being happy
by Douglas Messerli
Beatrice Banyard (screenplay, based on her radio program), Al Boasberg (director) Myrt and Marge / 1933
Based on the long-running daily radio show which rant from 1932-1942, the film Myrt and Marge (1933), directed by Al Boasberg, is a rag-tag revue with comedic skits interspersed among singing and hoofing acts all threaded together in a silly “hey, kids, let’s get together and produce a play”-plot that might make Andy Hardy go slouching off with embarrassment. When the current producer and his partner of the supposedly Broadway-bound My Ladies’ Legs go bankrupt, the cast along with the “rude mechanicals” who haul and operate the scenery and props all join up with Myrt Spear (Myrtle Vail) who takes over as manager to recharge this stalled theatrical vehicle. After all they’ve all got plenty of talented performers—themselves—and, when Myrt drops out, adding a new comedian/dancer Eddie Hanley (Eddie Foy, Jr.) and his small-town sweetheart Marge Minster (Donna Damerel), and eventually finding a wealthy angel, Jackson (Thomas E. Jackson), what can go wrong?
In this case, almost everything. For one,
the dancing chorus girls in this movie make Ruby Keeler seem like a fairy-light
ballerina; their hard pounding taps should bring the house down even if the
applause of the small audiences they attract wouldn’t be able to drown out the
sound of dropping hair pin.
Foy, who later in his career would reveal his significant talent (his performances of “It’s a Simply System” in Bells Are Ringing and “I’ll Never Be Jealous Again” in The Pajama Game represent two of the greatest topical comic songs in film musical history), is here a fairly gifted dancer in bad need of a good choreographer. But the jokes radio-and-screen-writer Beatrice Banyard hands him only demonstrate his roots as a vaudevillian ham. It’s hard to be convinced of his character’s love for Marge when it is so evident that he holds himself in far greater esteem. When he crawls into Marge’s bed late in the story to deter the Angel’s determination to receive some amorous pleasures as payback for his investments, you kind of wish that he’d held off and let the backer get in a couple of smooches before he slugged him in the kisser. But this heavy-footed and heavy-handed film squelches almost of the fun with the old-fashioned slug-fest played out in the dark, with no time for a little gay sexual insinuation.
Minster has a nice, slight, crackle of an
amateur voice but her dancing is a mix of gymnastics and contortionism. And for
utterly no earthly reason except for the film’s Deus ex machina—when she
suddenly takes over the role of the show’s angel—Marge’s heavy set mother
(Trixie Friganza) trots along with the company to make sure no one might touch
her baby still clinging to her more than ample bosom.
There is a little jab at possible racist
Asian humor when the company dines at a local Chop Suey joint, but luckily they
either forgot the punch-line or immediately lost interest in the skit. There is
But then heaven does sometimes deliver up lovely
strangelings in her storks’ beaks. For the pansy-player of this creation is
born into the script not only for a line or two, but serves as the stage
manager and hangs out with the entire team until the end. Beloved by both his
fellow thespians and the script, Clarence (Ray Hedge) dishes out catty comments
and comebacks to several members of the cast. In the film’s very first scene as
he gathers up the chorus girls’ costume accessories into a trunk, he notes by
the tired look on the face of one girl that she’s been out late the night
before with a lover, accessing the situation as being “catch as catch can.” The
cheap perfume of a second girl smells to him “like a goat.” Turning to his
assistant he observes, “If we could get the run on this show I could make the
second payment for my kimono.” A third chorus girl hands him her boa saying, “Put
that in the trunk and don’t wear it.” He hisses back, “Selfish!” Later, when yet
another of the chorus beauties shows up with a pair of net stockings which, she
insists, have just a little a rip, he, inspecting it more carefully, declares: “A
rip? My dear, it looks like King Kong going to a masquerade.”
A moment later the producer Grady shows
up to tell the suddenly gathered cast the worst news first (he and his partner
are bankrupt). As he begins “You know how much I love you all,” Clarence
snipping back, “That’s the worst!”
“My partner and I are insolvent,”
announces Grady.
“Well, we can’t all be happy,” Clarence
quips.
While his lines alone may not be terribly
funny, his character is, and we can’t wait to hear what might come out of his
mouth whenever he’s around (not enough, alas, to save the film or the show its
actors are in). But not such Eadweard Muybridge’s two women walked up to one
another in 1887 to engage in a kiss or William Kennedy Dickson’s young men took
one another in their arms in 1894 to dance has a truly gay figure in film
really appeared to be enjoying himself. Far more than the Wildeian attempts at
wicked wit of the sad players in the band of boys gathered for a party in Mart
Crowley’s 1970 work, this queer boy from 1933 is perfectly delighted to throw
out a riposte for each and every occasion, while his subjects are equally
pleased to bow down to him for his superior naughty wit. What a gift this silly
little film has given us in Clarence. If they only knew it, Beatrice Banyard
and Boasberg might have handed over their collective BB-guns to Clarence to let
him take endless shots at the entire cast.
All we have left is a little buckshot in
the rear, as our resident queer, dining in the aforementioned Chinese restaurant
teaches Bonnell how to properly knit while he patiently sits for a while to
play straight man to her comic attempts to explain where she was born (“My Aunt
Minnie’s house.” “And where did this Aunt Minnie live?” “She moved.” “Exactly
where were you born?” “In the front room on Thursday morning.” “How do you know
it was Thursday?” “’Cause the next day they wouldn’t give me any meat.” It goes
on....) Tired of playing “second banana,” he stands, announcing “I’m a wreck. I’ve
been on my feet ironing all day.”
Moving off to another table, he declares
it’s his birthday so he’ll take every check, which once presented to him, he holds
out his hand out to ask politely for the money with which to pay them. Unlike Harold’s
birthday party in The Boys in the Band, no one goes home bitter or
unhappy here, for Clarence’s humor is never mean but simply points up all of
our self-delusions. I shall always imagine Myrt and Myrtle’s gay boy lounging
about in his kimono with a good book or even a cute boy waiting in his bed.
Los Angeles, April 6, 2021
Reprinted from My
Queer Cinema blog and World Cinema Review (April 2021).
No comments:
Post a Comment