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A souring Cinderella out of Molnár, a Stroheim fairy-tale from Dorothy Arzner. Tipsily philosophical at the Trieste roulettes, a nobleman (George Zucco) contemplates the idea that money is the only thing that separates rich from poor and demonstrates with a nearby waiter. (His whim stops short of letting the servant taste champagne, "that would be cruel.") For the experiment he chooses a chanteuse (Joan Crawford) who's ambitious and quite literally starving, she digs into a hearty stew while he outlines the masquerade. "Where did you learn such charming manners?" "I go to the movies. I watch the ladies of your world." Two weeks in the Tyrolean resort, a new identity and a full wardrobe, the terrace and the lawn. In the pine woods the signorina gambols dreamily, she bewitches the engaged cad (Robert Young) and is bewitched by the proud mailman (Franchot Tone), who evinces a touch of poetry. A simple moral ("Find the place that fits you"), an ambiguous treatment (Lubitsch is concurrent with Angel). Arzner allows herself one elaborate shot, pulling back from a close-up of a small bell to crane over a teeming carnival, otherwise her camera remains close to her star-heroine, as befits an acidic account of image-construction. A matter of uniforms, as Zucco's Count would have it, the annual festival has aristocrats costumed like peasants while the chambermaid (Mary Philips) warily questions the metamorphosis. ("Very red, and with beads" is Crawford's gown at the gala, it brings a hush to the blueblood crowd one year ahead of Bette Davis in Jezebel.) Melancholy flute and delayed telegram break the spell, the pumpkin coach is a burro cart. Figurine and music box open and close the fable, "something to do with society, I guess." With Billie Burke, Reginald Owen, Lynne Carver, Dickie Moore, Paul Porcasi, and Frank Puglia. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |