Tag Archives: David Belasco

‘The Velvet Touch’: Grande Dame Guignol

Original Poster.

Original Poster.

O Victory, Where Is Thy Death?

In the opening scene of “The Velvet Touch” (Independent Artists/RKO Radio Pictures, 1948), Rosalind Russell, as Broadway diva Valerie Stanton, ends a heated argument with her producer/lover Gordon Dunning (Leon Ames) by braining him with the first heavy object she can lay her velvet-gloved hand on. The irony is perfect, for the weapon is a theatrical trophy: it is the coveted Players Award, which Dunning won for Excellence in the Theatre; moreover, it is a statuette of Nike, Goddess of Victory, who bears aloft a wreath. The eminent actress has therefore crowned the eminent producer with his own laurels; the blow to his head has felled him for keeps: now needs must Gordon Dunning rest upon his laurels until the edge of doom. I find it all wonderfully funny. And after all, it’s Leon Ames: he had it coming. We’ll learn more about why as the picture progresses. Here’s a fraction of that opening scene.

Much of the rest of the picture is spent in flashback, à la Film Noir (though “The Velvet Touch” is too glossy and high-tone to be so categorized), by which means we learn how Leon and Roz arrived at this fatal contretemps. That he cannot bear the idea of being left for another man, Michael Morrell (played by Leo Genn, who murmurs drolly from the first reel to the last), is the most obvious explanation for his unbecoming conduct. But sexual jealousy is only at the surface: there’s a much deeper reason for his fury, and it stems from a classic case of one of Hollywood’s favorite fictional psychological disorders, which may fairly be called Svengali Syndrome.

Get Thee Behind Me, Svengali!

In Hollywood pictures about the theatre, directors are invariably Svengalis: Warner Baxter plucks Ruby Keeler from the chorus line in “42nd Street,” and, by dancing her off her feet for a day and a half, turns her into an overnight sensation. In “Twentieth Century,” Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore) makes a brilliant actress out of an awkward, infantile amateur named Mildred Plotka (Carole Lombard). Similarly, in “Maytime,” Barrymore (this time as the crackpot musical genius, Nicolai Nazaroff) turns Jeanette MacDonald into an international prima donna, then shames her into entering into a loveless marriage with him, and in the final reel, the enraged impresario aims a pistol at his rival, Nelson Eddy, and blows a hole through that worthy’s barrel chest. (Well, somebody had to do it.) Clark Gable transforms Jeanette from a hymn-singing ninny into the toast of the Barbary Coast in “San Francisco“: her swinging rendition of the title song apparently sets off the Frisco Quake of Aught-Six, which knocks the nobs off their hill and makes toast of the entire region. In “Lady with Red Hair,” the great Claude Rains, as David Belasco, turns the hopelessly inadequate Mrs Leslie Carter (Miriam Hopkins) into . . . Mrs Leslie Carter, who was known as “the American Sarah Bernhardt.” In “Hello, Frisco, Hello,” international songbird Alice Faye bends over backwards to rescue the scoundrel John Payne from ruin because she believes she owes her success entirely to him. In “All About Eve,” the aging star Margo Channing has a pretty shrewd estimation of her own gifts and self-sufficiency as an actress, yet when her understudy/rival, Eve Harrington, gives a sensational audition, Margo bitterly accuses her director/lover, Bill Sampson, of being responsible for the girl’s stunning performance, which was “carefully rehearsed I have no doubt, over and over, full of those Bill Sampson touches!” (When Eve goes on to win the Sarah Siddons Award for her performance, Eve herself clearly believes the director is responsible for her success.) Most miraculously of all, Dan O’Herlihy turns Lana Turner into the most scintillating actress on Broadway in “Imitation of Life.” We don’t see how he contrives to fashion a silk purse out of that sow’s ear, nor do we get a chance to judge his wizardry for ourselves: Douglas Sirk knew better than to show Lana giving what we’re expected to believe is a great theatrical performance.

