Nana

My wife and I just finished watching this movie and throughout much of it, she kept asking me "are you SURE you want to finish this film?!". I have to admit that I thought about turning it off a few times, too, but it never was quite bad enough to merit this--though it sure came close!! In light of the general view that the film was a major debacle when it debuted, I was actually surprised to see one reviewer gave it a 9.

As for the plot and how it differs from the novel by Emile Zola, I'll leave you to read over tracyfigueira's excellent review. I haven't read the book but knew enough about it to realize that the plot was dramatically different from Zola's. One of the reasons is that although they never say it, it's very obvious that Nana was a prostitute and had slept with half of Paris! And her friends were also common prostitutes as well. Yet, Sam Goldwyn insisted that Nana be played like a combination of Marlene Dietrich and the Singing Nun! Oy.

When the tale of this trollop with a heart of gold debuted in 1934, critics howled at the horrible acting of newcomer Anna Sten and the public avoided this bloated epic like the plague. In fact, for years, consensus was that Sten was a horrible actress and her performance convinced me that the people of the 30s were very astute--she was a terrible actress. Her accent was difficult to cut through and her "acting" was amateurish throughout. However, I also feel that to blame the picture's demise squarely on her was unfair. Even if Ms. Sten had been competent (and I remind you she was NOT), the writing was just awful and anyone uttering such claptrap would look ridiculous! Plus, Goldwyn's insistence that Sten be treated like an even more bewitching creature than Dietrich and Garbo was silly and destined to failure--and making Sten look even more ridiculous as she tried in vain to act that alluring. Heck, when Sten sang (if you can call it that), before she even finished this god-awful number, the men in the audience (who had previously never even heard of her) all began behaving like a Tex Avery cartoon wolf! No one is THAT sexy and desirable!! In addition to all this silliness and bad acting, the film also suffers from bad acting by many of the co-stars--particularly Nana's hooker friends. And, to make things worse, the film is also dreadfully dull and derivative--looking like a knockoff of several of Garbo's and Dietrich's films (especially CAMILLE and BLONDE VENUS). See this film if you are curious about Sten--otherwise, avoid it like the plague.

By the way, and I know this will sound VERY catty, but in watching this film I kept asking myself if perhaps Ms. Sten and Mr. Goldwyn have some other vested interest in each other. I know this sounds petty, but his insistence on a huge publicity campaign to create an American career and three failed big budget US films does make you wonder why he brought her to this country to begin with or kept her here after her performance in NANA.

Sure, the film is dated, the dialogue sometimes florid, the tone too much copied von Sternberg. But this movie a mega-flop and Anna Sten and her mentor Sam Goldwyn pillaged?

I have seen Nana a few times on TV; coincidentally when first aired on TV (around 1970) and twice since then. Gotta tell you, I think Goldwyn was on to something - Anna is, yes, a bit like Garbo, a bit like Dietrich, but a lot like, well Anna Sten. And her acting far better than she is criticized for (try her 1935 The Wedding Night, very touching, thank you King Vidor).

Too bad she was not afforded more opportunities in the right vehicles (like Marion Davies?).

Having seen two Anna Sten vehicles during her brief collaboration with Samuel Goldwyn, I've come to the conclusion that Sten's Hollywood sojourn was horribly mishandled. Sten herself is charming, particularly in comedic scenes. She was undeniably beautiful too. She does handle a few dramatic scenes awkwardly, though this could have been from discomfort in the English language.

The big problem is the films themselves. NANA and WE LIVE AGAIN are glossy, tame versions of 19th century novels. NANA in particular has a patchwork script, a case of parts being better than the whole. The best scenes involve Nana and her fellow ladies of the night interacting, or her misadventures in wooing foolish men. The moment the serious love plot rears its head, the movie clomps. Sten is also called upon to do her best Dietrich impression in the film's one musical number and it's okay-- but it's better to be a first rate version of yourself than a second rate Dietrich.

Ukrainian-born Anna Sten was brought to Hollywood by Samuel Goldwyn to be the next Greta Garbo, but her career didn't quite pan out that way. I'd seen WE LIVE AGAIN (1934), an Anna Sten vehicle adapted from a Tolstoy epic, and I didn't care much for it. I hadn't heard great things about NANA (1934), Sten's Hollywood debut, and was hesitant to check it out. But NANA's not too bad and it's easy to see Anna Sten's appeal.

