by Christian Esquevin
Friday, September 15, 2023
Designing Hollywood: Studio Wardrobe in the Golden Age by Christian Esquevin
by Christian Esquevin
Sunday, September 10, 2023
Ida Lupino: A Biography by William Donati
by William Donati
“Emotionally, Ida was a jumble of contradictions, infused with the polarity often present in intensely creative individuals.” — William Donati
- Lupino was such a perfectionist that she often drove herself to exhaustion, illness and/or injury.
- She greatly admired anyone who took the business seriously and preferred to work with people were as driven as she was.
- Producer Mark hellinger stepped in to vouch for Lupino so she would get cast in the film They Drive by Night (1940). That film as well as High Sierra (1941) became breakout roles for both Ida Lupino and her co-star Humphrey Bogart.
- Ann Sheridan and Lupino often got the same types of roles and replaced each other in different projects. For example, when Lupino turned down a role in King's Row (1942), it went to Ann Sheridan.
- When Jack Warner offered her a 7 year contract he told her she'd be another Bette Davis for Warner Bros.
- To prepare for Moontide (1942), Lupino took French actor Jean Gabin on a tour of the seedier parts of Los Angeles for a "first-hand look at vice and violence."
- The Hard Way (1943) and Devotion (1946) were two of Lupino's most challenging productions due to complications with the studio, WWII and Stanley Lupino's death from cancer.
- Agent Charles K. Feldman sought Lupino as a client and even bought the rights to Road House (1948) and sold them to Twentieth Century Fox with the stipulation that Lupino be cast in the lead.
- Lupino enjoyed working with The Breen Office and welcomed their changes which she didn't view as censorship but rather as improvements.
- For her hard-hitting drama Not Wanted (1949), which she produced and eventually directed, she couldn't use the title "Unwed Mother" because it was too salacious. But the restrictions did not apply to marketing materials so she plastered UNWED MOTHER in bold type in various newspaper ads to promote the movie.
- She fostered new talent by casting Sally Forrest and Keefe Braselle in Not Wanted (1949) and Never Fear (1950).
- Lupino and Young struck a deal with Howard Hughes to partner on three films between RKO and The Filmakers production company. Lupino was one of the few executives Hughes would actually agree to meet with directly.
- While the Motion Picture Association objected to the making of The Hitch-Hiker (1953), Lupino and The Filmakers went ahead with the production. Lupino had already gotten permission from prisoner Billy Cook and the two men he kidnapped. Their story was the basis of the movie.
- Many of us know that The Bigamist (1953) had Lupino starring and directing in a film that also included her ex-husband Collier Young and his new wife Joan Fontaine. While that seems like it would have been an uncomfortable situation, Lupino and her third husband Duff were friendly with Young and Fontaine and the couples often spent time with each other.
- According to the author, "with The Bigamist, Ida Lupino became the first woman to direct herself in a major motion picture."
- Lupino was quick to adapt and in the early 1950s that meant transitioning to television. She insisted that her husband Howard Duff be her co-star in the TV sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve. The story idea was developed by her ex-husband Collier Young.
- Producer William Frye personally chose Ida Lupino to direct which would be her last production The Trouble with Angels (1966). They originally wanted to cast Greta Garbo but couldn't get her out of retirement and was replaced by Rosalind Russell.
- I love this quote from Rosalind Russell about Lupino: "The sex of a director doesn't mean a hoot. The one all-important thing is talent. Somehow it has evolved that directing is a man's profession. A woman has a tough, almost impossible time breaking down this caste barrier. Miss Arzner managed it. Ida is doing it now."
Monday, July 31, 2023
The Classic Film Collective: Nazimova by Gavin Lambert
This was originally published in the former The Classic Film Collective Patreon.
“When I first came to America I had so much luck it frightened me… And then the luck turned.” — Nazimova
With her dark and wild hair, her downturned eyes and her incredible confidence, Nazimova was bonafide star. This actress who made waves on stage and on the silent screen is the subject of Gavin Lambert’s 1997 biography, recently reissued in paperback by University Press of Kentucky.
Alla Nazimova was born Mariam Edez Adelaida Leventon in Crimea, Russia in 1879. Nazimova came from a Russian Jewish family and suffered from severe neglect after her parents’ divorce. She sought solace with acting and became part of the Moscow theatrical scene. The author goes into incredible detail about childhood and teen years thanks to Nazimova’s own unfinished autobiography that he used as reference. Towards the end of her life she spent countless hours detailing her origin story but never got to write about what happened after the age of 17. Luckily, she left behind many other details in the form of correspondence and diary entries that the author had access to and references frequently throughout the book.
