The Juliet and Magnolia Teasers
Classic-film buffs know that Norma Shearer starred as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (1936) and that it was Kathryn Grayson who played Magnolia in Show Boat (1951), two lavish MGM productions from the studio’s glory days. Fewer fans will remember that both stars had already played their respective roles in earlier MGM movies, with Shearer’s first Juliet appearing in The Hollywood Revue of 1929 and Grayson’s Magnolia debuting in Till the Clouds Roll By (1946). These initial appearances consisted of excerpts from the famed properties, mere snippets used as contributions to all-star extravaganzas. Neither star could have known that within a few years she’d play her role in its entirety, though perhaps each was thinking that an ideal audition situation had come her way. After all, don’t these early, brief appearances somehow qualify as screen tests? Yes, they do, but screen tests of a most unusual kind, those actually shared with the moviegoing public.
The Hollywood Revue of 1929, a Best Picture Oscar nominee, was MGM’s attempt to assure audiences that, don’t worry, not only could Metro’s stable of stars talk but they could sing and dance, too! Though the film in fact proves the opposite, contemporary ticket buyers (apparently still in awe of the sound phenomenon) were sufficiently impressed. The Hollywood Revue is undeniably priceless as film history, but unfortunately deadly as entertainment. It’s like watching an MGM musical before the talent arrived, before Mickey and Judy, Jeanette and Nelson, and Eleanor Powell. But, hey, they were all inventing the wheel as far as movie musicals go, so it’s pretty easy to forgive what now plays like a tacky third-rate vaudeville show: there’s more marching than dancing; the camera hardly moves; and the movie feels endless. This has to be the only Best Picture nominee that actually mentions the film (The Broadway Melody) which beat it for the Oscar. There are admittedly a few moments to treasure (the introduction of “Singin’ in the Rain”; the radiant youth and beauty, if not the gracefulness, of Joan Crawford; Buster Keaton’s dance in drag), but Shearer’s Juliet is not among them.
In a sequence shot in an early Technicolor process, Shearer and John Gilbert perform the balcony scene from Shakespeare’s play. Shearer is confidently terrible, stealing the scene with amateurish bravado and dominating the more restrained Gilbert. Lionel Barrymore is present as himself, directing them. With Barrymore’s instructions to transform the scene into The Neckers, modernizing the dialogue into late-20s slang, the scene is set for a clever and potentially hilarious sketch. At best you might call it slightly amusing, with its use of “baby” and “gaga” and a bit of pig Latin, but it’s mostly a missed opportunity. And no one could have been clamoring for more of Shearer as Juliet. However, in 1936, when she was MGM’s reigning Oscar-winning First Lady, and coming off a big success in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), Shearer played Juliet to Oscar-nominated acclaim, opposite the Romeo of Leslie Howard.
The 1936 Shearer was a far more seasoned player than she’d been at the dawn of talking pictures. Her dramatic limitations are still apparent, but her natural warmth shines through, resulting in a Juliet far more effective than anyone had the right to expect. Shearer clearly gives it her all, and she’s certainly more affecting than the strangely cold-blooded Mr. Howard. There’s, of course, the obvious problem of having a Juliet in her thirties, a Romeo in his forties, and a Mercutio (hammy, though energized, John Barrymore) in his fifties. I’d describe the result as an honorable prestige picture made with meticulous care, even though it’s unmoving and overproduced to almost spectacle proportions (with all kinds of lavish filler). If the taste level varies, at least the black and white continually shimmers. Under George Cukor’s delicate guidance, Shearer was respectable, hardly inspired but light years ahead of her self-conscious awfulness back in 1929.
Till the Clouds Roll By is supposedly a musical biography of Broadway and Hollywood composer Jerome Kern. Most of the songwriter biopics of the ’40s and ’50s have hopelessly phony and ridiculously fictionalized screenplays, with this particular movie possibly the worst of them all. As Kern, poor Robert Walker is saddled with a ponderously dull arc to play, while not one moment of the surrounding melodrama is to be believed. But, as variety shows go, MGM was by now capable of delivering a real humdinger of a program, offering supremely gifted singers and dancers seen to blissful advantage.
The picture begins on opening night of Kern’s triumphant Show Boat, complete with a 15-minute recreation of that landmark 1927 stage performance. Tony Martin is Gaylord, Lena Horne is Julie, and, yes, Ms. Grayson is Magnolia. She and Martin perform the classic “Make Believe” quite ably. But what nearly sinks the number is the distraction of Grayson’s garish overglamorization. Magnolia is a dreamy innocent, a soprano ingenue, a romantic virgin. With Grayson’s ample bosom quite fleshily exposed, the sequence becomes absurd. The costume is simply a disaster: a white gown, possibly bridal, complete with a short veil and red-blue-green flowery details. It’s an insult to the material, though, overall, this Show Boat opening is one of the film’s highlights. Others include Judy Garland’s heartfelt “Look for the Silver Lining” and Mr. Martin’s sublime rendition of “All the Things You Are.”
The 1951 Show Boat, which paired Grayson’s Magnolia with the Gaylord of Howard Keel, was an enormous popular success (and not just because Grayson was appropriately, and far more modestly, costumed in the “Make Believe” duet). In the first of their three musicals together, it’s immediately clear that Grayson and Keel have chemistry, initially evident in their charming coming-together during the course of “Make Believe.” Keel sings some of the song to a hanging costume, careful not to scare Grayson away by forcing his virility upon her. This helps her ease her way into joining him. This “Make Believe” is smartly thought-out and exceedingly well done. There’s much more to like here: Ava Gardner’s increasingly touching performance as Julie; the superb dancing of Marge and Gower Champion; the haunting “Ol’ Man River” of William Warfield; and Keel’s simple, touching “Who Cares If My Boat Goes Upstream?”
And yet this Show Boat is a most uneven movie musical. Sometimes it’s beautiful and buoyant, other times it’s hideous-looking and dramatically anemic (succumbing to second-act sagging). Magnolia is certainly the role for which Grayson is best remembered, which has more than a little to do with her aforementioned chemistry with Keel. He’s an ideal Gaylord, in looks, voice, and manner, so it’s no surprise that Grayson engages most fully in his presence. However, it must be said that the film’s worst scene occurs when she tells him off (right before he walks out on her) and calls him “weak!” Despite further hokum, soapiness, and masochism, this version improved some aspects of the original show and the celebrated 1936 film version, notably in its sensible decision to bring Julie back into the story after her usual exit, plus the satisfying choice to end the film with Magnolia and Gaylord still youthful, rather than senior citizens. I also love Julie’s new Stella Dallas-style fadeout.
Grayson’s performance is overshadowed by Keel’s and Gardner’s, but, like Norma Shearer in 1936, she gives a wholly respectable performance, not only a professional and creditable job but a decided improvement on her earlier brief encounter with her inevitable role.
