"Midnight Mary" (Loretta Young & Franchot Tone), ‘Queen of the ‘B’s Lynn Bari, B Movie Play

In "Midnight Mary" (1933) directed by William A. Wellman, Loretta Young alternates between controlling her lust for the Ricardo Cortez character and falling in love with Franchot Tone's. Her body needs Cortez, but her heart craves Tone weaving together a pretty complicated woman on screen for 1933. Midnight Mary is all at once a sex story and a love story elevated by one of Young's finest performances. Source: immortalephemera.com

Midnight Mary is Mary Martin, she's played by Loretta Young, and as our film starts she's up for murder and not likely to get away with it either. While waiting for the verdict, we're treated to the back story that brought her to such a state of affairs, which is as sordid as you'd expect for a William Wellman precode.

Luckily Mary has caught the eye of millionaire playboy Tom Mannering, Jr, played with relish by Franchot Tone having a ball with his part, and he gives her a way out, not just of the urgent situation at hand but out of her situation in general by giving her a job. As you'd expect, he falls head over heels for her in the process and also as you'd expect, complications ensue and Mary doesn't stay with him for long, jumping back on that downward slide.

Franchot Tone is superb, though he doesn't have anywhere near the size or scope of part that Loretta Young does. As always, Una Merkel gets nowhere near the screen time she deserves and Andy Devine has only a tiny role also. There's also a small but memorable part from Halliwell Hobbes. A good deal of the credit here though should go to screenwriter Anita Loos, best known for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and to director William A Wellman, who I'm discovering was a prolific worker in the precode era with a whole slew of decent titles to his credit. The volume and scope of them says plenty on its own, beyond their individual merits. Source: www.apocalypselaterfilm.com

Mary catches the eye of upper-crust attorney Tom Mannering (Franchot Tone). The smitten lawyer helps her escape when the robbery goes awry, and hides her from the cops at his home. Moved by Mary's desire to go straight, Tom sets her up with stenography lessons and a secretarial position at his firm. Unfortunately, the truth about her past ultimately comes to light; hoping to spare Tom's feelings and let him move on with his life, Mary gives him a brusque brush-off on her way back to prison. Leo's all too happy to have her back in the fold once she gets out, but he's much less pleased when he discovers her lingering affections for Tom.

'Midnight Mary' is also notable as it represents one of the very rare bad-girl assignments on the famously strait-laced Young's career resume. "In one scene she couldn't understand why [the Cortez character] slaps her," Morella and Epstein recounted. "'Because you're his girl,' Wellman explained. 'He doesn't have to slap me.' 'Yes, he does.' Wellman never came right out and said, 'Because you're sleeping with him,' and Young said years later that even if she had known what Wellman was talking about she would have put it out of her mind." The film's scenario was adapted from an Anita Loos story by the team of Gene Markey and Kathryn Scola, a duo who provided plenty of pertinent pre-code proto-feminist sagas during the era, such as 'Baby Face' (1933) and 'Female' (1933) Source: www.tcm.com

The retrospective narrative structure of “Midnight Mary” throws light on Mary (Loretta Young)’s descent into crime and prostitution. Told by Wellman’s sympathetic camera, her main crime seems to be, in Dickensian terms, “want and poverty.” Her body is drawn by the magnetic pull of Leo the hoodlum. She gets mixed up in a heist during which a policeman is shot down. She meets her Sir Galahad in the shape of Tom Mannering (Fanchot Tone), a “blue-blood lawyer” who tries to put her back on the straight and narrow. Mary's mind dreams of Madame Récamier and of being Mrs Mannering.

A spate of “vice films,” as Thomas Doherty calls them, was released during the pre-Code years. Myra (Mae Clarke), streetwalking on Waterloo Bridge, Blonde Venus (Marlene Dietrich) on the game for a meal ticket, or Midnight Mary (Loretta Young), teenage hooker soliciting gentlemen in their cars, may be cultural icons of fallen women. But this is only a rite of passage, not a constant pattern. Most soon settle into the category of the hard-boiled women of the thirties. They become tinsel women, gangsters’ molls or call-girls, sleeping their way into luxury. A few others, like Baby Face (Barbara Stanwyck) or the Red-Headed Woman (Jean Harlow) make cynical use of their bodies to get to the top of the greasy pole, wrecking the lives of naïve lovers who are not rich enough or old enough to be suitable sugar daddies.

