Now We Are Nine

So I was digging around for something a couple of days ago and realized with a start that, as of yesterday, the Café has been around for exactly nine years. Insert profound thought about time flying here. Kay Francis (who has been something of a mascot hereabouts) has stopped in to say hi, looking more glam than one generally thinks of her in the '40s.

What's My Wednesday? #5: [Sur]Reality TV

78 years ago today, the London International Surrealist Exhibition opened to a startled public, marking according to many the apex of the movement's success.

Shameless Saturday Camp Explosion: Ave, Vale...

"Camp is art that proposes itself seriously, but cannot 

be taken altogether seriously because it is 'too much.'"

- Susan Sontag

I've found myself thinking, rather to my surprise, a lot about Deanna Durbin since we learned of her death earlier this week.  I've also listened to her a great deal more than I probably ever have before, and it makes me sad I hadn't done so earlier. Whatever you can say about her vehicles, which were pretty much doomed to mediocrity just because she was tied to Universal rather than a studio, like Metro or Paramount maybe, that could have surrounded her with taste and style, she herself is really rather marvelous.  If nothing else, she's hugely livelier and more unaffected than her rather turgid reputation would suggestion.

She's remembered, I suppose, far too patly, as the stiff and stuffy girl soprano who represented High Culture against the swing stylings of the likes of Judy Garland - a role she played (without the stuffy part) exactly once, in an MGM short, Any Sunday.  Her fans have known better, of course: she can act, she can charm, and more than anything else, she can sing, really and truly, in a way that puts to shame most of the other light soprano darlings of the day.  There's a story that she turned down a chance to sing at the Met, and while that may be a stretch, it's not the ridiculous puffery it would be if attributed to, say, Jane Powell or even Kathryn Grayson.

It's moments like the above, however, that probably haven't helped her case.  Here we have the climax of 1940's It's a Date, with St. Deanna singing Schubert in a Vera West habit that calls to mind the more risible moments of the old Radio City Easter Pageant.  This is one of those sequences when the plot has long finished and the principals are assembled solely for the purposes of admiring the star as she trills her way to a lingering fadeout.  On hands are, by Universal standards, a host of extras and a treasury of characters, led by Eugene Pallette and S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall (as the Famous Playwright whose vision this scene somehow fulfills), along with Kay Francis as Durbin's actress mother, at the start of her coast into supporting parts that ended in Monogram quickies and summer stock.*

It's all, in Sontag's words, just a shade "too much."  But close your eyes, or better, focus them only on Deanna: that's real music, an old chestnut sung straight, and well, and on its own terms genuinely moving.  The scene is Camp, through and through, but she's someplace else. Gratia plena, you might almost say...

* The part is by way of being a kind of rite out of passage out of stardom; Joan Blondell** Ann Sothern played it a decade later in her last MGM picture, when It's a Date turned into Nancy Goes to Rio.  She was saddled with Jane Powell as the daughter, actually ,which only makes it all the more so...

** Thanks to Gentle Reader Joel65913 for the correction.  Why do those two ladies insist on confusing themselves in my feeble brain?

Birthday Girls: Stars Wavishing and Less So

Caught up in that little shopping frenzy yesterday, I missed a landmark birthday, that of longtime Café patroness and mascot, the magnificent Miss Kay Francis.  We see her here at the height of her glory, superb in all the trappings of stardom in the Golden Age: turban, stole, plunging décolletage, and an expression both mocking and enigmatic.

She was a not a happy lady, nor, from all accounts, a particularly sensible one when it came to most aspects of her private life.  Still, she accomplished one thing that in these intrusive, media-saturated days seems almost impossible:  when she was done with it all, when it no longer seemed worth it to keep up the pretense of being Kay! Francis! - and for a woman in her fifties, whose reputation always rested as much on her glossy appearance as her (underestimated) talent, and one given to excesses that can be distressingly aging, that must have been a lot of work indeed - she simply disappeared.

