Ralf Harolde | Through the Shattered Lens

Mardi Gras in New Orleans has always been a legendary party.

If you doubt me on this, just watch the 1930 film, Dixiana. Dixiana is all about Mardi Gras. I mean, there is a plot of sorts but it’s pretty easy to guess that, for audiences in 1930, the promise of a spectacular Madi Gras finale (filmed in technicolor, I might add) was the main appeal of this film. Dixiana itself takes place in the 1840s so there you have it. 90 years ago, RKO Pictures made a lavish movie about a Mardi Gras celebration that had happened nearly 100 years earlier. That’s quite a legendary party, no?

As with many pre-Code films about the Antebellum South, it can be a bit awkward to watch Dixiana today. This is a film that opens on a plantation, with Cornelius Van Horn (Joseph Cawthorn) and his son, Carl (Everett Marshall), discussing how much they enjoy listening to the slaves sing about the Mississippi River. They’re amazed that the slaves can sing so beautifully about water. (It doesn’t occur to them that the song was actually about going up the river and finding freedom.) Cornelius and Carl, we discover, are actually from Pennsylvania. Cornelius has recently remarried, to the snobbish Birdie (Jobnya Howland) and both he and his son have only recently moved down to her native Louisiana. Carl and Cornelius are still getting used to life in and the customs of the South. Cornelius, for instance, explains that he regularly frees some of his slaves and he imagines that’s why they’re always so happy. But if he really wants them all to be happy why doesn’t he just free them all and maybe stop buying slaves all together? Let’s just say that Dixiana is not the film to watch if you’re looking for an honest look at American life before the Civil War.

Anyway, if you’re still interested in seeing the film after reading all of that, the majority of Dixiana takes place in New Orleans. Carl goes into town, does some gambling, and sees a show. He is immediately smitten with a performer named Dixiana (Bebe Daniels) and he asks her to marry him. Even though her two best friends, Peewee and Ginger (played by the comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey), are weary, Dixiana accepts his proposal. Carl takes Dixiana back to the plantation with him. Unfortunately, he also takes Peewee and Ginger and they soon let slip that they’re all circus performers. Birdie is scandalized. There’s no way her stepson is going to bring shame on the family by marrying a circus performer!

So, Dixiana and her friends head back to New Orleans. The circus no longer wants her so Dixiana is forced to work in a gambling hall that’s owned by smarmy Royal Montague (Ralf Harolde). Montague has his own personal interest in Dixiana but she’s still in love with Carl. So, Royal plots to not only have Dixiana crowned as the Queen of Mardi Gras but also to trick Carl into accept a duel with him. Montague, of course, plans to pull an Aaron Burr and cheat. Meanwhile, Peewee and Ginger steal money, kick each other in the backside, and fight a duel of their own….

And really, none of that matters. In the end, the film’s storyline is mostly just busywork. The main reason that anyone would want to see this film is for the final 20 minutes, which is when the grainy black-and-white cinematography is replaced by gloriously vibrant technicolor and the Mardi Gras celebrations begin. There’s singing. There’s dancing. There’s even Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, making his film debut and dancing up a storm. Seriously, 1840s Mardi Gras looked like it would have been fun to attend, even if it does sometimes seem more like a lively cotillion as opposed to the orgy of alcohol poisoning that everyone knows and loves today.

Dixiana is one of those films that’s fallen into the public domain and, as such, it tends to turn up in a lot of cheap DVD boxsets. There’s quite a few prints out that are completely in black-and-white and which don’t feature the sudden change to color. That’s a shame because, whatever flaws this film may have, it does make good use of that technicolor during the final 20 minutes. It’s big and lavish and gorgeous to look at and it’s easy to imagine the valuable escape that it provided for audiences at the start of the Depression.

Today, Dixiana is probably most interesting as a historical document. It’s not quite as racy as one might expect from a pre-code film but it’s a good example of the type of lavish musicals that were popular among audiences who, in the 30s, used the film as a way to escape from the grimness of reality. And, if nothing else, it’s proof that Mardi Gras in New Orleans has always been a big deal.

(Lisa is once again cleaning out her DVR! She recorded the 1931 film Night Nurse off of TCM on May 3rd.)

Night Nurse follows the sordid nights and quiet days of Lora Hart (Barbara Stanwyck), a high school dropout who dreams of becoming a nurse. Fortunately, she manages to get hired on as a trainee nurse at a big city hospital. Along the way, she gets a new BFF (Joan Blondell), a potential new boyfriend named Mortie (Ben Lyon), who is not only handsome and nice but a bootlegger too, and valuable life lessons on how to defend herself against smirky male doctors. Yay!

Unfortunately, even if you manage to survive the rigorous training program, the life of a night nurse is never easy. For instance, Lora gets hired to help look after the Ritchie children. The Ritchies may be rich but they’ve got so much drama going on that maybe it would be better if they were poor. The kids, for instance, are always sick and their doctor (Ralf Harolde) is apparently hooked on morphine. The mother (Charlotte Merriam) is always passed out drunk. Meanwhile, the family’s chauffeur, Nick (Clark Gable!), is a total brute who appears to have dangerous plans of his own.

Made in 1931, Night Nurse is a pre-code film, which is to say that it was made before the production code mandated what was and was not acceptable in the movies. Occasionally, among film fans like myself, there’s a tendency to assume that any pre-code film is actually going to be some sort of subversive, over-the-top masterpiece. We always think about the epic orgies that Cecil B. DeMille would slip into his silent films or maybe Douglas Fairbanks playing a constantly sniffing detective named Coke Ennyday in The Mystery of the Leaping Fish or the old stories about anonymous stagehands accidentally getting gunned down during the filming of Little Caesar or The Public Enemy. However, just as often, the pre-code label just means that a film is going to feature a few winky double entendres, a bootlegger hero, and at last one scene of the film’s heroine getting undressed. If you want to become an expert on 1930s lingerie, just spend a weekend watching pre-code films.

That’s certainly the case with Night Nurse, which only takes 7 minute to reach its first scene of nurses changing out of street clothes and into uniform. As for the bootlegger hero, that’s taken care of as soon as Mortie shows up and flashes his charming smile despite having a bullet in his hand. As played by Ben Lyon, Mortie is not exactly the most convincing gangster to ever show up in a pre-code film but no matter! He’s got charm and not every gangster can be Edward G. Robinson…

If it sound like I’m being critical of Night Nurse, I’m not. I watch Night Nurse every time that it shows up on TCM and I actually love the film. It’s a cheerfully silly melodrama, the type of innocently risqué film that could only be made during the pre-code era. Stanwyck and Blondell are a perfect team and whenever I listened to them trade sarcastic quips or watched them as they try to get away with breaking curfew, I couldn’t help but think of my own friends. Seriously, everyone should be as lucky as to have a BFF like Joan Blondell. And finally, you get Clark Gable as the bad guy. Gable is really mean and hateful in this movie and it takes a while to get used to seeing him without his mustache. To be honest, he’s not as handsome without the facial hair. But still — he’s Clark freaking Gable and, even in this early role, he had so much charisma and screen presence that it’s impossible not to watch him.

I was going to start this review by saying that Night Nurse sounded like a good title for an MCU film. However, my boyfriend informed me that apparently, there actually was a Marvel comic book called Night Nurse. Apparently, it had nothing to do with this movie. That’s a shame but hopefully, someone at Lifetime will read this review and decide to remake Night Nurse with an all Canadian cast. I’m keeping my fingers crossed on this one!

Anyway, Night Nurse shows up on TCM constantly. Keep an eye out for it!