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How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Hollywood? The rustic hopeful (Janet Gaynor) goes west, "a Cinderella of the Rockies," the folks prescribe sulfur and molasses for her movie fever. "The metropolis of make-believe" turns out to be overpopulated, aspiring ingénues become mere lights blinking on an agency's switchboard. Doing Garbo impressions while serving hors d'ouevres at a soiree is as good an entry as any, especially with the tippling matinee idol (Fredric March) helping with the dishes. "A little mild for today's tastes" is the verdict of the producer (Adolphe Menjou), through the glamor machine the newcomer goes—prodded and sprayed and painted and rechristened, the finished product is appreciated at the sneak preview but her leading man is already old news. Their marriage illustrates a warning from back home: "For every dream of yours you make come true, you'll pay the price in heartbreak." The first and last images posit a conscious illustration of a screenplay, the Technicolor surface (from the crimson of a "Crawford smear" at the make-up table to the auric sparkle of an Oscar statuette) looks like candy and tastes like vinegar. William Wellman's hard edge keeps the romance dry, the couple's first kiss has the heroine in anxious close-up half-shadowed like a crescent moon. (The bustling tangle of a screen test is remembered by Minnelli, so is the honeymooning trailer.) One name replaces another on the billboard, as simple as that, the cruelty of fame etched in a dozen vivid shades of bitterness from March. "Gentlemen of the Academy, and fellow suckers..." The grandiosity of the sacrificial stride into the Pacific is readily undercut by Lionel Stander's choleric press agent: "First drink of water he had in years." Cukor's official remake follows Antonioni's unofficial one (La Signora senza camelie). With Andy Devine, May Robson, Owen Moore, Peggy Wood, Elizabeth Jenns, and Edgar Kennedy.
--- Fernando F. Croce |