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A Behind the Scenes Look at 'Lady in the Dark'

posted 14 years ago by todflet
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Here is a wonderfully detailed discussion by Bruce McClung of what Ginger Rogers had to contend with in portraying Liza Elliott in the film "Lady in the Dark", and an appreciation of her Lux Radio Theatre performance of the same role. This is followed by Ira Gershwin's comment on the absence of "My Ship" from the film. More on the film in "A Behind the Scenes Look at 'Lady in the Dark' - 2"

“In 1941 Paramount Pictures bid what was then the highest amount ever paid for the screen rights of a literary work, $285,000, [for ‘Lady in the Dark’]. Both [Kurt] Weill and [Ira] Gershwin hoped that Paramount would use their musical score, [but it was drastically cut and other music substituted].

“The studio enlisted Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett to write the screenplay. However, Mitchell Leisen, who was approached to direct the picture, rejected their adaptation [of the stageplay]. ‘[Producer] Buddy DeSylva called me and said that he had never expected to have to make it, but part of his three picture deal with Ginger Rogers was that she play this part, and for God’s sake, would I please agree to do it. I said I would not shoot the Hackett script. He said, “I don’t give a damn what you shoot. Just say you’ll make the picture.” So I went to Moss Hart and got his original prompt copy, and I came back to California and wrote the script of "Lady in the Dark." The Hacketts got credit but their script was thrown in the wastebasket.'

“Leisen’s screen play opens in a general physician’s office. After Liza’s checkup, Dr. Carleton recommends that she see a psychoanalyst. Liza is next seen arriving at the offices of ‘Allure’. Charley [Johnson, played by Ray Milland] presents his idea of a circus cover and, after feeling the lapel of Liza’s jacket, remarks that they must go to the same tailor. This prompts Liza to hurl a paperweight at him. Charley then discusses Liza’s ‘big executive pose’ with Maggie [played by Mary Philips]. This concludes the introduction, and we next see Liza in Dr. Brooks’s office, corresponding to the first scene of the stage play.

“From here the screenplay, like Hart’s script, alternates scenes in Dr. Brooks’s and Liza’s offices. Save for small changes, the only significant addition is a new scene. It occurs after Liza leaves for dinner with Randy [played by Jon Hall]. Whereas in the theater, audience members had to learn from Alison what transpired, the screenplay takes us to a posh nightclub. We see Randy express interest in Liza and her reaction to his advances. Charley and his date interrupt their romantic interlude. He informs Liza that in an evening gown she looks like a woman and admits that he is after her job. Insulted, Liza abruptly ends the evening. Charley’s snide comment exemplifies how Leisen ratcheted up the gender stereotypes.

“The film began a projected three-month shoot on December 9, 1942. Almost immediately, Rogers and Leisen clashed. According to Rogers, ‘Mitch’s interest was in the window draperies and the sets, not in the people and their emotions.’ According to Leisen, for a story about psychoanalysis, Rogers, a cheerful and well-adjusted Christian Scientist, ‘didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.’

“Because of the film’s complexity, two extra assistant directors were required. Leisen passed over his longtime assistant, Chico Day, for the more important of the two positions, and instead gave it to a friend of his partner, Billy Daniels. Havoc ensued among Leisen’s staff. His decision had upset the seniority ranking of the unit, and to punish him, the staff became as uncooperative as possible. So tense were working conditions that when Leisen’s secretary smiled at him one day on the set, he looked over his shoulder to see whom she might be addressing.

“For the climactic musical number, Rogers and Leisen butted heads one last time. He wanted ‘Jenny’ to be sexy, the way [Gertrude] Lawrence was performing it [on stage]. Rogers balked, telling him it would hurt her girl-next-door image. They proceeded to shoot the number, each attempting to outwit the other. ‘When we came in for the closer shots,’ Leisen remembered, ‘she kept covering her legs up with the skirt. So I moved the camera way back, but put a long lens on so we got a full figure of her showing the legs.’ Unbeknown to him, Rogers’s stiletto heels were catching in the hemp rug on the floor, and the static electricity from closing the mink dress was giving her shocks.