Try and find a photograph of her in retirement; with the exception of a couple of blurry personal snaps in one of the biographies that came out a few years ago, they would seem simply not to exist.  Not for Kay Francis the indignities of being trailed through the streets of Manhattan like Garbo or of being ambushed outside the doctor's office or worse that is the fate of too many stars today.  Of course, her determination to disappear (one of those biographies uses one of her own quotes: I Can't Wait to be Forgotten) was made easier by the complete collapse of her career and, for far too long (and for long after her early death, in 1968, at 63 or so) of her reputation.  It's only since TCM and other outlets have made more of her movies available to wider audiences that Francis's work has been restored to something like its proper place; like Marion Davies, she has benefited greatly from direct exposure to the actual films, which has allowed people to see for themselves that there is more to Kay Francis than overdressing and histrionics (although she certainly indulged in both).

Still, she resisted any and all temptations that came along and lived out her life entirely on her own terms, and when she died - alone, as apparently she wanted it - she died a rich woman who had if nothing else the satisfaction that she made her own decisions, however they turned out.

Today, by chance, is the birthday of another troubled, troubling Hollywood great, Miss Faye Dunaway.  The two make an interesting contrast.  Like Francis, Dunaway had a period of enormous success (it can be easy, now, to forget what a very topmost star she was for 15 years or so after her triumph in Bonnie and Clyde in 1967), followed by an ever greater period of near-total eclipse.  Unlike Francis, though, Dunaway for a long time seemed unable to give up the illusion - which must, in truth, be enormously intoxicating - of Great Stardom.  For years (turning into decades, since at least, with few exceptions, 1987 or so) she has appeared in almost nothing but trash, and great quantities of it - 16 films since 2005 alone, plus a couple of TV appearances.  Few stars have had as direct and seemingly enthusiastic a hand in the trashing of their own fame as Dunaway - yes, Francis made a trio of films at Monogram, but Dunaway did a thriller of sorts distributed by Troma and (a phrase I regularly recycle, as it so precisely defines her parlous situation) has consented to appearing fourth-billed in a Bai Ling picture.  It's a long way from Chinatown, Jake.

Lately, of course, she's been much taken by the idea of what looks to be a spectacularly misguided film version of Terrence McNally's Maria Callas stage hit Master Class.  Callas was another one who walked away; perhaps Dunaway should look a little more into the example set by her and Kay Francis, if only for the sake of her own, now so tarnished, legacy.

In any case, Happy Birthday, wherever you are, Kay Francis, and many happy returns, Miss D.  It may be cold comfort now, but as the years pass, you can at least know that your more dismal outings (Say it in Russian, anybody? Cougar Club?) will fade in the glow of Network and The Thomas Crown Affair, just we as now appreciate the glory of Kay in Trouble in Paradise and One Way Passage and don't pay all that much heed to Wife Wanted or Women in the Wind.

Steel yourself, though - there will never, ever be any piece of journalism on your life and work that doesn't mention (if it doesn't base itself around) Mommie Dearest.  Maybe you should have considered a Kay Francis biopic instead...

Thieves in the Night

One of the surprises of running the Café, I've discovered, is that despite being only at best intermittently about topics local, we still quite steady draw traffic from Gentle Readers here in our little Sultanate.

I therefore take the liberty of appealing to those in this part of the world who haven't already done so to pay attention to the current posting by fellow blogger Suburban, who is looking for insight into the realities (which seem very likely to be harsher than we realize) of crime in this generally idyllic place.

That I can do so while reminding myself of one of my favorite Kay Francis pictures is just a little of what my Lousiana pals would call lagniappe. Fortunately, the Villa Muscato features very little to attract a jewel robbery; now, if there were evildoers out to steal biographies of minor royalties or Garbo DVDs, we'd have something to worry about...

1,400

I think of Kay Francis as something of the Café mascot. She's dropped by, in languishing mood beneath her fetching hat (and apparently doing a Marisa-Berenson-in-Cabaret impression), to mark this august occasion: the 1,400th post.

Why this matters, I couldn't say. But anything that gives us a chance to pause and consider Miss Francis must have some (dare I say it?) point...

