- Directed by Mervyn LeRoy.
- Screenplay by Ernest Vajda, adaptation by Fanny Hatton and Frederic Hatton (yes, another husband and wife writing team), from a play by Lily Hatvany.
- This is the kind of film which – once it begins and you see its photography – makes you do a double-take on the production date. The camera setups and shot compositions are varied and creatively dynamic from the start (the view of the opera house doors across the canal, with that seated man visible in profile, in the far-right foreground of the scene? the shots of the radio broadcast, which capture perfectly positioned figures and action, in varied layers of visual depth? the pulled-back shot of the interior archway/door of Nella Vago’s hotel residence – but with the butler, his back to the camera, walking away, down the shot’s middle, to answer the door?) and are so brilliantly unlike most of the cinematography occurring in the films of this era…it begs for a bit of open-mouthed gawking.
(Based on the above shot descriptions, it might not be difficult to guess that the responsible party is one Gregg Toland.)
(What a fucking gem that man was.)
- Anyhow: Gloria Swanson is Nella Vago, opera star of the Venetian and Budapestian (?) stage – though, as her hesitant-with-praise vocal teacher Rudig (Ferdinand Gottschalk) is wont to point out: “Until you are asked to sing at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, you are not the big success you think you are.” Nella has a…dissatisfiedly ragey temperament, which may or may not be made worse by the presence of her fiancé, “his excellency” Count Albert von Gronac (Warburton Gamble) – who, though apparently a patiently loyal supporter of Nella and her career – might best be described as a bumbling, richling oaf-goon.
- Recently, Nella’s favorite hobby has been admiring the tuxedo-clad chainsmoker of a Handsome Man who sidewalk-paces beneath her window most nights. TopHat McPacer, it turns out, is Jim Fletcher (Melvyn Douglas, here making his film debut)(!), an ardent admirer of Nella’s talents and nephew-pal of former opera star the Marchesa Bianca San Giovanni (Alison Skipworth).
- The Marchesa disagrees with Jim’s enamoredly positive opinion of Nella’s voice – believing it to be too devoid of heart and emotion to merit much praise.
“No woman can ever be a great artist without love – without passion – without a great inside flame in her heart. If she were really an artist, she would sing with more than her voice – she would sing with her heart, and her soul, and her body.”
Teacher Rudig clarifies/confirms to Nella: “My dear, all great artists are lovers” (they don’t just “have” them); “For an artist, it is more important to love, than to be loved.”
- Gloria Swanson’s wardrobe in this film was designed by Coco Chanel. How awesome is that?!
- Another fun thing to mention: when our tale moves to Budapest, there is a waiter at the Hotel Regent who – with delightful expressivity – passes along some Nella Intel to Jim Fletcher…and he is played by Boris Karloff.
- Unfortunately, after Waiter Boris delivers his ‘Sir Jimbo – expect Nella Vago’s “surprise” drop-in imminently’ message – the film finds itself in (seemingly endless) Lullsville, in the form of a sequence set in the Jimster’s hotel suite in which – at last! – Nella and Jim are officially introduced. I think this scene is supposed to sparkle, Lubitsch-style, with clever, restraint-based intrigue and slow-boil chemistry – but instead, it just falls flat. For one thing, the sequence lasts wayyyyy too long – 19 minutes, aka: one-sixth of the movie – and for another, the dialogue that attempts to fill it contains way too much substance-less back and forth. So many words, arranged so unmagically – and delivered so un-dependently by Douglas and Swanson. Sadly, once in this room together, the pair produces very little heat. Crackling dialogue may have helped to disguise this, at least a little – but without that…the result is, rather disappointingly, a whole lot of boring.
- “He’s a gentleman when he takes your hand, and a gigolo when he takes your emeralds!” — Rudig, on Assumed Gigolo Jim.
- Oh, also: the day after her and Jim’s lasted-until-6-AM meeting, Nella turned in her first-ever Conrad-the-Butler-approved performance, earning her no fewer than 17 curtain calls.
(This also earned her a contract from Big Time Theatre Agent/Producer Jim Fletcher — but we’ll ignore that part, lest any of these morons piece together that Jim is, you know, Jim.)(How many American dudes named Jim are wandering around the opera circles in Venice and Budapest, we are begging these folks to wonder.)
- Nella’s second, far briefer meeting with Assumed Gigolo Jim (during which, it seems worthwhile to note, he returns Nella’s emeralds) is far more successful, chemistry-wise, than the first. Nella tells Jim that she can never see him again, as she is sailing immediately for America to begin the next chapter of her career – and though the melodrama of this scene is silly, we nevertheless believe the pain Nella feels, being forced to leave Jim behind forever.
- Everything is resolved in one final, two-minute scene – in which Nella asks Jim to give up his “profession,” he counters by asking Nella to give up hers, she says yes by ripping her (Jim-penned) contract to shreds, and then Real Aunt Marchesa waltzes in to congratulate Nella for being an awesome, heart-voiced singer, and Nella is like, ‘Y’all are who?!? What a serendipitous little joy-trip!’
- And then Non-Gigolo Jim and Nella get makey-outy over his almost-packed steamer trunk, The End.
- Toland’s photography is gorgeous, Chanel’s gowns are fabulous, and Ferdinand Gottshalk’s Role of Significance is a goddamn treat-blast. Other than that, this film lives somewhere in unspectacular Shrugsville.
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