Ginger Rogers: Tender Comrade (1943)

Tender Comrade (1943) was a Ginger Rogers vehicle showcasing the recent Oscar winner and RKO top draw. Tender Comrade costarred one of the studio's up-and-coming talents, Robert Ryan, who in 1947 would play his defining role in Crossfire. Both films were directed by future Hollywood Ten blacklistee Edward Dmytryk, while fellow future persona non grata, writer Dalton Trumbo, penned this World War II propaganda piece.

Tender Comrade--don't worry, no spoilers-- chronicles the lives of Jo Jones (Rogers) and her husband Chris (Ryan), Chris ships out overseas and Jo, who works at a defense plant, decides to pool her financial resources by sharing an apartment with two coworkers, and run in it "democratically." We are then teated to numerous propagandistic and emotionally manipulative plot elements, and heart strings are duly tugged. There's nothing really "red" about the film itself--other than the use of the word "comrade" in the title--considering the pro-democracy rhetoric that is laid on with a trowel, but Ginger's mother, Lela, objected to what she saw as socialistic dialogue. The dialogue was cut at her behest, and Tender Comrade succeeds at being nothing more than a homefront propaganda piece about "keeping one's chin up" during the tough times. Mrs. Miniver and Since You Went Away are similarly-themed films.

Since so much of Ginger's work is unavailable on DVD, this WWII curiosity is unlikely to get a release anytime soon. I think Rogers and Ryan made an interesting-looking couple, and wouldn't have minded seeing the two together again. It's also fun to see the pre-Crossfire Robert Ryan being so...nice! However, seeing Ginger in so many soapy tearjerkers in the post-Astaire years only makes me wish she'd have made some musicals of her own.

Poll Results: James Cagney

“There you go with that wishin' stuff again. I wish you was a wishing well. So that I could tie a bucket to ya and sink ya!”

~Tom Powers (James Cagney) in The Public Enemy (1931)



The results (44 votes total):

James Cagney- 29 (65%)
Edward G. Robinson- 8 (18%)
Humphrey Bogart- 5 (11%)
George Raft- 2 (4%)

Warning: spoilers ahead!

Was there any doubt as to the outcome? James Cagney won our poll-- Who is the greatest gangster of the Golden Age of Hollywood-- and the voters shoved a grapefruit into the face of Cagney’s collective opposition. I can see how he won so easily. Cagney’s gangster characters were more ferocious and intimidating than his contemporaries, because at any given moment you never knew when a Cagney gangster would lash out. He is part of Hollywood lore with two immortal moments in two of his best-known gangster films, The Public Enemy (1931) where Cagney’s Tom Powers is rotten to the core, shoves citrus in Mae Clarke’s mug, and drops dead in a rain-drenched gutter. Later, in the 1940s, Cagney is nihilistic gangster Cody Jarrett in White Heat (1949) with an Oedipus complex as he goes up sky high, but not before uttering one of the most famous lines in cinema history: “Made it ma, top of the world!!!” But as bad as his character is, he’s still nobler than amoral rat fink S.O.B. Edmond O’Brien, who drops a dime on our boy Cody after infiltrating Jarrett’s gang and gains his trust; I still get ticked off about that every time I see White Heat! That’s testament to Cagney’s likeability and sheer screen magnetism. I half-jokingly tell anyone who’ll listen that I’d pay real money to reenact Cody Jarrett’s prison cafeteria meltdown when he learns that his “ma” has died.

Cagney’s competition in this poll were all notable tough guys, and all played gangsters in their own special way, but none of them have the fury, rage, and potential for sudden unpredictable violence as Cagney’s characters do. Edward G. Robinson was menacing, Humphrey Bogart had the stare, and George Raft had that coin-flipping prelude to putting some mug’s lights out. But they don’t have—forgive me—the white-hot rage and mayhem of a Cagney character. No one does. They also didn’t get such memorable writing and visuals that are associated with James Cagney’s most frightening characters.

