The Beloved Brat (1938)

 

The Beloved Brat (1938) could just be a story of a spoiled brat who learns the error of her ways and transforms into a well-behaved child. This Warner Bros. film is much more than that. In its mere 62 minutes of screen time it packs a wallop with two big takeaways: 1) there are big consequences to suffer when you neglect your child and 2) you should find it in your heart to be inclusive of others.

The Beloved Brat is based on an original story by Jean Negulesco, who was on loan to Warner Bros. as a writer in 1938 and soon transitioned into a career as a director. Directed by Arthur Lubin, the film stars Bonita Granville as Roberta Morgan, the only child of a wealthy couple. She's been primarily raised by the household servants and her governess because her mother Mrs. Morgan (Natalie Moorhead) and her father Mr. Morgan (Donald Crisp) are far too busy with their careers and travels to pay much attention to their daughter. This results in Roberta acting out. A lot. The more Roberta feels stifled, the more she acts out and the more they try to repress her. It's a vicious cycle. The one person who seems to be emotionally invested in her is her father's secretary Williams (Donald Briggs). He's also the only person to remember her on her birthday which turns ends with a sad little party only attended by the servants and with cake she doesn't even get to eat.

Bonita Granville and Donald Crisp in The Beloved Brat (1938)

 When Roberta discovers a young boy playing her front lawn she befriends him. Pinkie (Matthew Stymie Beard) and his sister Arabella (Meredith White) include her in their adventures. It turns out Roberta could care less about the fact that they're black. (Side note: Leo Gorcey has a small role as a bully in one of their scenes.) When Roberta brings Pinkie home to have dinner, Roberta's story takes a turn for the worse. Jenkins (Emmet Vogan), the butler, unceremoniously throws Pinkie out of the house and  locks Roberta in her room. She fakes a house fire in order to run away but this starts a series of events which lands her in a reform school for girls run by Helen Cosgrove (Dolores Costello) and Miss Brewster (Lucille Gleason). Roberta is in a completely new and foreign environment and the schoolgirls take a disliking to her almost immediately. With the help of Cosgrove and the indirect help of her friend Williams, Roberta blossoms into a well-behaved young woman. And now it's time for her parents to learn their lesson.

Roberta (Bonita Granville) smashing plates as her fellow school girls look on.The Beloved Brat (1938)

The Beloved Brat is a film ahead of its time. In an era when racial mixing was looked down upon, the underlying message of inclusiveness in the film is quite bold. I let out a yelp and began to cry when I saw that Roberta finally got the birthday party she deserved, one filled with friends, including Pinkie and Meredith, and lots of cake. And in a time when it was the norm that children should be seen and not heard, Roberta boldly makes herself known. I wonder how audiences in 1938 reacted to this film. Were they receptive to the film's messages or did they just dismiss it as another poor rich girl story?

Bonita Granville is one of my favorite actresses but not all of her characters are likable. She made a career out of playing spoiled brats. Don't tell me you watched Now, Voyager (1942) and didn't feel the urge to smack her across the face. Granville's Roberta is lovable though. You know she's acting out because of her awful parents. I felt an emotional tie to her character and cheered her on and even wanted to see her throw a tantrum or two.

Granville made a minor splash in Hollywood playing a brat in These Three (1936). A few months after The Beloved Brat, Granville would start in the first of the four Nancy Drew movies, Nancy Drew Detective (1938). I have watched all four Nancy Drew films countless times and they're still some of my favorite movies from that era. I love that Granville graduates from brat, to misunderstood brat and then to headstrong independent girl in just a couple of years. But her bratty roles would still be synonymous with her name.

The Beloved Brat (1938) aired recently on TCM but it's not available on DVD. I hope the Warner Archive Collection will release it sometime in the future. It's worth seeing especially if you love films from this era and if you have a soft spot for Bonita Granville like I do.

On the Making of River of No Return (1954)

Tommy Rettig and Robert Mitchum in River of No Return (1954)

River of No Return (1954) was supposed to be a small picture; a simple B Western shot on the cheap in Idaho with a small cast and a skeleton crew. Writer Louis Lantz had the idea of taking Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thief and turning it into a Western. Producer Stanley Rubin worked with Lantz and writer Frank Fenton on developing the story for Darryl F. Zanuck at 20th Century Fox. Production was moving forward until Zanuck decided to up the ante and add Fox's biggest star Marilyn Monroe to the mix. Everything had to be brought up a notch. Robert Mitchum and Rory Calhoun were added to the cast as was child actor Tommy Rettig. It would be shot in color with Cinemascope, a new technology Fox had invested a lot of money in. And Otto Preminger, who was under contract to the studio, would be directing the film whether he liked it or not.

Preminger was an interesting choice for the film. He had enjoyed some artistic freedom and independence with previous projects. In this case the script was ready to go when Preminger got on board. Producer Stanley Rubin didn't like Zanuck's choice of director. According to Preminger biography Chris Fujiwara, Stanley Rubin said "I thought of River of No Return as a piece of Americana, and I thought it needed a director who had worked in that area, which Preminger had not done... I was thinking of somebody like Raoul Walsh."

