Pirate Booty

Upon its initial release, The Pirate (1948) divided critics, alienated most audiences, lost money, and became a project that all involved -- stars Judy Garland and Gene Kelly, director Vincente Minnelli, and composer Cole Porter -- preferred to forget. Porter, in fact, decried the fantastical mistaken identity farce as "unspeakably wretched, the worst that money could buy." Today, half a century later, it's still often described as the most controversial film in the Garland canon.

Judy Garland as Manuela in The Pirate (1948, MGM)

The fact that Garland missed 99 of the 135 days of shooting speaks to her deteriorating mental and physical state, and undoubtedly contributed to the film's uneven, awkward pacing; she was reportedly smoking four packs of cigarettes a day, and hallucinating from her drug use -- sometimes requiring the crew to literally carry her off the set in hysterics. As a vehicle for Metro's brightest musical talent, The Pirate fails miserably -- although its top-billed star looks splendid and displays a wry comedic touch, her dazzling singing talents are barely tapped. Garland's two ballads, "You Can Do No Wrong" and "Love of My Life," are pleasant, but not up to her usual high standard -- in fact, the latter song is only seen as a reprise in the final act of the film; its full rendition was deemed unworthy and was cut.


As a potential stepping stone in the possibility of Garland and co-star Gene Kelly becoming another Judy-and-Mickey box office super-duo (they had been successfully paired in 1942's For Me and My Gal), the film barely passes muster: their undeniable chemistry is undercut by a screenplay (and subsequent editing) which has the two go from adversaries to eternal lovebirds in a matter of seconds. But as a showcase for Gene Kelly's white-hot sex appeal, The Pirate has no equal.


In spite of his physical handsomeness, athletic dancing ability, and easy charm, Gene Kelly's screen persona was, and is, curiously asexual. As gorgeous and talented as he is in On the Town (1949), An American in Paris (1951), or Singin' in the Rain (1952), Kelly's glib style and mannered acting don't incite audiences to swoonful passion. But in The Pirate, Kelly's dancing was never more erotic or (literally) in-your-face: his first solo, "Nina," finds him introducing male pole dancing (take that, Steven Retchless!); being memorably kinky with a cigarette (fast forward to 3:19 in the clip below); and effortlessly getting the entire female population of the Caribbean to fall at his feet -- and we don't blame them.

Even more eye-popping and jaw-dropping is The Pirate's ballet sequence, in which a tanned, taut, toned Kelly cavorts in what can only be described as hot pants and an arm band, leaping amidst licking flames and a scarlet background. Frankly, it reminds us of a mash-up between the infamous Querelle (1982) and David "The Construction Worker" Hodo's "I Love You to Death" production number in the Village People epic, Can't Stop the Music (1980).

Gene Kelly in The Pirate (1948, MGM)

Brad Davis in Querelle (1982, Planet)

David Hodo in Can't Stop the Music (1980, Associated)

Perhaps due to her illnesses and absences, Garland doesn't have very much to do in The Pirate, aside from her wild "Mack the Black," which, if not exactly a high point in her career, is definitely the most uninhibited and sexually-charged production number she ever committed to film. Her acting is also jarring, almost raw and slightly unhinged; yet, at the same time, she's very, very funny, with razor sharp timing and brilliant use of subtle body language -- a raised eyebrow here, a discreet double take there. Indeed, in a movie often called far ahead of its time, MGM-era Judy is foreshadowing loopy, zany, witty 1960's talk show Judy by over a decade.

Judy Garland and Gene Kelly behind the scenes of The Pirate, 1948

Judy Garland on The Jack Paar Show, 1962

One cause for Garland's concern during the tense filming period was her suspicion that her director (and husband), Vincente Minnelli, was throwing all the good bits to Kelly, collaborating with the brilliant dancer/choreographer on extra bits of business, fleshing out Kelly's role at the expense of Garland's. There may have even been a lingering uneasiness that Minnelli's interest in the virile star wasn't purely professional; and, judging by the lingering eroticism which Minnelli's camera lavishes upon Kelly (akin to the palpable romanticism with which Minnelli framed Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis [1944], their first project together before marrying), Garland couldn't be blamed for feeling put out.

