In her essay in the lavish booklet that accompanies this special
BFI set, filmmaker Sara Wood talks of Dietrich’s sense of time and timing –
the time it takes an image to settle, the timing needed for the shift between
melancholic and comedic in the slightest gesture. And of her sense of the times
she lived in, and the pure timing it took to sustain a career that revealed and
outwitted the fickle shifts of history.
This was Marlene’s third coming after her Weimar success
on stage and screen then after the six films she made with Josef von Sternberg
for Paramount, there came a relative fallow period in the late thirties only
relieved by the lift she gained as saloon singer, Frenchy in Destry Rides
Again (1939). This was a freer, physically immaculate, assertive and yet
still vulnerable persona with a redoubtable moral core in search of truth in
her men. It was also a performer operating on so many levels and one who, as
another essayist, film historian Pamela Hutchinson, says could now send up her imperiously
lascivious persona.
Here we find Marlene down a mine, out west, on stage and
on the make… the constant being this most complex of film stars who mixed beauty
with so much intelligence and what Wood describes as a “… facility to absent
and simultaneously open herself…” leaving the watcher thoroughly engaged
and always looking, looking for more.
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| Broderick Crawford and Marlene are judged |
Seven Sinners (1940)
We don’t need her around, the navy already has plenty
of destroyers.
Following Dietrich’s Destry the revived star could
veto her leading man and, according to co-star Anna Lee, signed off on John
Wayne – possibly - telling producer Joe Pasternak, "Mommy wants that for
Christmas…” She got her present, and in more ways than one, as the two sinned
almost certainly more than seven times during the making of this film, although
they’d both moved on by the third of their collaborations in this set.
Loosely based on Madame Butterfly, Tay Garnett’s
film concerns the adventures of one Bijou Blanche, a cabaret singer of no fixed
affections who drives the clients of South Sea island bars to distraction
resulting in her constantly being moved from one to another by the authorities
that take against such wanton excitement. She has a small retinue of naval
deserter-cum bodyguard 'Little Ned' Finnegan (Broderick Crawford) and
magician/pickpocket Sasha Mencken (Mischa Auer) who good humouredly accompany
her out of loyalty and joie de vivre.
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| Marlene and her "present" |
There’s a lot of fighting in these films and whilst so
much is begun in the presence of and because of the incendiary sexual
provocation of Marlene, there’s also proto-typical Wayne slugfests in which no
one really gets hurt and the guys just have a good old time letting off steam.
There’s plenty of steam when naval officer, Lt. Dan Brent
(Wayne) spies Bijou in the club and he gets straight to the point despite local
hoodlum, Antro (Oskar Homolka) thinking he has first dibs on a woman of not so
easy virtue. Bijou, like other characters here, may be a girl on the make but
she has her own standards of morality and, not only demonstrably makes choices
that William Hays would not approve of, but which are driven by genuine respect
and affection.
Whilst Dan can see her decency the navy takes a different
view and tough choices will have to be made and, as Bijou tells him: There’s
more to being a gentleman than wearing tight pants…
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| Roland Young and Marlene |
Flame of New Orleans (1941)
She will teach you the most exciting needlepoint you
can imagine!
Directed by René Clair – his first Hollywood movie – Flame
is the funniest and most playful of the set with the Frenchman adding a good
deal of knowing “touches” following the discovery of a wedding dress in the
vastness of the Mississippi River. Again, Marlene is a woman on the make as Countess
Claire Ledoux, and the whole opera house from singers to orchestra and her maidservant
Claire (Theresa Harris) in the cheap seats all look on when the Countess feints
a faint in order to attract the attention of rich suitors.
She encounters Robert Latour (Bruce Cabot taking to comedy
like Donald Duck to water) walking his monkey, Jack (not a euphemism) when
expecting to meet her favoured sugar daddy Charles Giraud (an excellent Roland
Young, like Marlene a former silent player) on a quiet country lane… the
convoluted pre-courtship rituals of the nouveau riche thwarted by a
plain-speaking river man who, hidden from Lili’s view, upends her carriage after
his monkey’s lead is caught up in the wheels and she assumes he’s making the
story up.
