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(This post was previously presented on my blog Eventized. Since Joan Crawford spent the first twenty years of her career at MGM, though, I hope you won't mind if I also present it here.)
The subtitle of this book could, I think, be more accurately called "A Life of Joan Crawford", due to the divergence of opinions of the people who knew Crawford.
Since many (especially younger) people's image of Crawford is the over-the-top, borderline campy maniac portrayed in the biopic, Mommie Dearest, it's fitting that Spoto has written a well-researched biography that tips the scales on the other side. Crawford's lifelong philanthropic efforts alone would give pause to most people who think of the self-made movie queen as a monster.
In the end, Crawford was, like most of us, a conundrum of flawed contradictions, albeit one with a powerful, almost mythical sense of destiny and with a commitment to the obsessive hard work required to fulfill it.
On a similar trail of thought, it's a shame that the talented Faye Dunaway was blasted by some less than thoughtful critics for her portrayal of Joan in Mommie Dearest and that she apparently took some of those criticisms to heart. Dunaway was superlative in the role of Joan Crawford. It's a memorable, startling, classic performance. She followed the script to its logical conclusions and those who don't like the movie (if, indeed, there are any now who don't) should blame the script, not those paid to carry it out. If anything, Dunaway may have played Crawford too well for the audience's comfort. That's something Crawford herself might have appreciated.
Paid is a solid entry in Joan Crawford's early talkie dramas. In fact, it was her first major dramatic role - it gives her a wide range of emotions to display in a role originally meant for Norma Shearer (who, instead, was on maternity leave).
Based on the play, "Within the Law", Paid has Crawford portraying a destitute worker sent to prison for a crime she didn't commit. After studying law during imprisonment, she's released ready for revenge on the boss who charged her in court, the legal system and just about the entire world!
Paid starts stong, then becomes vaguely unconvincing (Joan's Mary Turner becomes the virtual head of a criminal gang in just a few short scenes) and finally culminates in an odd, stage-bound act taking place in a police department. It has some very dated acting and those charmingly bizarre editing choices found in the earliest MGM talkies.
Even so, Crawford is worth watching throughout the entire film and, despite the film's faults - bottom line - you want to know what happens next.
Paid also stars Marie Prevost as Crawford's floozy partner in crime, Robert Armstrong as the gang boss Crawford tries to protect, Douglas Montgomery as the boss' son and a coterie of MGM character actors playing criminals, victims and policemen.
A five minute prison shower fight scene was shot but deleted before the film was released. Some stills from the scene exist.
The film was originally made in 1923 as Within the Law, starring Norma Talmadge and Lew Cody and was made again with the same name in 1939, starring Ruth Hussey and Tom Neal.
Paid has been released on Time Warner Archives DVD-R and has also been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.
The Rag Man's an agreeable Jackie Cooper and Max Davidson comedy/drama, unseen for many decades, but shown on television for the first time on Turner Classic Movies in 2004.
Max Davidson plays a junkman who takes orphan Cooper in as a companion and business partner. Though the movie could have went down the path of pathos (as Chaplin's The Kid did, also starring Cooper as an orphan), it doesn't go there.
It does entertain for its duration, with lots of scenes tailored for Cooper's charming facial expressions and body language. (Davidson's character, ill for much of the film, spends most of his time in a chair or bed - I can barely remember him walking across the room in this movie!). It's a pity Davidson's career took a nose dive after the arrival of sound (to the point that his last roles were uncredited); anyone who's seen his '20s comedy shorts can attest to this German actor's talents.
The Rag Man also has some nicely historic location footage shot in New York and a new score for small orchestra by Linda Martinez - a score that borders on being too dissonant but, again, doesn't go that route.
MGM made a sequel to The Rag Man, Old Clothes, the same year with the same cast and director, excepting the sequel also starred a young Joan Crawford. A print of the film reportedly still exists.
Muchly much has been written about Grand Hotel, one of the slickest entertainments MGM concocted, so just a few thoughts for the road:
Grand Hotel was the first Hollywood film designed to showcase a wide array of top talent in one ambitious dramatic setting. This I knew, but I hadn’t previously realized that Grand Hotel created the template not only for future star vehicles centered on one setting, but also for the disaster genre and the disaster genre parodies. When John Wayne’s 1954 The High and the Mighty dropped the Grand Hotel format on a plane and added a disaster, that film paved the way for Airport, The Poseidon Adventure, and The Towering Inferno. The High and the Mighty was also the key inspiration, even moreso than Airport, for Airplane! And so it goes.
