Film Focus: Kim Novak (1957 – 1959)

Kim Novak is an iconic figure of Hollywood’s Golden Age and yet I realised when this new boxset became available that I didn’t know much of her work that well. Beyond that famous Vertigo performance, I had seen Novak in several other films but none had stuck in my mind in the same way. Hoping to find more great performances, I dived into these three films and was initially disappointed, then slightly horrified but finally absolutely blown away. There is one film lurking within this set which is an absolute hidden gem and worth the price of admission alone. But we’ll get to that in good time…

PAL JOEY

Director: George Sidney
Screenplay: Dorothy Kingsley
Based on the novel by: John O’Hara
Producers: Fred Kohlmar
Starring: Kim Novak, Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth
Year: 1957
Country: USA
BBFC Certification: PG
Duration: 109 mins

Pal Joey was quite a big deal when it first came out. Adapted from the Rodgers and Hart stage Musical of the same name, it took the hit play nearly two decades to reach the screen because the content was so sleazy and cynical that it couldn’t make it past Hollywood censors. The screen version that finally did emerge is seen as a safer, watered-down shadow of its originator, although that may be hard to believe for modern audiences who are confronted with a pre-credits scene in which the protagonist is run out of town for being caught trying to seduce an underage girl in his hotel room. He is unapologetic, protesting that she looked at least 35, and the film sort of shrugs the whole thing off immediately. The scene is there merely to establish the womanising ways of Joey Evans, something to which we’re expected to respond with a boys-will-be-boys shake of the head…or are we? It may seem that Pal Joey is presenting statutory rape as a mild transgression but there is evidence elsewhere to suggest we’re at least meant to start out being as disgusted by Joey as we are intrigued by him. The problem seems to be that the film is caught between a desire to preserve its source’s seamy flavour and an attempt to clean it up for wider consumption. Although there’s a sense of discomfort to that introductory scene, one of the best things about Pal Joey is its authentic nastiness and the predictable but unconvincing redemption to which it adheres, and which the play managed to swerve, knocks this asset off centre.

Pal Joey’s other major plus is the central performance by Frank Sinatra. Sinatra gives one of his finest turns, with his ability to deliver the musical goods not even standing out as his major contribution. Instead, his casual, morally ambiguous attitude and drily amusing knack with a quip are what make him feel so right for the role. In terms of the original play, Sinatra is miscast. Joey was originally played on stage by a young Gene Kelly and the age difference between him and the actress playing society bigwig Vera Prentice-Simpson was crucial to their mistress/gigolo relationship. In the film, Vera is played by Rita Hayworth, three years Sinatra’s junior. Still, there’s an unsavoury edge preserved in the clearly transactional nature of their illicit dealings, while the age-difference dynamic is instead shifted to Joey’s other relationship with Kim Novak’s naive ingenue Linda English. Novak herself admits in the accompanying commentary that this was an impossible role to play convincingly given the unlikeliness of almost all of Linda’s actions. You can tell that Novak is struggling in the role and she pitches the performance a little too quiet and reserved. Hayworth, meanwhile, goes big with her performance which provides a nice contrast but makes it just as hard to distinguish the intended character motivation amidst the mild whiff of ham. Much was made of Pal Joey’s two leading ladies being the biggest stars of respective decades but neither is done justice by the role they are given and it is left to Sinatra’s gritty magnetism to keep things on track.

Pal Joey’s major problem for me is its soundtrack. Only eight songs from the original fourteen remain and existing songs from other shows were brought in to bulk out the roster. While there are several songs here that are considered classics, I’ve never been fond of The Lady is a Tramp, I Could Write a Book or the dreary My Funny Valentine. I appreciated the way Pal Joey presented the songs in a diegetic fashion, mostly as intimate nightclub performances, but then suddenly Vera bursts into a fully orchestrated version of Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered while showering and this one anomaly ruins the established aesthetic. Neither Hayworth nor Novak do their own singing and the numbers are largely quite static in their presentation. With such a flimsy plot to work with, Pal Joey could really have used some livelier interjections. That said, there’s a consistency to how director George Sidney keeps this world so small, with the glamour its protagonist is chasing always seeming just out of reach. If only it could’ve been a little more sleazy, Pal Joey might’ve made more of an impact. As it is, it is a rarely discussed screen Musical these days, its initial success not really translating to longevity.

