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The Monkey reviewed three plays on Broadway in the last year—Chaplin, Golden Boy and The Nance—giving each of them thumbs up to varying degrees. How did these productions fare in this morning's Tony nominations? Well, let's see:
Golden Boy received eight Tony nominations: Best Revival of a Play, Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play (Danny Burstein and Tony Shalhoub), Best Scenic Design of a Play (Michael Yeargan), Best Costume Design of a Play (Catherine Zuber), Best Lighting Design of a Play (Donald Holder) and Best Direction of a Play (Bartlett Sher)
The Nance received five nominations: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play (Nathan Lane), Best Scenic Design of a Play (John Lee Beatty), Best Costume Design of a Play (Ann Roth), Best Lighting Design of a Play (Japhy Weideman) and Best Sound Design of a Play (Leon Rothenberg).
Chaplin received one nomination: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical (Rob McClure).
Congratulations all around. And me? I feel lucky just to have been invited. (Click on the highlighted links to read my original reviews.)
We're on a Mary Pickford kick here at the Monkey, having taken in two Pickford silents at the AFI-Silver in the past week. And in her honor, we dug up a recipe for the Mary Pickford cocktail.
Allegedly invented for her on the spot by a bartender in Havana, the ingredients for the Mary Pickford are as follows:
1 1/2 oz light rum
1 oz pineapple juice
1/2 tsp maraschino liqueur
1/2 tsp grenadine syrup
Mix in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until your arm falls off, 30 seconds at least, preferably longer. Strain and serve very cold in a chilled cocktail glass.
By the way, do not confuse maraschino liqueur with maraschino cherry juice. Different things. One is a clear, dry liqueur distilled from sour Marasca cherries, the other is a disgustingly sweet more-candy-than-fruit garnish that graces ice cream sodas and the like. (I've seen a recipe for the Mary Pickford that dispenses with the maraschino liqueur altogether—apparently few bars these days stock it due to its expense. Up to you.)
There's also something called a Mary Pickford Collins, which involves licorice-infused gin, lemon grass syrup, and a bunch of other stuff I don't have. We'll leave that for another time.
(Would you'd rather make a Douglas Fairbanks? Click here for the recipe.)
Postscript: This is my thousandth post as the Mythical Monkey.
At first blush, Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall is a radical departure for its star Mary Pickford.
Based on a popular novel by Charles Major, Dorothy Vernon is a lavish costume drama set during the conflict between Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots. Pickford plays the title character, a real-life aristocrat who for reasons history has not quite remembered managed to alienate both sides in the battle of royal succession. The film is full of court intrigue, murder plots, sword fights—in short, the sort of movie Pickford's husband Douglas Fairbanks might have made during this period.
But as the story develops, the Pickford we know and love quickly emerges. She plays an adult role for once, but an eighteen year old on the eve of an arranged marriage to a scheming cousin who wants to use the occasion to attract the presence of Elizabeth, whom he plans to murder in a plot to put Mary Stuart on the throne of England.
If you know your British history, you know Mary Stuart never sat upon the throne of England so I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the plucky, feisty, bonny Dorothy—the traits most typical of a Pickford character—saves the day. (For more background about Pickford, click here.)
She succeeds with the help of her true love, Sir John Manners, essayed by Pickford's brother-in-law, Allan Forrest. (The film was a real family affair, with Pickford's sister Lottie playing Dorothy's lady-in-waiting.) Forrest plays his part in the Douglas Fairbanks style, with lots of swashbuckling and leaping about, and even throwing his back and laughing uproariously, a patented Fairbanks move.
And therein lies the film's weakness—Forrest is no Douglas Fairbanks. That fact is made abundantly clear in his very first scene, a shot of his wide muscular back as a doctor attends to wounds received in battle. Forrest was, in fact, a quite slender lad, and the back is doubled by none other than Fairbanks himself, who was filming The Thief of Bagdad one set over. I couldn't help but wonder how much more fun the film would have been if Fairbanks had actually played the role of John Manners. Not only would the acting and swordplay have been better, but the outsized nature of his magnetic personality would have short-circuited the need for so much character exposition that bogs down the beginning of the film.
But, alas, Fairbanks and Pickford made only one movie together, the 1929 talkie, The Taming of the Shrew.
