Slightly Dangerous is the last fully comic film that Lana Turner starred in. It’s very funny, but it’s also disorientingly schizophrenic. It can’t decide whether it’s a 1930s gold-digger-with-a-heart of gold story, a screwball romance, or the gothic tale of a beautiful psychopath. It feels like MGM in 1943 was effectively paralyzed in their visionContinue reading “Slightly Dangerous (1943)”
Category Archives: Lana Turner
Two Girls on Broadway (1940)
I find Two Girls on Broadway interesting for two reasons. First, it’s one of the three dance comedies Lana Turner made as a 19-20 year old in the 1939-40 span. The other is that it’s a remake of the foundational Hollywood film musical, The Broadway Melody (1929), and it attacks the problems of that filmContinue reading “Two Girls on Broadway (1940)”
These Glamour Girls (1939)
Of the three dancing comedies Lana Turner made for MGM in 1939-40 — Dancing Co-Ed, These Glamour Girls, and Two Girls on Broadway — I like These Glamour Girls the least. It’s clear the studio was experimenting with her, trying out different styles to see which would fit best. I get the feeling they thoughtContinue reading “These Glamour Girls (1939)”
Dancing Co-Ed (1939)
MGM did Lana Turner wrong in a big way. Early in her career she starred in three fine comedies — Dancing Co-Ed, These Glamour Girls, and Two Girls on Broadway — and it’s obvious that she could have been a contender as a comedienne, maybe even a successor to Carole Lombard. Instead, she became theContinue reading “Dancing Co-Ed (1939)”
Honky Tonk (1941)
I have a problem with Clark Gable. Never liked him. I learned to appreciate his comic thing of the Thirties, but I never really liked it. Honky Tonk was conceived as a Clark- Gable-Comedy-After-Gone-With-The-Wind. By this time Gable was so much “Clark Gable” that the scales were ready to moult. The real star of theContinue reading “Honky Tonk (1941)”