NANA is a period piece based on the novel by Emile Zola. Sten plays a Parisian streetwalker who is discovered by a theatrical impresario and becomes a stage success before falling in love with a soldier and running afoul of his protective older brother. Anna Sten does alright in the lead role. She's a beautiful girl, and her hard-boiled performance is much different than her turn in WE LIVE AGAIN. Part Garbo, part Marlene Dietrich, she even talk-sings through a stage number, smoking a cigarette.

Sten has a noticeable accent, like many other foreign imports, but her acting isn't as bad as some people say. Sten's character is a self-confident prostitute, at ease with her place in Paris society. It's a low-energy role. All she's really required to do is effortlessly seduce every man who looks at her, and she seems to pull it off. She's certainly very attractive. The scene where she teases her new admirers in her dressing room has a sexy edge. Perhaps Anna Sten came off as too much of a Dietrich/Garbo stand-in, without a style of her own.

Lionel Atwill plays his usual antagonistic aristocrat, though the forty-eight-year-old Atwill is improbably cast as the older brother to twenty-six-year-old Phillips Holmes, who plays the young soldier who falls in love with Sten. The cast also includes Jessie Ralph as Sten's personal maid, Richard Bennett as the great impresario, and Reginald Owen as his assistant. The film does suffer from a lack of star power, with no Fredric March or Gary Cooper to shoulder some of the weight. Anna Sten gets the spotlight to herself in what is meant to be a star-making role, but her name alone wouldn't be enough to draw an audience.

Mae Clarke, one of my favorite actresses from the 1930s, was a big reason I gave NANA a shot. She plays one of Sten's prostitute buddies (along with Muriel Kirkland). Clarke does a good job, but it's a minor role. Her performances in several early-1930s films are refreshingly naturalistic, but she was eventually reduced to often-uncredited bit parts. Viewers may know Mae Clarke from THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931) or FRANKENSTEIN (1931), but I'd also recommend her work in WATERLOO BRIDGE (1931), THREE WISE GIRLS (1932), THE MAN WITH TWO FACES (1934), PENGUIN POOL MURDER (1932), and LADY KILLER (1933).

NANA was directed by Dorothy Arzner, the only female director working in Hollywood at the time. Set in 1860s Paris, it's a decent period piece. Good production values, nice costumes, and a tragic romance. Better than I expected, and a pretty good showcase for Goldwyn's exotic new discovery, Anna Sten. Unfortunately audiences in 1934 didn't take to NANA or Sten, and she never achieved stardom.

Fascinating period piece both in terms of the Setting of the film and when it was made. It's a rather early "talky" made by the only female director of the time. The original director began his career as a French art director and was fired and replaced by Arzner. Maybe he is responsible for the grand production values. Dorothy Arzner had been a film editor and even a cinematographer before becoming the first female member of the Film Directors Guild. She uses some great camera movements and segues that were very innovative for the era.

The music is very good. There is a great use of drums to create and build tension.

I didn't even think of Zola's Nana so it's loose connection didn't bother me. Anna Sten is gorgeous. There are some references to homosexuality between the women. But it's very subtle to modern viewers as required in 1930s when it might have been unheard of to the majority of viewers.

This Nana is quite a feminist for the 1930s. She's gay in the original meaning of the word and refuses to exist in her preordained social class. She is an independent woman who has affairs with different men throughout the picture without necessarily loving them. She gets drunk. She works hard. She parties. What woman today hasn't done that? But in the 1930s? Scandalous! And the men all blame her for their bad choices because she doesn't fall in with them or obey them. One of Nana's lovers forbids her to drink more alcohol and she says, "You what!!??" He has to soft pedal it.

She constantly takes insults and keeps going. The old men in the picture want to ruin her for loving outside her class. She gives it right back to them. She tells one old fart, "You made me? Well I paid you!" Meaning she paid him with her youth, beauty, and sex. And his price was expensive, the wrinkly old dick.

It is a much more sympathetic view of Nana than the self righteous and sexist Zola could have dreamed of. So many men just can't believe that a woman might just enjoy life outside of marrying and having children. Arzner knew a woman could.

I think Sten's accent and acting was criticized heavily when the film first came out because the acting in the silent era was so different and critics weren't used to the new style in talkies. Also, foreign accents were initially not well received. Garbo had been a silent film star and was accepted as a transitional star. Sten didn't have that to carry her into the new medium. Viewed without any bias over Garbo, Sten is very good and in some ways seems to have a more modern style comparable more to Olivia de Haviland. Her eyes are super sexy.