Farmer takes a wife ( 1935)

The life of a Classic Hollywood fan films is a roller coaster, I can tell you that. I used to spend so much time searching all over internet for movies, from Amazon to Youtube and back. Sometimes I would find terrible copies, like the one I still have from the "The quiet man", and get mad I spent my hard earned moneys on  frankly, something that  should have not been released in the first place. No, I love the John Ford masterpiece, but the quality of the DVD was....not to be found. 

Other times you can be surprised to find a good copy available for streaming of a title that you had already given up viewing. I have no access to TCM right now, and this can be as hard as to go days without a cigarette if you are a smoker. It happened yesterday: I found "The farmer takes a wife" on Youtube and almost cried! Sound, image and credits, all there. 

You, my only reader, might ask why was I so eager on watching this film, I can give you many reasons, and I assure you I will, but mostly , just look at that beautiful shot of Henry Fonda, so young and so dreamy. This was his first film, in a starring role. He basically recreated the role that gave him star status on Broadway, just the year before ( 1934) under the direction of no other than Victor Fleming. 

Now, you have to keep in mind that this was one of the last films released under Fox Films, not yet 20th Century Fox. Daryl Zanuck was already there, but he was yet to establish his firm grip on the studio. Janet Gaynor, with then since 1926, was still the bigger star on the lot, but on the wane: Zanuck favored luscious ( Linda Darnell), french ( Annabella) or  musical ( Betty Grable) women as leading ladies. Even the beautiful and feminine Loretta Young suffered with what she perceived as the " lack of interess" of the new boss. This was a man that , after all, did not need  the so called "casting couch"; he was famous for throwing "casting orgies" every Friday. Of course, he had no time to waste with childlike Janet Gaynor, who made her exit by the end of the decade.

So, you have a newcomer ( Fonda) on the brink of stardom; a bonefide star (Gaynor) on the wane and a competent director ( Fleming) on the top of his game. Not to mention a Studio, going through , let´s say, an awkward phase, but on the right path. 

That is why I was so keen in watching it in the first place.

Now, the movie...

Fleming had a reputation as a " macho director" mainly because, I think, of his off screen antics: he was very masculine ( best friends with Howard Hawks and Clark Gable after all) and somewhat of a woman chaser ( had affair with almost all his leading ladies). Take a look, a closer look, at his movies, and you will find a very gentle touch, sometimes an almost sentimental film making approach. The women in his films  are often strong willed, they often take active roles in the plots. But he always makes a point of showing women as very feminine, loving creatures. For every Scarlett O´Hara  in his universe there was a Melanie; ladies are, he seems to say, as strong as bitches, because they are made of the same cloth. If you are fond of " Gone with the wind" , I recommend you to check the documentary on the production, it is available online and has plenty of information. It will show you how Fleming, basically a tyrant, had an eye for character development after all. Olivia de Havilland herself said that, for all of Cukor delicacy and understanding, it was Fleming, with only one observation, that showed her how to play Melanie: he told her, in private, after failed takes " Whatever Melanie says, she really means it".

All through the movie you can sense this light touch.Molly ( Gaynor)is a cook on a boat; she finds working and living along the Erie Canal exciting and thinks the railroads will never replace this lifestyle she is so entranced with. She meets Dan Harrow ( Fonda), who plans to work on a boat long enough to raise money and buy a farm. They fall in love, but their different expectations and world views clash.In the end they are reunited after Dan fights Molly´s former boss, Jothan, and show her that life in the canal will never be the same again.

The cinematographer was Ernest Palmer, one of the unsung pioneers, active from early silent film days till the 1950´s. I liked the fog scenes, think they were well made and, although a bit slow, were important to the dramatic development of the characters. We see Molly hearing Dan´s voice through the fog, then seeing him and talking to him all through it and, when it the fog is dissipated, she decides to quit her job and work alongside Dan. I was a bit surprised they did not use more of an incidental soundtrack, instead Fleming opted to sprinkle the movie with vocal groups of "sailors" singing in bars for instance, or street music. I somehow doubt it the boats were that spacious, but the wardrobe seemed to be what normal working people would wear it in the first half of the 19th century. Honestly , it is kind of refreshing to find out that the "MGM" standard of ludicrous and over the top costumes were not , at that point, of common use. I love Adrian  ( and Gaynor loved more than anyone else, I suppose) but his ideas for the so called " period pictures" were so outrageous sometimes....