Dashing Gene Kelly as Serafin in The Pirate

Fifty-plus years later, audiences are still scratching their heads over The Pirate, so left-field are Garland and Kelly's characterizations, so stylized is Minnelli's vision. Surely, he intended The Pirate as a spoof? Garland and the other fair maidens of the Caribbean island of Calvados look and sound like well-scrubbed, all American debutantes, dressed for a costume ball in their mantillas and lace. The wonderful Gladys Cooper plays her role of a Spanish aristocrat like a grand dowager of the Main Line. And Kelly's always self-consciously hammy approach is taken to the nth degree, devastatingly sexy on a completely satirical level: he's Gene Kelly imitating John Barrymore imitating Douglas Fairbanks imitating Gene Kelly doing an imitation of John Barrymore imitating Douglas Fairbanks, with a side dollop of Errol Flynn and Gilbert Roland for good measure.

John Barrymore in Don Juan (1926, Warner Bros.)

Douglas Fairbanks in The Black Pirate (1926, United Artists)

Errol Flynn in The Master of Ballantrae (1953, Warner Bros.)

Gilbert Roland, ca. 1940's

So, is The Pirate a great film? Yes and no -- the high points are marvelous, and its flaws are glaringly obvious. As Liza Minnelli, the star and director's daughter, put it so succinctly in a featurette about her parents' grand failure, "There's nothing you can really criticize about the picture -- unless you don't like it!" We like it; and if nothing else, as the only MGM musical to ever get us hot and bothered, it stands alone.

Gray Pride

No, this is not our most recent Mystery Guest (we promise the reveal tomorrow, darlings!), but today, we just had to recognize one of our very favorite performers on their birthday: Miss Dolores Gray!


Extravagant, opulent, campy, vampy, glamorous: all of these adjectives could accurately describe Dolores Gray's outsized persona. She was singing in nightclubs by the age of 14, encouraged by a formidable stage mother who, as Gray later recalled, "...once said to me, 'It's not a very happy life unless you make it very big.'"


Gray's first major triumph was being chosen to star in the London production of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun in 1947, after the Broadway star, Ethel Merman, declined to reprise the role. Gray made her West End debut on her 21st birthday, and was an immediate smash, staying with the production for two years and 1,304 performances.


With this triumph under her belt, Gray was wooed back to Broadway, where she had previously co-starred in two ill-fated shows: the Cole Porter flop Seven Lively Arts, and Are You with It? -- the answer to which was "no." This time, Gray was co-starred with Bert "the Cowardly Lion" Lahr in a slick musical revue, Two on the Aisle.


The show opened on July 19, 1951, and was a modest hit, running for 276 performances. However, it marked the beginning of a series of contretemps between Gray and her leading men: she and Lahr detested each other, and each would pull all the stops out to upstage the other during the performance. Given the showy nature of the songs by Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, one can easily imagine that this one-upmanship merely served to entertain the audience; Gray's showstopper was the deliciously wordy "If You Hadn't (But You Did)," which further crystallized her wink-and-nod maneater image.


It was inevitable that such an explosive performer, described as being "a sexy Ethel Merman" and "the Esther Williams of the stage when it comes to shapliness," with "more sudden curves than Niagara Falls," would eventually turn her attention to films. Gray caught the eye of Arthur Freed, head of production for MGM's fabled musicals, when she performed out-of-town previews of the Broadway-bound Carnival in Flanders in Hollywood and San Francisco. When the show finally opened in New York on September 8, 1953, it lasted a mere six performances; but Gray, as had become custom, won rave reviews, introducing the standard "Here's That Rainy Day," and even won a Tony as Best Actress in a Musical -- going down in the history books as having performed the briefest run in a production to still win a Tony.

