Manhattan Parade

I saw this film on TCM as part of their month-long "Screened Out" series. It's not a great film, but it wasn't bad either. It has to do with a company founded by a married couple that designs and supplies costumes for Broadway shows. The husband issues an ultimatum to the wife (Lightner) that her place is at home taking care of their son, not at the office. He makes this ultimatum not out of concern for his son, but so that he can make his wife's secretary his own since she is already his mistress. When Winnie's character agrees to resign and stay home, her husband proceeds to run the business into the ground and then takes off to parts unknown with the company's remaining funds and his secretary/mistress. Now it's up to Lightner's character to repair the damage to the company and repay the creditors before the business has to be dissolved.

The husband does reappear at one point, and the odd thing is, Winnie has him behind a legal eight ball not because he is a man in his thirties carrying on with an under aged (17 year old) girl (the secretary), but because he has promised to marry the girl and has gone back on that promise - or as they once called it - breach of promise. Oh how conventions have changed in eighty years.

I've heard much about Winnie Lightner over the years, primarily about her role in the lost film "Gold Diggers of Broadway", and I was surprised as how she actually came across on screen. Lightner actually seemed more matronly than a flapper in this one. Charles Butterworth, who I usually find unbearably unfunny, actually did a good job in this one as company researcher - he makes sure that historical costumes are accurate for the times. Then there is the reason this film was in the festival in the first place - Bobby Watson as Paisley, the apparently gay costume designer in a delightful over-the-top performance. Watson certainly had a wide acting range. In 1929 he is a whiny vaudevillian in one of the first talkies, "Syncopation". Then he went on to playing gay men during the precode era, but you probably best remember him as the diction instructor in "Singing in the Rain".

This film will probably never be on DVD, but it's fun viewing and a good example of a pre-code era film.

Could Mel Brooks have seen this before he wrote his screenplay for "The Producers"? The two films sure have a lot in common. Unfortunately, "Manhattan Parade" is a shout-fest -- apparently, the movie director didn't trust the microphones to pick up normal conversations, and when the movie was converted from its live stage form, nobody told the actors to stop playing to the balcony. So much is screamed it becomes tiresome quickly. If only the lines were memorable enough to be screamed.

But I liked the moxieness of the wife, the elegant solutions of the research director, and, yeah, the limp-wristed gayness of the artistic director, a walking dictionary of practically every gay cliché there is. All of this stuff became impossible once the Code kicked in, so the movie does have its interests, if perhaps mainly for film and cultural historians.

My vote of 10 out of 10 does not mean this is a 'great' movie in any traditional sense. In fact, from the point of view of standard film reviewing, it's lacking in almost all the qualities of a well-made, polished Hollywood film.

The film feels haphazardly made, but there are so many bizarre, surreal moments that proponents of non-traditional criticism will love. Take this one: for no stated reason, a elephant's head and trunk are being painted with a large question mark; minutes later, a woman in a nude suit walks by with a large question mark covering her body. Both the elephant and the woman are part of a theatrical production, but these two scenes have no motivation.

But even for those who don't particularly care for what I've said above, pre-code fans will be delighted by the film's several risqué moments.

This film has only 9 votes at the time of my writing this, but seeing as TCM aired it last night in its 8pm prime-time slot, perhaps the gave many (like myself) an opportunity to watch this film which is available neither on VHS or DVD.

"Manhattan Parade" unspools like the libretto of one of those silly musical comedies of the 1920s except without the songs. Imagine something like "No, No Nanette" without the Youmans-Caesar score or any of the Busby Berkeley musicals without the songs and dance numbers. Plot elements abound but few are developed. The one consistent thread involves the blunders of a pair of bickering, ridiculously naïve Broadway producers played by the exhaustingly verbose vaudeville team of Smith & Dale who get mixed up with a floundering Broadway costume company run by a married couple (Walter Miller and Winnie Lightner) whose staff includes Charles Butterworth (a perfect blend of Stan Laurel and George Arliss) as a bookish researcher and Bobby Watson as an extremely effeminate costume designer (a character type he would repeat a couple of years later in "Moonlight and Pretzels"). Dickie Moore has some excellent moments as Miller and Lightner's neglected but self-reliant little son and Luis Alberni gobbles scenery as a mad Russian director. There are a couple of interesting shots of Times Square in 1931 (including a partially visible marquee for the Capra feature "Ladies of Leisure" which starred Barbara Stanwyck).

More historical curiosity that entertainment, "Manhattan Parade" is an early sound effort that has dated badly. Perhaps hysterically funny in 1932, the film's static shooting technique only emphasizes the flatness of the jokes. A recurring pair of theatrical producers, played by the comedy team of Smith and Dale, overstays their welcome with a series of tiresome exchanges. Abbott and Costello they are not. The story, which originally had songs, revolves around a theatrical costume company, whose successful president is played by Winnie Lightner. However, Lightner surrenders her feminist credentials early on when she meekly submits to her husband's demands that he run the company and she stay home where she belongs and care for their young son. Needless to say, the philandering husband is no better at business than he is at marriage, and the company falls into debt.

Were it not for Bobby Watson, who plays a designer named Paisley, "Manhattan Parade" would rarely be unwound from its reels. However, Watson's limp wristed character is yet another prime example of gay stereotyping in early Hollywood. His threats to slap his foes or quit and stay home to decorate his apartment are evidently accepted by the other characters as quite normal for a sissy. Whining about fabric that should be maroon rather than cerise, Watson underscores filmdom's concept that gays are silly, shallow freaks with no values of consequence in their lives. While not as offensive as some gay characterizations, Paisley, nevertheless, will irritate viewers who are sensitive to negative stereotypes. Interestingly, the film also features two other male characters, a shy, daffy researcher and an effete, snobbish actor, whose sexuality could also be questioned. The concept of the theatrical world as a haven for gays had already taken root.

Unfortunately, there is little to recommend in "Manhattan Parade" other than its status as a footnote in gay film history. The performances are competent, although Dickie Moore is a scene-stealer as Lightner's son, and Lloyd Bacon's direction is perfunctory given the restraints of the period. This short comedy will seem to drag on humorlessly for hours to viewers who are not dedicated film historians.