Even though Fonda played the character before, it shows that he is , at this point, not all at ease in front of the cameras. I find it very clever of Fleming in using this awkwardness  of the actor to his advantage: Dan Harrow is, after all, a fish out of water. After he falls in love with Molly, he seems more relaxed and , funny thing, is his face that the camera loves, not Gaynors. Fonda at this point is painfully beautiful and he keeps getting close up after close up. I cannot complain...

If you are interested in the film, just check it out online or , if you are lucky enough, check TCM schedule. Please note: if you are a " Fast and Furious" kind of person, this movie is NOT for you...

  Ava and the Avas that followed

Even for Hollywood standards, she was a special : a beautiful, alluring animal. That she was, in fact, a woman, all flesh and bones like all of us makes her even more magical and fascinating. I always wanted to know more about her, other than the marriages, the love affair, and the discovery. 

There are a few books out there about her life and I am yet to buy one. I do put a lot of energy into  researching  biographies before buying  them, reading as many reviews as I can before I feel sure it is the right choice. It makes the whole process longer, but I learned the hard way that publishers do.....publish anything they think will sell. Are they not aware that it hurts us, the public for such books, to find inaccuracies, mistakes and stupid lies written about people we admire? Don´t get me wrong: I am not talking about sanitized books, hagiographies of all kinds or even the worst of all, family-members-telling-it-all. Those do them- and us-  no justice.

Anyway, Ava was such a remarkable person that a book came out about the making of a biography of her. The reviews are very positive, so I already made up my mind about it. Soon I will find out more about the woman so special to me. In the meantime, I share what I already know-or think-about her.

The so called "Studios System" or "Star Machine" for Jeanine Basinger gave us the movie stars. And they were right in feeling at the time that  they created them and they could destroy them. In another words: the stars were creatures. They had their hair changed, teeth caped, accents erased. Their previous life story was rewritten, as if the ones they had before were a draft. Most of the times, their name was changed.

But not with Ava.

She had not only the perfect face and body , but also the most unusual, yet simple,  name. Ava Lavinia Gardner. No, she was not  called "Lucy Johnson" as some researchers suggested. The only thing MGM had to get rid of was her North Carolina accent. Oh, and to teach her how to act. She was a teenager when she arrived there, chaperoned by a sister.

Years passed: two marriages ( Mickey Rooney and Artie Shaw) and not a single good movie . Was she aware of that? Did she care at that point? It does not matter now,  almost 70 years later, because in 1946 she finally broke through with " The Killers". It is not what she does, as she does not do much. But we believe a guy like Burt Lancaster would fall hard for her. That movie proved also important to her as John Huston is listed among the screenwriters and he was very keen on working with Ava, even after her days as a bonafide movie star were over. 

I watched " The Barefoot Comtessa" when I was young, on the day she died. I did not follow the plot in a linear way, as I was 11 years old with a very limited attention span . I remember finding  the Humphrey Bogart character very weird and wanting even more Ava on the screen. I was fascinated by her and did not care about the story, to be honest. That is the essence of a star: your eyes are on no one else.

Oh, the name. It has been a trend in Hollywood now. Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Jackman, Heather Locklear and Jeremy Renner had all named their daughters "Ava". As it often goes, this has inspired many others and "Ava" is listed among the top 10 names for girls in USA. What is the meaning of this name? No idea! It is a Persian name , meaning voice or sound, very common for older women, as an Iranian friend told me. It is also an old German name, used mainly in the Middle Ages,  but honestly, nobody knows for sure its meaning. 

I named my daughter Ava, not following a trend, but paying tribute to a very honest, down to earth and beautiful woman.