Of all these pictures, only “Twentieth Century” and “Lady with Red Hair” offer some evidence of how these directors of genius transform amateurs into great ladies of the stage. (In the former, Barrymore jabs a pin into Lombard’s rump, which does the trick: for the rest of the funny picture, Lombard never stops shrieking. In the latter, Rains stands on an apple box and raises Hopkins’ pigtails over her head to make her stand up straight. Mission accomplished: for the rest of the picture, she’s lousy from a greater height.)

L: Barrymore instructs Lombard in the art of acting. R: Rains instructs Hopkins.

L: Barrymore instructs Lombard in the art of acting. R: Rains instructs Hopkins.

Prelude to a Kiss-Off

As we have seen, when “The Velvet Touch” begins, Rosalind Russell has grown a-weary of dancing on the ends of Leon Ames’ strings; she is determined to play Hedda Gabler in the upcoming season; she is newly in love with Leo Genn. She must therefore cut herself free from her puppet-master’s strings. But, in the great Svengali tradition, he would sooner ruin her than let her go, and sooner than ruin her, he would bring her to heel. So this native son of Portland, Indiana, brings out the big guns: “Yer not good enough fer heavy drammer.” Besides, he tells her, that sort of guff don’t go over with the “suckers,” as he calls the New York City audiences who have made him rich. He knows what slops to serve up to the moron millions, and, sister, Hedda Gabler ain’t no state fair attraction. He will not permit her to make a fool of herself . . . or him. To that end, he has leaked a story to the press that she has already signed on to do yet another frivolous romp in the Fall, and he’s willing to go very much further to keep her dancing to his tune and starring in his productions.

We get a clear sense of the sort of shows he produces from the framed posters on his office walls: “It’s a Gay Life,” “The Gay Lady,” “Scandalous” and the current season’s “Escapade.” He produces and directs these wafer-thin entertainments, yet his theatre and his offices, tricked out with ostentatious, ornamental Victorian kitsch, are more suited to a producer of the blood and thunder melodramas of Eugène Scribe and Victorien Sardou: his office is crowded with heavy, carved furniture. In the public spaces of his theatre, oil paintings in gilded rococo frames hang on walls that are covered in shimmering damask silk; fluted pillars and pilasters are topped by Corinthian capitals of exuberant gaudiness; heavy brocade draperies and swags trimmed in miles of fringe adorn every landing, niche, entrance; cut crystal chandeliers glitter overhead; there are Turkey carpets as far as the eye can see. It’s the vulgarian’s dream of high class. I imagine Boss Tweed must have looked on similar decor while being fellated at his favorite whorehouse, though he would not have seen a neon sign for the Cabana Café glaring through the bordello window. But if these trappings seem inappropriate for a producer of frolicsome romantic comedies, they are entirely correct for this Tosca-like opening and for the preposterous melodrama that follows.

Rosalind Russell, Leon Ames: Valerie Stanton and Gordon Dunning in happier times.

Rosalind Russell, Leon Ames: Valerie Stanton and Gordon Dunning in happier times.

And just to make it quite impossible to take any of this camp melodrama seriously, there is the stupendously misleading title song, sung in glee-club harmony by an all-male chorus. Written by Mort Greene (lyrics) and Leigh Harline (music), the tune’s jaunty breeziness and idiotic fills (doodle-oodle-oo), lead one to expect the picture will be one of those late-forties disposable situation comedies in which, say, Robert Cummings vies with Brian Aherne for the affections of Virginia Mayo, while Marjorie Main cracks wise, and eggs, in the kitchen. Instead you get Murder on the Main Stem — part Fannie Hurst, part Edna Ferber, part Walter Winchell, part Sardou, part Dostoyevsky — and it’s a whole lot funnier than most of the comedies of the era, but in a sneaky, subversive way (perfect for the McCarthy Era). That is, it is definitely played as high drama — Rosalind Russell and her co-stars (most of them) seem to take it all in deadly earnest, but unless I miss my bet, the screenwriter was having fun at their expense. Anyhow, if you look at it from this point of view, the picture is hilarious, sometimes almost awesomely so.

The picture was produced by Miss Russell’s husband, Frederick Brisson, and her great, elongated full-moon face is rarely out of the frame. Even so, Claire Trevor, as her bitter rival, acts her right off the screen.

