Tweet Losing my touch - Watching LADY OF CHANCE

I must be losing my touch. I finally got around to watching the 1928 MGM opus, Lady of Chance and...

... I can't believe I'm typing these words ...

I am actually enjoying Norma's performance.

Norma's calculated mannerisms, which I find puke-inducing elsewhere, really work for the character. Like The Women, the other Norma performance I can stand, you don't really have to like the character to like the film.

I suspect I will be forced to care about her by the time Lady of Chance ends, so we will see if this house of cards holds up. But as of 40 minutes into the film, I'm enjoying the ride.

Don't worry. You're not losing your touch. You're just mellowing in old age.

I must be losing my touch.

Loosing it? Sharpening it, refining it, advancing & enhancing it, I think. Norma's "calculated mannerisms"--they ravish me. The sound of her voice & laughter--the music of the spheres.

You're just mellowing in old age.

Yes, and that, too.

But as of 40 minutes into the film, I'm enjoying the ride.

Another ride, & another lady, to enjoy: Lady of the Night. It "doubles your fun" by featuring Norma as both up-town & low-down.

Getting me started on Norma--gasoline thrown on a fire.

Lady of Chance is a fine film up until the end where (in typical studio fashion) it requires her to take a dramatic turn and reform. Otherwise I love it- Norma has great comic timing and at this point in her career she's still young and has some snap. The supporting cast is excellent, particularly Lowell Sherman.

Lady of the Night is a small masterpiece. She's rather washed out as the Good Girl, but the Bad Girl is one of the best parts she ever did. George K. Arthur matches her perfectly- switching smoothly from buffonery to pathos.

Lady of Chance is a fine film up until the end where (in typical studio fashion) it requires her to take a dramatic turn and reform. Otherwise I love it- Norma has great comic timing and at this point in her career she's still young and has some snap. The supporting cast is excellent, particularly Lowell Sherman.

Lady of the Night is a small masterpiece. She's rather washed out as the Good Girl, but the Bad Girl is one of the best parts she ever did. George K. Arthur matches her perfectly- switching smoothly from buffonery to pathos.

Silent Shearer was rather a different creature than Talkie Shearer- and far more enjoyable.

[Mike Gebert]

Likewise, The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg-- she's lovely and charming. So is he.

Likewise, The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg-- she's lovely and charming. So is he.

What he said. It's about the only Shearer film I've seen where she didn't make me nauseous, and I think it's Novarro's best performance. Altogether a lovely film.

Silent Shearer was rather a different creature than Talkie Shearer- and far more enjoyable.

I concur. It's nearly impossible for me to watch Shearer in precodes even, her affectations are too much for me. Silent Norma is enjoyable in the few I've seen.

Silent Shearer was rather a different creature than Talkie Shearer- and far more enjoyable.

I concur. It's nearly impossible for me to watch Shearer in precodes even, her affectations are too much for me. Silent Norma is enjoyable in the few I've seen.

Ditto. I feel the same way about Garbo, enjoyable in silents, intolerable in talkies.

I like Garbo in NINOTCHKA, but that's such a step out of the ordinary that it doesn't count.

Silent Shearer was rather a different creature than Talkie Shearer- and far more enjoyable.

BUT, what you miss is that beautiful voice & musical laughter...which seemed to bubble up as effortlessly as water from an artesian well.

Likewise, The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg-- she's lovely and charming. So is he.

What he said. It's about the only Shearer film I've seen where she didn't make me nauseous, and I think it's Novarro's best performance. Altogether a lovely film.

Ah yes. I had forgotten. It is a lovely film and Novarro is wonderful in it. Perhaps because she's in supporting mode and it's not a NORMA VEHICLE, Norma is fine, but it's the sort of role and performance any of a dozen MGM ingenues could have played as well.

In similar fashion, she's tolerable in He Who Gets Slapped as well.

But watching Norma's star turns, even the silent ones, I find more a duty than a joy. And yes, I've seen Lady of Chance. The back of Joan Crawford's head gives a more natural, less mannered performance.

She's really good in THE DEVIL'S CIRCUS, a dark, foreboding film, but that role is definitely different from the ones she usually plays.

It's nearly impossible for me to watch Shearer in precodes even, her affectations are too much for me.

Well, if you mean what I'd prefer to call her gay insouciance...maybe it's an acquired taste. Especially in talkies, she frequently played a flirt, tease, coquette--but then, she didn't write the screenplay. Little of that in Mary Dugan, when she attempts on the witness stand to explain how a "kept woman" could love, but not be in love, with her benefactor; no affectation there. None, either, in Escape (with a magnificent performance by Conrad Veidt). There's affectation aplenty in Idiot's Delight, but it's of a comic variety. How many other studio Beauty Queens would have allowed themselves to be displayed not merely devoid of make-up, but positively uglified, as she did in Let Us Be Gay?