“Although budgeted at $2.3 million, ‘Lady in the Dark’ climbed to $2.6 million by the end of the shoot on March 20 [1943]. This gave the film the dubious distinction of being the most expensive picture ever made since ‘Gone With the Wind’. Contractually Paramount could have released ‘Lady in the Dark’ while the stage tour was winding down; however, the film lay on the shelf for well over a year. Concerned with the exorbitant price tag, Paramount was quick to publicize that the rights had been purchased and the production planned prior to America’s involvement in WWII. The studio was so jittery about the film’s topic that the publicity campaign excluded all references to its subject matter. The advertisement ran with the banner, ‘The Girl of the Moment … with the Loves of the Year … in the Picture of a Lifetime.’ Small inset pictures featured the star alone (‘Ginger Rogers: A Minx in Mink with a Yen for Men’) and with each of her suitors. From the sales pitch, no one would have guessed that the picture had anything to do with psychoanalysis.

“ ‘Lady in the Dark’ was first shown on February 9, 1944, at the Paramount Hollywood Theater. Critics were divided. Those from the ‘Hollywood Reporter’, ‘Variety’, and ‘Daily Variety’ all gave it an enthusiastic thumbs up. The first critic wrote, it is ‘not enough to say it is one of the most beautiful pictures ever made,’ but ‘possibly THE most beautiful.’ All three critics roundly praised the film’s physical production, especially the Technicolor achievement. Ginger Rogers’s portrayal of Liza Elliot was similarly commended: ‘Daily Variety’ claimed that her performance ‘was second to none she has ever done,’ and the ‘Hollywood Reporter’ called it her ‘greatest performance.’

“Writing for newspapers outside the entertainment industry, Dorothy Manners, Edwin Schallert, and David Hanna had less flattering things to say. Manners delivered the backhanded compliment, ‘Ginger … wears her gowns marvelously’; Schallert reported, ‘Technicolor photography is not kind to Ginger Rogers’ in this, her first color feature; and Hanna decided Rogers was ‘no longer a beauty’ and her dance with Don Loper was ‘decidedly second rate.’ He concluded, ‘The picture’s impressive production stature neither awes the spectator into liking it nor camouflages the fact that the story is old hat.’

“The next day, ‘Lady in the Dark’ also opened at L.A.’s Downtown Paramount. Despite the mixed reviews, both venues reported breaking box-office records for an opening day, Hollywood by 40 percent and Los Angeles by 48 percent. For East Coast promotion, Paramount sponsored live trailers in the form of fashion shows featuring costumes from the film. In New York, the studio recruited five hundred women from various branches of the U.S. Armed Forces to watch the parade. Despite the opulence of the fashions on the runway, the attendees were all dressed in uniform. Hoping to cash in, Saks reintroduced ‘Lady in the Dark’ perfume with a new sales pitch, ‘A subtle moving fragrance that makes an enchantress of any woman, even an executive … for the important spring evenings ahead.’

“In New York, ‘Lady in the Dark’ opened at the Paramount Theatre in Times Square. The following day the ‘New York Times’ reported that approximately twenty-three thousand people had paid about $22,000 to see it for ‘the biggest opening day in the history of the theatre.’ By the end of the week, ‘Lady in the Dark’ had broken the record set by ‘Star Spangled Rhythm’ with Benny Goodman and Frank Sinatra the previous year, by grossing $123,000. As part of the publicity, a ‘distinguished psychiatrist … with degrees from two universities’ analyzed the film for ‘Coronet’ magazine.

“One inexplicable omission in the film was that ‘My Ship’ was never sung. A bemused Gershwin jotted off a note to Weill: ‘I attach a small clipping from the ‘Citizen News.’ I take it to mean that there must have been many inquiries about what the hell Liza was humming all through the film. At Arthur Schwartz’s party the other night I asked Ginger Rogers about the song. She said she had made a charming rendition and had no idea why it had been cut. She suggested that I call Mitch [Leisen].’ Leisen in turn claimed that the decision to cut ‘My Ship’ had been DeSylva’s, not his: ‘We had made a live recording of Ginger singing it right on the set, and she sang it a cappella in the park with the boy [Ben] as the band played ‘Ain’t She Sweet’ in the gymnasium dance. But Buddy [DeSylva] put his foot down. He couldn’t stand Kurt Weill and he couldn’t stand that song. Having been a songwriter himself, he was adamant about it. It was vital to the story, the one spot where she remembers the lyrics finally, after being haunted by the tune through the whole story. The whole picture hung on that song. I said, “You’ll take it out over my dead body,” but I was overruled.’

