Mark Griffin

by A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life;Films of Vincente Minnelli

  “This Heart of Mine: A Dance Story” was fashioned around a song featuring a lilting melody by Harry Warren and overripe lyrics by none other than Arthur Freed (“And then quite suddenly I saw you and I dreamed of gay amours. At dawn I’ll wake up singing sentimental overtures.”). The scenario was pure fairy tale: On a summer evening in 1850, a ball is in progress inside a glittering pavilion that resembles a gigantic wedding cake. The guests include Astaire, sporting a monocle and an expression of ne’er-do-well, and a tiara-topped Bremer, looking très distingué in a luxurious chinchilla wrap. In this gloriously artificial setting, Astaire’s suave imposter pilfers Bremer’s diamonds, though she doesn’t seem to mind, as he’s also stolen her heart. The “story” may have been slight, but who cared? As glamorous spectacle, the sequence achieves some kind of Freed Unit nirvana.

  If all that weren’t enough, “This Heart of Mine” also marked the first teaming of Minnelli and designer Tony Duquette, who created some of the exquisitely over-the-top trappings for the sequence. “Vincente and Tony were very close,” says designer and one-time Duquette assistant Leonard Stanley:

  The first movie Tony worked on with Minnelli was Ziegfeld Follies, which was done in 1944 but never released to the public until 1946. It was really made during the war when Tony was in the army and stationed at Long Beach or somewhere near the coast. He would occasionally go off by himself because he was doing these sketches for Vincente for Ziegfeld Follies… . One day, these two MPs saw him sketching. They actually thought he was a spy sketching the military layout of the camp that Tony was stationed at. But it was really all of these designs for Vincente’s movie. Tony—a spy! That just broke me up.1

  Astaire and Bremer’s second teaming, “Limehouse Blues,” was inspired by the haunting Gertrude Lawrence tune of the same name and Lillian Gish’s silent classic Broken Blossoms. The critics were all in accord that this sublime “dramatic pantomime” was the highlight of Freed’s Follies. Appearing in Oriental make-up, Astaire is Tai Long (“in his shifty slouch, one detects the characteristic movement of the outcast”). Tai inhabits a seedy waterfront world of streetwalkers, sailors, and drunken vagrants. Minnelli had a field day filling up his frame with all of the necessary types from Central Casting: a wizened Chinaman smoking an opium pipe, some overeager trollops, a band of raucous buskers, and a transient pushing a Victrola in a baby carriage.

  Out of the London fog appears Bremer’s Moy Ling (“to look into her eyes is to look into the solemn depths of a cathedral”). Clad in retina-arresting canary yellow, Moy is the only spot of brightness in Tai’s colorless existence. He is immediately entranced and begins following her. After observing Moy as she admires an Oriental fan in a shop window, Tai is mistaken for a robber and shot. On the brink of death, he falls into a hallucinatory delirium—though even in his fantasy, Tai’s search for the elusive Moy continues. Now in possession of the fan she once coveted, Moy uses it to lure Tai into the darkened depths of his subconscious. When he finally reaches Moy and touches the fan, all is suddenly light—and chinoiserie. They dance together and achieve the sort of harmonious union that wasn’t possible back in the real world. “Limehouse Blues” would be hailed as “the finest production number ever poured into a screen revue,” and Minnelli considered the end result “a total triumph.”2 The sequence is not only a visual stunner but also achieves something distinctly Minnelli: taking the viewer inside an unreality (Astaire’s dream) within a “reality” (MGM’s version of old Chinatown) that was itself a nonreality to begin with.

  “One of the things that I always remember about the mise-en-scène of ‘Limehouse Blues’ is that it’s really disorienting in terms of ‘film space,’” says Freed Unit scholar Matthew Tinkcom:

  You’re moving through all of these different kinds of dream-like layers and smoke and camera movement. As you’re watching, there comes a moment when you say to yourself, “I’m not in any kind of space of realism …” because in that sequence, we’re moving through psychological space. We’re into a landscape of the mind and fantasy and desire. What’s amazing about it is that it’s very atypical of Hollywood continuity. The thought about continuity was always “Do not disorient the spectator …” but here it’s done in a really powerful way. It’s about the Astaire character’s shock and grief over the loss of his own fantasy and being forced to leave the realm of the fantastic… . It’s really the same thing with Minnelli, who always wants to get back into the mental landscape because that’s so much richer and more interesting.3