The production moved from Idaho up into Canada. The film got an upgrade with on-location shooting in Jasper and Banff, Alberta. There were the Banff Springs, Bow River, Lake Louise and the Rocky Mountains. This region of the world is simply stunning as anyone who's ever been there, myself included, will tell you.

The setting was perfect for visuals but treacherous for filming. Monroe, Mitchum and Rettig had stunt doubles and stand-ins. Three of the stunt actors almost lost their lives on the Bow River during the shooting of the escape scene on a raft. Monroe injured her leg on set and had to take it easy at the Banff Springs Hotel. Her publicist made a big spectacle of the event. Monroe was photographed around Banff limping around with a wrapped ankle. Her soon-to-be husband Joe DiMaggio came to visit. (Check out this collection of photos from the shoot.) Monroe's good friend Shelley Winters claims Monroe faked the whole thing. Producer Stanley Rubin claims the injury was real but that it might have been exaggerated.

Stanley Rubin, Marilyn Monroe, Otto Preminger and the crew on the set of River of No Return (1954)

The cast of characters Zanuck threw together proved to be a volatile mix. Otto Preminger and Robert Mitchum butted heads on their previous film together Angel Face (1952). Mitchum joked that he thought Preminger was a funny guy and a great producer but "not a very good director". According to producer Stanley Rubin, Mitchum played it cool but behind-the-scenes did a lot of digging into the production and was invested in making the film turn out well. Preminger and Monroe clashed almost instantly. He was an overbearing director and Monroe was sensitive to this sort of treatment. Her acting coach Natasha Lytess proved to be a thorn in the side of the cast and crew. Her coaching style included teaching Monroe how to over-enunciate her words. When Monroe put this into practice it drove Preminger mad. Lytess convinced Tommy Rettig that he'd reached the age when child actors lose their natural talents. The otherwise self-assured and prepared Rettig was now a blubbering mess and couldn't remember his lines. Preminger had enough and barred Lytess. Zanuck had to step in because without Lytess there was no Monroe and with no Monroe there would be no big box office draw. Everyone would just have to put up with each other.

Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum on the set of River of No Return (1954)

Let's quickly dispel the myth that Mitchum and Monroe did not get along while making this film. This couldn't be further from the truth. Mitchum took pity on Monroe and tried to help her on more than one occasion. Mitchum biographer Lee Server says, "Monroe's peccadilloes seemed never to bother Mitchum. He thought she was an essentially sweet and funny but often sad and confused person." He enjoyed her "sly humor". After filming Monroe said to the press, "Mitch is one of the most interesting, fascinating men I have ever known."

The cast was quite a draw for locals. Lee Server says, "a special train brought the cast and Preminger the eighty miles were from Calgary to Banff, a publicized event that brought out curious ogling Canadians all along the route." Due to the province's liquor laws, the only place for the actors to drink was the Banff Springs Hotel. Mitchum especially spent most of his free time there.

Marilyn Monroe, Tommy Rettig and Robert Mitchum get hosed in preparation for their studio scenes. River of No Return (1954)

The crew returned to Los Angeles to film the remaining scenes at the studio. According to Lee Server, this is "where Mitchum and Monroe would do their white-water rafting indoors on a hydraulic platform in front of a giant process screen, while men stood to the sides and splashed them with buckets of water and shot steel-headed arrows into the solid oak logs at their feet." At one point Otto Preminger abandoned the project and left for Europe. Director Jean Negulescu was recruited to pick up where Preminger left off. He did not receive a credit for his work.

River of No Return was a box office hit and earned Fox $2 million in profits. Zanuck was right. Marilyn Monroe was the film's biggest draw and the reason for it's success. The reason why River of No Return has enjoyed decades worth of screenings, home video releases, interviews, discussions and even Tumblr fandom is mostly because of Marilyn Monroe. If another actress had starred in the film it might have been another Western relegated to the vaults.

August 6th is the 100th anniversary of Robert Mitchum's birth. River of No Return is available on DVD and Blu-Ray. TCM will be screening this movie as part of the Marilyn Monroe day for their Summer Under the Stars series starting tomorrow.

Sources:
Robert Mitchum: Baby I Don't Care by Lee Server
Robert Mitchum: In His Own Words edited by Jerry Roberts
The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger by Chris Fujiwara
Leonard Maltin's interview with Stanley Rubin, TCM Classic Film Festival 2013

National Dance Day: Interview with Norma Miller and Susan Glatzer

Norma Miller and Susan Glatzer on media day in April 2017

Today is National Dance Day and I’d like to share with you two interviews I did with dancer Norma Miller, the Queen of Swing, and Susan Glatzer, director of the swing dancing documentary Alive and Kicking which I reviewed back in April.

