Bessie à Broadway

If this were not an early silent effort by master director Frank Capra, "The Matinée Idol" would likely have remained a lost film. However, this mildly amusing film has been found and restored, and it is well worth seeing to note how deft a director Capra was in his silent works. Led by an attractive pair of leads, Bessie Love and Johnny Walker, the familiar device of a bad stage play getting even worse during an inept performance is used to good effect here (actually used twice) and offers a few chuckles even to those who have seen this done to death in later films from "Auntie Mame" to "Noises Off." Unfortunately, as with many Capra films, there is a bitter aftertaste that lingers in the viewer's mind when the film is over. Using an honest effort by naive "country folks" as the object of amusement for "sophisticated" Broadway audiences is a cruel idea and forms the crux of the plot. Also, Capra has cast the lead actor as a black-face entertainer, which will make some viewers uncomfortable or even appalled, and Capra uses a gay "sissie" stereotype who is the object of other characters' derision, which is even more offensive to contemporary viewers. Although another use of black-face in a Capra film does not come to mind, he was not above using the "sissie" stereotype again, and it reappeared as the Edward Everett Horton character in "Lost Horizon." However, if one can overlook the dated plot and negative stereotyping, "The Matinée Idol" provides an hour of amusement and a peek at the formative years of a great film director.

Frank Capra directed March 1928's "The Matinee Idol," his third movie for Columbia Pictures. The director was in his comfort zone by handling this romantic-comedy, a genre he returned to time and again at the peak of his career. The storyline involved the fictitious tale of a female heart-throb Broadway actor, Don Wilson, a.k.a. Harry Mann (Johnnie Walker), who is on a leisurely drive when his car breaks down in a remote area near a traveling stock company's theater tent. The owner's daughter filling in as the manager, Ginger (Bessie Love), had just fired the main actor and is looking for a replacement. Up walks Wilson. The play is later seen by Wilson's Broadway producer. He wants to take the supposed drama to New York where he knows the sophisticated city audiences will find it hilariously campy. Surprises await when the play hits Broadway.

Capra shows an uncanny ability to wring the heartstrings of his viewers, unleashing tear ducts galore. He also displays a knack for handling crowd scenes, made up of both country folks and urban sophisticates, another Capra trademark. "The Matinee Idol" proved to be the pinnacle to Johnnie Walker's screen acting. He was one of so many Hollywood performers who never made the transition to talkies. He left film in 1932 after receiving only small roles that hardly paid him anything to survive. For Capra, however, the two movies in his first year at Columbia proved to be a welcome respite from comedian Langdon as well as a chance to prove his brand would soon resonate with the public like no other director before had.

"The Matinée Idol" is a silent drama/comedy/romance set with an intriguing backstage setting. The film stars the wonderful Bessie Love as the daughter and leading lady in a family of troupers. A very likable Johnnie Walker co-stars as a successful actor taken with Miss Love. Consequently he takes up with the small town thespians, throwing himself into their sincere, yet corny theatrics.

When the troupe bring their melodrama to the big town and face scorn from the critics and sophisticated audiences, romance is there to ease the sting of rejection. "The Matinée Idol" is a delight, filled with director Frank Capra's insights and affection for all types of people.

A lightweight but simply charming and absolutely delightful fairy tale, most ingratiatingly acted by all concerned, beautifully photographed, very cleverly scripted and most astutely directed. It's surprising that personable Johnnie Walker didn't go on to a big career in talkies. Bessie, of course, is simply captivating.

Some carping critics have complained that the hick actors in the story were cruelly treated. On the contrary, they were handled like royalty. All the actors I know (and I've known lots of actors in my time) would quickly have appropriated the plaudits of the crowd as a fitting reflection of their deliberate art. I remember Cecil Kellaway after a preview bemoaning to the manager that his performance was not supposed to be funny and that the audience had laughed in all the wrong places. But as moviegoers started to come out of the theater and people spied him talking to the manager, suddenly he was surrounded by a cheering crowd with everyone congratulating him on his superbly comic performance. Did Cecil try to reason with his fans and tell them they were all wrong? No fear! On the contrary, he swelled with pride and heartily thanked them for their perspicacity and their keen appreciation of his comic endeavors.

This Frank Capra fellow just keeps getting better and better. This quick, 56 minute long feature is a real little gem of Capra's early career, further refining his combination of comedy and drama around winning performances. It's also another portrait of the little guy winning over the big guy, even if the win isn't exactly the way one might expect. I think he's already got an authorial stamp, though there's no need to discount Elmer Harris who had written every film Capra had made since leaving Harry Langdon's employ.

Don Wilson (Johnnie Walker) is famous on Broadway for his blackface performances, and he's so tired of the fame and the women throwing themselves at him for it, that he happily agrees to take a weekend in the country with his producer Arnold (Ernest Halliard) where they end up stopping outside the makeshift tent of the traveling acting troupe led by Jasper Bolivar (Lionel Balmore) and his daughter Ginger (Bessie Love). They lead their troupe in a Civil War play of such amateurishness that it derisively entertains the little traveling party, with the added benefit of Don getting a tiny role in the play when ginger fires the actor, using the false name of Harry Mann, and getting some good laughs in the process. It gives Arnold the idea of bringing the troupe to Broadway to add to the revue.

So, like most of Capra's films up to this point, this is essentially a two-act production. In this, the first half is the more purely comic take on what's going on with Don having a whale of a time making Ginger flustered during the performance, getting laughs from his friends, and the rest of the provincial audience taking it more seriously (though with Capra still getting some very good comedy out of them at the same time, like the elderly man who can't hear even with his ear horn and the young son who lies to him about what people are saying). There's been a certain imbalance to Capra's films where one half works materially better than the other, and I think this might represent something of a serious change for him. For, while I do think the second half works better than the first, it's actually the second that I end up having more problems with. It's just that the second half's highs are so very high at the same time that Capra and Harris were refining their output in a way that was really conducive to bringing all of the elements together.

The Bolivar performers come to Broadway with Don maintaining the farce that he's just nobody Harry Mann by using his blackface to appear before them as Don and taking it off when he must appear before them as Harry. There's a masquerade where Jasper drinks too much, and we get to their premiere the next day. The premiere is exactly what the audience would expect with the cosmopolitan crowd taking in the pratfalls of the provincial troupe bumbling their way through the performance with Don in blackface mugging in the background, and it's all countered by Jasper attending the performance in the crowd, highly expectant of a great reception and getting derision instead. It's surprisingly crushing to watch, and it's all cut together in the middle of this botched performance that is really funny at the same time. I think this is successful tonal whiplash, intentionally throwing the audience back and forth making us both part of the problem in enjoying the pain of the poor provincial actors not understanding why they're being laughed at while also sympathizing with them in equal measure.

So, by losing, they end up winning because they teach Don a lesson who decides that he has to make up for it later.

It's another instance of the little guy beating the big guy, but it's done in a way that is more of a moral victory than a literal one. They don't take over Broadway, but Ginger does win over Don's heart, and Don gets Ginger to forgive him his part.

It was during Jasper's pain that I decided that this was the film for me. I think the whiplash works, but I'm just ever so slightly put off by it at the same time, and the ending wrap up feels a bit thin, though I do buy it overall.

It really is kind of amazing to see Capra forming so distinctly and executing so well so early. He feels like he's in complete command of the physical production from the subtle and effective direction of actors to the clear use of visual language (even a couple of jokes through intertitles), and his scripts are creeping up in quality at the same time. I shudder to think of how sound is going to send everything backwards, and it's just right around the corner.