What made Nazimova so special as an actress was her stage and screen presence, her ability to play characters much younger than herself, her incredible memory, her attention to detail and her personal and professional networking skills. She was a master at both the technical and social aspects of being an actress. It was natural that Nazimova would make her way to Broadway. Despite her heavy accent which some criticized, Nazimova soon became a star in the New York theatre world.
Metro Pictures came around with an incredible offer: a contract that would make her one of the highest paid actresses in silent film and give her approval of the director, leading man and the script. The author goes into detail about each of Nazimova’s films. There is a lot of detail for her early Metro Pictures films, including WAR BRIDES (1916), Revelation (1918) and TOYS OF FATE (1918), all of which are unfortunately lost. When Metro Pictures moved to Hollywood, Nazimova followed suit. She made silent films with them until a terrible falling out led her to start her own production company. Now with complete creative control, she produced and starred in films like CAMILLE (1921) and SALOME (1924). By 1925, Nazimova had abandoned films for the New York stage. She returned to Hollywood in the 1940s with small roles in films like ESCAPE (1940) and BLOOD AND SAND (1941). In fact, her final role in SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (1944) was written specifically for her.
The crux of Lambert’s biography is Nazimova’s relationships with family, lovers and professional collaborators. Nazimova was queer and preferred to be in relationships with women. Her relationship with her common law husband Charles Bryant (they weren’t legally married but pretended to be so for many years) was a means to protect her professional image. He was also producer, actor and director for many of her films, which further gave Nazimova control over her projects. Lambert offers the reader many stories about key figures like June Mathis, Jean Acker, Rudolph Valentino, Natacha Rambova and many more. I was surprised to discover that much celebrated genre producer Val Lewton was Nazimova’s nephew! And of course, there are Nazimova’s homes including the The Garden of Allah and Who-Tok, both of which no longer exist although stories of these grand homes continue to be part of her legacy.
My biggest issue with Lambert’s biography on Nazimova is some of the outdated language. There are a few sexist and racist terms, direct quotations from people in Nazimova’s life, that I feel could have been nixed in the reissue. Fortunately, these are few and far between. There is quite a lot of details about Nazimova’s sex life but I felt it was done in a respectful manner. Lambert really does demonstrate how these relationships were key to her growth as a performer and were also how she navigated her social world.
Never salacious and always informative, Gavin Lambert’s biography captures the dramatic rise and fall of the late great Nazimova.
Thank you to University Press of Kentucky for sending me a digital copy of this book to review!
Saturday, July 22, 2023
First Roundup: 2023 Classic Film Reading Challenge
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Stack photo courtesy of @classicsarah_ on Twitter |
"Soares’ book is a reexamination of Novarro’s legacy, who despite his flaws was a good man who cared for his friends and family and gave generous donations to charities and churches to help his community."
"Truly a book worthy of its titanic subject."
"Engrossing and thoroughly researched, Galloway’s book is incisive in its accounts gained through new interviews with their friends and family and gives the definitive look at this iconic relationship."
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Reading challenge photo courtesy of @awolverton77 on Twitter |
"The book is loaded with wonderful performances and great writing... DiLeo knows his stuff, and his wealth of knowledge and insight is clear throughout."
"Server’s book is very detailed & the scope of his research is impressive. He draws upon a wide array of sources to paint a picture of a complex woman who defies easy categorisation."
"Everson didn’t fear anyone in the film history... He dissed other writers, historians, critics, scholars, and even Frank Capra. He also doesn’t hold back on sprinkling in his political beliefs either. But, if you can see past all that, you’re in for a good history lesson on the early days of American cinema and beyond.
"takes great strides to include music throughout the world from the early twentieth century to today in her conversation on scores and soundtracks."
"Lebo’s book is THE book to read in order to fully appreciate Welles’ masterpiece. I highly recommend it."
"her book takes it a couple of steps further by showing that the Screwball Comedy influenced many other romantic comedy films that came after the genre's heyday."
"or those seeking an introduction to Italian neorealism will be pleased with this analysis on one of the most important film movements of the 20th Century."
"Highsmith crafts a darkly delicious portrait of mid-century class inequity, identity theft and murder set among gorgeous Italian locales..."
