Lady in the Dark (1944)

She's got glamour surrounding her with furs, jewels, the latest fashions, and all the available men at her beck and call. Yet, she's terribly unhappy, filled with self doubt, depression and on the verge of a breakdown due to nervous exhaustion. Even in dowdy suits that don't hide her loveliness, Ginger Rogers' Liza Elliott seems barely living, only going through the motions. Yet, she has a fantastic fantasy life, and with psycho analysis tries to make sense of it all.Even before "Oklahoma!", this Broadway hit went to places in musical theater that most shows avoided. A smash hit for Gertrude Lawrence, it seems the perfect vehicle for any movie musical queen to take on. Who would it be? Judy at MGM? Alice at 20th? Rita at Columbia? The independently working Ginger Rogers got the key part, and does her best to instill it with every emotion known to mankind, er womankind, that is when she chooses to act like a typical mid 20th Century woman.Perhaps the fact that this seems quite ahead of its time can be utilized as the reason for its awkwardness. It's certainly lovely to look at, but that one key ingredient, magic, is missing. The Kurt Weill/Ira Gershwin score seems to move in and out, played mostly over the fantasy sequences, and no more substantial than the humming in her head of the show's glorious ballad, "My Ship". Surrounding Rogers are the wisecracking Ray Milland who refers to Rogers as "boss lady", Warner Baxter as her devoted suitor who bears more than a passing resemblance to her father, Jon Hall as a hunky movie star, and Mischa Auer as the very effeminate photographer whose statements about Hall are filled with obvious sexual innuendo.There's so much to like, if not love, in this big colorful spectacle. This show, rarely revived, has been documented in the Gertrude Lawrence musical bio "Star!" (where Julie Andrews camped it up in an over-the- top "Jenny") and a profile featuring original cast member Danny Kaye and a seductive Lynn Redgrave on the PBS special "Musical Comedy Tonight". Hopefully, this will get a proper revival one day, but something tells me that its attitudes about women and careers are considered very dated.

Even with 3 Oscar nominations Lady In The Dark was by all accounts a grave disappointment for the movie going public. For one thing the film did not retain Kurt Weill's and Ira Gershwin's score save for the two primary numbers My Ship and The Saga Of Jenny. But worse than that, Gertrude Lawrence was not brought to Hollywood to make the film. Lady In The Dark more than most was a personal star vehicle and rumor has it that that particular star was furious at being left out. Listen to her recordings of those two songs I mentioned and you'll agree with me. Ginger Rogers the star in the film was ruthlessly compared with Gertrude Lawrence and not for the better. Sad because Ginger does do a decent job in the part. Lady In The Dark is about psychoanalysis and the subject is the lead character Liza Elliott successful career woman and editor of Allure Magazine. But she's in analysis now because of persistent headaches and recurring daydreams that the medical profession can't find a reason for. So she's on Dr. Barry Sullivan's couch for sessions while trying to put out her magazine.Her problem seems to be the men in her life and they include assistant editor Ray Milland, publisher Warner Baxter who just can't quite break up his marriage for her, and visiting movie star Jon Hall. So Ginger Rogers like her role model Jenny takes the whole to finally make up her mind.The strength of Lady In The Dark is the elaborate sets used for the various dream/fantasy sequences from the show. No surprise here because director Mitchell Leisen started out as a set designer. Art Direction was one of the nominations Lady In The Dark got as well as for musical scoring and color cinematography. It might have won one or two, but in 1944 Paramount was putting its big publicity guns out for Going My Way because the studio meal ticket Bing Crosby was the star.Lady In The Dark is also a great example of the gay cinema in some very repressive years. Mischa Auer plays the flamboyant fashion photographer Russell Paxton in a role Danny Kaye originated on Broadway. See how Auer effervesces over the person of Jon Hall when his film star character comes to the offices. On Broadway Kaye had the song Tschaikowsky interpolated into the score for him. It was written by his wife Sylvia Fine. Auer doesn't do that, but in every other way he repeats Kaye's characterization with I'm sure a few touches of his own.Fans of both Gertrude Lawrence and the music of Kurt Weill were disappointed then and still today.

A product of the times but still dreadful! Ginger looking rather mannish (get it?) until she finds a man. Almost all songs deleted except for "Jenny" ("My Ship" which is the crucial key to the solution of her problems was also inexplicably deleted.). Film composers were generally treated like dirt including Leonard Bernstein in "On the Town" with "improvements" by Roger Edens. But this one is the worst! Historically of some interest but still to be avoided.

Great score mutilated, interesting stage libretto turned into an anti-feminist tract: It seems that our heroine, a successful and independent woman, needs a man to dominate her to be happy. (The stage version had the same basic story, but the rhetoric wasn't so vehemently misogynistic.) Ginger was more than a singer-dancer -- she could act, and had an Oscar to prove it -- but here her playing is dull and unimaginative. She, the art and costume and make-up departments, and the director seem concerned with two things only: the look of Ginger, and the look of the film. She looks fine, and the gaudy production design is a Technicolor riot, if not in the best of taste. The visual splendor makes the film worth seeing, but you'll have to tune a lot of nonsense out.