  Although Norman Taurog or Robert Z. Leonard could have directed these Follies episodes in a more than capable manner, Minnelli managed to invest even the most stylistically fixated material with an unusual power and an undercurrent of emotionality that other directors on the studio payroll wouldn’t have considered. In other hands, Astaire and Bremer’s unrequited romance in old Chinatown would have been tossed off as cutesy pastiche, whereas Vincente takes his fantasy very seriously. Or as William Fadiman once observed, Minnelli “was a man who could honestly believe in make-believe.”4

  “Limehouse Blues” introduced a theme that would resurface time and again in Minnelli’s movies. A protagonist in search of romance, a more adventurous way of life, or an authentic self must go within in order to find it. While the outside world will inevitably disappoint, the inner world will uplift, heal, and complete.

  George Murphy, Minnelli, Fred Astaire, Arthur Freed, and Lucille Bremer welcome gossip columnist Louella Parsons to the set of Ziegfeld Follies. Astaire and Bremer are in costume for the extraordinary “Limehouse Blues” sequence. PHOTO COURTESY OF PHOTOFEST

  Fred Astaire had performed “The Babbit and the Bromide” on Broadway, but for the version of the number included in Ziegfeld Follies, he was paired with Metro’s other dancing virtuoso, Gene Kelly. “They were completely different,” Minnelli would say of his two stars. “Fred Astaire is very elegant, high up in the air… . Gene is very athletic and down-to-earth… . In Ziegfeld Follies, when they worked together, we thought they’d never finish, because they would upstage each other. One would say, ‘Well, now, suppose we try this step… .’ They Alphonse’d and Gaston’ed each step because they had so much respect for each other.”5 “The Babbit and the Bromide” serves as something of an extended “Coming Attraction,” as later in his career, Vincente would bounce back and forth between Astaire and Kelly vehicles.

  At one point, Judy Garland had been scheduled for “The Babbit and the Bromide,” along with virtually every other Follies sequence. “I Love You More in Technicolor Than I Did in Black and White” was to have reunited Garland with her frequent costar Mickey Rooney. When Rooney was drafted into the army, the sketch was shelved, and his reteaming with Garland would have to wait until 1948’s Words and Music. Judy ultimately ended up in a dynamite Follies sequence—one that had been cast aside by another star. The Freed Unit’s wunderkinds, Kay Thompson and Roger Edens, had conceived “The Great Lady Has an Interview” as a sort of self-parody for Greer Garson. The devastatingly witty number would offer Metro’s Oscar-winning grand dame an opportunity to let her hair down and spoof her own noble image.

  The irresistible sketch concerns a self-adoring star who comes complete with a butler named Fribbins and a prominently displayed portrait depicting her humble, barefoot beginnings. During a staged press conference, “the glamorous, amorous lady” sings the praises of her forthcoming biopic, “Madame Crematante”—a paean to the inventor of the safety pin.

  Upon hearing the piece, which one critic would later pronounce “as wholesome as a slug of absinthe,” Garson demurred. It was just as well, as by now the musical content of the sketch required the services of a legitimate showstopper. Enter Judy Garland. As Arthur Freed noted, “Judy loved doing sophisticated parts like ‘The Interview’ sequence … but mind you, that particular number was not one of her biggest successes, except with a certain group.” Of course, the group that Freed was referring to was the most fanatical and fiercely devoted component o
f Judy’s fan base—the gay men who were instrumental in forming the Garland cult. As biographer Christopher Finch observed, “Hard core Garland aficionados swooned over Madame Crematon [sic]. This was the Judy they had hoped for, the Judy of their most cherished dreams—a camp Madonna.”6

  Film historian David Ehrenstein recalled attending a screening of Ziegfeld Follies at a Greenwich Village retro house, and as the title card announcing Garland’s sequence appeared, the audience became especially attentive. “I remember there were these two guys sitting next to me and one of them said to the other, ‘Okay, here comes “The National Anthem.”’ It’s hilarious and it’s deeply hip at the same time… . There’s this wonderful combination of intense sophistication and naiveté of material in the Freed Unit musicals.”7 And more than a touch of lavender. The handsome newsboys who receive Our Lady of Culver City on bended knee and dance into the star’s sanctuary, linked arm in arm, could be charter members of Garland’s own fan club.