“After the film’s general release on August 21, it racked up $4.3 million, making it the fourth-largest grossing film of 1944. Yet despite its box-office success, the film is a major disappointment. Paramount did not use most of Weill’s score; instead, numbers by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen, Clifford Grey and Victor Schertzinger, and Robert Emmett Dolan were interpolated. Leisen, who had never directed a musical, tried to turn it into a psychological drama. Despite DeSylva’s discomfort with the idea that Liza is suffering from an Electra complex (harboring unconscious sexual desire for her father), Leisen won out, with the play portion of ‘Lady in the Dark’ surviving mostly intact.

“As a result, the dream sequences had to be sacrificed. The nearly twenty-five-minute ‘Glamour Dream’ was hacked down to less than five; the ‘Wedding Dream’ suffered a similar fate. Only the ‘Circus Dream’ survived relatively unscathed. Throughout the film many of the musical numbers were robbed of their context. On stage, ‘This Is New’ signified the budding relationship between Randy and Liza. In the film, the principals never sing the replacement song, and Ginger Rogers dances with a character who is never identified, as Randy looks on. In the original, each of the sequences is built to a musical climax; in the film, they all fade innocuously back into Dr. Brooks’s office.

“What had been literate in ‘Lady in the Dark’ was dumbed down for the film. Instead of letting the viewer discover Kendall’s role, Dr. Brooks says flatly, ‘Isn’t it because your affection for Kendall Nesbitt is based on the fact that he resembles your father? That you have, in fact, transferred your love for your father to him?’ Because most of the music consists of instrumental arrangements by Robert Russell Bennett, virtually all of Gershwin’s lyrics were cut.

“Rogers gives her portrayal of Liza Elliott gravitas, which underscores the work’s dramatic pretensions, and Ray Milland softens some of Charley Johnson’s harder edges. For the snippets of ‘My Ship’, Bennett’s orchestration employs the Theremin, an early electronic instrument. The film and its 350 specially designed costumes look every bit the nearly $3 million that it cost.

“A year after the film’s release, Rogers, who had hawked Lux Toilet Soap in the pages of ‘Photoplay’ since 1935, appeared in Lux Radio Theatre’s one-hour adaptation. Joining Rogers from the film was Ray Milland. Because of airwave restrictions, some of ‘Lady in the Dark’’s adult themes had to be sanitized. Kendall and Liza no longer live together, and their relationship is nonphysical. [Sketch writer Sanford] Barnett excised all of the swearing, and even the word ‘sex’ had to go (Charley’s line became ‘Rage is a pretty good substitute for love’). The script omitted all of the music except ‘My Ship.’ Typical for radio drama, musical bridges tied the scenes together. The listening audience was reportedly more than thirty million.

“Lux broadcast ‘Lady in the Dark’ on January 29, 1945, from Hollywood’s Vine Street Theatre, and CBS carried it on the airwaves. The cast members were all formally dressed and seated on stage. The spoken introduction always worked in a plug for the sponsor. In this case, the combination of ‘dark’ and ‘lux’ proved irresistible: ‘Now, of course, the meaning of tonight’s title, “Lady in the Dark”, is a lady who’s in the dark about herself. And not a lady in the dark about Lux Toilet Soap. Although they may be one [and] the same thing. A lady who isn’t sure of her appearance may prefer a dim light, while a woman with a captivating, smooth complexion wouldn’t choose to stay in darkness very long. Now if you recall your Latin you’ll remember the word “lux” means light, so if by any chance you are a lady in the dark yourself, perhaps, the easiest solution to your problem is Lux Toilet Soap.’

“After the introductory scenes, the remainder of the play follows the outline of the film. Here, however, Rogers sings a full rendition of ‘My Ship.’ Unlike most actresses who step out of character for the number, she continues using her high school voice, even ad-libbing a girlish “la, dee, dee.” Rogers’s performance here is much more convincing than in the Paramount film. One gets the distinct impression that given what amounted a second chance at ‘Lady in the Dark’, she tried to redeem herself. Due to the broadcast’s success, Lux [chose] to encore ‘Lady in the Dark’ nine years later."

– Bruce D. McClung, "Lady in the Dark: Biography of a Musical" (2007), pp. 168-177
(http://www.amazon.com/Lady-Dark-Biography-Bruce-McClung/dp/019538508X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271437000&sr=1-1)

Ira Gershwin on the film:

"Later, when 'Lady in the Dark' was filmed, the script necessarily had many references to the song. But for some unfathomable reason the song itself—as essential to this musical drama as a stolen necklace or a missing will to a melodrama—was omitted. Although the film was successful financially, audiences evidently were puzzled or felt thwarted or something, because items began to appear in movie-news columns mentioning that the song frequently referred to in 'Lady in the Dark' was 'My Ship'. I hold a brief for Hollywood, having been more or less a movie-goer since I was nine; but there are times..."

