A Thoroughly Pre-Modern Mary

On January 25, 2017, Mary Tyler Moore passed away at the age of 80. In both of her unforgettable TV roles, as adorable housewife Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show and as self-sufficient “woman on her own” Mary Richards on her eponymous Mary Tyler Moore Show, Moore radiated a persona of cheerfulness, optimism and determination despite a personal life with more than its share of challenges, including a lifetime managing Type 1 diabetes, a bout with alcoholism and the loss of a child. Small wonder we’ve loved Mary for more than 50 years—she truly was an all-American girl next door with “spunk,” as Lou Grant would say.

The 1967 film Thoroughly Modern Millie was Mary’s big-screen debut, after more than a decade of television work culminating in a five-year run with Dick Van Dyke. After Laura Petrie and before Mary Richards, Mary Tyler Moore seemed to be struggling to find a new career direction. During this awkward in-between period, she starred as Holly Golightly in a disastrous Broadway production of Breakfast at Tiffany’s opposite Richard Chamberlain, and even did a stint as leading lady to Elvis Presley in his last scripted film Change of Habit (she played a nun and he played a doctor, famously if not believably!).

Julie Andrews as Millie Dillmount: "The happiest star of all!"

Accepting a costarring role opposite Julie Andrews in a movie musical, playing a naive and virginal young woman of the 1920s, seemed to suit her squeaky-clean, girl next door image. (Born-again virgins must have been all the rage in the mid-1960s, with Doris Day handing her crown as the #1 Box Office Star over to everyone’s favorite nanny Julie Andrews who, incredibly, had played a beloved governess in not just one but two iconic blockbuster movies back to back.)

Thoroughly Modern Millie itself is something of an acquired taste if you’re not an aficionado of gay camp, but if you are, this one is a gem. The plot is silly and outlandish (and very politically incorrect), and the music is quaint and old-fashioned (indeed, many of the tunes were real 1920s hits, like “Jazz Baby” and “Baby Face”). Produced by the legendary Ross Hunter (Pillow Talk, Midnight Lace, Madame X), the production design is lavish and over the top, but its great cast is what makes this movie such good fun.  

Mary Tyler Moore as Dorothy Brown: "It's Miss Dorothy..."

With her clear-as-a-bell soprano (with its fabled four-octave range) and briskly efficient vitality, the brassy Dame Julie dominates the proceedings in the title role of Millie Dillmount, but generously shares the spotlight with her costar Moore, who plays the sweet and guileless Miss Dorothy Brown. (Next to the mannish, short-haired Andrews, the lovely Mary appears even more vulnerable and feminine.) Julie and Mary have good chemistry, especially in the scenes where they must tap dance together to keep the old elevator running in the Priscilla Hotel for Young Ladies where they both live.

Beatrice Lillie as Mrs. Meers: "So sad to be all alone in the world..."

A large part of the farcical plot, dealing with a Chinese white slavery ring that spirits away young women who are “all alone in the world,” is patently offensive today. In 1967, it was still socially acceptable to describe Asians as Orientals and paint them as suspicious, mysterious and “inscrutable” characters. In 2002, the film was adapted into a semi-successful Broadway musical, keeping the “Oriental” plotline.

As Mrs. Meers, the Chinese proprietress of the Priscilla Hotel (not to mention a human trafficking organization on  the side), rushing around in a kimono and high black wig adorned with chopsticks, British stage star Beatrice Lillie makes a wacky villainness indeed. But if you can get past the racial implications, Lillie’s expert clowning, deadpan delivery and unerring comic timing are nevertheless a marvel to behold, and the comedienne neatly steals every scene in which she appears. But there’s no way around the discomfort of watching the cringe-worthy stereotypes that Asian actors Jack Soo (Barney Miller) and Pat Morita (Happy Days, The Karate Kid) are forced to play here.

Carol Channing as Muzzy Van Hossmere: "Raspberries!"

If Miss Lillie were not enough to delight fans of camp styling, the film also stars the legendary Carol Channing as a freewheeling bon vivant named Muzzy Van Hossmere—looking like a glittering diamond-and-sequin studded Muppet, braying, croaking and lisping her way into an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress!  Having lost her iconic stage roles of Lorelei Lee in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly on film to Marilyn Monroe and Barbra Streisand, respectively, the character of Muzzy is basically a composite of Dolly and Lorelei and allowed Channing the opportunity to emblazon her uniquely zany charisma onto celluloid for posterity.

