#016: The Florodora Girl

 THE FLORODORA GIRL

Release Date

May 31, 1930

History

Florodora opened on the stage in London in 1899 and moved to New York in 1900, becoming one of the first successful musical comedies of the 20th Century, having a run of 552 performances. Its popularity spawned three Broadway revivals and a West End revival before 1920, but no film adaptations. This isn't surprising as many musicals from this time would not get film adaptations and when they did were heavily revised to a plot and score unrecognizable from the original. The closest that Florodora ever came to a film version was the 1930 film Florodora Girl. Directed by Harry Beaument and starring Marion Davies and Lawrence Gray, the film is about a chorus girl in the Broadway production of Florodora during its original run, and the adventures she ensues. Davies also produced the film without credit, as she had with seven films prior (including the sound version of Marianne, previously reviewed on this blog). To create the illusion of turn of the century New York, 27 year old costume designer Adrian Greenburg (credited Adrian) was put in charge of gowns and art direction was done by Cedric Gibbons, who had been an art director as early as 1915. While there is no resemblance to the original musical Florodora, the film's finale includes a number from the original show, "Tell Me Pretty Maiden".

Review

Marion Davies stars as Daisy, a girl in the chorus of the show Florodora, whose friends Fanny and Maude have goals of marrying rich husbands. Daisy, on the other hand, wants to marry for more. She is infatuated with Jack Vibart, a known society playboy engaged to heiress Constance Caraway. Although he is promised to Constance and Daisy is going steady with proper man Georgie, they meet and begin to have a fun fling, but when things become more intimate their intentions are tested, as well as their societal backgrounds. Things come to a head when Jack loses his money and Daisy must make a sacrifice for true love.

A common story of the MGM musical (only 16 films in), there are two things that stand out in this film-- Marion Davies in the lead role, and the period costumes and set designs. Starting with Davies, her character Daisy is one of great depth that she plays very well. From the beginning, while she preaches to her friends that she is not interested in a man for his money, her actions speak otherwise. She is spelling "Jack V." in the mirror with makeup while her friends talk about how dangerous of a man he is to get involved with because of his reputation, and this challenge excites her. 

Her relationship with her father (played by Jed Prouty) at the beginning of the film shows her attractive persona playing the working class girl. She picks him up from a bar after her show, and finds him holding a giant beer saying it's his nightcap and she amusingly delivers the line "Nightcap? Looks more like your sombrero" before tipping the beer into his mouth as he drinks and then telling him he's had enough. When they get home and she is looking at a picture of Jack on a horse, the two of them are marveling at the photo (him at the horse and her at Jack) and her father exclaims "Look at his legs!" to which she replies "Pop, I've never seen his legs!" innocently, not knowing he's talking about the horse. It's very endearing the way she asks him to scratch her head as she drinks a beer. I wish that there had been more of the two of them together, even if it had only been one more scene, because they had perfect chemistry in this father/daughter dynamic. Later in the film, Jack offers her a drink and she exclaims, "No thanks, my father does all the drinking in our family," even though she was seen drinking beer with her father earlier. Whether or not this was intentional, it adds another layer to her character-- why would she be so self-conscious about letting Jack know she drinks?

Davies has great comedic timing in a number of scenes. While riding a bike with her boyfriend Georgie, she is bumping along the road because his tires do not have enough air in them with an amusing look of discomfort. When she goes to a beach party, she swims out so far that her friends can't see her and finally meets Jack, who is just as daring. She fakes a near drowning so he will rescue her and shows off her physical comedy skills as she looks up to see if he is paying attention when they get back to shore, and then pretends to be unconscious again. Also funny in this scene is how everyone wants to do crazy things to help her regain consciousness (except for CPR) such as rolling her on top of everyone's hunched backs, stretching her out and swinging her around. The leader of the rescue team is Walter Catlett, who plays socialite De Boer. He steals the show in this scene, specifically with his line "Don't give her any water, she's already had some" when they suggest splashing some on her to wake her up. The next scene shows her at a picnic cutely pretending to be a music conductor while the gang sings a medley of turn of the century pop hits. While she can't sing, she fakes it enough to make up for the fact. 

