Saturday Night with Joan Crawford

[moira finnie]

Hawks claims MGM took the film away from him and re-cut it. Then he ran into more studio interference on VIVA VILLA (1934) and quit (or was fired), and made a point of never working for MGM again.

As for the film itself, it's everything that the posters above described, but I still find the film very affecting. Hawks and Faulkner had an affinity for each other (Hawks would continually hire the writer whenever he needed money) and it shows in the many scenes of male and female comradeship. There is a lot of British stiff-upper-lip vernacular performed by a cast of non-Anglo-Saxons, which can get silly at times, but the entire company performs in such a sincere level of underplaying that makes the entire production quite touching. This is the type of movie where a moral sense of what is right and self-sacrifice trump affairs of the hearts. Cooper and Crawford do have an instant attraction to each other (and, I might add, a believable screen attraction) but because of mitigating circumstances on both their parts it is never really acted upon until the final fade-out. There is never really any one-upmanship between the male leads as Cooper quickly comes to realize the value and worth of Young and Tone in Crawford's life and doesn't want to upset the equilibrium.

This is not a great film by any stretch of imagination but I wouldn't dismiss it as a potboiler - not with the level of talent involved.

Agreed and well-expressed, Gary. I don't think it is a potboiler, and after commenting on the ravishing leading lady and one of her leading men yesterday, I was mulling it over again, and I do remember feeling that the camaraderie among the men was (typically for Hawks) well done, and rendered with some poignancy. Hawks and MGM were never a natural fit.

[Gary J.]

Cooper gave a lot of heart felt performances in films which, on first look, he seemed to be shunted to the sidelines. Vidor's THE WEDDING NIGHT comes to mind. The main focus of the film is Anna Sten and her desire to break free from her restrictive, close-minded immigrant Polish family. Cooper's idle, restless writer comes off as almost an after thought and yet it is his romantic awakening that is the real heart of the film. When he mourns Sten's death it doesn't comes across as a casual affair but rather a life changing moment. My only fault with the film was that his character couldn't had used the incident to re-connect with his estrange wife Helen Vinson, for I found their modern, adult relationship much more romantic and worth rooting for.

Then there is Wyler's FRIENDLY PERSUASSION, where once again the focus seems to be more on his family than his role as titular head of the family (who we all know is actually Dorothy McGuire's Eliza). But by the second half Cooper's quiet moral compass comes to the forefront and his integrity and grit take over as the Civil War intrudes upon their little Eden and Coop sets out to retrieve his son.

I don't mean to hijack this thread away from Crawford but I find Cooper's screen presence endlessly fascinating. We've all heard the endless stories of directors thinking Cooper of being upstaged by his co-stars during filming, only to see him come alive on the screen. Greenbriar Picture Show recently had an article about the making of VERA CRUZ where producer Burt Lancaster once again made that mistake about Cooper early in filming - only to quickly recant. And what ever that mysterious, innate ability is works once again to Coop's advantage in TODAY WE LIVE as he goes up again three very attractive and sympathetic performers, but by picture's end I am rooting for Cooper's Bogard to find happiness with Crawford's Diana.

[moira finnie]

Don't worry, Gary, we digress quite a bit here and no harm is done. We have quite a few devoted Gary Cooper fans on board, including our own Miss Goddess. You might want to check out this thread on the board celebrating all things Coop.

[charliechaplinfan]

I like Joan Crawford in Today We Live, although the film was radically altered to fit around Joan with her modern dress and hairstyles I did like the end result. I thought Gary Cooper was very affective but my heart went out to Robert Young.

I was lucky enough to watch Ingrid's version of A Woman's Face recently. Same movie, two totally different performances, I preferred Ingrid's more natural performance and Molander's direction, Cukor/Crawford's version seems more polished, the scarring isn't as startling and Joan Crawford is more stylised. They are both good movies, A Woman's Face is one of Joan's best.

[moira finnie]

Mary Phillips, best known to me as the (obviously lesbian) frenemy of Helen Hayes in Borzage's A Farewell to Arms, plays a chambermaid who's a true friend to Joan. She even gets to try on the fringy outfit.

I thought that this was one of Mary Philips's best roles too and I liked the rapport between her and Crawford's romantic, would-be hustler. Ms. Philips was also interesting because she was the second Mrs. Humphrey Bogart from 1928-1938. Bogart and Philips had met in a play called Nerves in 1924 that briefly featured a young Humphrey Bogart, Kenneth MacKenna and Mary Philips. Explaining what caught his attention, Bogart said "I noticed [in a key scene] that she was putting a lot of that in her walk." Confronting her with her scene-stealing saunter, she challenged him, "Suppose you try to stop me."

Paul Kelly, Humphrey Bogart and Mary Philips in "Nerves" on Broadway in 1924.