The cast is rounded out by the square-jawed John Gavin (Psycho, Imitation of Life, and a Ross Hunter favorite) who spoofs his own image as a handsome but wooden leading man, and British actor James Fox (The Servant, Remains of the Day) who dances well and sings with a perfect American accent, leading the slap-happy “Tapioca” number with vigorous, goofy charm. (Gavin, now in his mid 80s, went on to serve as Ambassador to Mexico under Ronald Reagan, and Fox has continued to work steadily in films and television well into his late 70s.) 

Dorothy and Millie with "Silly Boy" Jimmy (James Fox)

Miss Dorothy and her love interest Trevor Graydon (John Gavin)

"Tapioca, everybody!"

Old-fashioned musicals like this enjoyed their last gasp of popularity in the mid-1960s, with My Fair Lady named Best Picture of 1964. 1965’s The Sound of Music also won the Best Picture Oscar and occupied the spot of top moneymaking film of all time until Jaws and Star Wars supplanted it a decade later. (Millie, directed by George Roy Hill, garnered seven Oscar nods, including Miss Channing's; it won the award for Best Musical Score.)

But Millie, though the 10th highest grossing movie of that year, was the harbinger of the death of the Hollywood musical. The next year, Julie Andrews herself would tumble from her box office perch with the disastrous Gertrude Lawrence bio-musical  Star!, and Rex Harrison’s Dr. Doolitle would also prove an ignominious failure. Paint Your Wagon flopped miserably, and even Hello, Dolly starring Streisand and helmed by Gene Kelly, did not meet box office expectations. Yes, Oliver! did win the Best Picture Oscar in 1968 in a mediocre film adaptation that beat out the likes of the groundbreaking Rosemary’s Baby and Planet of the Apes, but the Academy then as now was slow to move with the times.

Mary and Julie in rehearsal

But appearing in a movie musical seemed just the ticket for Mary Tyler Moore, who had first come to prominence as a dancer on live TV commercials (as the spritely and aptly named Happy Hotpoint for the home appliance manufacturer), and had held her own in musical interludes with costar Dick Van Dyke (who, of course, also partnered brilliantly with Julie in Mary Poppins). Though Miss Mary sings nary a note in this film (maybe that’s one reason why her Breakfast at Tiffany’s was such a disaster?) she is obviously having a ball in Millie’s spirited “Tapioca” and “Le Chaim” dance numbers.

After the MTM show left the airwaves in 1977, Moore’s greatest film triumph was playing against type as high-strung midwestern mother who loses a child in Robert Redford’s directorial debut Ordinary People, for which she earned her only Best Actress Oscar nomination. But she retained a passion for song and dance, and in the late 1970s even hosted a short-lived musical variety show (with a cast of regulars that included, incredibly, Michael Keaton and David Letterman). In the 1982 film Six Weeks, she played a former dancer and showed off her balletic prowess and always-lithe figure.

Moore, Gavin, Andrews, Fox, Channing and Lillie

In Thoroughly Modern Millie, Mary acquits herself beautifully in the role of Miss Dorothy, proving herself a versatile entertainer and gifted comic actress. (She did after all learn the art of comedy from masters like Van Dyke and Carl Reiner). It’s a lark to see Mary having so much fun, doing what she loved to do, frolicking with a talented ensemble cast, in a soufflé-light film that has become a camp classic.

Lost Perspective

While making Lost Horizon (1973), the creators of this gargantuan, ignominious flop certainly lost sight of the horizon of entertainment and good taste. What were they thinking? Is this disastrous epic the result of Hollywood neglect and excess—too much LSD, loco weed and California fruit salad—or was this film the accurate fulfillment of their artistic aspirations? Did anyone involved think it was going to actually be good? Or does Hollywood sometimes play perverse and expensive jokes on its unsuspecting public? The mind boggles.

Given a glossy and overblown treatment from producer Ross Hunter (Midnight Lace, Airport), this is a film that is so cheerfully, gleefully and appallingly bad that’s it’s difficult to stop watching. You can’t wait to see what atrocity is coming next. No wonder that more than 40 years after its release, it remains a staple on film critics’ lists of the worst films of all time. 

Ullmann, Kennedy, Van, Kellerman, Shigeta and Finch—all equally thrilled to appear in this very special movie

By the early 1970s, the musical film was already well past its death throes, with overbudgeted spectacles like Star!, Hello, Dolly and Dr. Doolittle nearly bankrupting the big studios over the past several years, but the lesson—no more big musicals!— had yet to be learned. (Indeed, the very next year, Hollywood would give us Lucille Ball as Mame!).