After the vamp or the flapper of the silver screen, fancy-free women with little social or political consciousness, the pre-Code harlot rises against the lingering Hester Prynne guilt and redefines on-screen womanhood. Pre-Code female sinners prefigure the femme fatale of Film Noir in their cold manipulation of men’s desire and in their controlled sensuality. Two major books have dealt at length with the representation of the fallen woman in film. Lea Jacobs investigates the political and artistic forces controlling and shaping a social taboo whereas Russell Campbell offers a taxonomy of sinning woman types realized by a set of meta-narratives at work in cinema. The approach here is somewhat different and strives to remain within a “figural” theory: it holds that pre-code prostitutes are audio-visual tropes converting an idea into cinematic images. -"Outcast Lilies: Prostitutes in Pre-Code Movies (1929-1934)" by Jean-Marie Lecomte (2010)

Between 1934 and 1937, Lynn Bari was featured as an extra, showgirl and/or bit player in approximately twenty Fox films per year. Some of them were: (MGM) 1933 'Dancing Lady.' Director: Robert Z. Leonard. Cast: Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, Fred Astaire, Nelson Eddy, Eve Arden. (MGM) 1934 'The World Moves On.' Director: John Ford. Cast: Madeleine Carroll, Franchot Tone. (20th Century Fox) 1937 'This Is My Affair.' Director: William A. Seiter. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor

Of all the broadcast shows in which Lynn Bari would appear, none would be more prestigious than Cecil B. DeMille’s Lux Radio Theatre, which aired Monday nights on CBS — to an audience of thirty-million listeners. Generally, Lux’s hour-long format pared down film scripts by eliminating and/or coalescing supporting characters (and their corresponding storylines). The hearts of the original plots would suffer little damage in these radio translations. A March 1943 Lux Radio Theatre airing found Bari costarring with George Raft and Franchot Tone in the show’s version of 'Each Dawn I Die' (Warners, 1939). The crime drama cast her as Joyce, a role that had been created on screen by Jane Bryan. -"Foxy Lady: The Authorized Biography of Lynn Bari" (2010) by Jeff Gordon

Barbara Payton: I’m the “Queen of the Clubs”. Franchot Tone: Good for you. So, who are you here with tonight? Barbara: Steve Cochran. Franchot: Is he taking you home? Barbara: Not if I get a better offer. Franchot: How about champagne and caviar at my place? Barbara: Don’t you have a wife? Franchot: Jean? That’s all over but the bloodletting. -She giggles at his remark. Music segues from the Rumba to a softer, more romantic tune, as Franchot offers Barbara his arm. He leans over and they kiss, long, passionately.- Franchot (to audience): I knew she was no Virgin Mary when I met her. There was George Raft... Errol Flynn... some Mob guys... I even knew about her relationship with Bob Hope. It cost Bob a pretty penny to get rid of her.

Franchot (to Tom Neal): Barbara may have been a star... briefly... But, you weren’t even “the other man”. You were the other man’s best friend’s buddy who usually got killed in the first two reels. -Tom Neal clenches his fists; forces himself to smile.- Tom: What about Detour? They call that “a classic.” Franchot: It’s an anomaly... Hell, Annie Savage, your co-star, thought you were an asshole. Tom: Why? Because I walked up to her one day and stuck my tongue into her ear? Franchot: That only confirmed it. Tom: She had no sense of humor. Franchot: Tom, be honest. You were never really “an actor”. You were “beefcake”and you wore lifts. -Tom (cocks fist at Franchot): You’re pushing it again. Franchot: What imbecile calls Louis B. Mayer a son-of-a-bitch in the middle of the MGM commissary?... That sure as hell ended any real career you might have had.

-Barbara, now dressed in a sheer black negligee. Her back is to the audience and the lighting delineates her nude figure.- Franchot (watches Barbara and reminisces): There was a huge mirror on the ceiling above Barbara’s bed. -Lights dim as Franchot crosses up to Barbara. He takes her in his arms. They sit on the chaise lounge and he kisses her passionately.- Franchot: You look so captivating tonight, my dear... Your hair is like a field of daisies... I’d like to run barefoot through your hair. Barbara: What the hell kind of line is that? Franchot: I don’t know. I said it to Jean Harlow in Bombshell. Barbara: Yeah? Did it work? Franchot: Actually, no. She wound up in that picture with Lee Tracy. -They share a laugh together.- Franchot (to audience): My friends... even Joan [Crawford], my exwife... said I should drop her... that she was not for me... She would ruin my reputation in Hollywood... I didn’t listen. She was like a narcotic... and I was hooked. -"B MOVIE: A Play in Two Acts" (2014) by Michael B. Druxman