-- quoted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Ship

[–] todflet 14 years ago

This interesting analysis of “Lady in the Dark” is by Edward Gallafent, from his book “Astaire and Rogers” (2000 in UK, 2002 in US), which looks at all the films they made, together or separately, from “Flying Down to Rio” to “The Barkleys of Broadway.” He is interested in how each film builds upon preceding ones, and focuses on the issues they treat. In the case of “Lady in the Dark” he illuminates aspects of the film and its production that have led to misperceptions of Ginger Rogers’ performance by most commentators. It helps clear the way for a proper appreciation of her achievement in this film.

“ ‘Lady in the Dark’ (Mitchell Leisen [director], 1944) is set in the editorial offices of ‘Allure’ magazine, dubbed by one character ‘a world of women’, but in fact totally controlled by men. As the editor of ‘Allure’, Liza Elliot (Rogers) exercizes power over her staff, but she is also explicitly the person through whom a group of three men relate to this women’s world. Kendall Nesbit (Warner Baxter) represents the power of capital: he is a businessman who financially underwrote the setting up of the magazine and wants to marry Liza if he can negotiate a divorce settlement. Randy Curtis (Jon Hall) is a Hollywood star who poses for the magazine and also wishes to marry Liza. Charlie Johnson (Ray Milland) is one of two men working for ‘Allure’; he wishes to replace Liza and become editor of the magazine, believing that jobs which confer power are the property of men and for a woman to have such a job is ‘flying in the face of nature’. The other man working for ‘Allure’ is photographer Russell Paxton (Misha Auer), who is coded as gay and is the only one of the four who shows no desire to assert power over Liza.

“In the face of these pressures, Liza both dresses and behaves in a way that for the men of the film (particularly Johnson) defines her as mannish rather than feminine. That she is also deeply unhappy, anxious and depressed is hardly surprising, given her situation. But the film is not about that situation, or rather not directly. It overlays it, and in part conceals it, with another, psychoanalytic discourse. In other words, the possibility that Liza’s feelings might be directly, or simply, produced by her current situation is ignored, and it is assumed without hesitation that the explanation for them must lie elsewhere.

“The film begins with Liza submitting to the power of two more men: Dr Carlton (Edward Fielding) and his psychoanalyst colleague Dr Brooks (Barry Sullivan). Dr Brooks starts with a clear demonstration of power, insisting that he will accept Liza as a patient only if she submits to analysis there and then.

“With the help of several dream and flashback sequences, the analyst duly comes up with an explanation for Liza’s condition. We are made aware of her absolute love for her father – ‘I … thought he was the most wonderful man in the whole world’ – and the narcissism and indifference of her mother (under analysis, Liza recalls her mother flirting while she is trying to sing for her). These things having been established as the cause of Liza’s condition, the analyst tells her that she has ‘attempted to dominate all men’. She is advised to find a figure who will dominate her. Of the three suitors, Nesbit and Curtis abruptly prove weak at this juncture, leaving her to choose the unremitting dominance of Johnson – ‘I’ve always had to win because I’m me’, he remarks. Misha Auer closes the film by pronouncing that this is the end, the absolute end.

“Through Auer, ‘Lady in the Dark’ may perhaps register a sense of its own preposterousness, even of its deeply reactionary project, both in its presentation of women (and men) and of its appropriation of psychoanalysis as no more than a tool to allow it to elucidate the patient’s trauma in such a way that the advice can be to reimpose its conditions. This is not, incidentally, a comment on the stage show by Moss Hart, Ira Gershwin and Kurt Weill on which the film was based – the distance between the two is considerable. [Director] Leisen claims to have written the film himself on the basis of Moss Hart’s ‘original prompt copy’. Then again, the film was not released as Leisen shot it. Two numbers that had been filmed but were then cut by the producer, Buddy DeSylva, might have gone a little way to reduce the emphasis on male empowerment in the released version. These were ‘Tchaikovsky’, a major element of the stage success that was sung in the film by Misha Auer, and ‘My Ship’, an a capella number sung by Rogers in a high-school flashback.