The film also allows Davies' dramatic abilities to shine in a few places. Friends Fanny and Maude don't want Daisy to get too involved with Jack and create a ploy to keep them apart. They tell Jack that she can't make it to the football game that they are all going to, and don't pass the invitation to her that Jack extended. When Jack sees Daisy come to the game with George, he is upset as he thinks she blew him off for another date. Daisy's performance as she tries to get his attention and he responds coldly to her in response is powerful, as she is convincing as someone who is hurt by his actions but doesn't want to show it. The characters reconcile and work out the confusion on a carriage ride home, but Jack's mother catches the two of them together. She confronts him at tea later and he informs her that he'll still marry Constance and doesn't take a girl like Daisy seriously-- a clue to the audience that poor Daisy is bound to be hurt.

When Jack offers to put her up in an apartment (while it's not implicitly said as to why, it's implied that it's to be his courtesan in this pre-Code moment), she delivers a fantastic volatile monologue chewing him out for the suggestion. A melancholy Daisy is invited to a socialite party where Jack will be attending. She resists but then relents at the behest of her friends, who rummage through the dressing room of the show to find a costume she can pass at the party in. 

Once again, we see Davies' humorous side as she imitates a mid-Atlantic accent and is struggling with the dress as it is constantly unzipping in the back. De Boer informs her of the issue and they come up with a game. Every time the dress unzips, he'll tell her "Johnny's in town". This party scene was my favorite part of the film. While it had the costumes and aura of My Fair Lady, it was reminiscent of the party scene in St. Elmo's Fire. So much happens with all of the characters, and there is a mix of emotion-- funny and sad. While Daisy is struggling with her dress and De Boer is helping her, Jack is trying to get her attention and explain how he really feels about her but she won't give him the time of day. When she catches him dancing with Constance and Rumblesham reveals that Jack and Constance are engaged, Davies' acting abilities really pierce. She has the look of rage, sadness and shock blended into one and it's all illustrated in her eyes. He follows her out as she leaves, visibly upset and tries to talk to her. While she relents to letting him escort her home, she's still hurt. I thought Davies played this scene perfectly, blocking eye contact from him and having a pensive but cold look on her face as she tried to not give him the benefit of seeing the hurt she was feeling.

The two make up and become engaged but shortly after, Jack loses all his and his mother's money in a horse race. His mother meets privately with Daisy and asks her to leave him so that Jack will marry Constance for her money and restore the family's equity. Note the complexity of Daisy's character here. Daisy tells Fanny and Maude early on that she would never marry a man for his money, showing that riches aren't important to her, but she is willing to give Jack up so he can get money because she knows how important it is to him. When Jack catches Daisy on a date getting drunk with gambler Hemingway and wants her to leave with him, she pretends that she's never wanted him for anything but his money, in a scene illustrating Davies' abilities to play the "mean floozy", even though the viewer knows she's only pretending. Of course, in true MGM musical style, Jack crashes her production of Florodora, whisks her offstage in a carriage where his mother is waiting for her, and she is accepted by the family. I was a little disappointed by this ending though, as it was screaming straight white male power-- demanding that she give up everything, mid-performance, while working, to marry him, all while an audience watched her as he embarrasses her into doing it.

The surrounding actors in the film are quite good as well, even though Davies steals the show. Lawrence Gray as Jack plays the part of dandy playboy convincingly and is a very good tenor, displayed when he serenades Daisy with "You're Just My Kind of Girl". Ilka Chase and Vivien Oakland as Fanny and Maude are very funny yet subtle in their performances. From the first dressing room scene, their dialogue delivery is very natural and done at a pace and volume that feels ahead of its time, where many actors are still slowly yelling their dialogue. While Fanny and Maude do some manipulative things to keep Daisy and Jack apart, it's clear they genuinely want the best for her (seen when they get her ready for the socialite party and also beat up on a girl who is accusing Daisy of breaking up with Jack because he lost his money gambling). The only character I could have done without was Rumbleshaum, played by Claud Allister. I found the character too annoying and Allister's performance over the top. I felt that if they had combined his character with Walter Cartlet's De Boer character, it would have been a better decision.