Dammit! Start Again

A pleasant reminder that our Hollywood idols were all too mortal, with the added surprise that the often foul-mouthed Miss Francis was by far the most demure of these befuddled thesps. Miss Davis gives us the very edge of an F-bomb, and the future Mrs. Reagan I has a moment or two. And, of course, this being Warner's, it's a cavalcade of characters, mostly in the house urban-prole mode.

I somehow can't imagine a Breakdowns of 2009 being nearly as amusing, but that's just me. Or perhaps just because it would likely feature rather more literal breakdowns.

Oh, Kay!

Miss Francis, just because we haven't seen her in a while. Seen here in one of her Pre-Code successes, although, judging from her expression, perhaps she's had a troubling glimpse into her future...

Oh, Kay!

Fowever Wavishing.

Why Don't You...

...try wearing a mink shrug over your full length ermine? It's warm and such an intriguing constrast! Not to mention just the thing to wear while lounging on your favorite neo-pharaonic fauteuil.

(I think I'm so intrigued by this photo because it would seem that Miss Francis, ever the clotheshorse, has stolen more or less entirely my Oscar outfit...)

Mistaken Identities, Avatar Edition

A gentle reader - yes, that's you, Larry! - perhaps inspired by our several posts recently on Mistaken Identities, has queried whether the Avatar I've chosen in lieu of a more representative likeness (who these days might best be Sebastian Cabot, or perhaps late-middle period Orson Welles) is in fact the lovely and talented Miss Mary Astor.

To which I can only reply:

No! It is, of course, a headshot of Miss Kay Francis, of blessed memory. The Divine Kay is seen here in one of her triumphs, Mandalay, in which she played the Fallen Woman known as Spot White.

Now, don't get me wrong - Miss Astor, in her way, is quite wonderful, and at least our GR didn't mistake me for Loretta Young. There would have been no dealing with me in that awful eventuality. No, it's just that, for me, Kay is the star who most inspires. Can you imagine Mary Astor in that getup?

Oh, Kay!

Just because.

Atttention Must be Paid

Commenting on an earlier post, the estimable Ayem8y has brought to our attention that the Café's patroness and idol, Miss Kay Francis, is the centerpiece of a festival of cinema treats this month on TCM.

One of the minor annoyances of life in our Sultanate on Sea is that, while we get a channel called TCM via satellite, it is a version that originates, I believe, in the UK, and has a film library of about 10 titles, meaning that there is almost always a chance to see a truly wretched sinking-ship drama called The Last Voyage (or, moderately less annoying, the distaff oater Westward the Women*, which shows, I kid you not, at least once a week) and almost never anything you'd actually like to watch.

Meaning, to make a long story short (and I could complain a lot more about The Last Voyage, believe me; even the presence of Dorothy Malone can't redeem it), I'm missing the Kay Francis Festival.

So I'll have a little one of my own, right here, right now.

Playing in the background as I write is Trouble in Paradise, Kay's primary claim to film-snob appreciation. In a perfect world it would always be 1932 for Kay - the year she also made Jewel Robbery and One Way Passage. Most actresses today would kill for three roles like those in a lifetime.

Through the early 30s, Kay is sensual, earthy, sophisticated - a lady, definitely, but rarely starchy and almost always in control of what she wants. Later come the weepies that, too often based on weak scripts already given the fish-eye by Bette Davis and hurried through on the strength of a dozen Orry-Kelly gowns and the dubious charms of George Brent, did so much to limit her future appeal.

She went through a bad spell as the decade ended, banished to Warner's B-unit and then into limbo, her unique brand of dressiness, suffering, and Long Doubting Pauses out of fashion and, increasingly, considered a little high-hat for the masses. Her fate paralleled that of Norma Shearer and her Great Lady of the Cinema pictures over at Metro, although Kay never had to rely on the men she married for much (which was just as well, as they were pretty much all of them good for nothing).

During the war, she re-emerged, playing wry mothers and mocking second leads. It might have made for an interesting second wind (a la Mary Astor, perhaps). But it didn't.

After a few forays into the theatre - broadway, touring, summer stock - she retired.