Audrey Hepburn, Dolores Gray and Jo Van Fleet at the 1954 Tony Awards

Gray signed her contract with MGM in 1955; had she arrived at Metro even just five years earlier, lightning might have struck, but the timing was all off. Musicals in general were on the wane, and the new, no-nonsense head of MGM, Dore Schary, had little interest in maintaining the glamorous images of MGM's veteran superstars or creating any new ones. Gray's first film, It's Always Fair Weather (1955), could have been a hit, pedigreed as it was with star/director Gene Kelly, co-director Stanley Donen, and writers Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who had worked so well with Gray on Two on the Aisle. The film itself had a darker, more cynical edge than audiences expected of a glossy Metro product; but even if the movie may have caught 1955 audiences off guard with its satirical bite, what really sank it at the box office was MGM's complete lack of promotional support: it was quietly released on a double bill with the bleak noir-Western, Bad Day at Black Rock, of all things.

Dolores Gray and Gene Kelly on the set of It's Always Fair Weather (1955, MGM)

For her part, Gray decried her role as uber-glamorous television hostess Madeline Bradville as "an ageless, sexless caricature"; but it's undeniably her most enduring performance for latter-day audiences. Despite the lack of success of It's Always Fair Weather, Gray might have ridden out the storm if she hadn't immediately found herself in two complete clunkers: Vincente Minnelli's Kismet (1955) and The Opposite Sex (1956), the infamous musical reimagining of Clare Booth Luce's classic catfight, The Women. Once again, Gray was superb, even with the formidable shoes of Marlene Dietrich (who played Gray's role of Lalume in the 1944, non-musical Kismet) and Rosalind Russell (the definitive Sylvia Fowler in the 1939 version of The Women) to fill -- but the scripts and productions were stacked against her.

Dolores Gray and Howard Keel in Kismet (1955, MGM)

Dolores Gray, June Allyson and Joan Collins in The Opposite Sex (1956, MGM)

In 1956, Gray was also strongly in the running for the Diana Vreeland-inspired role of magazine editor Maggie Prescott in Funny Face, starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. She turned the role down, feeling that it was yet another "sexless caricature" -- but it would have been a showcased role in a wildly successful, ultimately classic film. Instead, Gray wound up her all-too-brief MGM tenure as "the other woman" in the stylish, non-musical comedy, Designing Woman (1957). She looked splendid in her Helen Rose costumes, and sparred nicely with Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall, but it was too little, too late to save her floundering film career.

Dolores Gray and Gregory Peck in Designing Woman (1957, MGM)

Once again taking on a Marlene Dietrich role, Gray returned to Broadway in 1959 with a musical production of Destry Rides Again, which had been Dietrich's 1939 film comeback. She was paired with Andy Griffith, with whom she reportedly did not get along. The show was directed and choreographed by Michael Kidd, who had co-starred with Gray in It's Always Fair Weather; but if either expected a happy reunion, all hopes were dashed when Kidd called Gray "a slut" in front of the entire company, and his leading lady hauled off and slapped him, then stormed off the set. In spite of the backstage tensions, the show did well, running for 476 performances.

Gray kept busy for the first half of the 1960's with numerous television appearances, her celebrated nightclub act, and regional theater performances. In 1966, the 42-year-old married for the first time, to Andrew Crevolin, described in newspaper reports as a multimillionaire horsebreeder and landowner. Although their marriage legally lasted until his death in 1992, and they remained lifelong friends, Gray and Crevolin's actual union only lasted a few years. In 1967, she made another splashy return to Broadway in Sherry!, a musical version of The Man Who Came to Dinner. Despite high hopes, the show was a failure.


The 1970's saw Gray perform more frequently in her beloved London, both in her cabaret act, and succeeding Angela Lansbury in the 1973 revival of Gypsy. Throughout the years, she remained an outrageous, glamorous, larger-than-life personality, delighting the press with her penchant for carrying no less than 36 pieces of luggage (packed with 120 pairs of shoes and 25 evening gowns); booking a private cabin on the Queen Elizabeth solely for her Persian cat; and, on one trip to England, traveling with a dozen full-length mink coats -- and two full-time bodyguards to protect them.


Gray enjoyed one last major London hurrah when Stephen Sondheim personally asked her to come out of retirement to appear in the 1987 revival of Follies. She agreed, and once again, brought down the house as Carlotta, putting her own stamp on the done-to-death "I'm Still Here."

