L'inconnue du palace

In about 1980 I saw this film at the UCLA Film Archives in a series presenting Dorothy Arzner directed films. There was a guest speaker at the event who was a personal friend of Arzner's. I don't remember her name, but she was introduced as, among other things, the writer for the script of "Craig's Wife" (1936; starring Rosalind Russell).

She said she was on the set for some of the shooting of "Bride Wore Red," and described how Joan Crawford was completely uncooperative with the director. Originally it was written for Luise Rainer but for some reason she was unavailable. "So they got Joan Crawford who wasn't anything like her," and was not suited for the film in this woman's opinion. While she was on the set she witnessed how Dorothy Arzner would gently make suggestions as to how to play a scene, "...and Joan would scream, 'You'll destroy me! You'll destroy me!' and she would run up to L.B. Mayer and he would say, 'There, there Joan, play it your way." So she did, "...and frankly, the film bombed. But when you have a star that is entirely uncooperative, you can't blame the director." I hope I have quoted this woman accurately. That is what has stuck in my memory. I am a big Crawford fan, but her flaws were apparently spectacular. I just thought it would be interesting to record this bit of info.

Dorothy Arzner is the director of this film, and though she does not make a lot of films, she usually makes rather substantial ones. This is certainly a substantial one.

The most appealing aspect of this production is the chemistry and loveliness of the couple played on screen by Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone (married in real life). This is not the only film that MGM has costarred them in together, but in this picture, it is easy to see the magic they create.

For his part, Robert Young is a worthy costar. And so is Joan's dazzling dress, referenced in the title. One must not forget to mention the always splendid Billie Burke, directed in several other pictures by Arzner. This time she portrays a real shrew, not her trademark scatterbrained character.

I've never been a fan of Joan Crawford, so it's always a surprise to find a performance of hers that really wins me over. I liked her in Grand Hotel (as 'Flaemmchen,') and I liked her again, very much, as Anni, the cheap night-club singer masquerading as a lady. Often seen in hard and brittle roles, Crawford has a very different look in this film, and expresses a vulnerability that brings her character to life. (Billie Burke is also notable, in the small but juicy role of the acid-tongued Contessa. And Franchot Tone has never been more likable.)

The Bride Wore Red is certainly built according to studio formula, but it also embodies all the earnest craftsmanship that characterized the studio system. The film at times seems clichéd, but it fully redeems itself through genuine empathy for the characters. And through its very strong premise: a 'scarlet' woman driven by hunger for the good life, who is given a slim chance of joining the upper class - provided she's cold and deceitful enough.

Until the final act, I really felt that the film could have gone either way: warm-hearted romance or bitter tragedy. The delicate balancing act makes it hard to achieve a satisfying pay-off. But the ending does succeed, thanks to a couple of nicely orchestrated scenes, and to the talent and charisma of Ms Crawford. These do make us believe that Anni could only choose as she does.

I was a bit sorry the film didn't delve just a little deeper into the moral and social dimensions. Anni's real problem is not what she wants, but rather what she may have to give up in order to get it. That distinction is not made entirely clear, leaving the film a bit too reliant on the old cliché that 'wealth doesn't bring true happiness.' But there's more going on here. Anni's 'tragic flaw' is not the hunger itself, but her willingness to give up honesty, morality and even true love. This distinction becomes almost subliminal, but it's there, and gives the film a slightly sharper edge. Anni is a character we can identify with and possibly admire, even when she's doing something despicable.

If you're in the mood for a traditional, old-style Hollywood entertainment, you won't go wrong with The Bride Wore Red. This is one of the good ones, a film I'd gladly watch again any time.

The Bride Wore Red is a ridiculous but fun film. A drunken count, slumming it for the night, runs into a cynical and hungry young woman, Anni Pavlovitch (Joan Crawford). He decides to send her on a luxury vacation to prove his drunken point that the poor and the rich aren't so different after all and buys her new clothes and arranges for her to stay in a luxury resort. Anni, who obviously thinks the whole thing is crazy, decides to go threw with it anyway. Arriving in the alps she meets Giulio (Crawford's real life husband, Franchot Tone) a very pert mail employee who immediately takes a shine to her. The two have sparks aplenty, but when she arrives at the hotel Anni quickly realizes that she would rather always have food on her table than the love of a good man, and quickly sets about seducing Rudi, a flighty engaged man who is very taken with her.

As with most romcoms the real test is if the chemistry works and here it does perfectly. Crawford and Tone have excellent chemistry here and he is very sweet and naive, persistently wearing down the jaded and bitter singer.

It's a lovely sweet film.

Well, you can't blame Joan for trying. Always wanting to go beyond that glamorous clothes-horse/shopgirl-makes-good mold in which MGM so successfully cast her throughout the 1930's, she was always attempting to outreach her grasp. When Metro's Austrian star Luise Rainer backed out of making a film of Molnar's THE GIRL FROM TRIESTE, a dark photoplay about a prostitute sent on a masquerade in the Tyrolean Alps, Crawford grabbed it, hoping to get her teeth into a meaty role. Imagine her chagrin when Metro executives "improved" the piece to be more suitable for Crawford's image, taking the meat and guts with it. What emerged was an uncomfortable picture built on compromises in an attempt to graft a typical Crawford/Cinderella plot onto what is basically a nasty, mean little story. Registering far below the Crawford usual at the paybox, THE BRIDE WORE RED started her career to skid.

A closer look, however, reveals that not all of the edge has been softened from the piece. I wholeheartedly agree with the reviewer who calls this Joan's most underrated performance, and there is a reason we do not sympathize with this Cinderella. Crawford's Anni is cold and snappish, and has the potential to do real harm to some nice, decent folk. The film plays like the dark side of all of those rags-to-Adrian gown stories Crawford played in the Metro phase of her career, and CRAWFORD IS FULLY AWARE OF THIS. Although seemingly played straight, there is an irony underneath that tells us Crawford herself isn't crazy about Anni either. It's understandable that 1937 audiences did not warm to a Joan they couldn't root for (even her hair is cut into a severe, but stunning, pageboy), but it deserves real recognition now that we are removed from the era and have seen ALL the phases of Crawford's career. In many ways, it's a harbinger of the darker, icier roles she was to play at Warner Bros. and throughout the 1950's.

The performances are uniformly good, with George Zucco strong as the decadent, evil Machiavelli who sends Anni on her masquerade, but Crawford, for the most part, is the standout. Only in the early scenes of the film, when she attempts to portray Anni as a world-weary honky tonk singer (in what must have been the cleanest, most glamorous "dive" in all of Trieste!!) does she fail to convince.

(Ironically, Crawford's next film, MANNEQUIN, released early in 1938 and co-starring Spencer Tracy, was a strictly paint by the numbers Rags-to-Adrian tale, inferior to this, that found great favor with the movie-going public.)