OVP: Lillian Russell (1940)

Film: Lillian Russell (1940)
Stars: Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Henry Fonda, Edward Arnold, Warren William, Leo Carrillo, Helen Westley
Director: Irving Cummings
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Art Direction)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age.  This month, our focus is on Alice Faye-click here to learn more about Ms. Faye (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We continue our look at the career of Alice Faye this week with a film that's a bit of a conundrum.  Lensed in 1940, it was arguably at the height of the actress's fame and time at Fox, and was considered a favorite by the actress.  Faye, as we've profiled so far, was insanely popular during her time under Darryl Zanuck, but didn't have a lot of what we'd name-check as classics today (unlike some of her contemporaries at the time like Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck), and so this makes the list in part because Faye herself loved the role so much (it's the reason we won't get to Alexander's Ragtime Band, as I was curious about Faye's assessment of her own talents).  However, it is also one of Henry Fonda's least favorite roles he ever did in his career (though in his memoirs he had nothing but nice things to say about working with Faye herself), a role he only took so that Fox would let him do The Grapes of Wrath.  So with this film (also an Oscar nominee, so OVP gets one step closer to being done), I'm curious-will I end up siding with Alice or Hank?

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Faye as Lillian Russell, the biggest stage actress in the world at the end of the 19th Century, frequently inspiring women across the country to copy her fashions and hairstyles.  Russell is legendary for her relationship with Diamond Jim Brady (played here by Arnold), as both had indulgent tastes and voracious appetites.  The movie spends some time on their relationship together, but more focuses on Russell's romances with composer Edward Solomon (Ameche, yet another film that paired the two) and Alexander Moore (Fonda), a young man smitten not with Russell the Superstar, but with Helen Leonard, the girl he met before she became the most famous woman in the country.  The movie is interspersed with different musical numbers and multiple dance halls for Faye to feature her dulcet voice across the relatively long (for a pretty slight plot, it's over 2 hours) motion picture.

The movie has some things going for it even though I'm not a big fan of it as a whole.  Faye is, once again, sublime-I'm in love with her so far this month, and really hoping one of the final two movies of the month manage to equal the talent we're seeing onscreen.  She knows how to play lovestruck well, and has a plum chemistry with Arnold, better than with any of her intended love interests in the picture.  The movie helped Arnold, who had recently been labeled "Box Office Poison" by an exhibitor publication (this was a hit, proving that article wrong), and was trying to transfer into character parts that weren't reliant upon him losing weight like his brief time as a leading man.  Weirdly, Arnold had played Diamond Jim five years earlier in a film for Universal, though in that film he was top-billed and Binnie Barnes a supporting part as Lillian Russell.

Other than Faye & Arnold, though, it's hard to call this a particularly strong picture.  Fonda was right to dislike the film-it's rare that I've seen Henry Fonda given so little to do in a movie, particularly one with his name above the title.  He plays Alexander as a lost puppy, someone who both wants to put Lillian Russell in her place and put Helen Leonard on a pedestal.  This could be an interesting conundrum (the world is trying to do the exact opposite), but the screenwriters don't give us enough to make this interesting, and Fonda seems to be phoning in this performance.  Don Ameche's work is better, though his character is a mess-he's somehow both an absolute cad and someone that Russell mourns horribly, perhaps because the studio didn't want Alice Faye to be anything other than a saint.  Both men are so critical to the plot that you kind of roll your eyes when Lillian Russell ends up with Fonda's Alexander, rather than Diamond Jim, or perhaps more believably, her adoring fans.  You may object, but considering this was VERY loosely based on Russell's life (almost everything is a fabrication), they might as well have given the audiences a sensical ending.

The movie was nominated for a sole Oscar, for Art Direction, and here it's a winner.  The movie has some really fun designs when it comes to the dance halls that Russell adorns, and the houses are ornate & fascinating.  I loved the increasing gaudiness of Lillian's dressing rooms as she becomes more famous and more used to Diamond Jim's extravagances.  These are nice touches, but really it's just a big, giant production that somehow fits the script of a big, lavish, bloated musical.  And while that's an insult to the film, I kind of think it works with this nomination.