Warner Bros by David Thomson

Author:David Thomson
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2017-09-15T04:30:00+00:00

Bette Davis in The Letter—hated nearly every minute at Warners and made it fit for dangerous women

12

Bette v. Everyone

IT OFFENDED HIS BROTHER Harry, but Jack Warner had a clear-cut attitude toward females: there were those you married, and those you played around with. Don’t let them get confused. This worked, if you were in America, careless of old family attitudes, and if you were rich enough to pay the bills. To be “somebody” was a license to be out of control in the fresh fields of violence and sex.

Harry thought Jack’s policy lacked tact or taste; it was letting the family down. But Jack had another theory: that a guy in the audience often had his girl with him—a wife or a date—and he was solid about that tie. But that didn’t stop him dreaming about all the other pretty women Busby Berkeley had up on screen for one of his haremlike routines. The essential arrangement of all movies—our dark and their light—was to legitimize or condone fantasy. This could seem pretty, but it was a formula for sexism, a motif that would one day help undermine the American movie.

Joan Blondell was a case in point. I have made the claim already that she is the soul of one of the finest moments in Warners history, singing “Remember My Forgotten Man” in Gold Diggers of 1933, where the song is entrusted to her. She could sing, she could dance, she could handle a joke, be sexy, obedient, a pal. She did whatever was required, and didn’t ask the system for more. She had come to Warners with Cagney: they played together seven times, and their mutual fondness is plain. He said he’d have married her, if he wasn’t tied up already—not every star was so restrained. Jimmy the agitator was always goading Joan to fight for a better contract—and she was paid a fraction of what Cagney earned. But she resisted the advice; she really was as easygoing as she seemed on screen. She was the one girl who liked Jack Warner, and she did her bit, even during long shooting days when she was pregnant. She appreciated being at Warners; she had a feeling for a worthwhile show being put on for the crowd:

I related to shopgirls and chorus girls, just ordinary gals who were hoping. I would get endless fan mail from girls saying “That is exactly what I would have done, if I’d been in your shoes, you did exactly the right thing.” So I figured that was my popularity, relating to the girls. They just wanted more of the same thing. All you got were new clothes and new sets, but the stories were pretty much alike and I was the same type. But those early days of talkies were incredible, what with the soundproof camera booth and everything, I think that’s why they signed Cagney and me so fast, ’cause we just went through it like we were on a stage and they weren’t used to that.

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