Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Monday, December 11, 2017

The Smash That's Gone Forgot


Smilin' Through (1932) Is Pre-Code Pure


Smilin' Through was by far the biggest Norma Shearer earner from the early-to-mid 30's. It is precode, but clean as snow. Driven by dewy romance and promise that departed lovers remain to comfort the living, Smilin' Through did not need serrated edge of precode. You could show it in a nunnery. I'll bet in some, they did. People were entranced by the film as they had been by the 1919 source play. If you asked outgoing 1932 patrons to name a movie that would last forever, they might well have named Smilin' Through. MGM did a major reissue just a few years after it was new. I emphasize all this because Smilin' Through is so obscure now. TCM lately did an HD upgrade, so it looks newly terrific. A lot call Smilin' Through dated, to which I concur, but would add charmingly so. The story is set at beginning of The Great War, characters looking fifty years back from that as if to a stone age. Anyone who remembered that far had to be mighty old, at least by '32 reckoning. Leslie Howard dons snow hair and shawl as he seeks comfort of death and reunion with Norma, who was long ago shot by Fredric March, who was father of modern Fredric March, who loves Norma the modern, who is adopted daughter of Howard, who forbids the union because he hates March's family, and ... need I go on? The story had shock value for moment of March's Dad shooting down Norma, even if accidental, on her wedding day to Howard. Viewers really took that to streets when Smilin' Through was new, positive word-of-mouth the stuff of studio dreams. Such was effect, and repeat business, as to inspire both the two-years later reissue and a color remake less than ten years aft, when you'd have thought bloom would be off such a delicate rose.





Irving Thalberg routinely tweaked films to what he considered perfection. Many as result got reshot into hamburger. It's no telling what Mask Of Fu Manchu was like before second-guessing got hold of it. Ingrained policy held fast for long past Thalberg's passing, An American Romance, Across The Wide Missouri, many others, the stuff of reshuffle legend (or infamy). Still and all, there were flops that couldn't be fixed. Story got told, I think by Sam Marx, of glum ride home from Strange Interlude, which even Thalberg genius would not conquer. Success finish, however, was norm, Smilin' Through an early 30's summit of these. Death and visitation from beyond were topics that heated up regular as sky eclipse, the 20's having done it with spiritualism, fake to a fault, but still answering a need, then as tweak to 30's romance, and finally a fullest expression when world war and widespread loss made desperate a need to keep faith with the dead. We're made to believe in Norma as ghost seeking garden visit to one-foot-in-grave Leslie Howard, if only because visual effects by Metro by then reached point of conviction not had by previous silent efforts.





Norma Shearer had from beginning shuttled between period and modern dress, this to stay relevant whatever the trends started or followed by handlers. Effort was careful to prevent her being typed with permissive precode. Shearer was ideally calibrated to segue easy once enforcement pulled teeth of her once Free Soul. Only by looking back at whole of careers can we see how brilliantly most were managed. There is a reason, in fact plenty, why these people lasted so long. A massive crowd-pleaser like Smilin' Through could forgive weaker tea served after, but Shearer at a peak, or again her handlers, rarely if ever stumbled. The Strange Interlude anecdote implies it was a flop, and many went on to present day with same assumption, but fact is, the weak-as-it-was outcome still made profit. Even poor product and B's (once Metro committed to them) could be muscled through Loew's-owned houses and season-contracted others to black ink finish. The actual list of MGM output that lost money during the 30's is astonishingly short, the more so when we recall a Depression roiling through most of that decade.




Just Two Years Later, and Metro Brought It Back With a Fresh Campaign


It seldom mattered much who was directing at Metro. That's because it was producers, or committees, or Thalberg when he ran things, that really directed. Most that got sent down to the floor were functionaries at best, switched around like chess pieces when scheduling demanded. A picture started by Jack Conway might be finished by Clarence Brown, or vice-versa. Some directors were  more independent, like Brown, or King Vidor, maybe W.S. Van Dyke, in part because he was so efficient. Smilin' Through was credited to Sidney Franklin, but that doesn't mean he did the whole thing. Close inspect of day-to-day production records would need to determine that. This is not to say Franklin's imprint wasn't firmest, but even he realized primacy of getting jobs finished on time and budget, even where that meant stepping off to let another man wrap up while he'd do as much for projects similarly in need. Directors one and all had to park egos at Culver gate. A lot of survivors (all?) probably wondered what auteurists were talking about when that school became fashion in the 60's.

4 Comments:

Blogger Kevin K. said...

I was a sucker for Smilin' Through, as I am most '30s movies that deal seriously with spiritual/afterlife themes. Their emotions are so in your face that I wind up being more moved than most people would these days.



1:19 PM  
Blogger Dave said...

I think one's enjoyment of this picture is in direct proportion to one's feelings about Shearer. While there's little that can take Howard down (he even survives that RMS Titanic known as GWTW), Shearer is just a big pieces of cheese as far as I'm concerned.

7:31 PM  
Blogger Kevin K. said...

Dave, while I agree with your assessment of Shearer by and large, I have to admit to enjoying her in the pre-code "The Divorcee", where she gives a startlingly natural sexy performance. If she was anything like that in real life, it's pretty clear how she landed Irving Thalberg.

8:27 AM  
Blogger Michael said...

Perfect casting for Shearer was The Women, where she could be the star among stars-- but all the others carry the picture.

That said, I agree that you get a very different picture of her from The Divorcee. It's a bit much--someone tie those arms down before they kill somebody-- but for 1929 she's trying really hard to figure out what works in sound.

10:33 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024
  • April 2024
  • May 2024
  • June 2024
  • July 2024
  • August 2024
  • September 2024
  • October 2024
  • November 2024
  • December 2024