My infatuation (believe it or not) does have limits: Strange Interlude is grotesque, Smilin' Thru, an unintentional comedy, Marie Antoinette, fulsome, & Noel Coward's Private Lives, merely dull.

It's nearly impossible for me to watch Shearer in precodes even, her affectations are too much for me.

Well, if you mean what I'd prefer to call her gay insouciance...maybe it's an acquired taste.

You can call it that, I call it mustard greens and leave it on the plate

Honestly, she's not the only one who I feel that way about. There are other actresses whose performances are mannered often enough that I am careful what I watch them in.

Miriam Hopkins is something of a pet peeve with me. I love her in Trouble in Paradise where she's part of a fine ensemble, and feel about the same with The Smiling Lieutenant and Design for Living. How ever, she made She Loves Me a major chore to watch and in The Story of Temple Drake I thought she deserved everything that happened to her.

Ah yes. I had forgotten. It is a lovely film and Novarro is wonderful in it. Perhaps because she's in supporting mode and it's not a NORMA VEHICLE, Norma is fine, but it's the sort of role and performance any of a dozen MGM ingenues could have played as well.

In similar fashion, she's tolerable in He Who Gets Slapped as well.

But watching Norma's star turns, even the silent ones, I find more a duty than a joy. And yes, I've seen Lady of Chance. The back of Joan Crawford's head gives a more natural, less mannered performance.

It might be kind of fun (and informative) to show Marie Antoinette at Cinecon, just to clock how fast many of us could move while fleeing the theater.

I think the movie ends well- she gives a nice touch of melancholy in her scene with Robert Morley and the children- they all know they're doomed but they are going to behave decently in the time remaining.

I think the movie ends well- she gives a nice touch of melancholy in her scene with Robert Morley and the children- they all know they're doomed but they are going to behave decently in the time remaining.

Yes, and there, too, she supposedly appeared sans powder & paint; though she actually looked better than at the beginning of Let Us Be Gay.

Maybe you,d enjoy other films/actresses better if you waited until the film was over
before posting your comments.

If you'd read carefully, you would have seen the poster already didn't like Shearer, he wasn't coming at this as his first viewing.

I know the feeling, Harlett. I saw half a dozen Ham & Bud ''comedies'' before I saw Hamilton's Move On.

Bob

It might be kind of fun (and informative) to show Marie Antoinette at Cinecon, just to clock how fast many of us could move while fleeing the theater.

I dunno. I think Marie Antoinette is ripe for a communal MST3000 experience. Although I need to be likkered up for it, the film does provide a perverse fascination for me.

All together now, "I shall be queen of France!"

Wow. I didn't know what was good for me.

I took my "act break" at exactly the right moment (midway through the film, when she leaves A.C. to go down south to meet the family.)

The remainder of the film is typical Norma tripe. Making matters worse, while Norma reverts to her standard mannered suffering, Lowell Sherman and Gwen Lee continue to act as if they were still in the first half of the film, so the switch in tone is really jarring, perhaps even more so than the (positive) switch in tone half way through Madam Satan.

Oh, in what prison do they allow the women to wear eye shadow?

Wow. I didn't know what was good for me.

I took my "act break" at exactly the right moment (midway through the film, when she leaves A.C. to go down south to meet the family.)

The remainder of the film is typical Norma tripe. Making matters worse, while Norma reverts to her standard mannered suffering, Lowell Sherman and Gwen Lee continue to act as if they were still in the first half of the film, so the switch in tone is really jarring, perhaps even more so than the (positive) switch in tone half way through Madam Satan.

Oh, in what prison do they allow the women to wear eye shadow?

I think the switch in tone was as much a studio thing as a Shearer thing. It happened well into the 30's- first couple of reels are red hot but then the heroine falls in love and she has to reform, blah blah blah. Check out any film with Loretta Young and Norman Foster for example.

Since it's in the part you like...

I loved the quick shot of Norma when Gwen Lee recognizes "Angel Face". I can see Thalberg going "Honey- could you wear that makeup home tonight?"

Since it's in the part you like...

I loved the quick shot of Norma when Gwen Lee recognizes "Angel Face". I can see Thalberg going "Honey- could you wear that makeup home tonight?"

yes. I liked it too. And I thought the shot was particularly well executed.

I think the switch in tone was as much a studio thing as a Shearer thing. It happened well into the 30's- first couple of reels are red hot but then the heroine falls in love and she has to reform, blah blah blah. Check out any film with Loretta Young and Norman Foster for example.

Understood. But while some actresses, like Ms. Young, could make it work, Norma's mannerisms just ruin the trip for me.

As I noted, even that eyeshadow in the last scene. Maybe it was the studio, maybe it was Thalberg, maybe it was Norma. I don't care. ymmv, but Norma just ain't workin for me.