JEANNE EAGELS

Director: George Sidney
Screenplay: Daniel Fuchs, Sonya Levien, John Fante
Producers: George Sidney
Starring: Kim Novak, Jeff Chandler, Agnes Moorehead
Year: 1957
Country: USA
BBFC Certification: PG
Duration: 109 mins

Director George Sidney made two films with Kim Novak in 1957. Pal Joey sidelined her in a modest role that was difficult to make believable. Jeanne Eagels, meanwhile, was a full-blown star vehicle in which Novak was barely off the screen for the whole runtime. Unfortunately, it was also almost unbearably terrible.

I’ve never been a big fan of Biopics but, while it purports to be about the rise and fall of the titular stage and film actress, Jeanne Eagels hardly bears even a passing resemblance to the real details of Eagels tragically short life. This is mendacious Melodrama masquerading as Biopic, taking the basic premise of a star whose career and life were ruined by drugs and alcohol and then embroidering all sorts of salacious and libellous untruths around the edges. Some of the plot points are wildly off the mark. A good chunk of the film takes place at a carnival where Eagels is a dancer. Never happened! The story for the film was concocted by Daniel Fuchs who also co-wrote the screenplay. Can we assume Fuchs just liked carnivals and wanted one in there? Bewildering as they are though, alterations like this are easier to stomach than terrible inventions like the suggestion Eagels drove another actress to suicide, for which there was apparently no evidence at all. You can’t just play these games with someone’s reputation and it’s little surprise that Eagels’ relations sued Columbia over her depiction.

If the moral implications of Jeanne Eagels are too sour to stomach, it doesn’t work as quality Melodrama either. Putting aside all ethical questions, this is simply a bad film. The story of a talented star succumbing to booze and drugs is an oft-told tale and a masochistically depressive experience for an audience unless the screenplay can offer something more than voyeuristic sensationalism. Whether it was the dreadful writing, Sidney’s direction, Novak’s own inclinations or a combination of all three I have no idea, but the lead performance here is abysmal. Novak seems primed to explode almost from the outset, with wild eyes and raised voice accompanying the earliest signs of conflict and leaving little space for escalation. Novak certainly throws her energy behind the performance but the result is upsettingly over the top. After her first outburst, you just know this is a film that is at some point going to feature a liquor bottle being hurled against a wall and shattering. When the moment came, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. To be fair to Novak, she is asked to carry a lot on her shoulders here. Jeff Chandler as a sort of amalgamated boyfriend figure is barely adequate and the brilliant Agnes Moorehead overplays in a way that should provide an amusing counterpoint but instead gets shouted into comparative normality by the leading lady.

It’s easy to imagine Jeanne Eagels being embraced as a camp classic but given its thoughtlessly mean-spirited content it’s a far harder film to enjoy even with a sense of ironic detachment. I felt a keen sense of embarrassment for the performers while watching Jeanne Eagels, as if I were watching bad theatre. In terms of how much time she spends on screen, this film feels like a good choice for inclusion in a Kim Novak boxset. In every other way, it feels like a better candidate for merciful oblivion.

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

Director: Delbert Mann
Screenplay: Paddy Chayefsky
Producers: George Justin
Starring: Kim Novak, Frederic March, Martin Balsam, Lee Grant
Year: 1959
Country: USA
BBFC Certification: PG
Duration: 118 mins