Irving Thalberg’s artistic instincts were correct in not shooting Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford in the same scene. In the MGM “universe”, these actresses occupy different worlds and their characters were in fact opposites, one ethereal, elusive and mysterious, the other earthy, open and street-smart. To modern-day eyes, Crawford ‘s acting is more believable, but Garbo, even when over-the-top, has an indefinable old-world allure that makes Crawford look cheap in comparison (Rudolph Valentino had the same qualities in comparison to his ‘30s counterparts).
As for the men, John Barrymore’s more subtle acting holds up better than Lionel Barrymore’s flamboyant performance, and Wallace Beery – is Wallace Beery no matter the costume or accent.
The Warner Bros. DVD contains a fine, but too short, documentary on the making of Grand Hotel, a promo short of Grand Hotel’s premiere, containing rare shots of MGM actors and the film’s director, Edmund Goulding, trailers, and a bizarre and not very funny Warner Bros. short parody of Grand Hotel. No complaints about the quality of the print - it looks great to me.
Grand Hotel is recommended for fans of classic Hollywood actors, those who enjoy a good, Saturday afternoon story, and as an example of sophisticated 1930s Hollywood product at its polished best.
Possessed, with it's pre-code feminist script, swanky sets, slick direction and upper-echelon star power, is a quintessential early '30s MGM film (A Free Soul, starring Norma Shearer and Gable, from the same year, is another contender). It's escapist melodrama with just enough realism to keep from descending into absurdity.
The plot is a rubber-stamped depression-era fantasy made for its target audience: small-town factory worker Joan Crawford leaves for the big city determined to use whatever assets she has to live the high life, becomes a mistress to powerful man-about-town Clark Gable....you've seen this before, haven't you?
What's enjoyable about Possessed is seeing two of Hollywood's biggest stars in their prime, Gable in a new sort of male role for the time, an anti-hero, and Crawford, who MGM considered "the personification of youth and beauty and joy and happiness", before she mutated into something other. Those familiar with Crawford's background will realize she's practically playing herself here.
Noteworthy, too, is "Skeets" Gallagher, playing a perpetually inebriated dandy, whose ritzy living quarters and whimsical demeanor must have represented the height of freedom for audiences in 1931.
Clarence Brown's directing doesn't have the sort of dreamy look he excelled in earlier in his career, in films like The Flesh and the Devil, but it's perfectly fine, and benefits from some on-location shooting in the opening scenes.
Possessed has been released on Warner Archives DVD-R.
Since April, 2002, Mary and I have undertaken an ambitious (some would say foolhardy) agenda of film watching: we are watching every MGM film which still exists (many no longer do), in as close to chronological order as possible. Our agenda encompasses all feature films released by MGM from the studio's creation, in 1924, until 1960, when the classic era of systematic Hollywood filmmaking was, for all intents and purposes, over.
MGM was probably the grandest of the Hollywood studios. It lacked the hard-hitting edge of Warner Bros., but made up for it through sheer spectacle, high, glossy production values and, as their tagline proclaimed, "more stars than there are in heaven". It's also worth noting that proto-EC and proto-Lynchian films such as Tod Browning's Freaks and The Unknown were produced by MGM, as were films of visionary decadence by Erich Von Stroheim, (recommendation: see Stroheim's Greed on a double-bill with P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood. Only the strong will survive). MGM also destroyed the career of Buster Keaton, another fascinating but depressing spectacle. Last but not least, MGM featured a trinity of top actresses in the '20s and '30s: Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, and Joan Crawford. Sometimes sublime, sometimes mediocre and sometimes bizarre (or all three in the same movie), their films were always fascinating.
We began by watching The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the first film MGM released (though not the first film made by the new studio). It is also the film which made Rudolph Valentino a star. Since then, we have watched approximately 115 films, and are halfway through 1931. We're using, as a reference guide, The MGM Story, by John Douglas Eames, which lists films MGM released by year. (If you'd like to follow along with our movie watching, buy a copy of The MGM Story and have at it.) As films from years we've already covered have been made available, we've "backtracked", watching that film, then continuing on with the "current" year. I'll be posting here short reviews of the films we watch in the series, and posting reviews of earlier films we've watched when it's possible to go back and review them.
I'll also be posting miscellanious thoughts and lists on our crazy endeavour and we welcome your comments, comparisons, suggestions, or just plain help in tracking down elusive MGM films we've not yet been able to find. If you have a question about MGM or an MGM film,please post it here. I don't claim to be an expert on MGM, merely a guy watching a bunch of MGM movies. Then again, watching 115 MGM movies in a row can fill your head with a lot of near-useless facts. If you spot mistakes or wish to post clarifications or alternate opinions, feel free to post your comments.
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