LADY WITH RED HAIR (1940)

Neat, if fanciful, Bio-Pic on one of those symbiotic relationships between a novice actress (Miriam Hopkins) and her mentor/director (Claude Rains) that skirts the usual conventions.  Even romance, refreshingly moved to the side.  The actress is the once infamous Mrs. Leslie Carter, going into acting after a scandalous divorce.  (As per the film, to raise cash and gain custody of her little boy; it's pure Hollywood motivation.  Everything else at least hovering near the truth.)  Presenting herself to B’way’s magnificent megalomaniac David Belasco, producer/writer/director, a sort of sham Priest of the Theatre, unnaturally attired in clerical collar, living atop his own theater.*  (The apartment still there.)  Together, after a false step or two, they make magic, but once denied child rights in spite of success, she leaves him, produces on her own, marries a charming second-rater and flops.  Can this egotistical pair make up long enough for her next show to succeed?  A glorified B-pic from Warners (a budget too tight to afford articles in the title!), efficiently helmed by Curtis Bernhardt, a Euro-exile new in Hollywood.  Too bad he couldn’t hold the excitable Hopkins down in the opening courtroom scenes, pitched far too high for comfort.  (Directors really had to clamp down on Hopkins to keep her in line; see Lubitsch, Wyler, King Vidor.)  But get past the first reel and everything clicks into place once Mrs. Carter and Mom (a wonderful Laura Hope Crews) take rooms at no-nonsense Helen Westley’s theatrical boarding house.  These scenes are worth the whole film.  A bit dressier than the real thing, but sympathetically delineating a world of also-rans & dreamers with great turns from a load of character types (Mona Barrie, Victor Jory, Cecil Kellaway).  And once we do get to Belasco, a truly inspired idea to base the relationship not on the usual SVENGALI template*, but on Shaw’s PYGMALION (a recent smash on-screen for Leslie Howard & Wendy Hiller); it works like a charm.  Rains especially good, really letting loose as this Henry Higgins of a Belasco.  So hang tough thru the prologue to get to the fun.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Now largely known for two Puccini adaptations (MADAMA BUTTERFLY; THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST/LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST), Belasco, in his day, was all melodrama & stage realism, once buying an actual Bowery bar interior as a set.  Even more impressive, needing a cat to cross stage in the middle of a scene, he spent weeks training one, placing it in a slightly too small box for two or three hours before releasing it in the wings Stage Right and having a dish of raw chicken liver waiting Stage Left.  The cat not only never missed a cue, but would take a moment mid-stage for a stretch before finishing its cross . . . to nightly exit applause.  Now that’s showmanship.

DOUBLE-BILL: *John Barrymore plays SVENGALI straight in 1931 and then for comedy in TWENTIETH CENTURY/’34 with Carole Lombard as a decidedly feisty Trilby character.