Lady for a Night Blu-ray Review
Not—repeat not—a sequel to ‘Lady for a Day’.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, March 6, 2013
Wow. Did John Wayne
really just threaten to "ship [a black servant] back to Africa" in this odd little film?
That might be one
of
the
first jaw dropping moments some viewers will experience in the little remembered 1942 film
Lady for a
Night,
but it won't be the only one. In fact even before that "priceless" piece of politically incorrect dialogue, we've already
been
subject to a bevy of shuffling, seemingly moronic,
other black characters that seem to have been ripped whole
cloth out of some Antebellum minstrel show. Were things
really that horrifically insensitive as recently as 1942?
The ironic thing about all of this is that in a way
Lady for a Night deals with prejudice and bigotry, though in a
completely different context than what is displayed (no doubt unintentionally) on the screen. Joan Blondell plays
blowsy
river boat operator Jenny Blake who in the film's opening sequence is named Queen of Memphis' Mardi Gras celebration
courtesy of some backstage arm twisting by her boyfriend and business partner, political boss Jackson Morgan (John
Wayne). Jackson isn't
being especially altruistic in his successful attempts to get Jenny some recognition, for what he really hopes to prove to
the low born woman is that high society will never accept her, no matter what her "title". And of course that's exactly
what happens—Memphis society matrons are shocked—shocked—to find Jenny underneath the Queen's mask at the
huge
announcement celebration (the kind of fête that only takes place in films), and walk out
en masse as a jilted
Jenny
berates them all for their hypocrisy from the stage. Jenny is out to crash the upper echelons of the rich and cultured by
hook or by crook, and Jackson's warnings that she's chasing a false idol are nothing she wants to hear.
To say that
Lady for a Night is not exactly subtle is perhaps akin to saying the Titanic ran into a little trouble in
the
North Atlantic—this is a film that oozes a hyperbolic ambience from virtually the opening moment. Aside from the truly
incredible depictions of the black people in the film (we actually get a "hootenanny" featuring the slaves, with Blondell
looking on admiringly and misty eyed), there's some patently ridiculous depictions of the white folks as well, so at least
in that regard,
Lady for a Night is an equal opportunity offender (in every sense of that word). Good and evil aren't just hinted
at
in this film, they're virtually emblazoned with veritable labels across various characters, chief among them two spinster
Aunts of a drunkard whom Jenny decides to marry because she is certain it will improve her social standing.
We meet this drunkard, one Alan Alderson (Ray Middleton), in the film's opening sequence and we are of course
instantly aware that he is a wastrel, a good for nothing lush who has whittled away his family fortunes in liquor (and,
one assumes, women and song). (Middleton bears a really striking resemblance to Will Ferrell, and some may feel that
his performance here is intentionally comedic, though that probably
wasn't the intention.) Jenny is none too
pleased when she is shunned at the Mardi Gras Queen crowning ceremony, and she's especially shocked to find out
Jackson not only rigged her "ascent", but knew it would be a disaster, so when she finds out the Alderson estate is
about to sink into a swamp due to neglect, she trades her considerable river boat wealth for a once prestigious
surname and the hope of a hoity toity social circle.
It's here that
Lady for a Night goes
completely over the top, with the evil Aunt Julia (Blanche Yurka) and
the kindly Aunt Katherine (Edith Barrett) either plotting against or for Jenny, depending on their own motivations.
Julia's machinations are especially comical (she ends up giving Jenny a blind horse for a "present", which leads to near
disastrous results). Later, Julia's scheming
does lead to disastrous results when Jenny is put on trial for
supposedly murdering her husband. Through it all, Jackson is standing steadfastly in the background, obviously nursing
some serious romantic feelings for Jenny.
While
Lady for a Night is probably more than likely to cause serious eye rolling if not outright disbelief in many
viewers, it's actually a rather opulent picture, especially for that fledgling "little studio that could", Republic Pictures.
While the film has a kind of low rent B-movie
ethos written all over it, for a Republic film, it's surprisingly
handsomely mounted, with a couple of rather large production numbers which were obviously meant to showcase
Blondell. This is in no way, shape or form a typical John Wayne picture, and in fact Wayne seems kind of uncomfortable
at times, with an almost detached quality to a lot of his line readings, as if he couldn't wait to get the hell out of this
particular Dodge and back to the Dodge of his Westerns.
One of the most interesting things about
Lady for a Night is how it almost—almost—presages the then
burgeoning
film noir movement once the murder scenario starts unspooling. Director Leigh Jason and
cinematographer Norbert Brodine nicely utilize the interplay between light and shadow in a number of well mounted
scenes, bringing a kind of mysteriously spooky quality to what is otherwise a kind of laughable and distinctly odd entry
in the filmographies of both Joan Blondell and (especially) John Wayne.
Lady for a Night Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
Should
Lady for a Night be considered pure camp and simply enjoyed on those perhaps dubious merits? Well,
there's certainly a case to made for that argument, but the film is so peculiar at times that even "camp" doesn't seem to be
an adequate description for what goes on. It's hard to believe that even in the relative "Dark Ages" of the early forties that
some people didn't object to the portrayal of the blacks in this film, but even putting that aspect aside,
Lady for
a Night is an often bizarre combination of turgid melodrama, musical sequences and even (believe it or not) some
passing light comedy. This is probably going to be a curiosity piece for erstwhile John Wayne fans more than anything, but
Wayne is largely sidelined here, though he shares star billing with Blondell. Anyone expecting to see the typical rootin'
tootin' Wayne had best look elsewhere. In that regard, this film is strangely reminiscent of one of Cary Grant's oddest films
(and one of the few, if not the only, where he didn't get star billing), 1937's
The Toast of New York. Both Grant and
Wayne were "personalities" as much as they were actors, and
Lady for a Night unfortunately proves that there
were some roles for which Wayne was spectacularly ill suited.