Based on the James Hilton novel and the classic 1937 Frank Capra film, this 1973 reworking follows the general narrative of its source materials but attempts to give it a contemporary anti-Vietnam War take, as the characters flee from a war-torn Asian country before their plane crashes in the snowy Himalayas and they are rescued and led to Shangri-La, a remote and magically temperate paradise sheltered by mountains on all sides. 

The legendary Larry Kramer, author of The Normal Heart—and more importantly, Lost Horizon

With a screenplay penned by the brilliant writer and gay activist Larry Kramer (The Normal Heart), you might think that the story and characters would reveal some depth, wisdom or profundity through the writer’s lens, but no such luck. Kramer himself admits he took the job to make a quick buck--and ironically the biggest payday of his career.

It’s also a criminal misuse of a group of very talented actors, many of whom defined cutting-edge 1970s cinema, such as Ingmar Bergman muse Liv Ullmann (Persona, Smiles of a Summer Night), Peter Finch (Network) and Sally Kellerman (MASH). Michael York (The Three Musketeers, Logan’s Run),George Kennedy (Airport), Olivia Hussey (Romeo and Juliet) and Bobby Van round out the leading cast, but Kramer’s flat script gives them all precious little of interest to do. 

Kennedy, Van, Kellerman, Ullmann and Finch take in the splendors of Shangri-La

York is easy on the eyes but plays a petulant and annoying character, the journalist brother of Peter Finch who is impatient to leave and get back to the real world. (To him, war and genocide and disease are preferable to the gongs, wind chimes, incense and flowing caftans of Utopia.) Finch tries halfheartedly to essay the role of the philosophical older brother who falls for lovely Liv. Kellerman overacts embarrassingly as a suicidal newswoman hooked on pills and alcohol. Olivia Hussey is little more than window dressing, her pretty face and figure blending into the scenery.

Paradise will be less attractive when Michael York and Olivia Hussey leave it

The supporting characters fare slightly better. Sir John Gielgud’s deadpan turn as the inscrutable Tibetan monk Chang is priceless—now there was a man who could play it straight no matter how outrageous the material he was given (Gielgud’s best moment on film was to come several years later, as the butler with the martini-dry wit in Arthur.) Charles Boyer also has a twinkle in his eye as he plays the mystical and mysterious High Lama. The handsome James Shigeta is elegant and classy and wisely underplays as the servant To Len. (Too bad that his best featured role comes in this all-time turkey.)

Charles Boyer as the mysterious High Lama

Sir John Gielgud as the inscrutable Chang

But, of course, what makes this film a camp classic is the fact that it’s a musical. Except for song-and-dance man Bobby Van, all the principals’ vocals are dubbed (or “augmented”), and by an unbelievably tone-deaf set of ghost-singers. Poor Liv Ullman’s screeching “The World is a Circle” is most dissonant of all—with that overblown budget, couldn’t they afford to engage the services of a Marni Nixon? And the Swedish actress is called upon to dance—or at least move rhythmically—as well. So are the unfortunate Sally Kellerman and Olivia Hussey. All these lovely ladies are horrifyingly graceless.

Sorry, Liv Ullmann, but we already have a Julie Andrews

An innovative table dance for Olivia Hussey and Sally Kellerman

To add insult to injury, the songs are even worse than the performers, despite their impressive musical pedigree. Lost Horizon marked the swan song of the iconic songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, whose catchy tunes and ballads helped define 1960s pop culture and launched the careers of Dionne Warwick, Cilla Black and later The Carpenters. But by 1973 Bacharach and David were apparently feuding and accepted this movie gig just as they decided to break up. 

Burt Bacharach sang a few of his Lost Horizon "hits" on his own album

The result of their final collaboration is a motley collection of songs so insipid and unmemorable that it’s astounding they were written by the authors of such standards as  “The Look of Love,” “I Say a Little Prayer” and “Close to You.” Such a shame, since they had successfully scored the hit play Promises, Promises on Broadway several years before and should have been well versed in the art of dramatic musical storytelling. Most of the songs are flat and unmusical, and even the lilting refrains of “Share the joy” and “Shangri-La” repeated throughout the film are derivative and muddled, sounding suspiciously similar to Richard Rodgers’ “Bali H’Ai,” with a soupçon of the Fantasy Island theme song thrown in for good measure. 

Ah, the spectacle—thank you, Mr. Hermes Pan!