Beedle Dee-Dee Dee-Dee, Two Ladies

Moments after Roz flees undetected from the scene of the crime, the body is discovered by Claire Trevor, who makes two serious blunders: (1) she picks up the weapon, and (2) she falls into an hysterical faint. This is a sticky wicket, for it appears to everyone, including (or so it would seem) NYPD Homicide Detective Sydney Greenstreet(!), that she — a woman scorned — must have fainted after having committed a crime passionnel. Meanwhile, Roz has her own fit of histrionics in the privacy of her home, where she sobs, “Oh why did this horrible thing have to happen? Why? Why? . . . Why?” Cue flashback.

First we see how Roz tried to patch things up with Claire a few days before the bludgeoning. Roz is unusually restrained. Claire is (ahem) less so. The result is a nice bit of camp: catfight lite.

Later in the picture, we learn that Claire has been hospitalized. Roz goes to visit her, amusingly attired as if she were a very chic nun in a satin and silk habit and wimple. She makes me think of Caitlyn Jenner as Father Christmas. Roz extends the olive branch, but Claire is having none of it. And to prove it, she speaks two of the greatest camp lines ever.

The screenplay is by Leo Rosten, who wrote the best-selling “The Joys of Yiddish.” I have to believe that Rosten was laughing his head off when he wrote, “Where did you get your luck, Valerie? Or does God pity the wicked?” and “If you had any decency, you’d face it yerself. But you haven’t: yer rotten! All the way through!” At any rate, the brilliantly funny author of “The Joys of Yiddish” simply couldn’t have taken any of this stuff seriously. Believe me, I’m not knocking it. I think it’s great. But it’s great because it’s so funny. Much of “The Velvet Touch” is as fabulously, deliriously foolish as the best parts of “Deception,” and almost as entertaining. It lacks a towering, unforgettable performance to match Claude Rains’ supremely witty sadist Alexander Hollenius, but there is more than enough mad, grandiloquent silliness in “The Velvet Touch” to make it a thoroughly entertaining picture. For fans of Rosalind Russell, Claire Trevor, Leo Genn, Sydney Greenstreet, or for that matter, Leo Rosten, it is not to be missed.

Ava Steals the Show in ‘East Side, West Side’

'The Sidewalks of New York' -- 'East Side, West Side,' Italian style: The Italians know who's important in this picture.

‘I marciapiedi di New York’ (‘The Sidewalks of New York’) — ‘East Side, West Side,’ Italian style: The Italians know who’s important in this picture.

Ava Gardner is the best, but hardly the only, reason to see “East Side, West Side” (MGM, 1949). Her part is surprisingly small, but she dominates the entire picture. She’s intensely alive every second she’s on camera; she never looked better or more alluring. While others in the cast drown in the floods of stupid dialogue or paddle like mad to stay afloat, Ava vaults over the bum material like a gazelle. To see her in “East Side, West Side” is to understand why Frank Sinatra went out of his mind over her. Whenever I see her in this one, I think of Cary Grant’s line to Eva Marie Saint in “North by Northwest”: “Ever kill anyone? Because I bet you could tease a man to death without half trying.”

It’s possible that “East Side, West Side” is the lousiest picture that I genuinely enjoy. Much of the pleasure I get from it is dubious and base: I enjoy the scornful laughter it excites: the hilariously bad acting, the idiotic dialogue, the ludicrous coincidences, the absurd psychological details, the banal forays into sociology, even the hideous “high-tone” set decorations make me laugh. But I also like its energy and its ambition to be something better than just another plush, run-of-the-mill woman’s picture from stodgy old Metro in the last days of rotten old Louis B. Mayer, before his nemesis, Nicholas Schenck, gave him the heave-ho. By no reckoning is it a good picture, but it is certainly not boring. And it features one diabolically entertaining aspect that I’ll cover later, under the heading “The Main Event.”

American Poster. Ava wears nothing remotely like the weird ensemble shown here.

Original American Poster. Ava wears nothing remotely like the weird ensemble shown here.

