on a plot with former employee, reporter, Walter Pidgeon, who is
offered his job back if he can compromise the judge in some way. Spoiler alert: He falls for her, instead. (Like, you didn’t know
that would happen.)
In
Tell
It to the Judge (1949), directed by Norman Foster, Ms. Russell plays a
judge who exhibits such poor judgment that we wonder about her
qualifications. She is divorcing her
unfaithful (she thinks) husband, played by Robert Cummings, but finds that she
needs him to be respectable enough to get an appointment to a federal
court. But she never trusts him long
enough to reconcile, and we, the audience, know that her husband is faithful,
although unable to figure out that telling her where and why he is going out
would have been a better strategy than leaving her in the dark to believe the
worst. But there wouldn’t be much of a
comedy if people acted sensibly.
One
of Russell’s best, if not the best, role is Hildy Johnson, a hard-boiled
newspaper reporter in His Girl Friday, the great 1941
comedy, directed by Howard Hawks. But here,
as great as she is at her chosen profession, the whole film revolves around her
attempt to leave it -- to get married – to Ralph Bellamy! Her nemesis in this endeavor is ex-husband,
Cary Grant, so it is never really in doubt how this will turn out, but in the
end, she is resigned to her fate, putting up with Cary and remaining in the
news game, though not exactly happy about it.
In
Take
a Letter, Darling (1942), directed by Mitchell Leisen, Russell plays a
partner in an advertising agency, who, in a clever script by Claude Binyon,
hires
poor artist, Fred MacMurray, as her secretary, because she can’t hold on to
females in the job for long, and because it’s handy to have a male escort on
various business functions to keep the minds of men she meets on business. (Similar to Myrna Loy in Third Finger, Left Hand) The script, with the role reversals and
issues that are raised, is certainly not outdated, but the chemistry between
Roz and Fred MacMurray, who was under-appreciated in his career, in my opinion,
really elevates this above the ordinary.
Another
actress at home with career-women roles, Barbara Stanwyck, plays a columnist
for a women’s magazine in Christmas In Connecticut (1945),
directed by Peter Godfrey. She is more
like a novelist, though, because her columns about her cooking, housekeeping,
and marriage are all fiction. This secret unravels one weekend when she tries to
entertain her boss without revealing the truth. She obviously enjoys her
success as a writer, if, for no other reason, it brings her needed income. Yes,
this is basically a romance, and the romance takes up as much time as
protecting her job for most of the film, but in the end, instead of throwing it
all away as she marches to the altar, she actually negotiates a higher salary
from her publisher boss.
Stanwyck
takes a break from journalism to play a doctor in You Belong to Me, also
from 1941, directed by Wesley Ruggles.
In the story she is married to Henry Fonda, who is an heir to a fortune
and has never felt the need to work. This conflict of the wife having a
profession and the husband not having one and resenting hers is the basis of
the plot, until one day he can’t deal with it anymore and leaves. Fully
expecting this 1941 comedy to end in the conventional way with Dr. Barbara
giving up medicine to make her husband happy, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this didn’t happen. I guess it would have been a hard sell even
in 1941 that after college, medical school, internship, and residency, you
would just walk away.
But
back to journalists – and Jean Arthur.
She played two with distinction.
In Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) which mirrors the plot of the other
Frank Capra film, Meet John Doe, in that a female reporter exploits an innocent
and decent bumpkin (again, played by Gary Cooper) for her own purposes and then
regrets her part in his downfall. In the
end, she, more or less, renounces her profession.
On
the other hand, in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, yet another Frank Capra classic from
1939, Jean plays a cynical reporter who is assigned to James Stewart, as the
bumpkin, who is appointed to fill a Senate seat of one who has inconveniently
died. But in this case, the Washington reporter is savvy to all the devious and
corrupt shenanigans that sometimes happen there, and along with her press
buddy, played by Thomas Mitchell, figures out how to save the bumpkin before he
is destroyed.
In
this role, she displays no whiney voice or addled personality. On the contrary, she becomes what the role
demands – a surprisingly-idealistic, democracy wonk, an expert on Senate rules
(that bumpkin didn’t bother to learn before coming to D.C.) that she cleverly
transmits to the newborn senator and causes a domino effect of Senate
corruption housecleaning. Hey, it’s a comedy. Patriotic. Hokey.
So,
I’ve had a re-think about Jean Arthur and have since appreciated anew and
recommend her performances in The Ex-Mrs. Bradford (1936),
directed by Stephen Roberts, with William Powell,
Too Many Husbands (1940), directed by Wesley Ruggles, with Melvyn Douglas and Fred MacMurray,
Talk of the Town (1942), with Cary Grant and Ronald Colman,
and The More the Merrier
(1943), with Joel McCrea, both directed by George Stevens.
Take a look at these classics.Too Many Husbands (1940), directed by Wesley Ruggles, with Melvyn Douglas and Fred MacMurray,
Talk of the Town (1942), with Cary Grant and Ronald Colman,
and The More the Merrier
(1943), with Joel McCrea, both directed by George Stevens. 
