Hope Lange – The Magnificent 60s

Frank Capra was yesterday’s man – one movie in a decade – and 15 years away from the consolation of knowing that his flop It’s A Wonderful Life (1948) was on its way to becoming, arguably, along with The Wizard of Oz (1939), America’s most beloved picture thanks to annual Xmas showings on television and subsequently in the cinema.

There’s nothing new here, either, it’s a remake of his Lady for a Day (1933) and it’s more of a fable lacking punch than some of his more famous pictures. And the main interest for contemporary audiences may well be that it marks the debut of Ann-Margret (The Swinger, 1966) who gets to sing but not shake her booty in trademark fashion. And it takes forever to wind up to a pitch. We’ve got to wade through three subplots before it gets going.

First of all Prohibition gangster Dave (Glenn Ford) meets up with the daughter Queenie (Hope Lang) of a deceased club owner who’s in hock for $20,000. Dave is much taken by the earnest Queen’s determination to repay the debt at the rate of five bucks a week. For no reason at all except narrative necessity, she’s turned into a nightclub singing sensation.

When Prohibition ends, big-time Chicago gangster Steve Darcey (Sheldon Leonard) plans to muscle in on the New York rackets and it takes all Dave’s suave bluster to keep him, temporarily, at bay. The end of Prohibition comes as a relief to Queenie and with the nightclub shut down she agrees to marry Dave with the proviso that he give up the gangster life and retire to her home town in Maryland and they become an ordinary couple.

Very much on the fringes of this is Apple Annie (Bette Davis), a street panhandler who sells “lucky” apples, one her most satisfied customers being Dave. When her illegitimate daughter Louise (Ann-Margret) returns from Spain to New York with rich beau Carlos (Peter Mann) in tow, Annie’s in a pickle, because she’s been keeping up the pretence of being a wealthy woman.

Queenie insists they help Annie to maintain her charade and Dave goes along with the idea because he’s worried his luck will run out. So Annie is turned into a sophisticate, manners polished, furnished with a luxurious apartment, including a butler, and fake husband Henry (Thomas Mitchell).

None of the stars seem to know how to handle the material, and for most of the time they act as if in a pastiche, like they were throwing winks to the audience. Glenn Ford (Fate Is the Hunter, 1964), generally adept at comedy, plays this all wrong. He wanted the part so badly he helped finance the picture. Bette Davis (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, 1962) overacts, as does Peter Falk (Murder Inc, 1961), though the Academy didn’t think so and threw him a second Oscar nomination. Hope Lang and Ann-Margret, playing it straight, get it right, though the latter, vivacious personality to the fore, wins that battle by more than a nose. Might well have worked if original choice Frank Sinatra hadn’t ankled the project.

Hal Kanter and Harry Tugend wrote the remake, based on a Damon Runyon story. It was always a tricky business to capture the stylistic essence of Runyon, Guys and Dolls (1955) the most effective transition, Lady for a Day better than this and Little Miss Marker filmed three times.

Once the Bette Davis pretence enters the equation, the tale takes on some narrative drive and the quintessential Capra shines through. But it’s too little too late.

Not the swansong Capra anticipated, but he only has himself to blame.

Three main characters playing against type and a feisty, independent, woman are the main pleasures of this conspiratorial rom-com that takes a while to get going. The main obstacle is the subplot involving the education of a klutz, impoverished French Duke Gaspard (Ricardo Montalban), who needs brought up to speed on the niceties of fine dining, horse-riding and dancing in order to represent a decent catch for American heiress Millie (Hope Lange).

So that keeps ex-racing driver John (Glenn Ford), fallen on such hard times he’ll accept a job as chauffeur, confined to the background for the first third of the movie. That is, until he works out that his employer Etienne (Charles Boyer) is a professional matchmaker who makes a living marrying off poverty-stricken aristocrats to wealthy women. However, he poses as a charmer who happens through his connections to put women in contact with eligible men without letting on that he takes a hefty commission or that his clientele is financially illiterate.

But the cunning Etienne realizes that in order to get close to Millie he has to exploit the weakness of her over-protective uncle Dr Gump (Telly Savalas) for gourmet food. All these complications create delay in getting on with the will-they-won’t-they romance of Millie and John.

Millie, channeling the adventurous spirit of the likes of Amelia Earhart, is car mechanic, wannabe racing driver and neophyte ballet dancer, so not quite the hapless rom-com female. And she’s pretty good at putting John in his place when he lacks the necessary subservience, giving him a tight deadline to wash her family’s huge fleet of cars, and forcing him to wear a despised chauffeur’s cap.

Meanwhile, Gaspard is causing problems of his own, not just by his complete ineptitude, but by falling for Etienne’s secretary Janine (Ulla Jacobson). So it’s hitches all round especially as Millie and John spend all their time upsetting each other, so much so that, determined to get married to please her grandmother, she’s on the brink of marrying the next clod in Etienne’s line-up.

To be honest, the script is a bit of a mess and in sticking to it director David Swift (The Interns, 1962) hasn’t quite been able to play to the movie’s strengths – and making more of them – rather than trying for what amounts to not much more than an ensemble piece. What lifts the movie is watching the usually steadfast and take-charge Glenn Ford (Rage, 1966) being put through the wringer by the heiress and forced to swallow humble pie any time he has had more than enough.

Next up is Telly Savalas (The Scalphunters, 1968) who totally switches his mean if not downright villainous screen persona to portray a character who dithers over epicurean delights and turns into a happy individual as long as his appetite is sated. A Jolly Telly is indeed a sight to be savoured.

Lastly, we have Ricardo Montalban (Sol Madrid, 1968), again an actor who errs on the tough-guy side, another of the take-charge fraternity, who always appears completely in command. It’s a bold career move for him to chuck that persona into the mixer and let it spin round a hundred times a minute till he comes out looking frazzled.

Hope Lange (A Pocketful of Miracles, 1961), who had a sporadic career as a female lead, and was at the time involved in an affair with Ford, is excellent as the adventurous headstrong spirit clad in overalls but less convincing as the glamorous heiress especially when simpering.

The screenplay, based on the novel The Grand Duke and Mr Pimm, looks as if it wanted to head in too many heads directions at once, was by Swift and Frank Waldman (Inspector Clouseau, 1968). Farce, at which Waldmann later excelled (he wrote the trio of 1970s Pink Panther films), seems is not a good fit for rom-com.

Worth seeing for Glenn Ford, Telly Savalas and Ricardo Montalban all thumbing a nose at their screen personas.

Tag: Hope Lange

A Pocketful of Miracles (1961) ***

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