He didn't pursue correcting her any further because, he later explained, "while I was talking I was suddenly aware that here was a girl with whom I could easily fall in love." She was also lovely, Irish and talented, with that flapper "to hell with it" attitude that seemed so charming in the '20s. In the '20s and '30s she had considerable success on Broadway in 31 plays, including Kaufman and Hart's Merrily We Roll Along, and Cole Porter's Anything Goes. Here's a clickable thumbnail of the notice of the marriage in the New York Times in 1928:


When The Bride Wore Red was being made, Philips and her husband were trying to make one last go of their marriage. He'd moved out of The Garden of Allah and they were sharing a rented house. Bogart was also in one of the worst films of his career, Isle of Fury (1936) (if you've seen it you know how awful it is) and Mary had just decided to go back to New York to appear as the duplicitous lovelorn Cora in James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice on Broadway (with Richard Barthelmess as Frank Chambers). Controversial and yet not quite tawdry enough (according to the reviews of the play), it closed after 72 performances, and so did the decade old marriage, thanks to distance, theatrical ambition, and Mayo Methot's propinquity.

Mary in her prime.

Mary wasn't very lonely for long either, since she was being courted once again by Kenneth MacKenna (a former Mr. Kay Francis and the brother of theater designer Jo Mielziner). MacKenna (born Leo Mielziner, Jr.) continued to act later in life but also worked as a story editor, theatrical director and movie exec. They married in 1938 and remained together until his death in 1962. Bogart remained on good terms with both Helen Menken (his first wife and a very successful Broadway actress) and Miss Philips. He saw to it that both of these former wives met Lauren Bacall before he married her. Both told Bacall years later that they approved of her! (The only one who didn't approve appears to have been Mayo, which was sort of understandable). Mary Philips (whose name was always being misspelled with two Ls by MGM), also appeared in several other movies, including as the mother in Leave Her to Heaven (1945).

I am sorry to take this in an entirely different direction, but I really liked Mary Philips--and Mr. Bogart's checkered past seems to have helped to make him the good actor he became. I wonder if Crawford was friendly with Philips on the set of this film? I would love to know how they felt about being directed by Arzner.

[JackFavell]

Wow! Mary was a knockout.

[CineMaven]

Moira writes: "Mary Philips (whose name was always being misspelled with two Ls by MGM), also appeared in several other movies, including as the mother in Leave Her to Heaven (1945)."

HOLY COW!!! I knew Bogey was married before Mayo Methot, but had no idea Mary Philips is the one and the same from "LEAVE HER HEAVEN." Wow!! And she was good in "...Heaven."

[moira finnie]

I just came across an unsold television pilot on youtube called Della (1964) which you really ought to see if you feel the need of a Crawford fix. It appears to be a combo of Portrait in Black and Dynasty with Paul Burke, Diane Baker, Charles *sigh* Bickford, and even Otto Kruger in the cast--though poor Otto, who was in movies almost from the dawn of talkies, is seventh billed (even Richard Carlson, that once promising young leading man and long lost fugitive from cheesy sci-fi in the '50s, is above Kruger in the credits). The good news is that Crawford looks wonderful, though no one seems to have been able to hide the kohl eyebrow pencil from her. I really like her with the grey in the hair and it's fun to see her sweep down the staircase and get frisky Paul Burke to play her lap dog, lighting her cigarette, withering him with a glance and looking him up and down as though he was about to run the Kentucky Derby with herself in the saddle. Enjoy:

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[Sue Sue Applegate]

Thanks for this gem, Moira! It is a total hoot!

She can still tear up a room with a sneer, even if she has two giant parentheses for eyebrows!!!!
I think it was like you said, either the Kohl-coloured eyebrow pencil or maybe one of those giant crayolas the toddlers use....


I liked the ending with Bickford and Burke walking away from the water....it was sweet!

[feaito]

Thanks for posting this highly enjoyable melodrama Moira; Queen Joan as regal as ever!

[intothenitrate]

[Re: Today we Live] There's a fairly comprehensive and insightful biography on Howard Hawks over on IMDB. The author observed that when Hawks made an action film, the character development centered around the camaraderie of the males, while the females sat on the sidelines, wrung their hands, and looked gorgeous. By contrast, in comedies, the females have a central role and drive the plot along. While it's hard to generalize about Hawks' prolific and eclectic output, I found that to be a pretty good observation.

Watching the film again, I was most impressed by the way Cooper grew to respect the work of the Tone and Young characters...and there is a lot of run time devoted to making the point. We surmise--along with Cooper and Karnes--that T&Y are somehow less heroic in their duties and don't take things as seriously as the pilots. We learn later that their playfulness and whimsy are actually hallmarks of an even deeper intrepidity. Go figure.

I'll bet the re-cutting mentioned above was to make sure the film remained a Crawford vehicle, despite Hawks' inclination to make it a bro-mance. [He does provide us with some stunning photography of her.]

Oh, and by the way, what WAS that thing she's wearing when we first see her? It's like the left lapel of her outfit mutated and started growing up above her ear!