I am fascinated by Mary Pickford's talkies. Mostly because she was such a good actress, and it baffles me that the right factors just never seemed to sync up for her in relation to talkies. Ironically Mary was one of the first major stars to jump into making talkies with "Coquette" which is officially the one talkie of hers I have yet to see. It was actually a success, which makes the tepid response to its successor "Taming of the Shrew" all the more confounding.
All the right factors SHOULD have been in place. Mary and Douglas Fairbanks had their own studio and absolute freedom and financials, plus wonderful business minds to boot. Separately they were the biggest stars of the 1920s, Mary as 'America's Sweetheart' and Doug as the Swashbuckler. Together their fame would make Brangelina look like amateurs. They were the most popular couple in the world, their fame was at its height.
Or more accurately it had been until talkies arrived. Along with UA partner Charlie Chaplin (praise be his name) there was no one more famous, no one's films more anticipated or successful. Both strove to create the finest films possible, and unlike Valentino they had the business mind to make it happen. While Mary embraced talkies Doug embraced technicolor, being the first major star to do so especially for an entire film (in technicality "Toll of the Sea" launched Anna May Wong into fame, in fact that film inspired The Black Pirate greatly.)
Both had been stage actors before film, and both had made Broadway (though arguably Doug had been more successful, Mary's rave came after she'd been in film and returned to Broadway). The talkie myth is just plain stupid as there wasn't a single star who couldn't speak, and if you want to factor in accents then explain Greta Garbo. Both Doug and Mary's voices matched their personalities well, there was nothing off or wrong about them.
None the less the arrival of talkies put the fear of God into the film community. The technology was so new and touchy that it didn't matter how well they could act...either the technology would do them in making them sound funny or the all knowing bosses would easily use talkies as an excuse to do away with them.
Neither Mary nor Doug had to worry about the bosses. They could afford to hire the best sound people possible. And if it was no good they could go all Chaplin and hold out until it was better (or maybe they didnt see it that way but they COULD have). But fears aside talkies ruined and stilted what had been a very smooth and artistic environment. Watch almost any silent from 1926-1930 and it flows as smooth as a modern day talkie. But with the new technology for talkies the game changed. Cameras had to be behind a pane of glass, while big bulky mics hung everywhere. If your jewelry dangled wrong or if you walked too fast the mic would pick it up, ruining an entire take. With the touchy flawed technology the smoothness and naturalness was taken out of acting. Imagine having to stand by the flower pot where the mic is hidden while trying not to breathe wrong. That would be about it.
Doug said he thought with talkies the romance had left filmmaking...and he was right for that time. No longer could there be mood musicians, no longer could people on set laugh and reply to the action on screen making it a warm and fun atmosphere. If you were funny or looking at the wrong mark you would never know until the take was ruined. Add to that you now had to learn lines, and you could no longer just say whatever the hell you felt like. In The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Rudolph Valentino and Alice Terry spoke French in their scenes for the lip readers. In those years that would never have flown during talkies. Gloria Swanson said screenwriters would hang around and here what the actors made up, sometimes incorporating it into the title cards. All this spontaneity was gone.
For both Doug and Mary one more factor was looming: old age. Doug was 46, Mary was 37. Both were known for playing youthful characters. In Mary's case she had grown sick of it, trying to upgrade at least to teenager. In Doug's case he prided himself on being athletic and fit and energetic, but aging was starting to take that away from him. Add to that seeing his son Douglas Fairbanks Jr start to outshine him (in looks, fame, and athleticism) and well...he wasn't very thrilled. For Doug it would lead to depression, for Mary when she realized she could no longer hold the audience like she once did it also led to depression...and alcoholism.
This was Doug's first official talkie. "The Iron Mask" had quickly added some talkie scenes to it but overall it was a silent film. Mary already certain she was fine in talkies (complete with an Oscar) needed another solid project. The reigning mindset during the silent era was 'one star per film' thus maximizing profits and holding in budgets. The reason we get flukes like "Beyond the Rocks" is because (despite The Sheik) the studio felt Valentino was still a no one...but Gloria Swanson was a star!
With talkies around and nerves a twitter Mary and Doug decided at long last to team up. It would guarantee a hit! It would be the biggest thing since Birth of a Nation! You must remember though there fame had slipped a bit both were still very popular. Surely a film together would be as well.
During the silent era theaters told distributors they would not screen a Shakespeare film ever as it would be boring and the yokels wouldn't 'get' it. So naturally every artistic actor in Hollywood longed to make a Shakespeare film. During the early 20s Romeo and Juliet was constantly said to be in the making. Mary, Lillian Gish, and Norma Talmadge were all named as possible Juliets. Valentino seems to be the only rumored Romeo (and he couldn't do it because of his strike).