  Dancer Bert May, who plays one of the reporters in Garland’s sketch, made one of his first film appearances in Ziegfeld Follies: “I was only a teenager and here I am in a movie with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and Judy—I like to say I started at the top and worked my way down.”ab May remembered that it was actually Chuck Walters who staged and choreographed Garland’s “Interview.” Though Walters had carefully planned the sequence, Freed decided that Minnelli should shoot it. “Every bit of action in that number was mine. I almost cried,” Walters revealed.8 It wouldn’t be the last time that Minnelli and Walters would “collaborate” on a picture.

  Vincente and Judy were reunited for “The Interview”—but only while the cameras were rolling. After Meet Me in St. Louis, there had been a romantic detour. “Judy had left me,” Minnelli remembered. “She’d been seeing another man before we started going together. He was tortured and complicated and very much the intellectual. She simply gravitated back to him.” Of course, the deep-thinker in question was Joe Mankiewicz. Minnelli may have worshipped Garland’s star quality, but Mankiewicz was able to completely relate to Judy as a woman: “I remember her as I would an emotion, a mood, an emotional experience that is an event.”9

  The Clock: Minnelli directs Garland in MGM’s version of Central Park, 1944. PHOTO COURTESY OF PHOTOFEST

  10

  “If I Had You”

  “I PRODUCED The Clock to give Judy a kick. She wanted to do a straight picture,” Arthur Freed recalled—though at first, the producer didn’t think allowing his greatest musical star to appear in a nonmusical film was such a smashing idea. The moviegoing public knew and adored Judy Garland as a singing star, and they paid good money to see her musicals, buy her records, and snap up the sheet music of songs from her movies. The bottom line was that there was plenty of profit to be made whenever Judy Garland belted them out.

  After giving her all in one elaborate MGM musical after another, though, Garland longed for the opportunity to appear in a more modestly scaled production that would allow her to display her dramatic talents (which radio listeners had already been treated to, courtesy of broadcasts of Morning Glory and a nonmusical version of A Star Is Born several years earlier).

  Paul and Pauline Gallico’s unpublished short story “The Clock” had caught Freed’s eye. It concerned a lonely, wide-eyed corporal from Mapleton, Indiana, on a forty-eight-hour furlough in New York City who meets a secretary one fateful Sunday afternoon. After a courtship that redefines whirlwind, the couple marries before the soldier ships out again. It was charming. It was timely. There were no big production numbers. And in the form of New Yorker Alice Maybery, Judy had found her first dramatic screen role. Robert Nathan and Joseph Schrank (who had scripted Cabin in the Sky) were tasked with adapting the Gallicos’ poignant story.

  Designing Woman: Minnelli’s former fiancée, costumer Marion Herwood Keyes and his future wife, Judy Garland look over wardrobe designs on the set of The Clock. PHOTO COURTESY OF PETER KEYES (PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN)

  Robert Walker, who had already spent plenty of time in uniform, courtesy of MGM’s See Here, Private Hargrove, and Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, would play the lovestruck soldier. Jack Conway, the man who directed Metro’s first talkie (Alias Jimmy Valentine in 1928), was originally announced as the director of The Clock, but in June 1944, while shooting process shots on location in New York, he fell ill. Production was temporarily halted. When it resumed, Fred Zinnemann was at the helm. Almost immediately, it became apparent that although Zinnemann was a completely capable director, he was not suitably matched with the star.

  “I don’t know—he must be a good director but I just get nothing. We have no compatibility,” Judy reportedly told Freed.1 Others close to the production confirm that the lack of chemistry between director and star was an issue from the outset, though some believe that what also concerned Garland was the fact that the rushes revealed that Zinnemann had failed where Minnelli had triumphed. The luminous Judy of Meet Me in St. Louis was nowhere to be found in Zinnemann’s footage. Under Minnelli’s indulgent eye, Garland had blossomed as Esther Smith. On Zinnemann’s watch, her Alice Maybery was rather dull and ordinary. “The rushes came in and Judy said it looked like something out of The Search,” remembers Garland confidant John Meyer.2 Zinnemann’s semi-documentary style may have worked for that postwar drama, but it seemed far too somber for an MGM love story. Clearly something would have to be done. Just because Garland was going legit and playing a nonsinging secretary didn’t mean she had to sacrifice every ounce of her newfound glamour. Judy made up her mind: “One day, I went to the officials and told them I knew what the picture needed … Vincente Minnelli.”3