After the flawed adaptation of Pal Joey and the absolute disaster of Jeanne Eagels I was concerned not only that this beautifully presented boxset might have little redeeming value but also that I might not be the Kim Novak fan I assumed I was. I know Novak has her share of doubters but so many of them couch their criticisms in sexist terms that I feared aligning myself with them. I needn’t have worried. In the interim between the films in this set, Novak gave her defining performance in Vertigo and in Middle of the Night I found ample evidence that that famous turn was no mere fluke. Novak is clearly an actress who responds well to superior material and you can’t get much better than having Paddy Chayefsky in the writer’s chair. Chayefsky and Middle of the Night director Delbert Mann had already had a huge success with Marty, one of the most modest and thoughtful Best Picture Oscar winners. Middle of the Night replays that film’s premise to an extent, with a central couple trying to work out their relationship in the face of overwhelming unsolicited advice from their disapproving friends and family. But Middle of the Night feels very tonally different from Marty, with a heavier wintery atmosphere and a sense of despairing confusion. This isn’t anything as simple as the tale of two lovers who belong together trying to navigate the prejudices of others. It is not clear even to the lovers themselves whether they should be together and that doubt is passed on to the audience too. While the meddling of their nearest and dearest is still presumptuous and frustrating, this is offset by the fact that their concerns are not wholly invalid. It’s a tricky balance to make convincing and satisfying but Chayefsky’s exquisite ear for dialogue and understanding of human vagaries make Middle of the Night overwhelmingly moving and real, until a straightforward happy or tragic ending would seem wholly inappropriate. All that is available is more uncertainty tempered by a little hope and where we leave the story is by no means anything you could really call an ending. By that stage, that’s exactly how we want it.

In an era in which young actresses, Novak included, were habitually cast against leading men twice their age or older with no allusions whatsoever to the age difference, Middle of the Night feels bold in the way it addresses the complexities of May/December relationships with no concessions to the male ego. The film was mildly controversial in its time, probably because it undermined the delusions of men who had just watched Fred Astaire kissing Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face and thought, That could be me! Middle of the Night pairs Frederic March, then in his early 60s, with Novak who was in her mid 20s, but their age difference is highlighted and scrutinised immediately. Their attraction to each other is rooted in a fear of ageing on his part, a historical lack of affection on hers, and a fear of being alone on both of their parts. Chayefsky skirts these issues neatly, only occasionally making them overt by directly comparing the lovers’ relationship with a father/daughter dynamic. Further complications are added by the fact that March’s Jerry is the boss of the firm where Novak’s Betty works as a secretary. The skewed power dynamic is not overlooked and Chayefsky and Mann also make an excellent job of depicting workplace sexual harassment as the horror it is, years before film and TV stopped portraying this behaviour as a bit of harmless and amusing fun. Although Joshua Logan, who directed the stage version of Middle of the Night, disparaged the film as too much of a “guy play”, Chayefsky ensures he gives March and Novak equal focus and “guys” don’t always come off well. Betty is pawed, patronised, infantilised and coerced throughout, by supporting characters and by Jerry himself. The scene in which Jerry first lets his desperate attraction boil over while alone in the factory with Betty is powerfully uncomfortable and upsetting, refusing to disassociate the protagonist completely with the predatory weaknesses of other men. Perhaps only Martin Balsam as the downtrodden husband of Jerry’s daughter comes off as wholly sympathetic, although his eventual dealing with his evasive wife is the one moment Middle of the Night does veer close to validating stereotypical gender roles.

Middle of the Night has a great cast of recognisable supporting actors including the aforementioned Balsam, Lee Grant, Glenda Farrell and Albert Dekker, but the film belongs to March and Novak who impress in their scenes together and separately. March is a powder keg, successfully portraying an unprecedented period of emotional volatility which is simultaneously the most thrillingly joyous and most agonisingly painful he has ever experienced. Novak is fragile, excitable, desperate and heart-rending. Together, the two actors have an incredible dynamic that replicates a combination of awkwardness and comfort that I’ve rarely seen so astutely conveyed. When apart, they are both relieved of the unpredictable emotions they inspire in each other but their need for each other makes their separation melancholy. This remains unresolved and though they end the film in each other’s arms, the impression is of two people trapped in an impossible situation. Marty was able to resolve itself on a comedic beat. Middle of the Night has no such luxury, which just makes it all the more powerful.

Film Focus: Kim Novak (1957 – 1959) was released by Imprint on Blu-Ray on 24 April 2024. Special features are as follows:

* Audio commentary on selected scenes by actress Kim Novak and author Stephen Rebello 
* Backstage and at Home with Kim Novak – featurette (2010)
* Theatrical Trailer

JEANNE EAGELS

* Reflections in The Middle of the Night – featurette
* Theatrical Trailer

Where to watch Pal Joey