She was too tough for Hollywood most of her movies were hits which Hollywood loves but she didn’t modify her looks or ways or manner and as a woman directing movies she was looked on by most as a freak and as that kind of woman she was accepted less and less.
George Cukor on Arzner’s eventual departure from
Hollywood
Before we get to Clara we had an entertaining and revelatory
panel discussion of her director Dorothy Arzner’s silent films hosted by Bryony
Dixon, BFI National Archive curator and featuring season curator Caroline
Cassin, provider of the quotation above, and film historian Pamela Hutchinson
also of Silent London.
Arzner was the missing link of female directors in
Hollywood, bridging the considerable gap between late period Lois Webber and
the emergence of Ida Lupino in a hostile environment that treated the idea of
female directors almost as a novelty. She was, however, a “novelty” who made
hit pictures with all of her four silent films being successful followed by her
run up until the Joan Crawford vehicle, The Bride Wore Red (1937). She
made just two films after this, including Dance, Girl Dance (1940) –
screening later this month – partly because, as others had found, especially
after the passing of Irving Thalberg, there was no escaping the displeasure of
noted homophobe Louis B Meyer.
How Arzner survived so long is illustrated not only by
her run of success and sheer professionalism, but also by her privileged
background. Unlike, say, Billy Haines, who paid the Hollywood price for being openly
involved in what Joan Crawford called the strongest marriage in Hollywood with Jimmie
Shields, Arzner did not have to care what others thought of her sexual
preference – she had a forty-year relationship with dancer/choreographer Marion
Morgan – firstly because she was of independent financial means and secondly
because she was a force of nature determined to be who she wanted to be; and
that was very profitable for the powers that be. In fairness to Billy though,
he made a hugely successful second career, aided by customers like Joan, Marion
Davies and Eleanor Boardman. Joan also stayed friends with Dorothy and got her
work directing her in Pepsi commercials later on.
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| Arzner described her time filme editing as the happiest of her working life... 35 films in one year alone. |
Caroline Cassin explained the director’s background and
how she gave up on her study of medicine and joined the medical corps in World
War One before being drawn towards the emerging art of the cinema as a force
for social good. With all the confidence of her background she started working
her way up the chain in movies from a disastrous start as a typist to script
and film editing with her meticulous eye for detail and inventiveness gaining
her big break cutting stock footage of bullfighting in Spain with Valentino
miming around in California for Blood and Sand. Further editing work
followed as her discipline was recognised and she was kept very busy by the
likes of James Cruze and others.
Arzner was “very game” as Hutchinson says, learning how
to play with the boys, working out how to be Hollywood’s female director of big
films, being on set dressed as a cowboy during The Covered Wagon and as
a sailor for Old Ironsides, she had to prove herself theatrically that
she knew what she was doing. Even Frances Marion – script-writer supreme –
struggled with directing but Arzner was happy to take the leadership role
ignoring expectations of both sexes.
Cassin says she was in a very privileged position an
allowance from her father that enabled her to take more risks and pick and choose
in her career. Also, as Hutchinson points out, previous women filmmakers from Alice
Guy-Blaché, Lois Webber, Nell Shipman… had been married and this helped them to
both fit into the heterosexual film business model and to fund productions.
After divorcing their men, all three struggled to maintain their position, not
so for Dorothy.
The final step to directing followed an enormous bluff
from Arzner when she announced to Walter Wanger, the head of Paramount's New
York studio, that she would have to change from Paramount to Columbia in order to
do the work she wanted. Duly spooked Wanger gave her the script for the
now-lost Fashions for Women (1927) featuring Ester Ralston in her first
starring role, which emerged a hit enabling a repeat, Ten Modern Commandments
(1927), with Ralston and Neil Hamilton, and a further film, Manhattan
Cocktail (1928), with Nancy Carrol and Richard Arlen of which the splendid
surviving final minute was shown, an array of silhouetted dancers with dynamic
montage beyond, Skyline Dance by Slavko Vorkapich.