The mindset when talkies came was everything must be from the stage...people like plays and that must be what they wanted to see in a talkie right? Odd considering a similar mindset had come around when flickers began and that failed miserably. No one thought of that apparently. Doug and Mary decided "Taming of the Shrew" would be a good pairing for them. Who could dispute Shakespeare dialogue?
To add to this theory they decided to go all out. Not only would it feature 2 stars and be Shakespeare and a talkie but...it would be in color! Musicals were starting to follow a similar thought pattern but no one had done a non musical talkie in color! They would be trailblazers.
Unfortunately even for the deep pockets of their production companies it would be too costly. Costumes, sets, and everything had been made ready for color filming. This is perhaps one of the saddest things to think of...we could have had a talkie from 1929 in color! They would have been way ahead of their time on that one especially considering the depression that would wipe out color ambitions for almost a decade.
One of the sadder things though is somewhere along the way life began to imitate art. Doug and Mary had been perpetually in love since their risky marriage in 1920. Though they surely had their moments, nothing had ever driven them apart. Fears of old age and lost fame apparently ate away at them. Between 1927 and 1929 they fell apart. Doug was the real life Petruchio laughing and 'whatever-ing' through life at this point. He hated conflict so he'd just try to avoid it. Mary on the other hand was fed up with his antics, and growing more 'Katherine' like by the minute. Doug would show up late and come laughing in ready to whatever through his lines. Mary would sit steaming counting just exactly how much he was costing them per minute of being late (if I remember right it was $30 a minute, he was on average a few hours late per day). Those on set said the tone was different from any other Doug or Mary set they had worked on. The two would do their scenes then not speak a word to each other. It was mind blowing considering the public still thought they were madly in love.
I almost wonder if egotism wasn't one more part of it. Doug and Mary had always had different working styles (Mary was very efficient, Doug was more lazing about) but when you put two major stars in a film and those styles clash I wonder if the ego didn't factor a bit. And if perhaps that egotism helped destroy their relationship further. Both were wonderful actors, but resenting and avoiding each other could not lead to happy feeling. Mary meticulously practiced her lines with a top expert. Doug barely practiced at all using an old friend from Broadway. Mary showed up on time and had her lines memorized. Doug would waltz in 4 hours late and need cue cards...and yet somehow he still was very good.
Below is a clip from the film (not great quality, but the DVD has stellar quality). Petrucho has decided to marry Katherine, mostly for money. Katherine is a literal shrew (who enjoys whipping the piss out of men). This is the moment they meet, needless to say it doesn't go well. It's a hilarious scene:
The film itself is quite good, especially for an early talkie. There's lots of camera angles and movements, something very rare for its time. The dialogue isn't too bad though being Shakespearean its a tad grating to the ears for a film. Sound effects (such as thunder, dog barks, so forth) are used very well, something you didn't see in early talkies much.
Doug is delightful as Petruchio literally chewing every inch of the scenery. For someone using cue cards and not wild about sound he just blows it all away. The personality that is Doug comes through and it matches his character very well. He also escaped the problem all early talkie actors had: that stiffness. Since he didn't care or fear talkies he just went about it his own way and there is no mic fear conveyed in his performance. It seems very natural. Doug was what all talkie actors should have wished to be at that time. One note is the technical limitations DID get him in these early years. Apparently the first sound test was so high and bad that the sound engineer regretted immensely Doug had ever heard it. Judging by this film his voice required a pinch higher than normal. Its not bad or off putting but considering how sensitive people were at the time its a shame. Thankfully most contemporary reviewers found both he and Mary to have fine voices.
Mary as Katherine is a little less mind blowing. She had this thing about accents...she was going to prove she was a good actress in talkies and would do so by pulling out every accent in the book. Mary was a wonderful voice (click here to see what I mean) but her accents were something else. In Kiki she drops her French accent every 2 sentences, and almost comes across as German at moments. In Taming of the Shrew she sounds too rehearsed and too stiff. The clips floating around youtube of her in this film WERE dubbed or something...because on the DVD her voice is much lower and it sounds more 'right'.
She has what I call 'Theda Bara Syndrome'. The vamps decided that the older they got, the more regal and British they would become. Mary never pulled this in real life, and she could act just fine in her real voice. Yet in Taming of the Shrew she sounds too fake, she's trying too hard. That being said her performance is good. Its stiff, but had she not used that silly accent it would have been just as good as anything else (its no Kiki). In fact the oddest thing about Taming of the Shrew is Doug is waltzing through it, effortlessly talking all over the place. Mary on the other hand has a few key outbursts but for most of the film she is silent. Whether this was intentional or not is very interesting especially given Coquette.