Still, a Pickford movie is primarily about Mary Pickford, and she does not disappoint. She had one of the most expressive faces of the silent era, and one of the most appealing personas. Throw in the wonderful costumes and Pickford's stunt work performed herself when her double was injured—including a particularly dangerous gallop up a three-foot wide stair to the top of a narrow stone wall—and you've got a pretty entertaining movie on your hands.
The film wasn't one of Pickford's blockbuster smashes upon its release in 1924, but it did turn a tidy profit and was a nice prestige release for Pickford's studio, United Artists.
A newly-restored 35 mm print of the film is playing now in a limited run in select cities. Film historian Christel Schmidt, author of Mary Pickford: Queen of the Movies, will be touring with the film, as will Ben Model, who provides live musical accompaniment. If you get a chance to see it before it heads back to the archives at the Cinematheque Royale de Belgique, by all means, don't miss it.
We here at the Monkey want to take time out to say goodbye to our old friend and neighbor, George Jones. Not only was he one of the greatest singer-songwriters in country music history, he livened up the neighborhood when I was a kid—which is always a plus in my book. Rest in peace, Mr. Jones.
As part of its (hopefully) annual Silent Cinema Showcase, the AFI-Silver is showing the Mary Pickford film Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall this Friday, April 26, at 7:30 p.m.
Dorothy Vernon is a historical costume drama set during the conflict between Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots—a real change of pace for Pickford. This heretofore difficult-to-see film is a 35 mm restoration print assembled from elements found in the Cinematheque Royale de Belgique and the Library of Congress.
Ben Model will provide live musical accompaniment.
I can't wait!
As an added bonus, Christel Schmidt, the author of Mary Pickford: Queen of the Movies, will again speak, sign copies of her book and hang out after the show. I picked up my own copy of her book last Saturday and I can tell you, it's a steal at $36 (it lists for $45)—a five-pound coffee table-sized book filled not only with gorgeous photographs but also essays by Kevin Brownlow, Molly Haskell, Eileen Whitfield, Ms. Schmidt and many others. I have a feeling it's going to prove indispensable as I continue my own exploration of silent film.
I can testify (in court, if necessary) that Ms. Schmidt is smart, cool, redheaded and knows more about Mary Pickford than most people know about themselves. Come on down and meet her for yourself.
Don't live in the Silver Spring area? Pish posh! Two weeks ago, my brother and I drove 2800 miles in four days, covering the last 838 miles, from Madison, Wisconsin, to Baltimore, Maryland, in fourteen hours. And you've got a day and a half. Basically, nobody east of Kansas City has an excuse for missing this event.
Katie-Bar-The-Door and I promise to be there so be sure to say hello. We'll be easy enough to spot—we look just like ourselves!
For a dearly-beloved four-star classic, The Wizard of Oz was a troubled production, from start to finish.
The studio wanted Shirley Temple to star, couldn't get her, considered Deanna Durbin and Bonita Granville, then reluctantly settled for Judy Garland. W.C. Fields almost signed on to play the Wizard, but wanted a little too much money. Gale Sondergaard agreed to play a sexy Wicked Witch of the West then dropped out when the role changed, first in favor of Edna Mae Oliver then finally Margaret Hamilton. Buddy Ebsen, of course, began as the Tin Man before falling ill. Eddie Cantor was once upon a time considered for the Scarecrow. Fanny Brice and Beatrice Lillie were first choices for the Good Witch. And Leo, the MGM lion, was initially discussed as a possibility to play the Cowardly Lion before somebody came to their senses and cast Bert Lahr.
Even then, director Richard Thorpe was fired twelve days into filming—with good reason, it sounds like. He'd slapped a blonde wig and garish adult makeup on Judy Garland, and instead of an iconic yellow brick road, imagined round stepping stones instead. Jeepers! It took Victor Fleming to set the project right, and even then King Vidor filmed all the black-and-white scenes when Fleming left to rescue Gone With The Wind.
I've re-imagined the movie poster with maximum crapitude in mind (as always, click on the picture to see it full size). In the short run, The Wizard of Oz with Shirley Temple might have grossed more at the box office, but in the long run, I'm certain it would have been largely forgotten—when was the last time you watched her in The Blue Bird? Shirley, as great as she was, didn't have the musical chops to pull off "Over The Rainbow" or the range as an actress to capture the teenage angst Judy Garland brought to the role.