Shame, too, on Hermes Pan, the genius choreographer who helped Fred Astaire shape most of his iconic musical numbers at RKO and MGM. The awkward Bali dancing and inept pageantry Pan presents here in the "Living Together, Growing Together" number are colorfully amiss, though at least there is plenty of tanned beefcake on display. (Pan had had much more success choreographing the spectacular entrance of Elizabeth Taylor’s queen of the Nile into Rome for Cleopatra ten years earlier. What happened?)

"Question me an answer, bright and clear..." The adorable Bobby Van

The only artist who emerges from this debacle musically unscathed is Bobby Van, who offers a vibrant and spirited performance as a down-on-his-luck standup comic who gains a new lease on life as a schoolteacher in paradise. The only cast member with any musical chops whatsoever, Van steals the picture (not a difficult feat) with his charming and winning “Question Me an Answer” routine performed with a bevy of adorable Asian schoolchildren. (It’s also one of the least egregious of the Bacharach/David tunes.) True, he is no Astaire or Kelly (or even Donald O’Connor), but next to his musically challenged castmates, Van looks like the hardest working man in show business.

A chorus boy (and later choreographer) under contract to MGM in the late forties and fifties, who most notably danced with Ann Miller and Bob Fosse in Kiss Me Kate, Van was married to TV actress Elaine Joyce (who is now the wife of Neil Simon) with whom he appeared on numerous 1970s game shows (remember Tattletales?). Van died young, at age 54, in 1980, and Lost Horizon was his largest big-screen role. But even Bobby cannot save this hopeless turkey.

There is too much more ineptitude to point out every jarring note of this big, bold flopperoo, but a few more highlights include the jaw-droppingly bad makeup job of Olivia Hussey when she withers with age away from Shangri-La. It’s an unforgettable movie moment of unintentional hilarity, as is Michael York’s over-the-top scream of horror at her appearance, which drives him to take a flying leap off a cliff!

York, Kennedy, Finch, Kellerman and Van come in from the cold

Why do I love this terrible movie? Perhaps because I first saw it when I was 7 years old and was dazzled by its sweep and color and panorama. Or maybe because its bleeding heart is in the right place. At its center is a message of peace, of tranquility, an escape from war and disease, an end to violence and suffering. It’s pure escapism...at its worst, but escapism nonetheless. (And the title tune by Bacharach and David is kind of cool, actually.)

So I can’t really recommend Lost Horizon...Then again, if you have a few hours to lose…and I do mean lose...(cue the faux "Bali H’Ai" music…)

I’m not the only one who finds this film a fabulous guilty pleasure...for even more Lost Horizon, check out Le Cinema Dreams.

X Marks the End of an Era

As a pair of iron gates open and we sweep up the drive to a stately East Coast estate, a feverish piano concerto swells and the opening credits announce her name in a stylized cursive typeface: “Lana Turner” in the title role of Madame X (1966). Fans of Miss Turner will know exactly what to expect--they’ll forget their real-life troubles for a while and immerse themselves in melodramatic splendor and manufactured tragedy for the next couple of precious hours. The movie is no masterpiece, but the actress who plays her is, if not a work of art herself, definitely a piece of work. She is the raison d’etre for the picture.  

Lana Turner, Queen of the Weepies

Variations on this hackneyed plot are as old as the hills, but die-hard fans of its star (like me) will pay no mind. In Madame X, Turner’s Holly Anderson, newly married to a rising young politician,  makes a shameful mistake that could destroy the reputation of her husband and the future of her young son. She agrees to falsify her own death in order to save them from scandal, sacrificing her identity, her own happiness and ultimately her life in the process. Cue the Kleenex box.

As her appeal as sexy sweater girl and smoldering femme fatale of the 1940s began to wane, a still-glamorous Lana Turner reinvented herself to become the queen of the scandalous soap opera in the late ’50s and early ’60s, extending her shelf life far beyond that of the garden variety sex symbol. The over-the-top melodramas that marked this successful second act in her career, from Peyton Place and Imitation of Life, Portrait in Black to By Love Possessed, cemented her status as a lasting film icon--and even seemed to mirror the dramas in her personal life, most notably the 1958 stabbing of her gangster lover Johnny Stompanato (reportedly by Turner’s daughter Cheryl Crane, but audiences could certainly picture Lana herself wielding that knife).  And Madame X is Turner’s swan song as a top-billed, above-the-title star. If only it were a better movie...but does that really matter?   

