I’m not sure if I watched this film looking for Dorothy
Arzner but found her anyway in yet another film in which heteronormative
behaviour is gently challenged. In both these films, there is a direct
challenge to the sanctity of marriage with the wanderings of the heart
illustrating the soulful complexities that can work against relationships
forged by societal expectation and rigidly “enforced” moral rules. But as with
Arzner’s other work, they show women’s agency and place them at the forefront
of the moral challenges and, ultimate decisions.
Christopher Strong achieves this critique through
the initial presentation of exemplars of this morality; a man who has always
been faithful to his wife and a woman who has never been in love or in a
relationship with a man. The previously unthinkable is soon drawn together as
these two fall in love and begin a sexual adventure that is in complete
opposition to their lives and morality up to that point. If the unexpected can
happen to them it can happen to you, whatever it is.
Now then, the idea that Kathryn Hepburn’s daredevil Lady
Cynthia Darrington might be tempted into lustful union by Colin Clive’s stuffed
shirted Sir Christopher Strong, is another thing altogether; it’s a mismatch
both in terms of acting ability and star power, Hepburn is magnetic and intense
whilst Clive is rather dreary but maybe that’s the point. He would do more
impressive work before his untimely death and I don’t mean to be unfair. This
was, however, only Hepburn’s second screen role and first as the star and she
carries the dramatic weight very well along with one other performer.
Sir Christopher and Lady Cynthia are brought together as
the above examples by his daughter Monica (Helen Chandler) at a gathering of
bright young things at a London party thrown by her aunt Carrie Valentine
(Irene Browne). Monica is young and naïve and also involved in an affair with
the very married Harry Rawlinson (Ralph Forbes) which might be one of the
prompts for Aunt Carrie to declare a scavenger hunt in which the women must
find that steadfast married man and the men a woman previously missed by
Cupid’s arrow.
So it is that adventuress meets the politician and their
priorities begin to change. What makes this story so poignant is the
performance of Billie Burke as Lady Elaine Strong, who’s open-hearted
ethereality – so well used in The Wizard of Oz as the Good Witch of the
North – makes her perfect for the innocent wife at the heart of this otherwise
two-sided love triangle. This being Arzner the drama pivots around Mother,
Daughter and Flyer as much as the lovers.
Sir Christopher tries to stop Cynthia’s flying but we all
know what that means: she needs to be free not just from him but from
expectation. As she says, “courage can conquer even love…” and she has records
to break and round the world races to win; she must be true to herself.
Directed by Dorothy Arzner with help from Tommy Atkins,
the adaptation was written by Zoë Akins based on Gilbert Frankau’s novel.
Hepburn and Arzner did not enjoy the smoothest of working relationships and it
shows in some of the film’s unevenness but there are many fine moments, not
least when Cynthia appears all dressed up as a silver moth for a fancy dress
party… she looks unearthly and someone who should fly far, far away from Sir Christopher.
There are some fine dramatic moments, lovely-looking aircraft
and a superbly suggestive sequence as highlighted by Pamela Hutchinson on the
discussion at the start of the season in which we see only Cynthia’s braceleted
forearm is seen as she and Christopher talk warmly in post-coital intimacy
about their situation; has he brought her down to ground, is she bound by his
gift… voluntarily, forever? It’s delightfully subtle film making.
“First she gave me gingerbread and then she gave me
cake; and then she gave me crème de menthe for meeting her at the gate.”
In Merrily We Go to Hell (1932) Sylvia Sidney’s Joan
Prentice is faced with similar decisions regarding Fredric March’s intoxicated
Jerry Corbett who’s so out of touch with his feelings that he substitutes “swell”
for “love” in all his praises. Swell is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary
(no longer Moroccan-bound but online, if you know your Bing and Bob…) as a
generalized term of enthusiasm but that’s not really good enough if you’re
seriously committed and Joan simply deserves that.
This more comedic offering presents a heart-breaking take
on a good man laid low by alcoholism; March’s Jerry is a charmer, even when
drunk, but when he gets drunk he goes the whole hog and clearly there’s a
deeper issue. Even his friend Vi (Esther Howard) warns her off before relenting
knowing how intelligent, witty and kind he can be.
Joan has been used to every luxury Corbett. I never
taught her the value of money only as I didn’t intend she’d ever have to know
it…
Joan’s father, Mr. Prentice (George Irving) is altogether
more suspicious and he offers Jerry $50,000 to give up Joan but he’s not taking
any amount even though her father describes her as just a child… he wants them
to wait until she is sure. But we are sure, says his daughter, we are sure,
aren’t we Jerry. You’re sure of everything when you’re in love…
So, there’s a class issue here – as well as over-protective
masculinity - but Joan is remarkably self-determined, she knows her own mind
and is only let down by the men in her life. Her father is perfectly right in
his instinct that Jerry might be a waster and the journalist soon does his
level best to prove him right by getting drunk and incapable on the evening of
the reception where the engagement is to be announced.
Joan’s in love enough to go through with the wedding but
there’s a Arzner moment when, having forgotten the ring, Jerry has to use a
bottle opener he finds in his tuxedo for Joan’s wedding ring. The worst of all
starts, but Joan forgives him again as she does when he drops their
Thanksgiving turkey… he’s trying and she sees something in him that he hasn’t
quite found himself.
Encouraged/financed by Prentice, Jerry writes plays and
finally gets one accepted, a satirical comedy called When Women Say No which is
to be produced in New York. A success at least, what could possibly go wrong? Well,
his former paramour Claire Hempstead (Adrianne Allen) is exactly what the
doctor wouldn’t order, she’s encourages his drinking, rewrites some of her part
and, of course, makes a play for the playwright…
Sir, if I said yes I should mean no and if I said no I
should mean yes but my silence is all true and for you…
It’s almost as if Jerry wrote the play with Claire in
mind and these lines reflect the ambivalence in his own communication and
commitment, hiding his uncertainties behind witty circumlocution. On the opening
night he succumbs to temptation deliberately placed in her dressing room and is
pie-eyed by the time he is pulled on stage to take his bow. Joan asks his pal
Buck (Richard "Skeets" Gallagher) to look after him but he’s
senseless by the time he gets home in the early hours.
You can’t be a doormat!
I’m not a doormat, you don’t know how sweet and fine
Jerry really… I know what I’m doing.
Soon he succumbs to Claire’s temptation whilst Joan
responds by dating fellow cast member Charlie Baxter (some fellow called Cary
Grant) and the rift deepens… Joan has to fight her father and her husband’s
weakness/illness to get what she wants but it’s not a simple or straightforward
path yet she has the strength.
March makes for a very good drunk but Sylvia Sidney is superb, her face alive with so
much emotion, vulnerable, quaking and yet steadfast and resolute. Arzner may
have been the only woman directing film in the Thirties but there were so many fascinating
actresses and she worked with a number of them.
Merrily we go to Hell.
Merrily you go to your girlfriend.
This is no easy ride.
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