"Die-hard noir fans will be pleased with this book as Kearns provides an entertaining and well researched portrait of one of Hollywood's wildest actors."
"Simply put, this might be the best bio I have ever read, music, film, or otherwise. Martin is so interestingly situated in twentieth century popular culture, and Tosches style of inserting himself into the vernacular and attitudes of his subject matter sweeps you along."
"If you're looking for a portrait of the silent years of Hollywood, this might be it."
"Ann Miller was a capital-S Star and wrote like one. This is everything you'd want in a juicy Hollywood tale: charm, wit, a lot of glamour and a lot of tea!"
"Reading her post-Hollywood story, you get the sense that Veronica was happy to be out of the fish bowl, but I'm not sure I'd describe her as particularly happy outside of it either.
"My only true criticism is based on the fact that since this is a TCM publication which led me to think that there were to be more film adaptations from the 30’s and 40’s. Despite that minor detail, author Kristin Lopez gives readers a well-researched and well written collection of essays that invites film fans to further explore and compare the written component of many of their favorite motion pictures."
"Lake very matter-of-factly tells her life story, without making any excuses and without being pretentious. She doesn’t dwell on the negative in her life, and just accepts everything as-is."
"You can’t run the Hollywood Dream Factory without a solid balance sheet. Then and perhaps even more now, that is the fundamental tenet at the core of this book about the rise and fall of the Hollywood studio system between two World Wars."
"Frankel expertly weaves all of these themes together with social and film history and observations on film production for a highly enjoyable and recommended read."
"Greene does a masterful job “unmasking” these masked wrestler and monster movies though to show how they reflect the tension between traditional societal values rooted in the Catholic Church and a country attempting to forge its own national identity after WWII."
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Reading stack photo courtesy of @LaurasMiscMovie on Twitter |
"As a classic film fan I was disappointed that only nine of the book’s 52 films predated 1960, as there are so many wonderful options to discuss from those decades... Either way, it’s a brisk, enjoyable read."
"Despite the sad overarching theme, I enjoyed the book and recommend it to anyone interested in the actresses profiled."
"beautifully designed, a great read, and educational — pretty much everything I could want, even as someone who doesn’t imbibe. For those who love cocktails, the book will be that much more enjoyable and useful."
"a meticulously produced book which will be enjoyed by both serious and casual film fans. It will invite longtime film lovers to revisit old favorites & inspire newcomers to check out many titles for the first time."
"I didn't hate Peyton Place, but it wasn't the best book I have ever read... Overall, the book was juicy but it definitely was missing character development."
"Woolrich's stories have been adapted many times in the mediums of film, television, and radio and never more successfully and popularly than by Alfred Hitchcock for the film Rear Window based on the 1942 short story originally titled "It Had to Be Murder.... This is an entertaining collection although the individual stories and their twists might stand up best not being read consecutively."
"an informative and engaging read. This concise book gives the reader plenty to chew on without overloading them with too much research."
"an enjoyable read and recommended for Marx Brothers enthusiasts who want to know a bit more about Dumont. The book is very matter-of-fact and it's straightforward and simplistic approach will appeal to readers who want to focus on the information rather than read something with more editorial interjections."
"[The book] is as tasty as those drinks..."
"provides a much-needed investigation of DeMille’s life and career, examining his many films and exploring the seeming contradictions in DeMille’s personal life and public persona."
"I wish more creatives would publish their own long-winded musings of the classic-era films without feeling the need to edit out or tone down their own personal biases... reading an off-the-cuff approach infused with so many unabashed personal opinions proved to be turn-paging fodder that reinvigorated my own passion for film."
"The book can feel like a short academic textbook but in a good way... The book highlights parallels within early film noirs and music-infused films."
"My takeaway was being impressed that she was an incredibly hard worker. She performed for years after movie offers were few and far between."
Wednesday, July 12, 2023
Blood on the Moon by Alan K. Rode
“The film transplanted the dark urban environs of the city into the West’s iconography.... Akin to Chandleresque private detective or a returning WWII veteran trudging through the brick alleys and gilded neighborhoods of the apocryphal urban noir environment, Mitchum travels through a similarly alienating domain, where loyalties shift and things are assuredly not what they initially seem.” — Alan K. Rode
- The title Blood on the Moon is a reference to a “hunter’s moon” which appears red or to a total lunar eclipse. It “has been considered a foreboding signal or a portent of doom.”