Let me start with the writing, which is both bad and ambitious. The screenplay was written by Isobel Lennart, who began her career at Metro in the mail room and eventually was one of their most prolific writers. From 1939 to 1942, Miss Lennart was a Commie, but then repined. Some time after “East Side, West Side” was released, she was blacklisted, then hauled before HUAC in 1952, where she sang A Song of One-and-Twenty Fellow Travellers — a madrigal that saved her career. Metro reinstated her as a contract writer, where she continued to turn out screenplays until 1957. In 1964, she wrote the book for the Broadway musical, “Funny Girl.” She received a Tony nomination for her work, but lost to Michael Stewart (“Hello, Dolly!”). Her screen adaptation of “Funny Girl” (Warners, 1967) won the Writers Guild Award for that year, but it was the last screenplay she ever wrote. She was killed in an car accident in 1971.

“East Side, West Side” opens with a voice-over spoken by Barbara Stanwyck. It is consistent with the tone of the rest of the picture. The Gramercy Park locations are genuine; the rest of the picture is strictly backlot. This isn’t a complaint: I like Metro’s backlot Manhattan almost as much as I love the real thing.

Jessie (Barbara Stanwyck) is married to playboy attorney, Brandon Bourne (James Mason). A year earlier, Brandon’s affair with Isabel Lorrison (Ava Gardner) nearly wrecked their marriage, but then Isabel left town suddenly and Brandon returned to his wife, chastened and wiser. All is forgiven. Now Isabel (a/k/a “that Lorrison dame”) has reappeared and it looks like a whole lot of heartache and headaches are in store for the Bournes. I’ll get back to the writing in a moment, but here’s what happens when “that Lorrison dame” shows up at the Del Rio, where Brandon has stopped in for a late-night drink after a meeting with a client. The beautiful girl at Brandon’s table is Cyd Charisse — before any of the geniuses at Metro figured out the kid’s legs had a lot more talent than her head. Charisse gives the sort of earnest, terrible performance that gives me great pleasure. What I feel about her incompetence is not as evil or bitter as derision — it’s more like an alloy of gentle condescension and sympathy. Here comes “that Lorrison dame”:

Part two of the same scene. Look how beautiful and silly the Manhattan set is.

Immediately after this exchange, Brandon walks back toward the Del Rio, and straight into the fists of Isabel’s jealous boyfriend, who knocks him silly with a sucker-punch left, then cold with a roundhouse right. A photographer is on hand to snap the picture, which makes the front page of the next day’s tabloids. Brandon goes home and tells Jessie what happened: he tells her of how Rosa Senta (Cyd Charisse) rescued him and took him back to her grandmother’s flat till his head cleared — but neglects to mention the return of “that Lorrison dame,” and dodges Jessie’s “But what was the fight about?” with a bland “What’s a fight ever about? Nothing.”

Now here’s a sample of the sort of bad, ambitious writing that appeals to me. The following morning, Jessie’s friend Helen Lee comes to call, and delivers one of the many little sociology dilations that pop up throughout the picture. Helen Lee is played by none other than Nancy Davis (three years before she became the second Mrs Reagan). She’s quite good, though I can’t help wishing Ilka Chase had played this role. Davis has the right sort of glamour, but I think she doesn’t have enough class. I believe that she’s a society dame, but I don’t buy her as an intellectual — then again, it hardly matters: she’s only in one other scene. She’s good enough. (Notice the shadow that falls across Stanny’s chair beginning at about 1:15 — in the first half of the scene, the broad expanse of the chair to the right (her left) is in full light, but when it’s time for her important close-up (“It’s like knowing a safety-pin is holding up your petticoat”), suddenly a veil of darkness falls over everything except her face. This is a perfectly ordinary attention-focussing technique, but when it’s done this boldly and baldly, I get a kick out of it. Again, my enjoyment isn’t entirely scornful — it’s fonder than that.)

Davis delivers her lecture with authority, but the speech has no hint of spontaneity or conversational laxness in it: it’s definitely, overtly written. It’s the sort of soapbox speech that nowadays is rarely heard outside of a Tyler Perry picture, when one of his mouthpieces gets up on a high horse. The sincerity of the argument is matched only by the artificiality of its presentation; Nancy Davis complements it by being completely earnest and utterly phony.