Neither does the notion of a sexy Witch work for me—Margaret Hamilton scared the bejabbers out of me as a kid and I think that's a very necessary element of this particular fairy tale, maybe of all fairy tales. Besides, Gale Sondergaard wasn't all that sexy to begin with.
And finally, though it was a brain his Scarecrow was seeking, Ray Bolger provided the film's heart. Can't imagine the movie without him.
Postscript: By the way, yesterday was Shirley Temple's birthday. And all I got her was this lousy poster.
Any review of a Broadway play starring Nathan Lane necessarily starts with Nathan Lane's performance, and when Nathan Lane's performance turns out to be one of the best of his career, your review can pretty much stop there, too.
That I start elsewhere and write five hundred words before getting to Nathan Lane—well, that's just what you've come to expect from the Mythical Monkey.
Set in 1937, The Nance recreates the "naughty, raucous" world of American burlesque in its lowbrow heyday just before its abrupt and unceremonious demise. A form of variety show popular in America from the 1860s to the early 1940s, burlesque featured songs, crude humor and striptease—with the striptease distinguishing it from vaudeville, music hall and "legitimate" theater. In terms of respectability, burlesque was the lowest of the low, but it gave us Sally Rand and Gypsy Rose Lee, and provided starts for Mae West, W.C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Jackie Gleason, Red Skelton, and many others.
It may be a limited world, but in it, nobody is better at making people laugh than Chauncey Miles—two-time Tony winner Nathan Lane in top form—a stage comedian who specializes in what was known as a "nance" act, an exaggeratedly camp gay character who served up ribald comedy and broad double entendres while at the same time serving as an object of the audience's derision and merriment.
That off-stage Chauncey is a closeted gay man makes him something of a crying-on-the-inside kind of clown. Indeed, Chauncey specifically likens himself to Bert Williams, the real-life African-American comedian who performed in blackface, and in a moment perhaps a bit on the nose, quotes W.C. Fields who called Williams "the funniest man I've ever seen—and the saddest man I've ever known."
The contrast between Chauncey's on-stage joy and his off-stage misery is the source of much of the play's drama.
Yet while homosexuality in 1937 is a crime, and meeting like-minded men is difficult and dangerous, a sort of shadow society has evolved, with carefully-observed rules and rituals summed up by the recurring punchline "I'll meet you 'round the corner in a half an hour." The cops make occasional sweeps of known gay haunts, and gay-baiting thugs work out their insecurities and repressed desires with their fists, but in the main, "respectable" society and its gay counterpart have reached a don't ask-don't tell arrangement for co-existing.
And as he does in the theater, Chauncey thrives in this deeply-compromised environment. He lives not so much for the meeting at the beginning of the ritual or the sex at the end, as for the thirty minutes in between, a half hour of exquisite anticipation that could end in a beating, an arrest, a trip to the moon on gossamer wings or even nothing at all.
Then two developments threaten Chauncey's carefully-disordered world—monogamy, in the form of a young man (Jonny Orsini), and unemployment, in the form of government censorship.
The difficulty of the former for someone addicted to the chase, you probably intuitively grasp. The latter was the work of Fiorello LaGuardia, the mayor of New York from 1937 to 1945. Although never appearing on stage, LaGuardia's impact on the story is as outsized as his impact on the city he governed. A reform-minded Republican, he supported FDR and the New Deal, cracked down on government corruption, and championed the rights of immigrants and minorities. He was also authoritarian, self-aggrandizing and priggish in the extreme, and he made it his mission to shut down the burlesque houses that were popular in New York at the time.
As his legal and professional status deteriorates, Chauncey falls back on old patterns. The old life is as risky and unsatisfying as ever, but it's also familiar, reminding us that even unhappiness can provide a measure of comfort if it's what you've know best.
That Nathan Lane can serve up so many genuine laughs while convincingly playing such a tortured (and in many ways, unlikeable) character is a testament to his real versatility as an actor. He doesn't soften Chauncey one bit, yet you feel for him. Nor does he shy away from the offensive nature of "nance" humor, yet you can't help but laugh with him.
I wonder how many reviewers have predicted that Lane's performance will earn him another Tony nomination—probably all of them—but in this case, I'd be shirking my duty if I failed to state the obvious.