- One of the last movies green-lighted for RKO by Dore Schary before Howard Hughes took over.
- The movie rights to Luke Short's novel Gunman's Chance were bought by RKO. It wasn't developed until director Robert Wise and Theron Wrath came across several versions of the script in the story department and realized that it " a viable film property that had been mishandled by RKO.”
- "Preston and Mitchum were a simpatico team who worked well together and enjoyed playing practical jokes on Barbara Bel Geddes and Phyllis Thaxter.”
- “The leading actors were selected by Dore Schary, but Wise cast all the supporting players…”
- The film had a bigger budget than other Westerns produced by RKO. It still went over budget due to inhospitable weather.
Sunday, July 2, 2023
The Classic Film Collective: All for Beauty
This was originally published in the former The Classic Film Collective Patreon.
Ever since I started following makeup artist and historian Erin Parsons on TikTok (watch her full-length vintage makeup collection tour on YouTube, it’s amazing!), I’ve been interested in learning more about makeup in old Hollywood. So when I saw that Rutgers University Press was publishing Adrienne L. McLean’s new book on studio era makeup and hairdressing, it was a no brainer that this book would find its way into my research library.
All for Beauty: Makeup and Hairdressing in Hollywood’s Studio Era by Adrienne L. McLean is a scholarly text that examines the business of makeup and hairdressing within Hollywood (silent film era to the late 1960s), the emergence of artists within the industry and the techniques implemented. McLean primarily focuses on “straight makeup” which is to say it excludes costume makeup that is made to exaggerate, depict a historical period or to transform an actor into a fantastical creature. We’re talking foundation, blush, lipstick, eyeliner, mascara, false eyelashes, some contouring, body makeup. Hairdressing is less of a focus but the author does examine the use of wigs in film and how some of the top makeup artists began as wigmakers.
McLean’s book is heady stuff and not a light read. If you're interested in the subject matter, I recommend reading the book a little differently. The final chapter Cosmetics, Coiffures, Characterization is the one you should start with first. This is where movie star makeup is examined at length in terms of intent, method and end result. Then if you find yourself wanting more information on the business side of things or want to learn about the individual artists, then read the introduction and first two chapters.
The author’s intent with the book was to examine, in her words, “why people in studio-era Hollywood movies, usually but not always stars, look so unnaturally perfect on the screen.” Starting in the silent era, there was a pushback against exaggerated makeup on screen. There was a shift towards a more natural look but one that depicted an actress (and actors too) as perfectly flawless. McLean also discusses at length how patriarchy, capitalism, sexism and racism were the strongest forces behind makeup and hairdressing as a business and as a science in the industry. Key figures include: Max Factor, the Westmores, Sydney Guilaroff, Vic Meadows, William Tuttle, Robert Stephanoff, Dot Ponedel, Jack Dawn, Ben Nye, etc.
There are a numerous color and black and white photographs throughout as well as some makeup charts from specific movie productions. It’s a relatively short book at around 300 pages (229 pages of actual reading material before you get to the backmatter). But it's quite dense as its packed with lots of information.
Here are some interesting quotes from the book:
“Motion pictures are often invoked as major factors in turning ordinary women’s cosmetic use into normative, indeed indispensable, components of public femininity rather than signs of moral looseness or depravity.”
“any application of color or shading was likely to read as a dark blotch or a stark line. Filmmakers working with orthochromatic were therefore unable to employ either foundation or rouge to represent basic states like robust health, a tan, youth, or a bloom on the cheeks. (As Kevin Brownlow remarks, silent actors are ‘strangely pale; there are no olive skins or tanned complexions’ because of the amount of greasepaint and powder used.)”
Robert Stack wrote in his autobiography “of the efforts studio head Jack Pierce and the ‘makeup boys’ at Universal made to turn him into a ‘young Robert Taylor’ for his first starring role, opposite Deanna Durbin, in 1939, which included darkening and straightening Stack’s hair and giving him a hair lace widow’s peak.”
“Lauren Bacall, a former model, had to elicit Howard Hawks’s help to keep Perc Westmore from straightening her teeth, plucking her eyebrows, shaving her hairline and in general ‘redesign[ing her] face’ for her first test in 1943 for To Have and Have Not.” [Hawks wanted her exactly as she was.]