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| Bruce Cabot and Marlene share a moment |
Courtship is back on track as Charles arrives under the
pretext of aiding her following her altercation. Things get back on course as
Lili spots the monkey and her man at a park next to the posh hotel where she
and Charles are having supper. Narrowly averting a one-sided Jamaican duel
between Robert and Charles, Lili tries to play both men.
Rich man versus handsome sailor, who’s going to win her
heart? And will Lili’s St Petersburg past catch up with her? Cue Claire’s long-lost
“cousin”, Lili, the black sheep of the family, who is a far more typical Marlene
than her phony “relation”. Things also get very racy when Charles pays Robert to
kidnap Lili to keep her away from her “cousin’s” wedding… and yes, Marlene,
plays both women.
The film didn’t fare well at the box office, partly because
of a critical reaction against the director as well as reviews that accused
Dietrich of being too mannered, which I can see but, like any pro she was
leaving room for her second character. She didn’t especially take to Clair and
he confessed to mixed feelings: I don't know now if it's as good or as bad
as it's supposed to be. I think technically it's very good, but the spirit, you
know, was half European and half American, so I don't know.
Maybe the audience only wanted the “European” Marlene they
thought they saw?
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| Randolph Scott and Marlene, spoiling for a fight. |
The Spoilers (1942)
That’s how it is and that’s what we are; a cheap lot
of spoilers…
Dietrich was much more herself in her second film with
John Wayne. Directed by Ray Enright, the film finds Randolph Scott and Wayne
fighting over Cherry Malotte, Marlene’s worldly-wise saloon owner with heart of
gold, appropriately enough in the town of Nome during the Alaskan gold rush of
1900.
There are a couple of notable ex-silent film stars in
Harry Carey, Wayne’s great friend, who plays his partner in a gold mine, Al
Dextry, and then Richard Barthelmess as Bronco Kid Farrow, one of Cherry’s men.
Carey’s especially good as the ornery prospector who won’t give in to progress
or claim jumping; he feels so authentic covered in the dust of sleepless
working weeks and honest ambition. But Barthelmess is also a treat as the steadfast
gambler who’s got more than Cherry’s back in mind.
Against the small claim holders is the force of the law
in the form of the new gold commissioner, Alexander McNamara (Scott) as well as
Judge Stillman (Samuel S. Hinds), who may or may not be using the law to steal
the locals’ claims. Just to spice things up, McNamara’s fancies Cherry and aims
to steal her away from Roy Glennister (Wayne), whilst the latter is taken with
the Judge’s niece Helen Chester (Margaret Lindsay).
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| John Wayne and Harry Carey |
Sure enough, the law’s not just an ass it’s as bent as a
six dollar note. Roy and Dextry’s mine is taken from them for ninety days by
the Judge, allowing the bad guys to steal hundreds of thousands worth of gold
in the meantime. So far Roy’s played it by the book but desperate times call
for direct action and he robs the bank with Al and the boys in blackface, “Alabama
tan” as he later says to Cherry’s maid Idabelle (Marietta Canty) … In the raid,
the sheriff gets shot and the finger of blame points to Roy; time to find out
which side everyone’s on.
There's a huge climactic fight between Wayne and Scott which according to film historian Ellen Cheshire in her booklet essay, took five days to shoot and was filmed using 15 cameras. A remarkable sequence that put me in mind of Hobert Bosworth in Behind the Door.
Male pride aside, Dietrich is the strongest, believably vulnerable
in her love for the big fella but also implacable in the face of the need for
frontier justice and the fight for her man.
