Six weeks ago, I enjoyed a somewhat reluctant obsession with a 1954 CinemaScope whodunit, Black Widow. It’s an ordinary premise — man accused of murder has to avoid the cops in order to clear his name — but this time it’s set among High Wattage Creatives on Broadway*. Broadway producer Van Heflin (remembered mostly as Joan Crawford’s romantic victim in 1947’s Possessed) is accused of murdering Peggy Ann Garner (remembered mostly as young Jane Eyre) — who he met at the home of the star of his current hit, Ginger Rogers (remembered mostly as the equal partner of Fred Astaire) and her husband Reginald Gardiner (remembered only, if at all, as the Comte d’Artois in 1938’s Marie Antoinette), while his wife is out of town — and that would be Gene Tierney (remembered mostly for The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Laura, and Leave Her to Heaven). The New York City detective investigating is George Raft (remembered mostly as a gangster off screen).
Peggy Ann Garner, Ginger Rogers, Reginald Gardiner, and Van Heflin.
There are five reasons to love this film: the color and design, The “Dance of the Seven Veils” theme from Salomé by Richard Strauss, a couple supporting players, the cocktail party at the beginning, and the wardrobe and performance of Ginger Rogers.
Early CinemaScope films required greater than usual attention to set design, choreographing camera angles and movement, and the use of color**. We get here a series of Manhattan apartments that look so spacious that only Russian oligarchs could afford them now, decorated in bland-looking creams and pastels with deft placement of Asian art. The blandness was probably to keep anything from jumping out and looking too garish. Someone said of making George Cukor’s A Star Is Born: “We damn near made a black and white movie in color.”
Peggy Ann Garner, swept away by Richard Strauss.
Peggy Ann Garner, lounging in a windowsill, reflects “‘The secret of Love is greater than the secret of Death’ — that’s the way I’d really like to write . . . that’s the goal to try for, Death and Grandeur.” And all this to one of the more sweeping passages of “The Dance of the Seven Veils.” (Said passage begins at roughly 06:16.) It’s ravishing, just as Strauss intended. I am not going to tell you how this gets involved in the murder plot.
Yes, it’s really Cathleen Nesbitt!
Among the company, the great Cathleen Nesbitt is wasted, absolutely wasted, as the maid. She has only two scenes, but I do rather wish they’d written a grander role for her. Reginald Gardiner makes the perfect milquetoast husband for Ginger; the word “hangdog” comes to mind. Virginia Leith has three or four scenes as an angry friend of the murder victim. She’s beautiful and she has a voice low, distinct, and musical — somehow that feels rare — but I can’t say I find her convincing as an artist from a Boston Brahmin family. It must be the accent.
Virginia Leith
But the true, glowing hot supporting performance here is that of Hilda Simms as Anne the hat check girl. Ms. Simms, a victim of the Hollywood blacklist during the McCarthy era, broke ground as a performer with the American Negro Theatre in its production of Anna Lucasta, “a beautiful young woman struggling to regain her respectability and return to her family after falling into a life of prostitution.” Just seeing her one scene with Van Heflin makes me mourn the performances she should have been able to give — an amazing talent stifled.
Van Heflin and Hilda Simms
Maybe it’s just because the damn pandemic has lasted a year - and counting! - but the party at the beginning is exactly what I want to do right now. Fill my house with well-dressed friends, a pianist, a bartender and a couple waiters and just have a damn hubbub!
Ginger Rogers at her own cocktail party.
And finalmente we come to the real reason for our being here, Miss Carlotta “Lottie” Marin, star of Star Rising, as given us by Ginger Rogers. Always the “all-American princess of dance,” doing everything Fred did but backwards in high heels, it’s an absorbing pleasure to see her serve us a brittle Broadway diva who really just does not care that you hate her. Physically she holds herself like an elegant but pugnacious fighter. In a couple scenes I could have sworn she was about to slug Katharine Hepburn off camera. Because her 1930s work always comes at us first, it’s really refreshing to see her as a sleek, powerful, intelligent woman, unafraid to do battle or make mischief.
And her wardrobe is stunning! It’s worth noting that the costumes were designed by Travilla, who went on to do the glamorous very-much-of-its-era Valley of the Dolls.
So there you have it. I’m not going to tell you who done it, nor which cast member was best remembered as a talking head in a science fiction film. Enjoy!
*With this set in 1954, it’s interesting to think of this cast of characters maneuvering in the same theatre world as those of All About Eve (1950), The Opposite Sex (1956), and Torch Song (1953).
**Learn more reading Ron Haver’s book about the making and restoration of George Cukor’s A Star Is Born starring Judy Garland and James Mason. It taught me a lot!