L'or et la chair

If Jim Fisk were alive and operating today, he'd be on television and would run that well known introvert Donald Trump right off the tube with bad ratings. It's how that colorful fellow operated, never did anything in a small way.

Though the film has taken a great deal of liberty with the facts as has been pointed out by other reviewers, the essence of the man has been quite accurately captured by Edward Arnold. Also the characters of Uncle Dan'l Drew and Cornelius Vanderbilt are finely etched by Donald Meek and Clarence Kolb respectively.

It's quite true that Fisk got the start of his fortune by running contraband cotton out of the South, taking advantage of the fact that the one crop Confederacy couldn't export its crop because of the Union blockade. I'm sure that things were pretty hairy for Fisk as well as for his fictional partners Cary Grant and Jack Oakie.

Josie Mansfield as played by Frances Farmer was certainly not the first or last entertainer to take advantage of the attentions of a wealthy man. That was certainly demonstrated more accurately in Love Me or Leave Me by Doris Day as Ruth Etting. She was not as nice as Farmer and the script made her.

Frances Farmer in her memoirs said that while the film was not the type of material she was looking to do, she did enjoy working with Cary Grant who was to her as he appears on screen.

Though his efforts to control the gold market got him his most notoriety, they were not responsible for Fisk's demise. In fact the film's most glaring factual error was the omission of Fisk's partner in that enterprise, Jay Gould.

By the way Gould was in personal habits the exact opposite of Fisk. He was a rather sober, responsible family man who had no real vices of any kind other than greed.

The second big factual error was in that in the gold cornering scheme Fisk and Gould sought to gain influence in the Grant White House through hooking Ulysses Grant's brother-in-law, Abel R. Corbin in the move. That part did not work.

Nevertheless Edward Arnold in the title role gives a grand portrayal of a most colorful character from The Gilded Age.

In my opinion the finest character actor of the 1930s - mid 1940s was Edward Arnold, whose tragedy (although he would not have seen it that way) was that his acting career was not in a period when leading men (with the exception of the Englishman, Charles Laughton) could be fat. Arnold gave first rate performances time and time again in straight dramas and comic parts. But he was plump, in an age when you hoped a make-up man could make you look like Tyrone Power (as the original lyrics of Hooray for Hollywood suggested). Still he got quite some milage out of his abundant acting talent, expecially playing historical rich men: Diamond Jim Brady (in two films), General John Sutter, and here - "Col." James Fisk, Jr. And his performance, abetted by Frances Farmer, Cary Grant, Jack Oakie, Donald Meek, and Clarence Kolb, makes this film stay alive. It is an entertaining film - but is it historically correct.

Well, it has some of the facts (although it's basis in Matthew Josephson's left wing histories of finance are barely correct). Fisk was a greedy man - no denying it. He did get involved in fighting Vanderbilt (allied with "Uncle Dan'l" Drew)in getting control of the Erie Railroad. He did flee to New Jersey with the printing press to continue printing shares of Erie stock away from Vanderbilt's legal writs. He did try to corner the gold market. And he did romance Josie Mansfield (Farmer). But Vanderbilt was no saint - he was as ruthless as Fisk. Drew was a pretty slippery customer too (here seen to be too easily cowed or frightened). Missing here is Fisk's real partner in cunning (apparently also a really close friend too) Jay Gould. Why he isn't in the film is curious. So is the muted character played by Cary Grant. Grant is Ned Boyd, and aside from being an early ally of Fisk, and later his chief critic (in the Gold Panic), he has little to do but pine for Mansfield. In reality, the character is based on Edward Stokes, Fisk's former friend and business associate who turned on him, out of jealousy, and with Mansfield blackmailed the man - or tried to. Stokes would eventually shoot Fisk (who in real life did fall down a staircase, but in a hotel). Fisk died in 1872. One day his tragic betrayal and death would make an ideal movie. But Arnold can't play it - alas!!

