NFR Project: 'Down Argentine Way' (1940)

 

NFR Project: ‘Down Argentine Way’

Dir: Irving Cummings

Scr: Rian James, Ralph Spence

Pho: Leon Shamroy, Ray Rennahan

Ed: Barbara McLean

Premiere: Oct. 11,1940

89 min.

A decorative little bauble of a film, it exemplifies an escapist American impulse that was soon to be sniffed out by World War Two.

It seems that FDR wanted to improve relations with Central and South America due to undue Nazi influence down south. This Good Neighbor Policy of his spawned several pro-Latin extravaganzas such as Flying Down to Rio (1933) That Night in Rio and Week-end in Havana (both 1941), and Disney’s The Three Caballeros (1944), efforts to “understand our southern neighbors,” as the propaganda put it. These somewhat condescending outings into a variety of cultural experiences purported to increase awareness and true understanding of these diverse cultures; however, it served as an inaccurate depiction of a culture studded with star-making turns by Betty Grable and Carmen Miranda.

Here, in garish Technicolor, the gossamer-thin plot concerns the falling in love of two rich kids, wealthy horse breeders Ricardo (Don Ameche, an Italian-American) and Glenda (Grable), whose families, misunderstanding things, complicate their relationship through misplaced hostility. There are several white actors playing prominent Latin American characters, including J. Carrol Naish, Henry Stephenson, and Leonid Kinskey. They are supported by a cast of entertainers, many not native to Argentina. In fact, this film was banned in Argentina due to audience outrage at Hollywood’s impression of their culture, which is illustrated in the film with Mexican and Caribbean cultural activities – rendering the film culturally tone-deaf.

The highlights of this are the performances of Carmen Miranda, the fabled “Brazilian bombshell.” She gets three numbers, as opposed to Grable and Ameche’s two. Still under contract to her New York nightclub, her parts of the film were made in New York studios and shipped west, to be inserted into the larger film as needed. She’s undoubtedly a beautiful and accomplished singer . . . but she got stuck in her introductory stereotype of the fruit-wearing, beturbaned dervish, a role she was destined to play ad infinitum.

The other big find, filmically, is Betty Grable. A thoroughly wholesome and unobjectionable blonde, she could sing, could dance, could do a light and gentle kind of comedy that the viewer can float on. She had been around, appearing in dozens of films, but this marked her big break. She became, with Rita Hayworth, a war-time bombshell that all the troops adored. She was regally beautiful, but she had a screen persona that was very normal, very approachable.

She gets to strut her stuff in some numbers here, when not punctuated with visits from Miss Mirands, and from the fabulous and amazing Nicholas Brothers, dancers extraordinaire which behoove you to look up and watch all their fabled onscreen dance routines.

This feel-good kind of family entertainment would become the standard for studio-driven comic American musicals, a trend that would last through the early 1950s.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Fantasia.

NFR Project: 'Dance, Girl, Dance' (1940)

 

NFR Project: ‘Dance, Girl, Dance’

Dir: Dorothy Arzner

Scr: Frank Davis, Tess Slesinger

Pho: Russell Metty, Joseph H. August

Ed: Robert Wise

Premiere: Aug. 20,1940

90 min.

It’s a rags to riches story, involving two women, one the victim of the other, both oppressed by their sexuality. It was directed by the sole female director in Hollywood in the 1930s, Dorothy Arzner (1897-1979). It is her best-known and most studied film.

Arzner made 20 films between 1927 and 1943. Her primacy as a director was such that she was not penalized for her sexual orientation – she was simply another among a crowd of studio directors. Her skill is evident, and the film is no better or worse than the typical studio output of the day.

It is interpreted as a feminist document by many film scholars. (It tried to arouse the potential audience's interest by proclaiming on one poster "NOT SUITABLE FOR GENERAL EXHIBITION/") It deals with two dancers, the innocent and aspiring young ballerina Judy (Maureen O’Hara) and the popular, cynical sexpot Bubbles (Lucille Ball). They are both looking for opportunity – but Bubbles, with her burlesque-level bumps and grinds, finds popularity much sooner. (Don’t miss the diminutive character actress Maria Ouspenskaya as Judy’s teacher.)

Soon, Bubbles is packing them in the burlesque theater. Judy goes on after her act, doing ballet and being thoroughly razzed by an unappreciative audience. She is the “good girl,” Bubbles’s “stooge,” employed to whet the appetite for the ensuing Bubbles. Meanwhile, both of them interact with a charismatic but moody millionaire Jimmy, still in love with his ex-wife  (Louis Hayward), Judy gets fed up with being objectified and berates the audience of horny males over their catcalls. Bubbles and Judy fight over Jimmy.

The two end up in court, where Judy gets ten days. She is bailed out by a beneficent ballet impresario, Steve (Ralph Bellamy), and told that she is a brilliant dancer and that he is going to elevate her to star status.

It is what was termed a “woman’s” picture – though Arzner took over the project from Roy del Ruth, who got fired – in the sense that it deals with emotions and questions of identity. Bubbles is happy to market herself like a side of beef, so she succeeds immediately. Judy holds on to her integrity and, by implication, her virginity, almost saintlike in her pursuit of her art. Bubbles gets the guy; Judy gets the career path she merits.

It's in some ways a comedy of manners, and at other times it veers into melodrama. It is all over the place, but it is firm in its address of the peculiar status of women in America at that time. Ultimately, these two women's fates are in the judgmental hands of men. The gulf between Judy and Bubbles, what makes them oppose each other, is not so remote from the dichotomy between the virgin and the whore.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Down Argentine Way.

NFR Project: 'Commandment Keeper Church, Beaufort South Carolina, May 1940'

 

NFR Project: ‘Commandment Keeper Church, Beaufort South Carolina May 1940’

Dir: Zora Neale Huston

Recorded 1940

42 min.

This is one I know only reputationally. I have no access to the actual footage. Therefore, I must point you to Fayth M. Parks’ excellent essay on it here.

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was a prominent and influential anthropologist and folklorist. She was recruited to go to this congregation in Beaufort, South Carolina, and to record their social and religious activities. This she did on May 18 and 19, 1940 – generating non-synchronous sound recordings at the same time. Prayers, songs, and sermons are documented.

It is thought to be invaluable for its insights into Black American vernacular culture. No one paid attention to the lives of ordinary people, let alone Black American people, on film; evidently this footage provides a rare glimpse into the social life of a certain race and class in America, and does so honestly. That in itself is a minor miracle.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Dance, Girl, Dance.