“Reservations about ‘Lady in the Dark’ often seem to centre on the performance of Rogers, rather than on the film’s project. The idea that Rogers was somehow not clever enough to ‘understand’ the film, or – outrageously – not mentally unhealthy enough for it … seem to endorse the values of the film. The explanation that the actress is somehow psychically ‘wrong’ involves ignoring the disgraceful circumstances in which she is having to operate, at their clearest in the unredeemedly sexist and sadistic role of Charlie Johnson. Ray Milland, who played the part, subsequently commented that ‘everybody thought “Lady in the Dark” was so wonderful at the time, but I always disliked it.’

“Rogers notes in her autobiography that ‘Lady in the Dark’ was her first film in colour, and then tells us how little she liked it, a view evidently shared by almost all the Hollywood professionals involved, even though the film was a substantial commercial success. The decision to film in colour emphasized the glamour of haute couture and glossy magazine publishing. But … the exotic and glamourous here is always negatively conceived as troubling and threatening. This is not only true where we might most obviously expect it, in her first two dreams, which are nightmares, but also in the set design of her waking world, for example in the clouded, fragmented mirror over the mantelpiece in her apartment and the oppressive bed-head in her boudoir. Even the offices of ‘Allure’ are decorated with portentous artwork rather than, say, fashion stills. The only exception to this atmosphere are the circus dream-sequence and Rogers performance of ‘Jenny’, but this song, no longer preceded in the film by the ‘Tchaikovsky’ number to which it had been a response in the stage show, seems to have little to do with the narrative that surrounds it." pp. 202-204

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Here's an insightful review of the problems which plagued the production of the film:

"First Rogers fell afoul of Paramount studio chief Buddy DeSylva, a minor songwriter and crude vulgarian, who felt 'forced' to produce the movie. DeSylva also hated the show's composer Kurt Weill and, perhaps in retaliation toward both Rogers and Weill, gutted virtually the entire score and thus the heart of the show. Director Mitchell Leisen, a rather nasty and self-loathing character, got off on the wrong foot with Rogers even before shooting. Leisen, who Billy Wilder called 'a window dresser,' looked down his nose at Rogers, pumped up the script's hatred of women, and put his energy into mink, sequins, gaudy hats, dry ice, and lots and lots of boys in tights.

"And so one of Broadway's finest musicals became a gaudy Technicolor fashion parade interspersed with scenes of unbelievably unpleasant misogyny. With virtually no musical numbers to perform (including 'My Ship,' the song which holds the key to Liza's subconscious), and with a director who disrespected and humiliated her on the set, Rogers didn't stand a chance. Despite her skill and effectiveness in some moments, she comes off as cold and hard in the dramatic scenes and garishly over-emphatic in the dreams. Meanwhile, her character endures two hours worth of condescension and hostility. On first viewing it's hard to even look at her fierce and unhappy performance, though if you can stand to watch the movie a few times, her work actually begins to look like a triumph against the odds.

"As Martin Scorcese (a fan of this film) points out, the climax comes in the one musical number to survive intact from Broadway. The band strikes up 'The Saga of Jenny,' and Rogers opens up her skirt to reveal the most gorgeous pair of legs in movie history. As she shimmies her hips a couple of times, we get a taste of the audacity and exhilaration this show should be about. However, the famous jewel-encrusted mink skirt (designed by Leisen, of course) weighed 35 pounds and Rogers had to hold it up through the entire number; meanwhile, her high heels kept getting stuck in the hemp rug he laid down. She still manages to pull it off, but just barely. In a Lux Radio broadcast of 'Lady' a year later, she also performed a sweet and delicate reprise of 'My Ship.' Her original, performed a capella in counterpoint to 'Ain't She Sweet,' and then hacked out of the movie by DeSylva, is presumably decomposing in a Paramount vault somewhere in Hollywood. Ginger Rogers' career lasted another 40 years or so, but if you love her like I do, you have to deeply regret this movie -- the greatest and most unhappily lost opportunity of her career." -- laddie5, "But the pearls and such, they don't mean much...", IMDb review (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037000/usercomments)

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Arlene Croce's view of Ginger's difficulties in the film:

