THE WRITER’S EYE with Dean James

THE WRITER’S EYE with Dean James

Watching The Classics From A Different Point View

Recipe for a classic tragicomedy:

1 hopeful mid-western heiress

1 cynical dancer

1 suave producer

1 ensemble cast with actors who would later have great careers

The seasoning:

Wealthy Katharine Hepburn is hopeful of launching a theatrical career; Ginger Rogers is cynical, seasoned dancer; rounding out the ensemble are Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Ann Miller, Gail Patrick (who almost always played the bad girl); Adolphe Menjou is the suave producer who holds actresses careers in his careless hands

The brew:

In most novels writers have an ensemble cast. This movie, based loosely on a stage play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, has a large cast of young woman living in a theatrical boarding house in New York. Hepburn plays heiress Terry Randall who comes in with lots of luggage but incognito (sort of). Rogers (Jean Maitland) is her roommate and assumes that Terry has a sugar daddy when she spots a picture of Terry’s grandfather. Gail Patrick is “dating” wealthy producer Anthony Powell (Menjou), who turns his attention to Rogers and Ann Miller when he sees them rehearsing as chorus dancers. Kay Hamilton is a talented actress who had great success a year ago but is now desperate to find work. Broke and malnourished, she has set her hopes on the lead in Powell’s new production, “Enchanted April.” When Powell cancels his appointment with Kay, she faints in his waiting room. Hepburn barges into his office and berates him for his callousness. Unbeknownst to her, her father is financing the new play, and he wants her to fail so she will return home.

Fast-paced witty dialogue in the boarding house brings comedy to the fore, but the sad story of Kay Hamilton brings the tragedy when she, delirious with fatigue and hunger, commits suicide by jumping out a window. Hepburn, who is a really wooden actress, is so emotionally overcome by this, she attempts to back out of the performance, but her acting coach insists she has to go on, not only for the company whose livelihood depend on it, but also for Kay. Transformed by grief, Hepburn gives a bravura performance, much to her father’s chagrin.

What can a writer learn from this?

First, how to handle a large cast; second, how to reveal character from dialogue and character interaction; third, how to blend comedy and drama effectively to make one of my all-time favorite films; and fourth, how to layer texture into a story to add depth and humanity. Terrific performances by all concerned make this a gem of 1930s movie-making. Finally, a point of trivia; this is the movie in which Hepburn utters the classic line “The calla lilies are in bloom again.”