Dolores Gray in the 1987 London production of Follies

Flamboyant and outspoken to the end, Gray continued to be a glamorous addition to Manhattan nightlife, squired about town by friends and fans like John Epperson, a.k.a. Lypsinka, and holding court in her plush Upper East Side apartment (described by Epperson as being decorated in gold, purple and leopard skin!). Dolores Gray passed away in 2002 of a heart attack at the age of 78; but, here at SSUWAT, she is still a living, breathing icon -- no gray area there.

DOLORES GRAY
June 7, 1924 - June 20, 2002

Evolution

Wood Wiggery

The mystery wig, and Natalie Wood wearing it in a publicity still for All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960)

In spite of such novel guesses as Errol Flynn, John Travolta and Tony Curtis, our latest Mystery Guest was, indeed, decidedly female: Miss Natalie Wood! The wig in question was worn by Natalie in the all-star potboiler, All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960). Besides Nat, the jaw-dropping cast also included her then-hubby, Robert Wagner; Susan Kohner, fresh off of her brilliant performance as the tragic mulatto passing for "white, white, WHITE!!!!" in Imitation of Life (1959); rising young smoothie George Hamilton; and Pearl Bailey (!).

This foray into the "love hungry world of the sophisticated young moderns" was another tentative step towards full-fledged adult stardom for Natalie, who had grown up in front of the camera. As a child star, she appeared in such classics as The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Miracle on 34th Street (both 1947); as a budding teen starlet, she scored with Rebel without a Cause (1955) and The Searchers (1956). But as a bona fide leading lady, Wood had yet to make an impression; her first attempt, Marjorie Morningstar (1958), was considered something of a misfire, and a lesser credit for her established co-star, Gene Kelly.


In spite of its glamorous cast, plush trappings, and melodramatic plot, Cannibals fared even worse with the critics, and it seemed that adult stardom was going to elude Natalie's grasp. However, within a year, she surprised everyone with the hat trick of West Side Story and Splendor in the Grass (both 1961) and Gypsy (1962). Suddenly, Natalie was not only a star, but a superstar -- a box office draw and an Oscar-nominated actress. Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) continued her critical and commercial streak, culminating in another Oscar nod; but then it became all too easy to knock on Wood again as Natalie found herself alternating between glossy, inconsquential sex comedies like Sex and the Single Girl (1964) and Penelope (1966); and glossy, improbable melodramas like Inside Daisy Clover (1965) and This Property is Condemned (1966).


Apart from the all-star Blake Edwards comedy, The Great Race (1965), all of Natalie's 1964-66 output was met with lukewarm critical response, and some outright reviling. She was off the screen for nearly three years, battling emotional issues (and turning down Bonnie and Clyde in the process) before making a comeback in the now-dated, but then-sensational Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). Although the film was one of the Top 10 box office hits of the year, Natalie decided to concentrate on raising her family rather than take advantage of her newly-restored popularity. She did periodically make celebrated television appearances, most notably in the telefilms Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) and The Cracker Factory (1979), and the mini-series From Here to Eternity (1978). Her movie ventures were less carefully considered; Meteor (1979) was a disaster film in every sense of the word, and The Last Married Couple in America (1980) was middling entertainment, at best. Still, the lingering stardust of Natalie's storied history as one of the last links to the Golden Age of Hollywood was enough to give her legendary status -- at least according to Blackglama, who tapped her for their campaign in 1981.


The "What Becomes a Legend Most" ad featuring Natalie was running worldwide when the shocking news of her death at age 43 made headlines. Having harbored a lifelong fear of water, Natalie died in a drowning accident when she fell overboard from the yacht she shared with Robert Wagner, whom she had remarried in 1972. Strangely, Natalie's mysterious, early death has somehow failed to make her as mythic as, say, James Dean, her former co-star and friend. We hope that occasional tributes like these contribute in some small way to keeping her flame alive; she may not have been the greatest of actresses, but Natalie Wood was, indeed, a genuine movie star -- one of the last created by the greatest myth of all, Classic Hollywood.