“ ‘Ginger Rogers Dreaming’ might be the title of some essay on the iconography of the Forties, and with more spark and less fluff ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’ might have been the definitive portrait of a certain kind of innocent all-American bitch. It’s halfway to being that already, and Liza Elliot in ‘Lady in the Dark’ is halfway to being that same character ten years later. Liza can’t make her mind up either – she even sings a song about it, ‘The Saga of Jenny’ – and, of course, she’s in analysis. Rogers got bad notices for presuming to take on a role that Gertrude Lawrence had done on the stage, but there’s very little of Gertrude Lawrence in the movie version. Instead there’s a tense and troubled Rogers (a tense Rogers is a contradiction in terms) struggling hopelessly with the most lugubrious conception of her character to date. All the elements were there – the wedding, the dream sequences, the kid act, even the three suitors were there – and most of them had been in the show. The movie didn’t ‘distort’ Moss Hart’s book. But it did distort the Ginger character: the brash sexual egotism that made the heroine of ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’ so awesome and so funny – you felt that no man could possibly love her more than she loved herself – became a kind of chilly narcissism, the screwball became a walking identity crisis in tight hairdos and dun-colored suits, and instead of being alluring and potent in her dreams she was garish and monstrous. Ginger Rogers was the Lady in the Dark, but by the time the character came back to her as Liza Elliot in 1944, the dopey spoof-psychiatry of ‘Carefree’ had been replaced by the pretentious, solicitous, loaded symbolism of popularized Freud. This was the ‘sophisticated’ version of Ginger Rogers and a mess of a movie.

– Arlene Croce, “The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book”, pp. 144-46

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You can buy a dvd of "Lady in the Dark" at

http://www.ioffer.com/i/Lady-in-the-Dark-DVD-Ginger-Rogers-Ray-Milland-8-120495107?source=eisi&sq=lady+in+the+dark+ginger+rogers

Although it's not high quality, it's good enough (better than Youtube), and cheap.

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[–] todflet 14 years ago

Brenel, you should check out the book by Bruce McClung, "Lady in the Dark". It's an amazingly detailed and interesting account of all aspects of the stageplay, music, film, radio and other remakes, with tons of photos. It also demonstrates just how close the film stayed to the stageplay, so that the roots of many of the off-putting (sexist) aspects of the film can be seen. Of course Leisen, and de Sylva, intensified them.

Thanks to your recommendation I bought the collection of Ginger's radio performances at eBay ... boy is it worth the money!! Her "Lady in the Dark" is just delightful. She sings "My Ship" so beautifully, as a teenager (she's in the park with Ben) who just manages to remember the words she sang as a little girl. Her rendition of the song is simply ravishing! Much better than Gertrude Lawrence's, who just belts it out without any attempt to capture its childlike quality.

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[–] todflet 14 years ago

You can tell what a tremendous professional Ginger Rogers was by how she could handle hostility from her directors (Sandrich, Leisen, etc) and fellow actors (e.g., she tells a story about hostility from William Holden and Paul Douglas in her autobiography). Her performances never suffer. She was tough; she had to be. Yes, the cutting of "My Ship" is just unbelievable! She was a great radio actress -- she had amazing voice control.

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[–] todflet 14 years ago

I agree! Her performance is superb in "The Saga of Jenny", and she looks fabulous too! She had to dance in stiletto heels on a hemp rug, in a dress that weighed a ton. She managed to sing beautifully, act marvelously and look gorgeous all at the same time! The more you watch the movie, the better you appreciate it.

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[–] todflet 14 years ago

Why Irene Dunne?

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[–] todflet 14 years ago

There is a CD of "Lady in the Dark" in "The Broadway Musicals Series", with recordings of the music sung "by members of the original Broadway cast" (Prism Leisure PLATCD 999 [http://www.amazon.com/Lady-Dark-Gertrude-Lawrence-Danny/dp/B002UMFQZU]), where you can hear how Gertrude Lawrence sang, as well as Danny Kaye and the chorus. There seem to be some other, similar releases on cd too. Lawrence's rendition of "My Ship" was nowhere near as sensitive and appropriate to the context as Rogers' (her radio version is the one I have heard).

I agree about Dunne's terrible singing in "Roberta"; so completely inappropriate for the movie! And her attempt at jazzy singing in "Showboat" is notoriously bad, even comical, as well. I'm afraid I don't see how Dunne could have helped out a film so grievously served by director and producer. How would Dunne at her greater age have handled the scenes as a little girl (in "The Saga of Jenny") and a teenager (in the flashback to the prom)? There is no difficulty in imagining Ginger's Liza as older than the real-life Ginger, so the age argument works for her, not against her. Ginger Rogers was not the problem with this film!