From the opening shot of the film, the setting of 1900 New York is a character in its own right, beautifully illustrated through the costumes and art direction. For example, in the beach scene, the characters wear swimsuits that go from the neck to the heels. In the football scene, the spectators and football players wear costumes of the time. Additionally, to add an extra touch, the spectators are viewing the game next to their horses. Jack's mother lives in a very Victorian style New York mansion that is heavily decorated to minute details. When Jack picks up Daisy for a ride in his car, the car is of the time period, and it is funny how he pretends to be confident in operating it to show off to Daisy but has no clue what to do when it backfires. There is a stick instead of a wheel to steer it (although steering wheels were actually invented a few years earlier) and the kids chase the new contraption as he wrestles with driving it.  Even the picnic scene, where characters are singing a medley of tunes of the time and wearing dresses and suits one would wear on an outing of that time are appropriate. 

While drinking has been seen in nearly every film thus far on this blog even though they were all made and most take place during prohibition, all of the drinking in the film is completely legal for the characters because it takes place in 1900. When Daisy picks up her father from the bar and a man sings "My Mother Was a Lady" to a crowd of drunk hazy stares, this felt like a middle finger to the prohibition laws which would have forbidden such behavior in 1930. 

There is some wonderful filmmaking in this film, even though it is subtle. Take, for example, the opening sequence, which opens the book to the world of 1900. It starts with a shot of a chorus line of the show Floradora, followed by a shot of horses outside instead of cars, and the third shot is of men in 1900 formal wear. In the first three shots, the time period has been established, as opposed to doing it with a title card. The whole sequence shot on the beach was very impressive as well. It's a little bit of a time warp to see footage of a Los Angeles beach from 1930, in a scene set in 1900. The scene is not as stiff as most scenes in sound films from the time. The acting is very improvised and documentary like. I'm curious how the sound was recorded because it is done very smoothly. Was it in post production, live, or a mix of both? The picnic scene that follows has a cute moment where Jack and Daisy are on a swing together. The rope becomes more and more frayed as they swing higher and higher, and there is great parallel editing of the knot coming apart, and cutting back to them going higher and higher on the swing, before they finally land on a picnic blanket filled with food and an adjacent bush. It was a great example of how using the editing skills of silent comedy film could still be applied to a sound film and be just as effective. The sound wasn't even necessary in that sequence, it was secondary.

Even in the ending Technicolor sequence, which shows the "Tell Me Pretty Maiden" number from the musical Floradora, there is a mix of closeup, far, and medium shots so that there is a nice documentation of how the number would have been seen by audiences in 1900 mixed in with closeups of Marion Davies doing the part.

These positive qualities are not consistent, unfortunately. For example, the horse race scene where Jack loses all his money is quite clunky. The audio between the horses, the cheering of the crowd, and the characters watching is not well blended and it's jarring as the shots cut between all three of these. As the race continues this gets better, thankfully, but it could have been smoother from the get go. Additionally, I thought there could have been more musical numbers altogether. There are only a handful, many short, and the only big number with choreography is the "Tell Me Pretty Maiden" number done at the end of the film. 

I did enjoy this film and there was clearly a lot to say about it even though it was a shorter film-- I found it very detailed and illustrious for being only 80 minutes long.

Home Video

The Florodora Girl was released on DVD in 2016 by the Warner Archive along with other Marion Davies titles, and the title does appear to be a remastering from pre-print materials. While Amazon claims this is a 1.37:1 aspect ratio, it is very obviously 1.20:1, showing the entire image as opposed to the cropped version used for later prints. There are some shots that are out of focus and there are some moments (particularly the picnic medley) where the sound gets grainy as if it is peaking on the track. Sibilance of characters comes and goes throughout the film, but there is no noise heard on the track. I am always a fan of a little noise over canned over-processed audio, personally. I've noticed that there's an issue with some of the Warner Archive titles where the audio on the left channel will get quiet from time to time and then get louder, and that was evident with this film. While we are lucky to see the Technicolor sequence presented in its original color here, the color is fairly red and I wonder if it always looked like this or if this was the quality of the materials chosen for the transfer. I felt that this was a decent transfer for a 1930 film, but that it was obvious some corners were cut to get it onto shelves.