Norma Miller with other members of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers. Photo source: Norma Miller's official website

"Give me a beat!" - Norma Miller

At 97 years old, Norma Miller is still as feisty as ever. The legendary swing dancer is the last surviving member of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers which also included the late great Frankie Manning. She started dancing at the age of 5 and quickly became an attraction whether it was on the sidewalks of Harlem or in the Savoy Ballroom. In my phone conversation with Norma Miller she explained, "the Savoy Ballroom was the first integrated place in America. And it was a place where we could go in every night and dance and we didn't have to pay to come in."At the tender age of twelve, she and her mother lived across from the Savoy Ballroom and Miller could often be found dancing just outside it. She was invited in and soon started enchanting eager audiences with her moves.

Miller then caught the eye of Herbert White, also known as "Whitey" and he invited her to become one of his dancers. On becoming one of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers Miller told me, "that became the professional act that came out of the Savoy Ballroom. We were traveling for [the] Whitey's Lindy Hoppers [in] 1937." Whitey's troupe of talented swing dancers traveled the world and it wasn't long before she got to Hollywood. Miller remembers:

"We went all the way. We crossed the country. We played every Paramount theater. From New York City all the way out to the West Coast. And it was at the West Coast that the people that was making a movie called A Day at the Races saw us at the theater and called back the cast so they could put the Lindy Hop in there. And that was the first time America saw the Lindy Hop."

When I asked her if she had fun making A Day at the Races (1937) Miller enthusiastically replied "of course!". 

In a few years time she'd be back in Hollywood. Norma Miller told me "that was 1941 that was a different act. We were at the time traveling with [Ole] Olsen and [Chic] Johnson. We were part of their package." She was in a fantastic swing dancing seen in the otherwise odd little movie Hellzapoppin' (1941). In it she dances with Frankie Manning. I told Miller that the scene was the best part of the movie. She replied, "Did you see the whole movie?" When I told her yes she said, 'now you know why it was the best thing!"

It IS rather a strange film!

The Lindy Hop of Norma Miller's generation was different from swing dancing today. Miller said, "The Lindy Hop is a professional dance. What you do today is social dancing. It's the greatest means of people communicating. There's nothing better than swing dancing because everybody can do it." Miller hopes people will watch the documentary Alive and Kicking, she's one of three swing dancing legends interviewed in the film. Miller told me, "if they like it, it'll give them a jump start so that people can get out and dance again."

Buy the DVD: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - Best Buy - Deep Discount 

Stream/Digital Download: iTunes - Fandango - Vudu - and elsewhere

Susan Glatzer's documentary was five years in the making and originally she wasn't supposed to direct it. In my conversation with Glatzer,  she told me:

 "I've been a swing dancer for 19 years... At first I wasn't going to be directing it. I wanted to have somebody else direct it. And they were always busy. So I started and that's how it happened. As I started filming I realized that there were things I wanted to say about our society today. I really did feel like dancing was such a good way of expressing it. Of coming together and how the dance brings people together. We get to relate on a human level. I think that we isolate a lot and I do think that the internet has turned it into us and them a lot more than we naturally are."

In the documentary, Glatzer interviews legends like the aforementioned Norma Miller and Frankie Manning as well as Dawn Hampton who passed away late last year. When I asked her what she learned from interviewing these rock stars of swing dancing, she one word for me: "humility". She went on to say,

"Dawn, she knew how to live life. She knew how see the grace and the beauty in every situation. She saw gratitude in so many things. That's way beyond the dance. Frankie [Manning] was the same way. There's the Frankie Manning Foundation and part of their mission is to grow the swing community and introduce the dance to people. A big part of it is to carry on his outlook on his life which was about kindness and everyone is welcome to swing dance. I don't care how young, old, what size, shape, race. It doesn't matter. Everyone is welcome. Carrying on that kind of way of looking at other individuals. In a way that we do not do much of these days. Where we see other people as human beings who are potential friends as opposed to the other faction."

Also in the documentary are the young professional swing dancers who make this dance not only their profession but their lifestyle. Many of them got hooked on swing dancing from seeing clips from classic films. On how old movies influenced the swing dancing revival in the home video era, Glatzer says,

"they saw all these old movies and they were like who are these people and how do we find them? They started researching and they found the original dancers. But my generation when I started dancing in the '90s. If you got your hands on a fourth generation VHS copy of Groovy Movie or Hellzapoppin' that was considered so amazing. You would watch it and re-watch it again and try to learn the moves. And now everything is out there on YouTube. You had to work hard for it back in the day. It really did come with seeing those old movies again."

Alive and Kicking is an amazing documentary that captures the spirit of not only swing dancing but a lively and thriving community. My last question for Glatzer was what she hoped people would take away from watching this documentary. She responded, "if they are just discovering this music and this dance and they want to explore that, that would be amazing. I do think that we live lives of quiet desperation. So few of us have a source of joy in our lives. I hope that it encourages people to find whatever is the source of joy for themselves."

Thank you to Norma Miller and Susan Glatzer for taking the time out to talk to me and to Caitlin Rose for coordinating.