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[–] todflet 14 years ago

<<Irene Dunne had been offered the role on Broadway, and only after she turned it down, due to other committments, was it offered to Gertrude Lawrence, who was not necessarily right for it, since Liza wasn't British. Dunne was again first choice for the movie, and again turned it down due to a busy schedule.>>

Bruce McClung's extemely detailed, deeply researched account of the casting for the Broadway show runs counter to your version. He says "[Moss] Hart was losing patience [with Gertrude Lawrence's delay in accepting the role of Liza] and demanded a signed contract or the whole thing would be off. He even entertained offering the part to Irene Dunne instead." ("Lady in the Dark: Biography of a Musical," p. 84) This is the only appearance of Dunne's name in the whole book.

All accounts of Ginger Rogers' casting as Liza mention the role as part of her negotiated three-picture contract with Paramount. On p. 169, McClung quotes Leisen: "Buddy DeSylva called me and said that he had never expected to have to make it [the film], but part of his three-picture deal with Ginger Rogers was that she play this part, and for God's sake would I please agree to do it." (McClung is quoting from Chierichetti's book on Leisen.) So it's very hard to see how Dunne could have been "first choice for the movie, and ... [have] turned it down." According to the AFI film notes, "A Mar[ch] 1942 news item reported that Paramount was negotiating with Fred Astaire to re-team with Ginger Rogers, with whom he had not performed in five years, on the picture." (http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=24034) No mention of Dunne at this source.

You mention in your post on this thread of June 2 that << as Chierichetti wisely points out, Irene Dunne would have been ideal casting, but she was too busy with other film commitments, and had actually been offered, and turned down, the Broadway show. >> I would be very interested and appreciative to know what Chierichetti based his wisdom on, as the quote from his own book above seems to offer no support for the claim that Dunne was ever offered the part for the stage version or was ever even considered for the film version.

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[–] todflet 14 years ago

Good points, brenel! I've decided that much of what is unsavory in the film is a direct import from the play. Nobody ever criticizes the play for its (now repulsive) script, most of which Leisen kept, word for word, in his own warmed over version. And then he added extra nasty misogynist lines, added a scene showing Liza throwing the paperweight at Charley and breaking down and another with Liza being insulted to her face by Charley in the nightclub (neither scene shown on stage, but merely referred to in conversations amongst workers in Liza's office), making Liza's situation more intensely troubled and the film even more off-putting. Then he and the producer gutted almost all the Weill/Gershwin music from the dream sequences, which is where Liza shows her dreamy, attractive, sexy inner self, and what's left? A terribly imbalanced film. Ginger, in my increasingly certain view, did the best anyone could have done with such a mess.

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[–] todflet 14 years ago

Since we're talking about "Lady in the Dark", and the lead actress's performance in the film, this is obviously the right place. It is your ridiculous campaign to award the role of Liza to Irene Dunne that doesn't belong here!

Your snide insults don't obscure the fact that you have completely failed to substantiate any of your bogus claims about Dunne's suitability for the role of Liza, that it was ever offered to her, or that she was even considered for the film. Why you would spew this garbage only you could know.

In what way was Ginger Rogers intellectually deficient or dramatically inadequate in "Lady in the Dark"? Can you back up your wide-ranging insults and absurd claims with anything like an actual fact or a rational argument? Or are insults all you've got?

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[–] todflet 14 years ago

Thank you very much for these excellent points. I will do my best to respond to them.

Both McClung and Gallafent do cite Chierichetti's book on Leisen, quoting from it. The extreme misogyny of the film pointed out by Gallafent is shown by McClung largely to have been present in the stage play itself. So it is quite correct that Leisen cannot be held to have been the source of the offensive pseudo-Freudian notion that male domination makes women healthy, and that highly successful professional women must be sick.

Ginger in her autobiography tells how her relationship with Leisen went straight downhill from the start. She was a fabulous, talented actress, who with good direction could certainly have made a fine Liza Elliot. She says, and I believe her, that Leisen failed to give her good direction. She just said he was interested in other things. Your information makes it likely that this failure on his part was something personal, and that he did not treat all actresses the way he treated Rogers.

The butchering of the film by removing "My Ship" (which Ginger sang very beautifully, and which was important for her character in the film) and most of the rest of the Weill/Gershwin score resulted in a seriously imbalanced film. Ginger's troubles weren't the only ones!

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