Mon 1 Jun 2015
Movie Review: OUT OF THE BLUE (1947)
Posted by Steve under Films: Comedy/Musicals , Reviews[10] Comments
OUT OF THE BLUE. Eagle-Lion Films, 1947. George Brent, Virginia Mayo, Turhan Bey, Ann Dvorak, Carole Landis, Elizabeth Patterson, Julia Dean. Based on a story by Vera Caspary, serialized in Today’s Woman, September 1947. Director: Leigh Jason.
The nominal stars of this semi-sprightly comedy romance are George Brent and Virginia Mayo, but it is Ann Dvorak as the more-than-slightly tipsy (and and always tippling) Olive Jensen who steals the show. I don’t believe I’ve seen her in a straight comedy role before, but on the other hand, there are a lot of her movies I haven’t seen. On the basis of her performance here, I’m tempted to search out more.
Nor, strangely enough, are Brent and Mayo romantically paired off in this film. He’s the meek, mild-mannered and henpecked husband of Carole Landis who uncharacteristically picks up Dvorak when his wife goes out of town for a weekend, while next door in the same apartment building Virginia Mayo and Turhan Bey find themselves falling for each other. The latter is a bohemian type artist, and she’s a wealthy dog-owner whom he persuades to pose for him, while two elderly biddies watch all of the comedic goings-on from their seats in the balcony and their apartment one floor above.
Looking at the paragraph above, I will concede that there’s nothing there to suggest what kind of funny goings-on are going on. It’s difficult to put into words, but to go back to the first paragraph of this review, it’s the reaction of milquetoast Brent (if you can picture that) when he finds that the lady he meets in a bar and invites up for a brandy just won’t go home, and dramatically (and as I said above, tipsily) so. In fact, she stays overnight, unbeknownst to him, since they are in two separate bedrooms.
Worse, she has a bad heart, or so she claims, and after one argument between the two a little more strenuous than usual, she collapses on the floor, and George Brent, faced with his wife’s imminent return and thinking her dead, dumps her body on his neighbor’s terrace (the one owned by the bohemian artist, with whom he and his wife have been feuding).
I guess you have to watch this yourself, as mere words may not be enough, but in all honesty, at nearly 90 minutes long, it is at least 20 minutes longer than it needed to be, and alas and alack, neither Virginia Mayo nor Carole Landis make much of an impression, especially the latter in a part truly not made for her.
June 1st, 2015 at 8:31 pm
Great cast, but this kind of thing depends on a lot including timing and chemistry and it sounds as this almost has it, but not quite enough.
June 1st, 2015 at 10:36 pm
I always thought Mayo was not terribly memorable. Off hand I only recalled her as decorative in “The Princess And The Pirate” opposite Bob Hope. Imagine my surprise to find on IMDB that she’d starred in important films like “The Best Years Of Our Lives” and “White Heat”, roles I’d completely forgotten. By the early 50s she basically had stopped getting A films.
Was it because she wasn’t a very interesting personality, do you think, or did the studio bury her for some reason?
June 1st, 2015 at 10:48 pm
I’ll have to defer to others more knowledgeable about her, but I’ve always thought of Virginia Mayo as eye candy rather than having a abundance of acting talent. But you’re right, Rick. In the late 40s she had better roles in better movies than I would have come up with on my own.
I don’t know how she happened to be in this one. It seems to have been sandwiched in between The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (also 1947).
June 1st, 2015 at 10:52 pm
PS. The picture of Virginia Mayo in the poster has very little to do with the movie. She does pose for the artist in a bathing suit in a few scenes, but diving into the water, as the poster suggests, or maybe working as a trapeze performer, no way.
June 1st, 2015 at 10:54 pm
Rick
The key to your question and the answer to your premise regarding Virginia Mayo and A films is just exactly what that is. She did fine in a changing world. And, lots of folk disagree with the contention that she wasn’t ‘interesting’. An opinion to which you are entitled but not the definition of anything. Now, it is certainly factual that she experienced in the mid fifties a career decline, but lots of film people did. Some weathered the storm of changing tastes, delivery system (television) and the long term effects of The Supreme Court decision divesting the studios of guaranteed exhibition and in their owned and operated theatres. A few film people were resilient and prospered under the new rules. Dick Powell and Lucille Ball chief amongst them. We call that part of the business. Powell’s partners, Boyer and Niven did not immediately prosper, with Niven lucking out by landing Around The World. He had been uninteresting, I supposed, when he was billed third, playing a stock villain in The King’s Thief.
