Mannequin

This is a modest film, beautifully proportioned and modulated, that manages to draw the viewer into its romantic world. It easily could have become maudlin, or stridently melodramatic, or overblown. Joan Crawford could have overacted, or Spencer Tracy could have turned smug. But the film is amazingly free of false notes. This is not a film to be seen for camp , but for its very real charm. Director Frank Borzage succeeds in creating a world that is feels completely consistent and free of cliche. Take for example, the scene in which the heroine is on the dance floor with her new husband, singing "their song"--easily a cliched moment. But while she croons, the husband is tense, alert, observant, distant. Or look at the scene where Tracy meets with his striking workers, and faces the loss of his business and fortune. The scene unfolds with a quiet dignity and depth of feeling on both sides of the conflict. Again and again, Borzage balances romance with realism, pathos with stillness, emotion with dignity. As a result, Mannequin is a deftly made film that moves along lyrically, making what could have been preposterous, touching.

"Mannequin" is a charming, Joan Crawford rags to riches story set in New York City. Desperate to get out of her family's Hester Street apartment, Jessie talks her boyfriend Eddie into getting married a little sooner than planned. At her wedding dinner in a Chinese restaurant, she is spotted by the very wealthy, well known John Hennessy (Spencer Tracy) who falls in love with her immediately. He's also impressed by the depth of her love for Eddie. But it's obvious to all but Jessie that Eddie is a jerk.

This is not a big, splashy film, but a more intimate one, with a marvelous, heartfelt performance by a young Spencer Tracy, who plays a lonely man to perfection. His sincere performance drives the film. Crawford is photographed beautifully, all gorgeous eyes and softness. I'm not sure how many animals died so Crawford could be dressed so opulently in fur, but once she gets into modeling and then hits the big time, she wears some very expensive clothes. Curtis is an attractive louse, and Leo Gorcey is great as Jessie's impossible brother. Elisabeth Risdon gives a wonderful performance, with a poignant monologue to her daughter at one point.

A sweet and satisfying film.

As I'm finding is usual with Frank Borzage films I've watched recently, there's more here than first meets the eye. At its heart is a love triangle of sorts initially involving Joan Crawford and Alan Curtis but later adding in Spencer Tracy.

Crawford is the beating heart of the movie. A hard-working dancer, she faithfully takes her unopened pay-packet home to her mum in the family apartment on the poor side of town. Her dad is unemployed and basically sits about the flat reading his paper expecting to be waited on hand and foot by his wife. Alongside him, fulfilling a similar function, is Crawford's feckless and cynical younger brother but worse yet is the guy with whom she's loved-up and engaged.

This is Curtis's unsteady Eddie, selfish and grasping, well-balanced as the saying goes, with a chip on both shoulders. He's going to take the quickest way to easy money and doesn't mind using Joanie any way he can to get there. Joan can't see this of course and despite her mother's "Don't do as I did" warnings, duly marries Eddie, but at their reception, Tracy's wealthy shipping magnate John L Hennessy also happens to be there, where he's immediately smitten by Crawford.

We see Tracy in place as a benevolent boss, playing fair with his employees but in a sign of the times, there are hints of discontent especially as the labour is unionised. Thoughts of Joan distract him from his work and of course she's unattainable, given that she's married and apparently in love with Curtis, but it's not long before hubby starts to show his true colours and concocts a seedy plan to use her to entrap Tracy in a get-Eddie-rich ruse.

Things don't go according to plan however, as he doesn't count either on the scales finally falling from Crawford's eyes where he himself is concerned or her developing feelings for the blindly adoring Tracy. At the same time though, things aren't going so well for Tracy's business leading to a multi-faceted ending where the true price of love is learned by the principals.

The love story aspect isn't without cliché, reflective as it is of the Depression-era backdrop. It's interesting and diverting enough but certainly somewhat fantastical. There are some nicely humorous touches, one scene in particular when Crawford, by now working as a clothes-store mannequin, models a number of day-wear outfits at a fashion show as an ever-more interested Tracy looks on, especially keen to see what she wears to bed. However I was probably more interested in the back story of Tracy and his relationship with his workers. At the climactic scene where he confronts them at a mass meeting after they've come out on a sympathy strike, he doesn't threaten or bully them but instead respects their position no matter the personal consequences to him.

I am finding Borzage to be an interesting Hollywood Golden Age director. Sure, there's a love story at the heart of all the movies of his that I've seen, but it's the serious stuff in the background which really gets my attention. Tracy and Crawford are both excellent in their parts, while Curtis too registers strongly as Eddie the Heel.

All in all, an entertaining and in its own modest way, educational movie with its depictions of working class life and industrial relations of the time.

When TCM ran this flick recently, the host observed that Crawford, while not exactly thrilled about sharing the spotlight with Tracy, did take care to scale her performance down so that her usual overplaying wouldn't look wildly out of place. She's still false -- all eyebrows and key lighting -- but she does have star quality, and she's playing a very appealing, practical rags-to-riches lady. Tracy brought his usual sincerity to another appealing role, and Borzage brought his characteristic lyricism -- the whole movie seems quiet and understated, not at all tainted by the typical MGM frou-frou. The dialogue has snap, the plot has pace, and there are unusual touches: Note the scene in the subway car, and how charmingly and inconclusively it ends. Maybe this was considered standard MGM claptrap in its day, but it holds up remarkably well and somehow feels modern. The issues haven't really dated. Maybe today's Joan Crawford, Julia Roberts, could do a remake?

I hate to be a spoil sport, but I must disagree with the other reviewers who are un-restrained in their enthusiasm for the only Joan Crawford/Spencer Tracy co-starring vehicle. The movie often feels as though it had been re-heated and, while it has many admirable moments, just as many ring false. Crawford herself remains remote and aloof for much of the running time and, while Spencer Tracy probably couldn't give a false performance if he tried, his heart doesn't seem to be in it either.

The early scenes, in which Joan plays a poor, restless girl who lives in a tenement with her ne'er do well father and brother, as well as with her overworked, tired mother are so stilted and obvious they are an embarrassment. These scenes play almost like parodies of the previous Crawford vehicles POSSESSED (1931), DANCING LADY (1933) and SADIE McKEE (1934). Crawford has played this "noble girl whose ambitions will lift her out of her miserable station in life" part before, and she has played it better. Here she seems tired, like she's not even believing it herself and, although it may sound un-gallant to mention, she's a little long in the tooth to play this type of role convincingly (God forgive me).

Things brighten considerably when Tracy and Crawford begin to spark and it is the middle section of the movie that is the most enjoyable. A lot of this may stem from the fact that the middle section contains the least amount of screen time for Alan Curtis, who plays Joan's "so bad he's hissable" louse of a husband. Curtis is so one dimensional and so "obviously" rotten that you wonder what Crawford's character could EVER have seen in him.

Complaints aside, there are good and memorable moments to be found in MANNEQUIN. When Tracy and Crawford are alone on-screen, they both seem to be off of their game, but together, they have a haunting chemistry that transcends explanation. They both manage to convey that they truly understand and accept what the other is thinking, a rarity in film. It makes MANNEQUIN all the more frustrating when we get glimpses of what made these two the magnificent stars they were. It disappoints me that they never worked together again in a project more worthy of their combined talents.

Standing in dramatic counterpoint to Crawford's 1938 "box office poison" label, MANNEQUIN was a big hit with audiences early that year. Other, more ambitious (and in my opinion, more interesting) Crawford vehicles such as THE BRIDE WORE RED (1937) and THE SHINING HOUR (1938), however, were not.