Pittsburgh (1942)
There’s no law against a miner thinking. And I’m the
thinking-est miner you’ve ever met…
And so, we come to the subject of coal, and to partnership
and the collective efforts required to win at commerce and war. This film was
made not long after the US entered the Second World War and is undeniably propagandist
but also rousingly well made. Directed by Lewis Seiler from a witty script by Kenneth
Gamet and original author Tom Reed, the film starts with a patriotic speech
from factory owner John "Cash" Evans (Randolph Scott again, this time
more recognisably noble), as he undertakes to produce the war planes need for
the armoury of democracy.
He thanks his partner, Charles "Pittsburgh"
Markham (John Wayne) as well as his lead scientist J.M. "Doc" Powers
(Frank Craven) as well as the union chief, Joe Malneck (Thomas Gomez), in
another sign of the times. Then Doc, Pitt and Cash retire to the offices to
toast their project and a portrait of the fourth member of their group, Josie "Hunky"
Winters (Marlene Dietrich) and Doc launches into a flashback monologue just as
we’re wondering what happened to her…
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| Marlene and Duke |
We see Pitt and Cash’s journey from mineworkers to
multi-millionaires and their competitive camaraderie. As Pamela Hutchinson
points out in her super, high-content commentary, they’re emblems of American
values with Cash the money man and strategist and Pitt the labourer with individualistic
force of will, not to mention a nickname signifying the honest toil for coal.
Throughout their story Cash remains constant but Pitt loses his way, drunk on
success and, without his buddy’s consideration, apt to put profit over
conscience, love and loyalty. It’s a meaty role for Wayne and good to see him
playing a character with lots of shade and who needs the help of others.
Dietrich’s character is both the catalyst for the boys’
success and the cause of their eventual estrangement. They meet her in the film’s
slapstick highlight after Pitt “buys” a suit from a tailor called Shorty played
by one Shemp Howard, later to be a third of the Stooges, and needs to pay for
it by surviving a three-minute bout with a heavyweight boxer in the theatre
across the road. He tricks Cash into doing the hard work and all hell breaks
out when he succeeds and the boxer’s manager tries to cheat him out of the
winnings.
Triumph is immediately followed by near disaster as a
tunnel collapses at the boys’ mine and they steal Josie’s car to race to the
rescue without realising that she’s in it. She follows them down to help rescue
Doc, revealing she’s as much coal tar in her veins as the daughter of a miner hence
the nickname, Hunky – as in chunk of coal. So, the
competition for her affection begins and as the boys race for success, America
must learn to respect the enduring truth of its success… probably the most
jarring note in the film.
A couple of snippets from the commentary, there’s a
silent film screening when the boys go into the theatre and, of course, Pamela
identifies it; Hoot Gibson and Anne Cornwall in the Flaming Frontier (1926),
which I now must watch! She also points out that Marlene is representative of
Europe here and indeed the fight to defeat fascism in her own country was a
cause the actress was determined to address, in life as in her films she took a
stand. A quite remarkable person.
There’s so much to say about Dietrich the actress and
everyone knows about the beauty she so carefully nurtured in front of the
camera – even when getting stuck in with the mine rescue the coal manages to miraculously
fall on the contour lines of those impossible cheek bones. But there’s a
courage and vulnerability underneath this perfect face and a supernatural sense
of humour alongside the sexual provocation… surely as perfect a star as ever
projected on screen.
Marlene Dietrich at Universal 1940-1942 showcases
so much of this star power from Marlene, and the boys, and it’s a superb
snapshot of a period when the nature of filmmaking changed and its stars came
out fighting. There’s a lot of Marlene spirit inhabiting these four films and
they’re all eminently rewatchable especially with the excellent commentaries
and essays to inform your enjoyment.
You can order directly from the BFI online and one day soon, their shop. We were deprived of a full Dietrich season by the second
lockdown and here’s hoping we get to see these films on the bigger screen soon.
In the meantime, don’t hesitate to acquire this, especially as it’s a limited
edition of only 4,000 – there are far more Marlene fans than that around, so
get busy!
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