The fault is not Lana’s. Turner gives it all she’s got, and still looks remarkably well-preserved in the early scenes that depict her as a newly affluent young newlywed, bedecked in chic Jean Louis gowns and dripping with diamonds by David Webb. Her descent into alcoholism and despair is appropriately gripping for the film in which she’s appearing...the trouble is, the mannered and surreal  “imitation of life” style of storytelling is already years out of date.

John Forsythe and Keir Dullea 

Released in 1966, the same year as the searing and groundbreaking Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and refreshingly risque comedies like Georgy Girl and Alfie, this sudsy, sexless G-rated confection is already hopelessly dated, even for its time. Filmgoers were now interested in gritty realism, social issues, and sex--savvy 1960s audiences were no longer content to be fed pablum served under a veneer of glamour and artifice.

Scene-stealing character actor Burgess Meredith

The ’30s version of this film with the long-forgotten Gladys George rang truer, as did similar films of this genre that were so popular in that decade, most notably Barbara Stanwyck’s Stella Dallas. The 1966 retelling loses touch with reality in favor of gloss, glitz and over-the-top sentimentalism.

A G-rated pas de deux with Ricardo Montalban

Legendary producer Ross Hunter gives Madame X a stylish production. After all, this was the man who gave Doris Day back her sex appeal after a decade of tomboy and matron roles with 1959’s Pillow Talk, and elevated sorrow to tragedy with Turner and Sandra Dee in Imitation of Life--but at its heart the picture, based on an ancient French stage play, is still a hoary old chestnut: a sobber, a weepie, the already-dead movie genre once known as a “woman’s picture.” And without a visionary director at the helm like a Douglas Sirk or even a camp stylist like a Mark Robson, cliched material such as this is bound to fail, even if dressed up with star performances, stylish trappings and an overbearing music score.

The brilliant Constance Bennett in her final film

But what makes this film compulsively watchable is Lana Turner herself. This woman is a pro as she propels her audience through the pedestrian script and bravely attempts to enhance the inanities she must utter with meaning. The lady works her ass off to tell the story, and we applaud her courage, we stay with her, because she promises to deliver in the last reel, and so she does. No wonder poor Madame X is so tuckered out by the end of the picture that she simply drops dead. The final scene in which Lana expires in her son’s arms is pure pathos, and probably failed to elicit a single tear among 1966 audiences. We’ve seen this all before, and more artfully executed. But Lana tries valiantly to make it a movie moment worth remembering. 

The unforgettable dialogue...

"So you've killed your lover, my girl!"

The supporting performances are entertaining, essayed by skilled actors with lots of charisma, but with little help from the threadbare script. Burgess Meredith chews the scenery, adding layers of attention-grabbing business to his role as the two-bit hustler. Ricardo Montalban seduces with his smile and Latin charm. Handsome John Forsythe is a bit wooden (he did loosen up a bit decades later on Dynasty), but his inimitable speaking voice (Charlie: “Hello, Angels”) already seems comfortingly familiar. A young Keir Dullea is earnest and attractive, and as the young public defender, displays good chemistry with Miss Turner as the ailing defendant who turns out to be his long-lost mother. 

Properly deglamorized to show the effects of the "toxic liqueur" absinthe

Practically stealing the film is the legendary Constance Bennett, the classy dame who frolicked with Cary Grant in Topper and countless 1930s films. In this, her last role, Bennett lacerates with studied bitchery as Lana’s still-glamorous but poisonous mother-in-law.

Madame X is forced to protect her identity

Unfortunately, this was Miss Turner’s last major motion picture, although she made several appearances in exploitation films, TV movies, guest shots on series like The Love Boat, and played a recurring role on Falcon Crest before her death at the age of 74 in 1995. Her presentational style of acting was passé, based so fundamentally on her movie star image of female glamour, that she simply could not change with the times. 

Get out the Kleenex...

Contemporaries like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine found their footing as scream queens in successful horror films. Her MGM colleague Elizabeth Taylor had successfully made the transition to character roles starting with the raucous middle-aged Martha in Virginia Woolf. But beyond their allure and razzle-dazzle, those gals had all proven themselves real actresses. Lana Turner had always been more of a sensation and a personality than an artist. She made more headlines for her personal travails than raves for her performances, though she did receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Peyton Place. Stripped of her perfectly coiffed blond hair, red lips, high heels and designer gowns, the icon she’d manufactured would cease to exist. So instead, she clung to her accoutrements of glamour and became a bit of a caricature of herself in later years, and worked less and less. 

But in Madame X, Turner commands the screen one last time--and triumphs in her own unique way, while signaling the end of the era of the once-beloved “woman’s picture.”