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Friday, 18 July 2003 |
  Presumably to coincide with the release of De-Lovely, the new big screen biography of Cole Porter, Warners has released their 1946 Porter biopic to dvd for the first time. Whatever fictions and distortions are on view in the new film, they're nothing compared to the make-believe that this studio chestnut serves up. It's no surprise that Porter's homosexuality isn't addressed - this is a studio picture from the mid-40s after all - and it's not hard to see why Porter's crippling leg injury, actually the result of a horseback riding accident, originates here as a war wound. That's meant to lend him some heroism, Hollywood-style.
It's understandable then that Night and Day is worthless as biography. The real surprise is that it's also fairly worthless as glossy entertainment. This, despite the presence of debonair Cary Grant (in his first color film) and at least a dozen wonderful Porter tunes. Somehow it never gets going, neither as drama nor as musical, and I was ready for my day to turn into night long before it ended.
The scenes between the Porters (Grant, and Alexis Smith) wouldn't be convincing or particularly interesting even to those unfamiliar with their lives - the screenplay never gives a good reason for us to root for their relationship. According to this film, it all seems distressingly one-sided: she lifts his spirits after his first flop, she nurses him to health in a hospital for servicemen in France, she discreetly buys opportunities for him to have his songs heard after he recovers. About a third of the way through the picture, he says he won't take a handout and needs to go it alone - it's just about the only time he shows anything of the high-minded self-sacrifice that she has to carry around martyr-like for nearly all of the movie. Except for one scene after he has found success and means to woo her back, where she responds by playfully letting him believe that she has married someone else in his absence, there isn't much lightness with this screen pair. It's mostly dramatic dead weight. She sits on the sidelines, suffering from his inattention, while he racks up one success after another, absorbed in his work. When she finally realizes that he's never going to find the time for that vacation alone together that she keeps pining for, she leaves, with about half an hour left of the movie. I expected that the movie might, at this point, get purposeful and have him take real action to win her back. Instead, it keeps clunking along without her, still finding the time for a musical number or two from his shows. Even at the finish, you don't know what the screenplay could possibly hope us to make of all this; the spine she grew when she left seems to collapse again. Alexis Smith is a striking presence, and the camera, as always, loves Cary Grant, but I don't think anyone could have made all this seem like one of the great romances.
All the dramatic nonsense might be forgiven if the balance of the movie - the scenes where Porter's terrific classic songs are showcased - was a lot of fun. It isn't. There's something nifty about the number, early in the movie, where the dancers (led by Jane Wyman) move around canes that seem to float in the air. It's also a nice diversion when, late in the movie, stage legend Mary Martin (as herself) gets to perform a complete number. And although I didn't care for it, Monty Wooley's rendition of "Miss Otis Regrets" at least has some personality. Most of the other musical numbers are pretty drab - the movie turns just about all else into pageant, noting groups of people dancing or moving about in costumes from a short distance while someone sings out a Porter tune on the other side of the stage. You'd be forgiven if you thought, from this movie, that Porter songs only appeared in revues and floor shows and not in musicals. There are a couple of glimpses from one of the composer's greatest successes, "Anything Goes," which the movie shows in rehearsal outdoors on the lawns of the Porter mansion, poolside. These ought to be terrific numbers, but they never spark. It doesn't help that these suffer from the studio censorship of the day - rather than getting no kick from cocaine, as Porter's song goes, it's Paris perfume here.
There was always plenty to groan at in this movie, I'd wager, but I wanted to mention one moment that is particularly cringeworthy for audiences today. Late in the film, a black waiter is simply overjoyed to be waiting on THE Cole Porter and gets a line that is something like "Geez it must be great to be famous *and* well known!" and it seems a cue for the audience to laugh at his stupidity.
Starring: Cary Grant, Alexis Smith, Jane Wyman, Dorothy Malone, Ginny Simms.
Director: Michael Curtiz
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: G
Running Time: 128 minutes
Release: 1946
Reviewer: Patrick Lee |
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