  While Freed stopped The Clock yet again, Garland summoned Minnelli to a lunch meeting at The Player’s Club, the site of countless off-the-lot conferences. Offering Vincente a preview of her dramatic abilities, Judy prevailed upon the same man that she had recently spurned. Her pet project was in jeopardy, and she would do anything to keep it afloat—even if it meant putting personal feelings aside and asking Vincente to take over the picture.

  Minnelli quickly realized that this was a working lunch and that his meeting with Judy had more than likely been orchestrated by Arthur Freed. Already a studio-savvy diplomat, Vincente agreed to take on the rescue mission, but only if he could talk to Zinnemann first and under the condition that if he did restart The Clock, he would be granted complete creative control. Minnelli conferred with Zinnemann, the future director of such four-star classics as High Noon and From Here to Eternity. The Austrian-born auteur vented about Judy’s unreliability but gave Vincente his blessing to carry on.

  And, really, who better to direct a New York love story than Metro’s own Greenwich Village refugee? Freed was also shrewd enough to realize that what they were after wasn’t so much New York “realism” but a back-projected facsimile of it—coated with a thick veneer of Metro gloss. Whatever cinema verité flourishes Zinnemann had hoped to introduce went the way of his aborted footage. This would be a wartime romance produced by Arthur Freed and directed by Vincente Minnelli, and any resemblance to actual urban realities was purely coincidental. The producer was hopeful that what Minnelli had done for turn-of-the-century St. Louis, he’d be able to do for Culver City’s version of the Big Apple.

  With Garland garnering inordinate attention for appearing in a nonsinging role, nearly everyone overlooked the fact that The Clock would be Vincente’s dramatic debut as well. Recognizing this as an opportunity to display his versatility, Minnelli was determined that the picture had to stand out. Before diving in, he looked into whether there was anything worth salvaging from Zinnemann’s efforts.

  When it was pieced together, Zinnemann’s footage evidenced none of the dramatic effectiveness of his recent Spencer Tracy vehicle The Seventh Cross. As Minnelli observed, “Each scene from the two [sic] weeks of footage shot thus far looked as if it came from a different picture. It was very confusing. I could see why Metro’s executive committee had canceled the project.”4 Althou
gh a minimal amount of material was retained from Zinnemann’s version, it was clear that Minnelli would have to start from scratch.

  “We tackled the script,” Vincente recalled. “We kept all the parts we felt were good, and tried to alter the rest… . I decided at once to make New York itself another character in the story and I introduced a number of crazy people.” In overhauling the script, Minnelli irked screenwriter Robert Nathan, who complained to Freed, “I still feel very strongly that when a director departs from the instructions in the script, he ought to—if only in politeness—discuss that departure with the writer before rather than after the scene is shot.” According to Vincente, much of what was removed from Nathan’s script were “sticky spots,” such as a sequence in which Robert Walker befriends a precious young lad in Central Park. “It was all terribly ‘darling,’” Minnelli would later remark. “Instead, I made [the boy] kick Walker and that made him more real, more human.”5

  Elsewhere, Minnelli attempted to give the script more atmosphere and local color, and for this he dipped into his own big city experiences: “I tried to remember everything about New York. I set out to create an unexpected gallery of people whose lives might conceivably touch that of the boy and girl.”6 For Vincente, New York had meant getting the job done amid constant distractions. While mentally fashioning an extravagant Josephine Baker ensemble in his head, a preoccupied Minnelli was often jolted back to reality by a boisterous cab driver or too inquisitive waitress. In other words, New York was about trying to accomplish something while 38 million other people have very different ideas.

  “Every Second a Heart-Beat …”: Corporal Joe Allen (Robert Walker) and Alice Maybery (Judy Garland) share a tender embrace in The Clock. “The thing was to tell the story of two people who couldn’t be alone,” Minnelli would say of the film’s young lovers. PHOTO COURTESY OF PHOTOFEST