I've been listening to Mahler symphonies lately while I write these blogs. Tonight is #4, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Give Mahler a listen if you are so inclined, and definitely listen to his Lieder as sung by Janet Baker. Wow what a voice.
Tonight's movie was called "The Actress" (1953), starring Jean Simmons, Spencer Tracy, Teresa Wright and Anthony Perkins. Now that is a powerhouse cast and it is put to good use by legendary director George Cukor. The movie is based on a play written by an actress named Ruth Gordon, whom modern audiences know from "Rosemary's Baby" and especially the cult film "Harold and Maude". But there was much more to Gordon's career than these two movies, made when she was a senior citizen, and most of it happened in the 1930s. In addiiton to making movies she was a prolific stage actress, and this is what the movie is about, her dream to be on the stage, beginning when she saw the real life thespian Hazel Dawn perform live in a play. Gordon was a teenager when this happened. She was so enamored of Miss Dawn that she wrote her a letter asking for advice on how to become an actress herself. I was surprised to find, upon IMDBing Hazel Dawn, that she was a real person. This adds authenticity to Gordon's story. And Miss Dawn wrote her back, inviting her to her dressing room before a show, so Gordon could observe the actress at work, first hand. This proved to be the turning point in her life, but her dream was nearly derailed because of the acrimony she experienced at home.
The year is 1913. Gordon's full name is Ruth Gordon Jones (her real name). She is played as a free spirit by the talented Jean Simmons. She is 17 and her whole existence is consumed by her desire to act. Her school friends know all about this and so does her supportive Mom (Teresa Wright), but she can't tell her father because he is a practical man who believes in education and work. He had been a sea captain for most of his life but is now reduced to working in a factory for low wages. The family lives in Boston in a small house, barely making ends meet. Spencer Tracy gives an excellent performance as the father. He belongs to a local gymnasium and has connections to get his daughter a job as a phys-ed teacher. He can't understand why she doesn't want to do this. The pay is good. It's a steady job.....
He doesn't understand that his daughter has an artistic soul, so he fights against her desire to move to New York to follow her dream. Later in the movie we will learn more about the father's life, which will explain why he feels this way. This is a dramatic moment in the film which really changes the tone and gives the story some gravity.
I was having a problem with "The Actress" for the first 30 minutes or so, because it seemed too "stagey" for my liking. Spencer Tracy as the father was supposed to be a gruff prick on the surface though kindhearted in soul, but the trouble was that there was way too much dialogue crammed in to every scene and every interaction in the household between Tracy, Wright (playing his wife) and Simmons. Every line was rattled off so fast, and the conversation so filled with early 20th century colloquialisms, that I actually had difficulty following what the actors were saying. I got the gist of it of course, but I wasn't paying rock solid attention because the rapid fire talk and shifting emotionalism made it hard to do so. It felt somewhat like a claustrophobic Woody Allen scenario, where everyone is living in close quarters in a tenement and is slightly bonkers.
Things picked up in the second act, however, when Simmons' prospects for an audition begin to materialize. Anthony Perkins shows up in a classic 1913 Roadster, looking to date Jean Simmons. He is headed off to Harvard and also can't understand why she wouldn't want to simply marry him and follow his prospects. After all, he is a man and this is the way things work. But even in 1913, things were changing for women, and I suppose they always have been. I mean, look at Cleopatra. Women's Lib is nothing new (and because of today's news I should add that the war against women is still going strong, unfortunately). Ruth Gordon's message is a simple and eternal one : never give up on your dreams, for any reason. Period!
Once the histrionics died down and the movie settled into a discernible plot, my attention was restored and I wound up liking it for it's honesty in portraying the artist's predicament in a world dedicated to commerce. How does a creative person proceed when every force in society is set against her?
Ruth Gordon found her answer - creative people survive by aligning with other creative people, and by having heroes to be inspired by, and by believing in the magic of their art.
The message of "The Actress" is wonderful, and it is because of the message and the latter half of the film that I will relent and give it Two Thumbs Up. I was at first only going to give One and a Half Thumbs, but Two Thumbs it is. My heart was also melted when the Ruth Gordon character mentions to her father that she has a room lined up in New York, a place to stay.
This was at The Three Arts Club, which was a chain of Art School Boarding Houses for creatively inclined young women.
My Mom stayed at The Three Arts Club in Cincinnati in the early 1940s. She had been a drama student in high school and might've had acting aspirations. For a young person, it is often difficult to know exactly what one wants to do with their life. Mom was on her own at age 17, having lost both her parents, and she wound up at The Three Arts Club, before getting a job a WLW radio station later on.
She used to Talk about her time at The Three Arts Club a lot, so when I heard it mentioned in the movie, it melted me. That convinced me to give it Two Thumbs, though it is a good film anyway. Just a little hard to follow in the first half hour. ///
That's all I know for tonight. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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