Once Again -When You Are Lost On The Great White Way, Broadway … And Don’t Know What To Do-Dick Powell’s “Dames” (1934)-A Film Review  

DVD Review

By Sarah Lemoyne

Dames, starring Dick Powell, dances sequences by the legendary Bugby Berkeley, 1934

I might not have known coming into the profession, the film review profession, since they didn’t teach us this at graduate school although they should have but now I know that this is a cutthroat profession. Know that and can now give as good as I get thanks quite a bit to my attentive mentor Seth Garth who has shown me some of the pitfalls to avoid and how to handle the old wizened hunchback, maybe mountebank is a better term Sam Lowell who should have given up the film reviewing game ages ago. That according to good old boy Seth who is after all quite familiar with Sam’s schoolboy tricks and ruses since they grew up together in the same Acre neighborhood, so Seth knows the score, maybe taught Sam some of them himself as he admitted to me one night at dinner. Since Greg Green our beautiful site manager has encouraged his by-line writers of which I am now proud to say I am a member to let our readership know the ins and outs of this cutthroat business and because this film review of Dames is a lesser Dick Powell effort, in fact something of a turkey I will once against enter the lists to response to the latest Sam Lowell diatribe.  

 

One would think that a writer like one Sam Lowell who prides himself on being what Seth calls the max daddy of film noir, has written a book which some consider the definite study of the genre, but which left me cold would have enough to do in his latest review of the film adaptation of British mystery writer Agatha Christie’s 1961 crime novel The Pale Rider to stick to the subject. The subject being, if you can believe this, that since the rise of hard-boiled fictional private detectives like Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe and Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade what he called “parlor pink amateur private dicks” was passe. Like there is no longer a market for such material. Sam, look at the best-seller lists past 1970 when you wrote your opus and then fell asleep thereafter. If he had just kept to that task he might have not jumbled up the review, left us with more questions than answers as to why an amateur sleuth under the gun couldn’t do as good a job as guys who are willing to take a slug or two (of bullets and whiskey it seems) and a few punches for what Sam calls a little rough justice in this wicked old world.

But no Sam had to again wallow in the so-called dispute between us retailing the same old nonsense about how I had libeled him, legally libeled him to boot although having some code of the Omerta from boyhood that he would not snitch to the courts or cops under some awful penalty he would not pursue the matter there. Thanks, Sam I was having sleepless nights worrying about some massive pending law suit for about one dollar which is all the so-called libel would be worth-if it was libel. I have, and I will do so again here, mentioned on several occasions that I have information in my possession that in the old days, the days after that so-called definitive film noir study Sam would use stringers, generally female stringers whom he was romantically involved with or who in those male- dominated days were desperate to get a by-line, write his reviews for him under his by-line. The proof. I need go no further than fellow journalist here Leslie Dumont who could go chapter and verse on the times she bailed Sam out. She was desperate to get ahead (which she did with a big by-line at Women Today before she came back here part time in her retirement) and moreover was not immune to his charms. That Sam maneuver despite the fact that in those days she was writer Josh Breslin’s companion. Case closed as the lawyers say when they have the thing in hand.                     

Sam is also pissed off with my mentioning that when he wasn’t hiring slave labor to do his handiwork say when he was on a toot with some stringer who therefore couldn’t write the reviews he would just use the studio press hand-outs, clip the tops off and sent them in under his by-line. In one response to this allegation he lamely mentioned that “everybody did it” when they had a dog of a review to put out. Yet if you go to the archives of the hard copy editions of this publication in the days before it had to go on-line to survive or to the archives of American Film Gazette you will find Sam’s review of say The Devil Is Down admittedly a real dog you will find through a further look at the archives of the press releases of Avatar Studios that they form almost a perfect match-except title and by-line. Seth says you can almost draw a perfect trajectory between when he was screwing some stringer and the cut-off press releases use as Sam by-lines. Case sealed with seven seals.          

Those points I can deal with easily but the continual references to some kind of budding affair between Seth and I have got me really ticked off and have gotten my companion Clara ready to throw knives at me-and Sam. Sam’s proof of some hanky-panky on the side between me and my good friend Seth is that Seth took me to dinner one night after work. What Sam conveniently “forgets” to mention is the night in question is Seth took Clara and me to dinner that night. I have mentioned before and the reader can figure out that I am the “B’ in LGBTQ since I have had both male and female lovers. Right now I am very attached to Clara who is an “L” and is quite sensitive to any assertions that I might be looking elsewhere, might switch, might find a man interesting. I have stated this before and will do so again I find Seth very interesting and helpful and he has been a doll helping me with this Sam monster. He also unlike Sam who seems like he is one hundred years old maybe more keeps in pretty good shape for his age. Very good shape but that is the rub he is old enough to be my grandfather and although he is a teddy bear I don’t think I would want to go there. Moreover, nobody including supposed old corner boy Sam, has bothered to ask Seth if he was interested in me. Which according to what he told Clara and me that night at dinner he is not, not me personally but after three ex-wives, a parcel of kids, his term, and too many affairs to count he is not looking for an affair or anything else except to get me up the food chain. He did say, and Clara laughed although a sullen laugh if he was interested despite the age different he would not be afraid to take dead aim at me like she had. If that is not enough to keep Sam from his snide insinuations then the hell with it, Seth’s expression.            

I guess I should be getting to the review of this dog although I have tried to avoid it. This is my third review of a Dick Powell early career song and dance man musical before he went for better acting roles, tough guy roles in vehicles like Murder, My Sweet and Cornered which Greg Green let Seth review rather than Sam who was pissed at not getting those assignments. I got the musical bug from my grandmother whose mother had taken her to them in the 1930s and who wondered why I didn’t review more early musicals. I asked Greg for the assignment and now I guess I am the resident Dick Powell musical specialist. Not all Dick Powell films are born equally though and this is number three of three on the like list.

Why? Well the whole premise is silly. Some rich as Midas and as foolish has it in his head to improve the morals of America and has the dough to run the rack. He also has relatives who he wants to leave money to if they are up-standing enough. That bar is pretty low since his main peeve is Broadway musicals with those scantily clad chorus girls and such. That low bars means no truck, none with musicals under penalty of disinheritance. Trouble is the daughter of the relatives have a daughter played by Ruby Keeler who is crazy to dance and crazy about a wannabe Broadway producer Jimmy Higgins played by Dick Powell. So naturally the family gets into backing a Broadway musical by stealth. The show goes into production with Jimmy in charge and despite some snafus things work out okay, as Dick and Ruby trill away the night. The only redeeming art is the elaborate Bugby Berkeley productions which as usual are way over the top with a million chorines and two million complicated dance steps and maneuvers. If doing so would not be in such bad odor I might have considered running back to the archives to see what the studio press release looked like for possible use. Sweet thoughtful Seth though said Sam would have ten thousand daggers aimed right at my heart if I did. Cutthroat profession is right.