“It was the first stop of the day for most if not all Hollywood actors and makeup artists and hairdressers became some stars’ trusted, and often influential, friends and companions. This was certainly the case with Rita Hayworth and Robert Schiffer and hairdresser Helen Hunt; Barbara Stanwyck and her hairdresser Hollis Barnes; and Marlene Dietrich, Joan Blondell, and Judy Garland and Dot Ponedel.”
“According to [Donald] Bogle, actor Herb Jeffries, who ‘had experimented with makeup for Black Americans,’ also had a substantial impact on the looks of [Lena] Horne and Dorothy Dandridge in their films and personal appearances, although white makeup artists worked on both.”
Cary Grant made himself very tan so he could avoid the use of cosmetics for his films. For North by Northwest (1959), “Eva Marie Saint had to wear foundation, according to [makeup artist William] Tuttle, ‘probably two or three shades darker than we’d put on the average man to get a closer relationship between the two.’”
"[Esther Williams] had to look perfectly groomed underwater as well as on dry land… The body makeup that WIlliam Tuttle eventually settled upon for Williams, a mica-laced powder with the salubrious name of Texas Dirt… Ultimately simple Vaseline mixed with baby oil (Sydney Guilaroff later claimed it was olive oil) was used for the maintenance of her hair in studio tanks and pools."
“One of the most famous of Lena Horne’s stories about her early days at MGM in the 1940s has to do with the Max Factor company’s development of a ‘Light Egyptian’ Pan-Cake especially for her (there were other shades of ‘Egyptian’ as well), which Horne claims was instead used on white actors (like Ava Gardner as Julie LaVerne in Show Boat) who were taking roles that Horne herself was not allowed to play."
“The long scar on her left cheek that Carole Lombard suffered as the result of a 1926 automobile accident was acknowledged in interviews and fan magazines at the time, but disguised by makeup as well as careful framing in her films and publicity photos.”
In Mary Astor’s book A Life on Film she wrote “There was eyebrow shadow, brown, and mascara, black and then something that was called ‘cosmetique,’ a black cake of guck that was melted over a spirit lamp and then applied to the ends of the eyelashes with a match or a toothpick. This was ‘beading’: It accomplished what false eyelashes do today…”
Tuesday, June 20, 2023
Straight Lady: The Life and Times of Margaret Dumont, "The Fifth Marx Brother"
“For more than four decades, the statuesque funny lady played the role of an austere dowager and grande dame of the social set on stage and screen... Margaret [Dumont] suffered each insult or physical assault with a classic assurance that made her the greatest grande dame in the history of filmed comedy.” — Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian
- She changed her name from Daisy Juliette Baker to Daisy Dumont and eventually to Margaret Dumont. Her past was riddled with scandal—she was born out of wedlock and the result of an extra marital affair—so changing her name was crucial if she was going to have any success in the theater. She changed Daisy to Margaret when she graduated from ingenue roles to dowager ones.
- She briefly gave up acting when she married John Moller Jr. and became a society woman. He died in 1918 during the influenza pandemic and after his death she returned to the stage.
- After the success of The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930), the public became convinced that Margaret Dumont was secretly married to Groucho Marx and the two had a difficult time trying to dispel the rumor.
- Dumont suffered many injuries as a result of the Marx Brothers' physical antics. She was notably injured during the making of Duck Soup (1933) and by the time she made A Day at the Races (1937) she wore a harness "to prevent from having her ribs broken."
- The Marx Brothers loved to pull pranks on Dumont off-screen. In one instance, they went too far when they called the cops to report Dumont was working as a hotel prostitute. After the incident, Groucho Marx apologized to Dumont and promised that they'd never do anything to hurt her again.
- Margaret Dumont was passed over for several Marx Brothers pictures. Most notably for Go West (1940) because the thought was that a Western setting wouldn't suit her established persona of a society woman.
- Dumont collaborated with many comedians including W.C. Fields, Danny Kaye, Laurel and Hardy, Red Skelton and Jack Benny. She was permanently typecast as a straight lady and "pompous dowager" despite her great range as an actress and singer.
- Groucho Marx and Margaret Dumont reunited for a skit on a TV variety show in early 1965. Dumont died shortly after this reunion and their episode aired one month after her death.
Sunday, June 18, 2023
The Classic Film Collective: In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
"Lost in a world of swirling fog and crashing wave, a world empty of all but these things and his grief and the keening of the fog horn far at sea. Lost in a lonely place..." — Dorothy B. Hughes
“I knew you from the first time I looked at you just like you knew me. Because we’re just alike. We’re out to get it, and we don’t care how we get it."