Her third silent film, and the only one largely surviving,
was Get Your Man (1927), with Clara Bow before she was given the chance
to direct the studio’s first talkie again with Bow, The Wild Party
(1929). The roots of Clara’s success in The
Wild Party can be seen in the relationship she established with Arzner
during the making of Get Your Man (1927) and there are some similarities
between the films notably the freedom of expression the director encouraged in
her vibrant star and the trust is clear to see as in both silent and sound,
Clara is at her best; an emoting powerhouse making the most even of some of the
bum lines in The Wild Party. How good do you have to be to overcome
lines that even Frederick March struggled with?
Get Your Man (1927) with Meg Morley
The BFI blurb described Get Your Man as a
triumphant celebration of female sexuality and it’s hard to disagree watching
this precious 35mm recovery/restoration: it’s not quite complete with two reels
missing but the key moments are intact and others are covered by new
intertitles to illustrate the humour and vibrancy of the story and Bow’s supernatural
energies.
It begins in a modern fairy-tale France, with a young
rich boy pledging to marry a young rich girl when they are both of age and soon
we fast-forward 17 years to see the grown boy, Robert as played by Charles
“Buddy” Rogers who had romanced Clara in the epic Wings, released in the
summer of 1927. His father looks admiringly at the young woman, Simone de
Villeneuve (Josephine Dunn) who clearly meets expectations of class and
society:
She will make a fine wife, son. Imagine an innocent
young girl… in an age when there aren’t any!
Buddy and Bow
Oh boy, clearly no one is expecting Clara Bow to arrive
in this story. And arrive, she duly does as Nancy, a socialite on holiday in
Paris at the same time that Robert has been sent there to collect the family
pearls that father, Duc de Bellecontre (Josef Swickard) has sent to be
re-strung for his son’s impending nuptials with Simone (Josephine Dunn) and tout
Les de Villeneuves! The rom-com starts as Nancy nicks Robert’s taxi, then they
meet again in the perfumery – cue astonished Clara close-up and winsome Buddy
smile – before chance throws them together in the Wax Museum.
This sequence was choreographed by Marion Morgan, is a
delight as Nancy is confused by life-like automatons and impressed with the tableaux
vivant of Joan of Arc at the coronation of Charles VII; it’s all a bit more
impressive than Madame Taussauds’ in Blackpool! Sadly, the whole sequence does
not survive but there’s enough left in this charming build up to the inevitable
spark with Robert. They meet as Robert crouches over, apparently part of a
scene of murder before looking at Nancy and we see that “sweet Santa!” look
from Bow – “it must be fate!”. He knows the museum off by heart and so offers
to give her a guided tour, even though his memory is not quite as good as he
promised.
This is where the film has the missing reels and the
restoration used new title cards to fill the gap before part four resumes the
moving pictures. Essentially it’s Nancy and fate versus the patriarchy as she
has to battle not just Robert’s feeling of responsibility but the best laid
plans of the Duc and Simone’s father, Marquis de Villeneuve (Harvey Clark);
that’s three men vs one woman, they don’t stand a chance.
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| Clara waits to make a call |
As Pamela said in the introduction, the film zips along at some pace and whilst it knows you know exactly where it’s going it contrives to entertain and surprise all the same! The ending is satisfactory in all the right ways and whilst a point has been made for the romantic audience they’ve also seen the might of Clara’s pluck blow away every obstacle and dusty preconception. Arzner enables her cast but especially Clara whose exuberance and expression does rather overshadow Buddy’s reliance on his good looks; he’s a charmer, but she’s a charmer who can act and rightly Dorothy gives her the screen time to show exactly what she can do.
Variety (12 Oct. 1927) described this picture as
an ‘all-woman production’ with script from Hope Loring and Alice Brand Leahy,
with choreographer Morgan and business manager Henrietta Cohn. It illustrates
that there was a marketing benefit in Arzner’s position with the majority of filmgoers
also “all-women”.