She remained fodder for fantasy for some, if this vintage little gem is to be believed:

But Kay needs neither a modern amount of skin on display nor the dubious enhancements of Photoshop to put it across; she can smolder on her own very nicely, thank you:

There is always something bittersweet about seeing one of one's private crushes become, as it were, caviar for the general. In recent years, Kay's reputation has seen a renaissance, and while most of her films remain unavailable, it is remarkable to think that more people probably saw Divorce (one of her last, Poverty Row epics) when it aired earlier this month than it did through all the decades until it first turned up on cable a couple of years ago.

And there I'll close. I think Westward the Women is coming on again...

*sadly, not a sequel set on Marjorie Main's ranch in Reno. That would be much better, trust me.

The Mark...

...of lack of quality: Monogram Pictures.


Monogram was the top of the bottom, the elite studio, if such a thing is possible, of Hollywood's low-rent outlets, the studios collectively known as Poverty Row.

The roster was a mix of has-been, ex-stars, youngsters, and obscure attractions; the offerings a jumble of series pictures (has anyone ever actually enjoyed a Bowery Boys film?), low rent comedies, and Westerns; and the ambiance minimalist, rushed, and generally slightly seedy.

It was the studio where, among other things, Kay Francis took her fading career at the end of the War and where she was, briefly and for the last time, Queen of the Lot. Her "Monogram Trilogy" of 1945-46 tried to inject a rush of B/noir energy into the kinds of weepies she'd been making since the mid 30s, without much success.

Allotment Wives is probably the best of the bunch; Kay is a ruthless con-woman with a ring of chippies who steal from GIs. The weepie side (seen here) comes from the subplot, in which she's also a devoted mother coddling a spoiled child (paging Veda Pierce!). She does get a pretty fab death scene.

Wife Wanted strays a little too close to home - Kay is a fading star, dabbling in real estate, who falls into a "lonely hearts" scam.

And even Kay's diehard fans thought that a picture that treated divorce as A Fate Worse Than Death was silly - especially coming from an actress whose unclear number of husbands almost exceed counting on one hand.

It's hard to imagine that Kay Francis didn't know that taking her act over to Monogram was career suicide. Maybe that was what she was after. She shook the dust of LA from her feet and never made another film.

Now, Voyager...

When did people stop dressing for travel?

I have to admit, gentle readers, that even I won't be donning a cloche and kicky traveling stole for the next leg of our seemingly endless journey, which today takes Mr. Muscato and me from glamourous Boston to exotic Amsterdam, where we will indulge in many of the local vices.

By which, of course, I mean tulip speculation and brisk walks along the canals.

Sure I do.

The Awful Truth

In light of today's shocking revelations over on JoeMyGod, I feel a need to come clean with all - both - my faithful readers. Muscato, darlings, is in fact not the spitting image of a slightly over-the-hill Kay Francis in something like 1946.

I know this will come as a shock. But there it is: it's only an avatar, one acting as a placeholder, as it were, for a forty-something Gentleman of Artistic Tastes, a stout party with a taste for chanteuses of days gone by, unfashionable artists of the mid-nineteenth century, and amusing anecdotes about obscure celebrities. oh, and Gabors.

Just to prove that I am not, in fact, a disturbed woman living in British Columbia, herewith as close as we're ever going to get to self-revelation around here. Yes, a childhood snap of Yours Truly, seen at the very last moment that my poor put-upon father had any hope for my future:

Hopes, I should add, that were dashed once and forever just a few minutes later when I traded the helmet for the hat my grandmother had come over in, along with her very fetching pale mink stole draped over the shoulderpads.

Image du Jour: Kay Francis

I don't think I've gone on nearly enough about how I feel about Kay Francis. At some point, I'll probably have to tell you exactly how fabulous, misunderstood, and generally incredible she was.

Until then, bask in the beauty of this middle-late period still.

Why?

Because I said so. Because I blame it on the summer night...or the bossa nova. Because that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Because it's always something.

Why? Why the strange fascination with the films of Kay Francis? With the minutiae of forgotten mitteleuropean dynasties of the 19th century? With the old age of the Duchess of Windsor? With the youth of Tutankhamun? Why the all joy, the tears, the deep, abiding bemusement with the ways of the world?

Just one damn thing after another.