"Why hide this beautiful creature under the blanket of your indifference?"
"There was a save delight in being a lone wolf. It wasn't happiness.. He was a lone wolf; he didn't have to account to anyone nor did he intend to."
"She was greedy and callous and a bitch, but she was fire and a man needed fire."
"This was the beginning of something good. So good that he was enjoying its immediacy without thought, without plan. She was beside him, that was enough. He had needed her for so long a time. He had always needed her. It was a dream. A dream he had not dared dream, a woman like this."
Sunday, June 4, 2023
The Classic Film Collective: Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
“Under those blue pajamas was a shape to set a man nuts, and how good I was going to sound when I started explaining the high ethics of the insurance business I didn’t exactly know.” — Walter
“I was standing right on the deep end, looking over the edge, and I kept telling myself to get out of there, and get quick, and never come back. But that was what I kept telling myself. What I was doing was peeping over that edge, and all the time I was trying to pul away from it, there was something in me that kept edging a little closer, trying to get a better look.” — Walter
“Maybe I’m crazy. But there’s something in me that loves Death. I think of myself as Death, sometimes. In a scarlet shroud, floating through the night. I’m so beautiful, then. And sad. And hungry to make the whole world happy, by taking them out where I am, into the night, away from all trouble, all unhappiness…” — Phyllis
“Walter—I’m so excited. It does terrible things to me.” — Phyllis
I don’t often like somebody. At my trade, you can’t afford to. The whole human race looks—a bit crooked.” — Keyes
- Character names get a makeover. Walter Neff is changed to Walter Huff, Phyllis Nirdlinger (yes you read that correctly) was changed to Phyllis Dietrichson and Nino Sachetti was changed to Nino Zachetti. Phyllis’ maid Belle becomes Nettie and the original Nettie, Norton’s secretary, isn’t given a name at all.
- Phyllis is described as having a lust for death. She’s driven by that more so than by freedom and money. Part of her backstory includes being a killer nurse. Like in the film, she’s responsible for killing Lola’s mother. In the novel she’s also responsible for killing three children which led to a malpractice suit that ultimately affected the Sachetti/Zachetti family.
- Asian characters in the novel, Walter’s Filipino “houseboy” and Walter and Phyllis’s mutual acquaintance Mr. Ling are not included in the film adaptation.
- The Keyes character is brought to the forefront giving Edward G. Robinson more screen time. In the film, Keyes is the moral center of the story. In the novel, Keyes orchestrates a getaway plan for Walter. That would not fly during the Hays Code era when all murderers depicted on screen had to pay for their crime.
- Phyllis shoots Walter but Lola and Nino are blamed for it. Walter is fixated on clearing Lola’s name. They had both stopped seeing Phyllis and Nino respectively and started dating each other.
- The final scenes in Double Indemnity are some of the most memorable. It depicts Walter confessing to Keyes at their place of work with Walter making a weak attempt at a getaway. IN the novel, Walter and Phyllis are on a boat grappling with the future that lays ahead of them. They make a suicide pact and the suggestion is that they jumped off the vessel and were eaten by sharks. Phyllis goes as far to dress up for her “bridegroom” Death, whom she describes as her one true love. She puts chalk on her face to look paler, creates dark circles around her eyes, puts on red lipstick and drapes herself in red silk for this upcoming “wedding.” Eek!
Sunday, May 28, 2023
The Classic Film Collective: Topper by Thorne Smith
This was originally published in the former The Classic Film Collective Patreon.
Cary Grant (George Kerby)
Roland Young (Cosmo Topper)
Billie Burke (Mrs. Topper)
One of the most beloved screwball comedies to come out of the thirties, Topper (1937), directed by Norman Z. McLeod, stars Constance Bennett and Cary Grant as a pair of free spirited ghosts who show middle-aged bank executive Cosmo Topper (Roland Young) what it really means to live. During their lifetime, Marion and George Kerby (Bennett and Grant) happily spent their days enjoying lavish parties, plenty of booze and wild road trips through the countryside. On one tragic day, George’s erratic driving causes them to have a fatal head-on collision with a tree. They shed their bodies but their spirits remain on earth in various degrees of visibility. As ghosts in limbo, their mission to ascend to heaven is to take Topper under their wing. They draw him away from his humdrum life with his uptight wife Mrs. Topper (Billie Burke) and the madcap adventures begin.