By the way, my fedora’s off to the two of you that voted for George Raft. You guys must be really tough to take a beating like he did in this poll, which tallied the most votes since we started doing this error-free, unscientific, Hollywood Dreamland poll.

Say it with Me: "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!!!" Boom.

Ending April on a Ginger Note

April is coming to an end, and I just realized that a few entries this month have focused on Ginger Rogers. In fact, this blog will be spending a lot more time lavishing attention on La Lovely Rogers. Here's a photo of Ginger and mega-rich lothario Howard Hughes (1905-1976) at a no-doubt sophisticated Hollywood nightspot, circa 1937. Hughes, ever the aviator, was flying high, having broken the transcontinental airspeed record in January, 1937. Ginger was also soaring in her own career, as she completed Shall We Dance with Fred Astaire, as well as Stage Door with Katharine Hepburn, and was working on a film with James Stewart, Vivacious Lady, which I've been a raving lunatic about getting released on DVD. In fact, Vivacious Lady is currently #58 on Turner Classic's list of requested movies not on DVD. So click the link and vote.

Discovering Ginger Rogers

Ginger Rogers. It’s hard to believe that five years ago I was so dopey as to believe that she was the untalented half of the Astaire-Rogers partnership. I just didn’t see her appeal. She didn’t have any musical showcases of her own to spotlight her talent, she didn’t sing outside of her movies with Fred and only a bit in her earlier, Busby Berkeley musicals, where she was a stock player. Her decision to pursue mainly dramatic roles made me wonder what it was Rogers was running away from. If she was so talented, how come she didn’t do musicals of her own?

Another example of me being a dope and not checking the facts.

In 2006, Turner Classic Movies had their “Summer under the Stars” theme. So, while on a day off from the salt mines, I decided to give Rogers another look—signs of my slow-as-a-glacier maturity, no doubt. I began my day with Stage Door (1937). Ginger is a wisecracking chorine trying to make it big in theatre. She traded sarcastic remarks with no less than Katharine Hepburn and Gail Patrick—she had me right there! Ginger was so good! Her timing, her inflections on how she delivered the lines at a rapid-fire pace and yes, she hoofed it, too! She looked oh-so cute in top hat and short shorts and was stunning in her evening dress. She also emoted in her scenes which required pathos, and she’s effective as a major player in Stage Door—no small feat with Kate Hepburn as one’s co-star. Armed with newfound respect and interest for Ginger, I settled in for a glorious day with my new movie crush.

Later in the day I had my second great Ginger moment, which was in Weekend at the Waldorf (1946). This is a post-Astaire film and Rogers looked even more glamorous and beautiful as her movie star character was supposed to be. She was clearly the center of this Grand Hotel-sized cast and she wore a fantastic white dress that definitely caught my attention. Her performance was equally good, as she was a more mature character, definitely in the “ever after” period of a romance; something we wouldn’t see in her films with Fred Astaire until 1949’s The Barkleys of Broadway.

In the next few years, I would become quite the Ginger Rogers admirer, even if her personal life and views weren’t exactly fascinating. I like her for what she does onscreen and it only took two movies for me to realize how timeless her appeal is, how Ginger’s performances don’t grow mannered and stale over the decades. After all, movie buffs are still enchanted by the work she and Astaire put up on the screen over seventy years ago. That’s not likely to fade away anytime soon, is it?

I also realized why Ginger had to purposely remove herself from the musical genre--she had to in order to strike out on her own. Otherwise, she would have been forever associated with Fred Astaire. Of course, that happened anyway, but at the time she became a box office heavyweight on her own, even winning an Oscar for 1940's Kitty Foyle. I just hope that Ginger’s solo career will get more notice and evaluation. She was the only star of her caliber to sing, dance, and excel at both comedy and drama. You’d be hard-pressed to find many of her better-known contemporaries who could claim the same distinction.

Now, excuse me I have to continue waiting for Vivacious Lady on DVD…

From Ginger, with Love: I can dream, can't I?