Now we have it, Norma Talmadge’s finest dramatic performance
and a story in which she gets through two or three times the amount of work for
a normal film and probably even more for Heart of Wetona. Directed by
Frank Borzage, it’s tempting to visualise him coaching her through some of the heaviest
emotional lifting, which occasionally stretches her technique but she always
comes through, sometimes with cheeks soaked in tears, a dewdrop on her retroussé
nose, working at a pace with even Gish or Garbo. It’s a remarkable film and it
gives her the opportunities she often missed, partly through her own choice.
For most of her career, Talmadge called the commercial shots
and as Jay Weissberg pointed out in his introduction, The Lady was too louche
for middle American audiences and did not perform that well. As Talmadge
herself said, quoted by Ben Brewster and Lea Jacobs in their notes on the
Giornate site, she wasn’t going to follow up the film’s style “… I am not
going to do any more like it for a time, anyway. Not that I don’t like to do
characterizations – I love it. But what can we do? We must play to the box
office… So, for a while I am going to do modern things. I think they want to
see me in gowns, in style.”
To European audiences, there would have perhaps have been less of
a negative reaction but maybe Norma was also typecast to a degree and the
idea of her playing a character making a living as a prostitute, no matter how understated, was not
the "Norma" her public loved.
Frank Borzage had already worked with Talmadge on the more
successful Secrets (1924) and must have earned her trust for this bolder film. Adapted
by Frances Marion from Martin Brown’s play of 1923, the narrative is unusually
structured with an older Talmadge running The Brixton Bar, a “British”
pub in Marseilles, during the Great War before a flashback which explains how
she got there. Apparently, the play was the first in mainstream theatre in
which the heroine announces she is pregnant, be that as it may, it’s less “announced”
in the film and the child appears allowing inferences to be drawn.
Two Tommies wander, one a young private the other a rather
drunken sergeant, very very arf’arf’an’arf, who staggers around before
squirting the landlady, Polly Pearl (Talmadge) comically in the face. That ain’t
no way to treat a lady she exclaims to general mirth from some of the
regulars before settling down and talking with the kindly Mr. Wendover (Marc
McDermott). Wendover comes from the same village as Polly although the pictures
he shares are of Magdalen Bridge and the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford, rather bigger
than a village!
You wouldn’t believe that 24 years ago I was knockin’
them off their seats in a London music hall…
She recounts her history and how she came from England to this
moment… the camera pulls across a swarming theatre floor and we meet Polly
Pearl, the Girl with the Glad Eye, entertaining the throng with a song and
a dance. Watching intently is Leonard St. Aubyns (Wallace MacDonald) a proper
swell who, only has eyes for his Pearl as she arranges for a cigar-chomping
stage boy to rebuff other visitors.
Soon the fantasy is rudely interrupted by the arrival of St.
Aubyns, Sr. (Brandon Hurst, lovable as always) who offers her money to leave
his son alone but it’s too late old chap, the couple have already married and,
as quick as Senior can say “you’re disinherited” they’re off to Monte Carlo for
an extended/belated honeymoon with fellow dancer Fannie Clair (Doris Lloyd) and
her man Tom the Bookie (Alf Goulding). All seems fine until Leonard, unlucky at
the tables, starts taking an interest in a Countess Adrienne (Paulette Duval)
and, in front of her very eyes, Polly’s live crumbles. There are two moments in
the film when Talmadge absolutely lets rip and here she attacks Duval’s character,
knocking her swiftly to the ground. I’m not saying Borzage encouraged proto
method but you don’t often see silent actresses engage in a proper Bank ‘oliday
(c.f. your Cockney Music Hall Dictionary).
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| Polly is Friendzoned in the cruelest way... |
Down and out on the Riviera, Polly finds herself in a bar
run by one Mme. Blanche (Emily Fitzroy), completely unaware that it’s a
bordello. It’s at this point that Polly’s baby appears and, out of options she
finds friendship and a way to survive in the bar, whether by performing on
stage or other means… you can see how some would have been displeased with Our
Norma’s predicament.
Polly has her standards though and has the boy christened
by preacher John Cairns (John Herdman) who, along with his wife (Margaret
Seddon, as featured in Just Around the Corner elsewhere in this
Giornate). Who turn out to be crucial when St. Aubyns, Sr. arrives with the
news that his son has died and that he wants to take possession of his
grandson. He has the legal papers to do so and Polly has no option but to hand
her baby over to the Cairns. Talmadge is at full stretch during the sequence,
misery piled on misery and injustice. She launches herself at St. Aubyns, Sr…
echoing the wishes of the entire audience.
 |
| The only gig in town? |
Polly heads back to London in a forlorn search for her
son, at rock bottom she’s shown in blue darkness trying to sell flowers and
hoping beyond all reason to chance upon her boy. It’s desperately sad and, Talmadge
judges it just right and there’s not a dry eye in our house… We fast forward another
two decades and her old friend Mme. Blanche has helped set her up in this bar
where she can life out what remains of her wasted life in relative comfort.
Wendover urges her to not give up, even as she displays
every sign of having done so. But… well, you really have to seek this out and
marvel at her final flourish!
The Lady thoroughly deserves its reputation and this restoration has balanced the meaning as far as possible given the state of the surviving materials. Now we can all see for ourselves what the reviewers and audiences of the time could see in this remarkable actress and I would echo Jay Weisenberg’s hope that this is just the start of Norma’s wider rehabilitation.
 |
| Wit's end? |
As he said, Talmadge is also so generous with her co-stars,
allowing them to shine alongside her; it was her production company after all
but she knew the value of teamwork and of honest artistic expression as well as
crowd-pleasing box office fare.
Daan Van Der Hurk accompanied with some gorgeous lines and
the full measure of Talmadge’s ambitions here. This was delicately nuanced
playing that, just like the star, never dropped into melodrama or over-expression.
Wonderful stuff that, again, I really wish I could have been there to see live!
Next year Pordenone, I’ll be Covid free and ready to buy round after round of Aperol
Spritz… just you wait!
Talmadge’s career dénouement has long been a puzzle with legend
having Constance reminding her that Ma’s trust funds meant that they didn’t need
to work again and Norma saying to fans, "Get away, dears. I don't need you
anymore and you don't need me." as quoted by both Anthony Slide and Denise
Lowe. Jay suggests the words of her second husband George Jessel in his book Elegy
in Manhattan (1961, after Norma’s passing), offer a clue with his poem, told
from her point of view explaining that she’d never been a stage actress, only a
silent one, and it was just too late to learn another craft. She’d done enough
and now it was time to just live.
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| Norma Talmadge |
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