This film apparently originally (at a premiere) included the title card "Written by William Shakespeare with additional dialogue by Sam Taylor" which was laughed out of the room. Its no longer in there needless to say (of course some people are certain it was never there at all...indeed no proof has surfaced). I know the bare minimum of Shakespeare and I'm not familiar with this play. Some things didn't make sense...I feel more set up was needed. It seems Petruchio agrees to marry Kate for money, but why does he stick with it so insistently even before he sees her? And Kate absolutely loathes him so why does she agree to the marriage? Is it 'for revenge' as her soliloquy would insinuate, or is it because of the kiss he forced on her and she seemed to enjoy? Either way why does she put up with the crap he pulls later and only decide to act her revenge when she realizes he intentionally being a jackass? And at that the final reconciliation occurs after she waps him in the head with a chair seriously injuring him. Yet to that point we'd been led to believe he could over power her and take all her abuse...so why didn't she just throw a damn chair at him earlier?
And finally the most unexplained part to someone unfamiliar with the story would be the whip. Kate carries it with her apparently at all times and this is just accepted. Petruchio has a whip to...so what is this? Was this a common thing for shrews? And if so where can I become a shrew? Was it a Middle Aged hint at BDSM or what? I'm just not getting it.
However the film is quite funny. Petruchio tricks Kate's father into thinking she's docily sitting on his lap, when in reality he's got his hand over her mouth so she cant scream. As Petruchio gladly plans the marriage while speaking to her father Kate keeps whipping him...and he doesnt flinch one bit. The wedding scene is delightful, as is the bedroom confrontation. Petruchio's attempts at 'waking Kate up' (unknown to him she overheard his plan and is faking to get back at him, another really unexplained plot point) were so funny I probably woke the neighbors up laughing. THAT was Doug. And Doug was a hell of a film actor. Mary's retaliation as Kate is still quite wonderful especially in that scene, but rarely does she outshine Doug in this film.
In fact maybe the most disturbing part of this film is 'just how close to home was it hitting?' Petruchio goes out of his way to annoy Kate mostly for fun, and it works. They fight but there seems to be some hidden love still somehow. After arriving in the bedchamber Petruchio begins to play solitaire completely ignoring Kate on their wedding night. Kate is obviously upset by it. Perhaps the most disturbing scene if we're doing an imaginary comparison is after they've had it out in the bedroom full on fight mode they begin a slap fight (this is shortly before the chair wapping). It almost seemed they took too much delight in it. One wonders what it was like to be on set that day.
But then there is one sweet scene, the moment they finally bend to each other as Kate comforts him on the bed. That right there is why all this fighting is such a shame, because even after all they went through Doug and Mary still were close apparently sitting by their pool asking where they went wrong. One wonders what would have happened if Doug had lived longer. Poor Buddy...
One other thing I do like about how this plot was presented was the wink and the nudge. Kate is a 'shrew' to be 'tamed' yet she never quite gets there. At the end of the film while smiling lovingly at Petruchio she gives this speech about women bending to men's wills and why that's the way to go. Her sister looks horrified. Kate finishes her speech saying women should 'love, honor, and most of all obey' and on the word obey she winks at her. Delightful!
Despite everything this film was doomed. Maybe it was one of those destiny things. Mary and Doug were on the skids and the doomed film did nothing to help either personally or professionally. It was released right around the stock market crash and was unfortunately overshadowed by the climate of the time. It had good reviews and a good opening but people weren't in the mood anymore...they had bigger things to think about then Mary and Doug in a nice talkie.
Doug never really did well in talkies despite his stellar performance. Mary always cited Taming of the Shrew as not her finest moment, words attributed both to it and its follow up Kiki (frankly I'd dub Kiki the more atrocious moment). As with other things she found a personal failure Mary forgot about it and held a loathing towards it. When her film retrospective was held in the 1960s Taming of the Shrew was shown and delighted the audience. Mary reportedly gripped the person she had come with and said, "I can not believe this is happening." Soon after a supposedly recut version of the film was released to TV (thankfully this was after the dreaded fractured flickers era). This version is currently on DVD though it is not an official MPI release.
Last time I asked MPI wasn't sure whether anything had been cut. Marty Kemp was the one who edited it in the 60s and supposedly all he did was add and enhance background music. Like 3 out of 4 of her talkies Taming of the Shrew needs a proper restoration and release. Just like Kiki the music is too loud while the dialogue is too soft (whether this is just an age thing or an original problem I do not know). Some small film defects appear on the DVD and some of the opening shots are jumpy. More than anything this film should be restored for Doug, as it's one of those wonderful things that shows him off.
I wanted to post some clips from the DVD but my computer isn't reading it, so apologies. But you can buy it rather reasonably priced from Aikman Archive. Click here to purchase.
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