Topper (1937) was an adaptation of Thorne Smith’s 1926 novel of the same name. Born out of the prohibition era and the Jazz age, Topper is chock-full of fun alcohol-fueled escapades. Smith mostly wrote comedies and Topper and its sequel Topper Takes a Trip were his best known works. Topper pokes fun at the lifestyles of the upper and upper-middle class families while also driving home the simple but potent message that life is worth living.
At the heart of the novel is the opposition between hedonism and sensibility. Cosmo and Mrs. Topper live their lives as as though it were a “summer of Sundays”. Topper himself is caught in between. He wants to live life but the people who surround him view passion and enthusiasm as personal failures. As though there was a thing as too much enjoyment. Marion and George Kirby are described as “the fastest young couple in town” whose journey culminated in “a gay life and a quick death.” I love this line in particular which compares the Kerbys to the social set that the Toppers belonged to:
“The Kerbys had not belonged to his set, the solid substantial, commuting set, but had gathered round them, from all parts of the country, a group of irresponsible spirits, who would suddenly appear in a swarm of motors, riot around the town and countryside for a few days, and then as suddenly disappear in a cloud of dust and a chorus of brazen horns.”
Throughout the book, the dichotomy between living and just existing becomes the story’s strongest theme. Just existing is considered a form of death and characters who are truly living can either be physically dead or alive. Topper’s journey is referred to as an “incredible vacation,” a way for him to break out of his shell and tap into his inner joy. The Mrs. Topper character in particular serves as a warning that being “half alive” is no real way to live. Here are some quotes from the book that explore the theme of living vs. dying:
“For the first time Topper’s established routine of living gave place to a disorderly desire to live.”
“Mr. Topper came to regard himself as a corpse, without, however, enjoying a corpse’s immunity to its surroundings.”
“Any creature, man or beast, who has the capacity and desire to enjoy life deserves that enjoyment.”
Although in the book the Kerbys don’t need to help Topper to get into heaven, they do make it a mission to help Topper come out of his shell. The Kerbys in the film are ghosts who, when fully visible, inhabit the world of the living as members of society but when invisible cause absolute chaos when invisible. In the book the Kerbys are described as “low-planed” spirits. High planed spirits don’t live on earth nor can they make themselves visible. Low-planed spirits can store up “ectoplasm” (???) to achieve varying degrees of “thickness”. It’s all a very bizarre way to describe ghosts but in a way this works especially when it translates to a visual medium like film.
If you remember from the film, at one point George Kerby disappeared and you may have wondered: where did Cary Grant go? In the novel, George goes off on a seaside adventure leaving Marion behind to galavant with Topper. The scenes where Marion and Topper get into some riotous fun together, sans George, is a way for Topper to have a makeshift affair without committing actual adultery. Marion proclaims she’s no longer married now that she’s dead and Topper is embarrassed when hotel staff come to investigate reports of an unregistered woman in his room. A little tantalizing but never crosses the line which makes the film censorship friendly in the age of Hays Code enforcement. Having an emotional affair with Marion becomes a more important element of the book while in the film it's treated as a light flirtation.
The butler Wilkins, played by Alan Mowbray, who is constantly judging Topper and siding with the more sensible Mrs. Topper, isn’t in the book at all. Instead, Topper’s constant companion at home is his beloved cat Scollops. There are several running jokes about how the Toppers suffer from indigestion (“dyspesia”), how Mrs. Topper insists that Topper always enjoys a good leg of lamb for dinner, the predictability of which annoys Topper. The book also includes three other ghosts that aren’t in the film: the Colonel, his wife Mrs. Hart and their dog Oscar, who struggles to become fully visible and instead can only be seen in partial form.
I’m impressed by how the screenwriting team Jack Jevne, Eric Hatch and Eddie Moran transformed Thorne Smith’s story into an enjoyable 1-1/2 hour screwball comedy that allows the triumvirate of Bennett, Grant and Young shine. The novel takes a while to get to introduce the Kerbys and there are so many stories with Marion and Topper gallivanting around that the more concise approach the film takes allows the story not to lose steam as it does quite often in the novel. Unfortunately the author never lived to see the film adaptation in 1937 because he died at the age of 42 in 1934. Or perhaps, his ghost attended the premiere? We’ll never know.
Topper by Thorne Smith is a bit of a mixed bag but still quite enjoyable. I read Modern Library’s 1999 paperback edition.
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