Isobel Lennart employs a weird convention that I’ve encountered elsewhere, but never in such profusion. Time and again, she lets one character interrupt another and say, in effect: “Let me tell you what you think I want to hear” or “Here’s what you’re trying to say.” In each case, the person who interrupts is right; in each case, the person who is interrupted isn’t the least bit offended. It’s certainly not like the New York I know. I mean, if I were interrupted in mid-sentence by Van Heflin, who then proceeded to explain me to myself, I’d have to kill him. But in “East Side, West Side,” he does it repeatedly, and everyone is always grateful to him. He also takes the metaphors of politeness literally and then corrects them as if the speaker meant the metaphor literally. For example, in one scene Stanny thanks him for being so thoughtful to her when she was upset, then says she owes him the courtesy of letting him how things worked out — but he interrupts her suddenly and changes the subject. Then he concludes with: “Oh, and Jess, get one thing straight: you don’t owe me anything.” Oh, up yours, you fucking asshole.

Stanwyck has the hardest role because her lines are the most zestfully over-explanatory. You can hear in her opening narration how she rushes right along, but speed alone is not enough to save her. In her haste, she often emphasizes wrong words, which of course happens in real life, but with bum dialogue, it aggravates the phoniness of the writing.

Lennart also comes a-cropper whenever she strains to be sophisticated. Jessie’s old mother, Nora Kernan (Gale Sondergaard), is a retired, once-famous Broadway tragedienne. After dinner, she plays a game of chess with son-in-law Brandon. The dialogue scintillates this-a-way:

Brandon Bourne (James Mason) checks Nora Kernan (Gale Sondergaard).

Brandon Bourne (James Mason) checks mother-in-law Nora Kernan (Gale Sondergaard).

Brandon: Check.

Nora:  Dear . . . ! I don’t know if it’s possible, but I feel that you’re cheating.

Brandon: When you can prove it, I’ll be glad to discuss it with you.

Nora: Jessie looks wonderful tonight.

Brandon:  She has you to thank for her looks, darling.

Nora:  And you. [Dreamily] When a woman gets more beautiful after she’s married, it means her man is either making her very happy . . . or very unhappy.

Brandon: Oscar Wilde?

Nora: No . . . Belasco.

David Belasco wrote a lot of tawdry hokum, but he never wrote anything as bad as that.

And, finally, I come to:

The Main Event

There’s another, despicable reason for my liking of “East Side, West Side” — it’s the behind-the-scenes drama of Barbara Stanwyck and Ava Gardner. In the same year this picture was made, Ava starred in a lurid stinker called “The Bribe.” Her leading man was Stanny’s husband at the time, Robert Taylor. Ava and Taylor began an affair during the location shooting, Stanny found out about it and immediately filed for divorce. And now, with “East Side, West Side,” trashy art was imitating trashy life. No fur flew on the set: Stanwyck was a pro before she was an injured wife, and she’d be goddamned if she’d give the gossip columnists the satisfaction of being their next meal. She refused to meet Gardner, but she showed up on time, said her lines, and got through it as quickly as possible. Still, it’s a juicy situation — I have such respect for Stanny’s talent and discipline, and such admiration for Ava’s beauty and frankness that I’m ashamed to get such pleasure from their distress. But it’s a cat fight, for God’s sake! So what can I do?

You know, what I find far more enjoyable and entertaining than the cat fight itself (which isn’t all that much if you leave out the actresses’ personal lives) is the wrangling over the difference in class. It’s another one of Lennart’s steamed-up sociological tracts, and I think it’s her best (by which I do not mean good). It’s not just the over-arching culture war of East Side v. West Side that comes into the argument but also the more specific clash of aesthetics: Great Lady of the Theatre v. Burlesque House and the clash of education, manners and morals: Miss Cavanaugh’s Academy v. Slinging Hash . . . ! Ava handles the material excellently — she doesn’t make any of it good, but she gives it passion, energy and insolence, which is what it needs. Good doesn’t enter into it.