Daily Archives: August 4, 2014

We are going to take a break from the heat on Maui, Hawaii from August 5-15.  1942 will begin when I get back.

Blossoms in the Dust
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Written by Anita Loos and Robert Wainwright
1941/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Warner Archive DVD

[box] Edna: There are no illegitimate children. There are only illegitimate parents![/box]

I thought this well-made biopic was just OK.

The story is a dramatization of the work of Edna Gladney (Greer Garson) who ran an orphanage in Texas and pressed for repeal of laws including the designation “ïllegitimate” on birth certificates.

As the story opens, we meet Edna (Greer Garson) and her adopted sister (?) Charlotte as they happily discuss their impending weddings.  But Edna met a rude young man at the bank.  The man, Sam Gadney (Walter Pidgeon) took one look at her and told her she would be his wife.  He crashes the girls’ engagement party and tells Edna to see him off at the station from where he is returning to Texas the next day.

When Charlotte’s prospective in-laws discover that she was a nameless “foundling”, they call off the wedding.  Charlotte is so distraught she kills herself.  Charlotte’s death seems to torpedo Edna’s wedding as well and after some correspondence she marries Sam.  At the birth of her son, she learns she can no longer have children.  She eventually mends her breaking heart by starting an orphanage and honors Charlotte by campaigning to reform the law on illegitimacy.  With Felix Bressart as a kindly doctor.

There is nothing exactly wrong with this movie and Garson is always charming.  It didn’t grab me, however.

This was the first of eight pairings of Garson and Pidgeon.

Blossoms in the Dust won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color and was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture, Best Actress (Garson), and Best Color Cinematography.

Trailer

Lady Be Good
Directed by Norman Z. McLeod
Written by Jack McGowan, Kay van Ripper, and John McLain
1941/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Warner Archive DVD

[box] The last time I saw Paris/Her heart was young and gay/No matter how they change her/I’ll remember her that way — lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II [/box]

This is a pleasant enough musical featuring a score full of standards by Gershwin, Kern, and more.

The story uses the framing device of the second divorce trial of songwriters Dixie (Ann Sothern) and Eddie Crane (Robert Young).  We move into flashback to see them teaming up when greeting card poet Dixie supplies the words to a song Eddie has been struggling to finish.  Dixie’s voice turns Eddie into a hit-maker and they marry.  But success goes to Eddie’s head and he starts partying, stops writing, and treats Dixie like a secretary/housekeeper.  She reluctantly divorces him.

The couple can’t seem to help inspiring each other though.  Awakened from his torpor, Eddie starts working again and Dixie is on hand the words.  They re-marry but end up in the divorce court a second time.  Dixie’s roommate Marilyn starts scheming to bring them back together yet again.  With Lionel Barrymore as the judge, Red Skelton as Eddie’s buddy, and the Berry Brothers doing a tap routine.

Although Sothern and Young are game, the plot kind of drags the movie down and we are left with long interludes between musical numbers.  Some of these are just odd – the Berry Brothers, deadpan singer Virginia O’Brien – but others are spellbinding, e.g. the finale with Eleanor Powell tapping to “Fascinating Rhythm”.

Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II won an Academy Award for Best Music, Original Song for “The Last Time I Saw Paris.” I don’t know that it was the best movie song of 1941 — and it was not original to the film —  but you can’t fault those who saw the Nazis occupying Paris from thinking so.  Kern himself lobbied the Academy to limit the category to songs written for the film in which they appeared.  He said he voted for “Blues in the Night” on his Academy Ballot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2c9cVfIov4

Ann Sothern sings “The Last Time I Saw Paris”