June 1st, 2015 at 11:03 pm
Here are some interesting quotes about Virginia Mayo from her Wikipedia page:
“In the early 1940s Virginia Mayo’s talent and striking beauty came to the attention of movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn, who signed her to an acting contract with his company. One of her first films was the 1943 hit Jack London, which starred her future husband Michael O’Shea. Other roles soon followed as she became a popular actress who personified the dream girl or girl-next-door image in a series of films. A beneficiary of the Technicolor film process, it was said that audiences—particularly males—would flock to theaters just to see her blonde hair and classic looks on-screen.”
“At the zenith of her career, Mayo was seen as the quintessential voluptuous Hollywood beauty. It was said that she “looked like a pinup painting come to life”. According to widely published reports from the late 1940s, the Sultan of Morocco declared her beauty to be “tangible proof of the existence of God.””
June 2nd, 2015 at 7:37 pm
Mayo, Arlene Dahl, and Rhonda Fleming all hit about the same time and all ended around the same time and then got together with Jane Russell as gospel singers for a while.
As much as anything the type of films they made stopped being made and in the mid fifties the trend was away from actresses who were such fantasy figures toward more down to earth stars. Sophia Loren and other foreign stars seemed to get a lot of roles that used to go to Mayo, Fleming, or Dahl, and the three turned more to their private life than movie stardom.
That slump sent Dahl to England at least, I guess Mayo and Fleming just stayed home.
June 2nd, 2015 at 8:18 pm
The singers were Rhonda Fleming, Jane Russell, Connie Haines and Beryl Davis. No Mayo, or Dahl. Rhonda Fleming continued her show business life, f not her film career well after the fifties, and not only is till with us, but has maintained her exquisite good looks well into her eighties. The last two years, we have not seen her around. Arlene Dahl is a leader in the New York social scene, and while not quite Fleming in the looks department, is quite okay. Her time in England was brief, but she appeared in some successful, if undistinguished product into Journey To The Center of the Earth, Kisses For My President and Land Raiders. Virginia Mayo seemed cinematically less fortunate and to the end of her life played supporting parts in what I call impossible projects; cheaply produced, to little effect. They had their time. Even Irene Dunne stopped working, as did Claudette Colbert in pictures. It is tough for leading actors, male or female to get old. Katharine Hepburn was lucky, smart, and interested. Even James Stewart on the male side ended in a pile of goulash.
June 3rd, 2015 at 2:48 pm
Barry,
Thanks for the correction.
I’ve seen Fleming and you are right about how she has maintained herself.
I do think their style of looks went out in the fifties when glamor took a back seat to realism and of course younger glamor stars like Kim Novak appeared. It’s hard to get old in any business and especially for women in Hollywood.
For me Mayo’s finest performance is the decidedly unglamorous half-breed Indian girl in COLORADO TERRITORY and James Cagney’s moll in WHITE HEAT as well as the spoiled dangerous femme who haunts Alan Ladd’s Jim Bowie in THE IRON MISTRESS.
She played hard much better than she received credit for. Her tough dames and sinister femmes are much more interesting than most of her glam roles.
Few women at any time were as gorgeous as Rhonda Fleming, who often didn’t get acting credit for roles like the nympho in SPELLBOUND. Her beauty often subsumed her better performances.
June 3rd, 2015 at 3:43 pm
David,
I think these were a pair of hot babes, and certainly agree with you about Mayo’s best performances. Add to that short list, a film called Along The Great Divide, in which she played Walter Brennan’s daughter and Kirk Douglas’ love interest. Brennan, Mayo and John Agar in support were fabulous, but Douglas was in an actory phase of his career and incredibly annoying. Nonetheless, worth a look.