Great film - starts out as a whimsical joyride and ends with a thought-provoking meditation on the evils of greed. Arnold is grand as the larger than life huckster turned Wall Street whiz. Farmer is his temptation (she actually stars in a musical by that name in the movie) and boy does Arnold take the bait. Unusual mix of biblical imagery and slapstick, but it all holds together. One point of interest - Arnold and Farmer play almost exactly the same characters in another movie of that period - "Come and Get it"

The Toast of New York, despite the lavish look, top-notch cast and occasional bursts of energy, is a ten-ton bore - chiefly, I think, because of the long-winded script and pedestrian direction. Others have commented on the production difficulties and personnel changes which may be responsible for the bland result. Early in the story we are treated to a colorful but talky exposition which sets the plot in motion: On the day the Civil War starts, Jim Fisk (Edward Arnold), itinerant peddler, and his partners in crime (Cary Grant and Jack Oakie) devise a scheme to buy cotton cheaply in the South, smuggle it North and sell it at a high price to New England mills, thus launching the career of one of the fabled financial speculators of the 19th century. But, instead of the whiz-bang, rise-and-fall saga laced with comedy which this introduction leads us to expect, we get 100 minutes of routine montages followed by more expository talk (mostly about financial deals), interspersed with boisterous crowd scenes and tepid romantic interludes with the exquisite Frances Farmer, who plays Josie Mansfield, an aspiring stage actress who is taken under Fisk's wing. None of this ever rises above the mundane. Edward Arnold gives his familiar robust, take-charge performance (see the 1937 screwball comedy EASY LIVING and the previous year's COME AND GET IT which this film resembles in theme and plot); Grant and Oakie are pretty much themselves as well, though the full impact of Grant's screen charisma is blunted in this non-comic role. Farmer is presented more as a comely production value than a full-blooded character. She spends most of her screen time in a series of splendid period gowns uttering banalities that barely suggest the emotional states of her character. She too played a similar role in COME AND GET IT, to far stronger effect. One would expect this kind of storytelling from a Warners assembly-line quickie, but it's terribly disappointing to encounter it in a 100-minute-plus grade-A production by RKO. I'll give it a "4" for Farmer and Arnold.

The Toast of New York is directed by Rowland V. Lee and features a screenplay collectively written by Dudley Nichols, John Twist and Joel Sayre. It's adapted from two stories, "The Book of Daniel Drew" written by Bouck White and "Robber Barons" written by Matthew Josephson. It stars Edward Arnold, Cary Grant, Frances Farmer, Jack Oakie and Donald Meek.

Jim Fisk-half genius, half clown-began life with empty pockets, a pack on his back, and a Yankee gift of gab.

Loving a uniform-always in the front of every parade-he became the Barnum of Peddlers, and then skyrocketed into "high finance" in Wall Street, where in a few brief years he startled a nation with his colourful career.

But in 1861-before the first guns of the Civil War were fired-he was still an obscure peddler-somewhere south of the Mason and Dixie Line.

Jim Fisk was a very interesting man in the world of finance, his life and death certainly had enough about it to warrant a film being made about him. Sadly this particular biopic is dull, where even the fact that the makers fictionalised some of the plot fails to make it worthy of further viewings. Annoying as well is that RKO really put big money into the production, and you can see that up on the screen in the sets, costuming and the number of people who are in it. It was a troubled production, and numerous stars were linked to play the key roles, and with the Hays Office casting their censorship shadow over things, it's perhaps unsurprising that the film ended up a flop at the box office. The tone is uneven, with the comedy an uneasy fit, and there's not a great deal to laud in the acting. Arnold gives it bluster and Farmer is sweet, while Grant is forced into yet another suit and asked to be a romantic interest. Oakie has his moments, but they are few, while best of the bunch is Meek as Daniel Drew.

Disappointing and it perhaps would have been better served being a straight drama and sniping 20 minutes off of its run time. 4/10