Meg Morley, “all-talented” herself, completed the experience
with Clara-like energy and invention of her own with her modern-day jazz
sensibilities playing catch and chase with the film’s rhythms and spirit. Meg
enhances every film she accompanies and I was almost encouraged into an aisle-side
Charleston by my daughter! This spirit lives on and Our Beth is keen to find
out more…
The Wild Party (1929)
In Silent Women – Pioneers of Cinema, Francesca
Stephens describes how Arzner brought a unique sensibility to the development
of female characters – not just a subversion of the all-pervading male gaze but
a presentation of believable and real personas. This could hardly be more
apparent than in the opening scenes of The Wild Party as Clara Bow and her
mates clown around in the dorm, relaxed and thoroughly modern.
Clara was a kinetic actress though and to enable her full
range of expression Arzner devised the boom microphone, getting her sound man
to lash the mic to a broom in order to allow both artists and camera to move
more freely. So, rather than hover nervously within range of a static mic,
Clara is free to run wild and gives a compelling and genuine performance and if
she was scared or distracted by the microphone you wouldn’t know. Both Fredric
March and the under-used Marceline Day join in the general over-enunciation of
this period so cruelly lampooned in Singing in the rain.
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| Clara with Marceline Day as Bo-Peep |
Clara plays Stella Ames, the loudest and most liked gal
in her dorm of the all-girl Winston College. She is, as has been said
elsewhere, very like Clara Bow or at least the Clara we think we know - bubbly,
flirty, sassy and never someone to let a good party get in the way of study. One
of the most under-rated actresses of the era, Bow was an emoting wonder able to
hover between tears and smiles all in one moment of unconscious flow and here
Arzner was able to harness this all in a sound context. And the voice? Pretty
good as it goes no trace of Brooklyn to my Anglo-ears and clear diction that
sounds more relaxed and natural than some of her fellow actors including Mr
March.
In fairness Arzner clearly established a relaxed working
environment and the antics in the dorm are naturalistic and familiar with
banter and japes a-plenty. With the exception of her best pal, Helen Owens
(Shirley O'Hara), chained to her desk studying hard and aiming high, the others
are keen on a good time. There’s a Babs (Adrienne Dore) – there had to be! –
and a gaggle of wise-crackin’, nail-paintin’, gum-chewin’ pals who generally
treat schooling as that dreary period of obligation sandwiched between the
hangover and the hair of the dog: Mazie (Alice Adair), Thelma (Kay Bryant),
Gwen (Marguerite Cramer) and more.
Balanced against this is the strait-laced Faith Morgan (Marceline
Day), something like the Head Girl who makes no secret of her disdain for the 24-hour
party people. But then there’s the college creep, Eva Tutt (Joyce Compton)
who’ll split on anyone if she thinks she’ll benefit. Given the girl’s
lifestyles, Eva will find plenty of tales to tell and she listens well to
Stella’s story of accidentally climbing into the wrong bed bunk on the train
returning from vacation. The bunk is already occupied by a handsome man and the
two narrowly avoid reputational damage.
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| Fredric March and Clara Bow |
However, it turns out this man is Professor James 'Gil'
Gilmore (Fredric March) the new anthropology teacher and queue rom-com friction
between attracted opposites. Then there’s a genuinely unpleasant sequence in
which the girls are harassed by a group of toughs who proceed to kidnap Stella
with who knows what intention. The other girls alert Gil who runs off after the
car cutting across the country roads to intervene and rescue the distressed
dame. The relieved couple soon fall into each other’s arms but back in class
it’s business as usual and Stella resumes her partying ways… the film isn’t
quite ready to succumb to narrative convention just yet.
OK, the story is standard fare with some cringe moments
relating to “savages” but what makes it stand out is the focus on the women –
the men are almost incidental and surely this is one of the few films of this
period that would pass the Bechdel test? It’s about love and loyalty and all
the genuine feeling is between the women whether it’s Faith’s realisation of
Stella’s goodness or the latter’s unselfish and steadfast love for her friend
Helen.
It’s another grand showcase for Bow’s star power and she
delivers, punching her way into the sound era with conviction. In the end it
would be external factors that curtailed her career but she shone so brightly
and her director did right by her here and in their silent film. Who knows what
could have been had they carried on working together… Clara Bow was made for
the Thirties, Pre-Code, Screwball… she had it all. Unlike some Clara clearly had no problem whatsoever with working for a female director and it showed!
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