gorgeous as ever and offers a vivid performance,” according to one newspaper critic, writing in early 1929. He was referring to The Duke Steps Out, Joan’s assignment for late January and early February; in it, she was (as she said) only “background” for William Haines, who played a professional boxer in love with a California coed. Nevertheless, the picture made a fortune when it was released in March, and the two friends again received good notices.
Following that tedious exercise, Joan joined every major MGM player (except for Garbo, Novarro and Chaney, whose contracts excused them) for an appearance in The Hollywood Revue of 1929. This plotless musical was designed to outshine even The Broadway Melody, which Metro had released in early February—that was the studio’s first all-talking picture and the first sound film to win an Academy Award as best picture.
Produced by Harry Rapf, The Hollywood Revue was devised to showcase Metro’s talent roster. Not entirely on pitch, Joan sang a solo (“I’ve Got a Feeling for You”), and her dance number, filmed without cuts and released unedited, was a bit clunky. She was also included in the final sequence, which burst into Technicolor while Metro’s stars crooned “Singin’ in the Rain.” For this number, everyone was outfitted in yellow slickers and drenched with a downpour of water; they seem by turns surprised, amused or annoyed with the inundation.
THAT SPRING, JOAN AND Douglas secretly finalized plans for a June wedding in New York City, where Anna Beth was living with her lover, Jack Whiting, a Broadway musical comedy performer. Because his mother had agreed to witness the nuptials, Doug could marry at the age of nineteen; Joan turned twenty-three in March.
Details of the forthcoming nuptials were not released to the press, and Joan had to ask permission to be absent from the studio: “It was Louis B. Mayer’s rule,” recalled the Metro contract player Pamela Blake, “that no one should leave town unless one had his say-so.” This was duly granted, and then Mayer came up with the idea to cast the happy couple together in a movie—not a sequel to Our Dancing Daughters, but a movie made in the same spirit and style, about jazz babies speeding, drinking and dancing their way from party to party and affair to affair. The result, written and photographed hastily, was Our Modern Maidens, and Mayer decided to delay its release until late summer, the better to exploit the upcoming Crawford-Fairbanks wedding.
The picture was Joan’s last silent film and her only one with Douglas. She thought it would be great fun to name her character “Billie” so that he would address her in the story as he did offscreen; the writer and director did not object. After the movie’s opening quarter-hour montage of wild parties, the story gets down to its somewhat tired melodramatic business. Billie is engaged to Gil (Douglas), whose diplomatic career can be hurried along if she flirts with Abbot (Rod La Rocque), a man with good political connections. While she does so, Gil falls for a girl named Kentucky (Anita Page)—briefly but ardently, and with enough time to get her pregnant. The wedding of Billie and Gil is interrupted by Kentucky’s announcement of her imminent maternity, which gives Billie the chance to be brave and self-sacrificing—conduct for which she is eventually rewarded by being reunited with Abbot, a far better catch. Gil, of course, does what was once called The Right Thing and slinks away to marry Kentucky.
The protracted silliness of the movie nevertheless had its compensations during production. During one of the party sequences, Douglas was permitted to include his expert pantomimes of John Barrymore, Lon Chaney and John Gilbert—a skit that concludes with a hilarious imitation of his father as Robin Hood, complete with a feather in his cap. As for Joan, she was given ample opportunity to dance and even to join a jazz band, wielding her
Following that tedious exercise, Joan joined every major MGM player (except for Garbo, Novarro and Chaney, whose contracts excused them) for an appearance in The Hollywood Revue of 1929. This plotless musical was designed to outshine even The Broadway Melody, which Metro had released in early February—that was the studio’s first all-talking picture and the first sound film to win an Academy Award as best picture.
Produced by Harry Rapf, The Hollywood Revue was devised to showcase Metro’s talent roster. Not entirely on pitch, Joan sang a solo (“I’ve Got a Feeling for You”), and her dance number, filmed without cuts and released unedited, was a bit clunky. She was also included in the final sequence, which burst into Technicolor while Metro’s stars crooned “Singin’ in the Rain.” For this number, everyone was outfitted in yellow slickers and drenched with a downpour of water; they seem by turns surprised, amused or annoyed with the inundation.
THAT SPRING, JOAN AND Douglas secretly finalized plans for a June wedding in New York City, where Anna Beth was living with her lover, Jack Whiting, a Broadway musical comedy performer. Because his mother had agreed to witness the nuptials, Doug could marry at the age of nineteen; Joan turned twenty-three in March.
Details of the forthcoming nuptials were not released to the press, and Joan had to ask permission to be absent from the studio: “It was Louis B. Mayer’s rule,” recalled the Metro contract player Pamela Blake, “that no one should leave town unless one had his say-so.” This was duly granted, and then Mayer came up with the idea to cast the happy couple together in a movie—not a sequel to Our Dancing Daughters, but a movie made in the same spirit and style, about jazz babies speeding, drinking and dancing their way from party to party and affair to affair. The result, written and photographed hastily, was Our Modern Maidens, and Mayer decided to delay its release until late summer, the better to exploit the upcoming Crawford-Fairbanks wedding.
The picture was Joan’s last silent film and her only one with Douglas. She thought it would be great fun to name her character “Billie” so that he would address her in the story as he did offscreen; the writer and director did not object. After the movie’s opening quarter-hour montage of wild parties, the story gets down to its somewhat tired melodramatic business. Billie is engaged to Gil (Douglas), whose diplomatic career can be hurried along if she flirts with Abbot (Rod La Rocque), a man with good political connections. While she does so, Gil falls for a girl named Kentucky (Anita Page)—briefly but ardently, and with enough time to get her pregnant. The wedding of Billie and Gil is interrupted by Kentucky’s announcement of her imminent maternity, which gives Billie the chance to be brave and self-sacrificing—conduct for which she is eventually rewarded by being reunited with Abbot, a far better catch. Gil, of course, does what was once called The Right Thing and slinks away to marry Kentucky.
The protracted silliness of the movie nevertheless had its compensations during production. During one of the party sequences, Douglas was permitted to include his expert pantomimes of John Barrymore, Lon Chaney and John Gilbert—a skit that concludes with a hilarious imitation of his father as Robin Hood, complete with a feather in his cap. As for Joan, she was given ample opportunity to dance and even to join a jazz band, wielding her
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