Virginia Gray

  • Broadway Serenade (1939)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2022) The 1930s were big on Broadway musicals, and Broadway Serenade stars high-pitched operatic singer Jeanette MacDonald in a familiar story about a married couple in which she strikes it big and he doesn’t. It all leads to a big musical number directed by Busby Berkeley that will be, for many, the single biggest reason to see this otherwise undistinguished film. (Robert Z. Leonard otherwise directs the rest of it.)  MacDonald is a hit-or-miss kind of star – while her vocal talents were undeniable, they weren’t always suited to the kinds of musical comedies in which she starred – an opera singer forced into a movie singer role. I’d rather watch Virginia Gray (who looks wonderful here), but that’s not necessarily a knock against MacDonald. The sexist plot isn’t worth remembering (especially given the flaws of the male protagonist – many of which go unacknowledged by the film) but the musical numbers are much better. After all, Broadway Serenade was designed as a star vehicle for MacDonald. It’s effective as such – but anyone looking for Broadway musicals has several many better choices to pick from.

  • Blonde Inspiration (1941)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2022) As someone who spent a lot of time reading about pulp fiction magazines of the 1940s–1950s (albeit of the Science Fiction genre), I had a favourable predisposition toward Blonde Inspiration: After all, it’s a romantic comedy set against the world of western pulp fiction magazines, with a writer protagonist (John Shelton) trying to make it big as an author. It does help a lot that he’s the heir to a sizeable family fortune, as his worth to the magazine publishers he works with is more as an investor than an author. But don’t fret—thanks to the intervention of the lovely Virginia Gray’s character, he’ll manage to expose fraudsters, make his name as a fiction writer and get the girl. All the way to writing an entire issue of a magazine for himself when the usual writer flats-out refuses to work until he’s paid. Alas, this plot summary sounds better than the film as it exists – despite a decent amount of potential and some rather charming period detail for anyone who once dreamt about the life of pulp fiction writers (if you’re curious about that, have a look at the adventures of Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg as short-fiction writers in 1950s–1960s Manhattan – able to finance a modest urban lifestyle by writing a stream of short stories and throwing them over the transom of locked publishers’ doors.), Blonde Ambition struggles to create enough narrative rhythm. Director Busby Berkeley doesn’t have his usual tools here – the film isn’t a musical and doesn’t feature any dance sequences—so he falls back on a serviceable directing style that is undistinguishable from many other for-hire directors of the time. I enjoyed Blonde Inspiration, but I didn’t love it, and considering the potential hook that the film had for me, that’s not exactly a ringing recommendation.