Still, I'm going to be frank with you—The Nance is not for everybody, especially if the everybody in your group includes a homophobic out-of-towner and his blue-nosed great aunt. The production, directed by three-time Tony winner Jack O'Brien, features full frontal male nudity, exotic dancers in g-strings and pasties, and enough double (and single) entendres to fill out a drag queen's stage act.
Too, playwright Douglas Carter Beane tries a bit too hard to cover every base, touching not just on Chauncey's professional and personal problems, but also on union politics, right-wing hypocrisy, left-wing cowardice, New York parochialism, and a host of other issues. I mean, let's face it, when you introduce a Marxist-spouting stripper to the proceedings—and not for laughs—you're gilding the lily.
But all in all, these are minor quibbles. The point of the evening is Nathan Lane. And Nathan Lane is terrific.
The Nance is currently playing at the Lyceum Theatre in New York.
Yesterday was Harold Lloyd's 120th birthday—and I didn't get him a thing!
This evening at 7:30 p.m., though, the AFI-Silver is showing a brand new 35mm print of his comedy classic Safety Last!, and after the rousing success of yesterday's showing of Mary Pickford's Sparrows, Katie-Bar-The-Door and I have decided to venture out. The presentation will feature live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin and Joanna Seaton.
In a great theater with live music isn't the only way to see a silent movie, but it is the best. If you've never seen a silent film, this is a good one to start with. If you have, well, then what are you waiting for? Come on down and join us.
If you've been following my blog for any length of time, you know I'm a big fan of Mary Pickford and have written about her many times (e.g., here, here, here and here).
As part of its Silent Cinema Showcase, running from April 20 - May 4, the American Film Institute will be showing the 1926 Mary Pickford film Sparrows on Saturday, April 20, 2013, at its AFI Silver theater in Silver Spring, Maryland. The film will be presented with live musical accompaniment and begins promptly at 2 p.m.
In addition, film historian Christel Schmidt will be signing copies of Mary Pickford: Queen of the Movies, a collection of essays about the woman who, as I have written, is "pound for pound the most powerful woman in Hollywood history." The Monkey plans to be there, although I'm not sure whether I'll ask for Ms. Schmidt's autograph. Some people are a bit put off meeting a blog-typing sock monkey—maybe it's the fluffy stuffing, maybe it's the buttons for eyes.
Definitely will be buying the book, though. See you there.
If you're reading this blog, I assume you know the sophisticated comedy classic, The Philadelphia Story. Designed as a comeback vehicle for Katharine Hepburn, the movie won two Oscars (Jimmy Stewart as best actor, and best screenplay) and features what many consider the best performance of Cary Grant's illustrious career.
But if Hepburn had had her way, the movie would have starred not Grant and Stewart but Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy. That's right—Hepburn, who owned the film rights, wanted Gable and Tracy, and if they hadn't been tied up with other projects, that's who the studio would have cast.
And in the context of the times, you can see where she was coming from. Gable was the most popular actor in Hollywood, fresh off the smashing success of Gone With The Wind. And he'd made a career of taking the mickey out of upper class actresses—his Oscar-winning turn across from Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night, in the aforementioned Gone With The Wind with Vivien Leigh, and many others.
As for Tracy, he'd won two Oscars, and Hepburn's instincts that she and he would be good together was right on the money—they eventually made nine movies together, including such comedy classics as Woman of the Year, Adam's Rib and Pat and Mike.
Not to mention Grant and Stewart weren't necessarily sure things in early 1940. We look back on Hepburn's three previous films with Grant as being treasures, particularly Bringing Up Baby and Holiday, but the fact is, all their previous pairings had been flops at the box office—indeed, the colossal failure of the former is why Hepburn needed a comeback vehicle in the first place.
And while Stewart had earned an Oscar-nomination the previous year with Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, nobody was ready yet to put him on the Mt. Rushmore of acting.
But sometimes, not getting what you want is the best thing that can happen to you. While I'm certain The Philadelphia Story would have been a hit with Gable and Tracy, it would have lacked Grant's champagne fizz and Stewart's fevered act-three naivete. You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, and you don't mess with a movie that film guru Leslie Halliwell called "Hollywood's most wise and sparkling comedy."
Bonus Trivia: On Broadway, Joseph Cotten and Van Heflin played the Grant and Stewart roles, respectively.
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