The Star Machine

by Jeanine Basinger

  For most adults and practically all kids, however, Abbott and Costello seemed fabulous. And to their credit, no two actors in movies ever had less to work with. Universal, their home studio, sold them cheaply, with barely a hint of a script to help them out. The formula? Abbott and Costello were two guys trying to make a living out of something they were no good at, which could be anything. They would run into crooks, gangsters, Nazis, rivals of some kind, and then a bunch of musical numbers would be larded in, featuring popular singers like Marion Hutton, Ginny Simms, the Andrews Sisters, Marilyn Maxwell—all supported by a big band of the era, such as Jimmy Dorsey, Johnny Long, or Will Osborne. This mélange would be stirred casually into a plot, and the main events would be two kinds of routines: one of their comedy skits involving verbal play, which were actually vaudeville routines or popular jokes translated into character action, and long physical slapstick routines, usually rear-projected, in which they skied, ice-skated, rode fire trucks or bucking horses, and so on for extended laughs. It wasn’t much, but it gave wartime audiences a lot of relief. There was certainly no need to think, barely any need to pay attention.

  Abbott and Costello had teamed up in 1931 and become top billed in vaudeville and burlesque. After success on radio (starting in 1938) and in a Broadway revue called The Streets of Paris, they came to Hollywood to make their first movie (1940’s One Night in the Tropics). There was nothing particularly outstanding about One Night in the Tropics, but the team did well in their secondary roles in which they did part of their famous “Who’s on First?” routine. In fact, they did well enough that Universal felt it could star them in a cheapie-quickie for 1941: Buck Privates. It’s a riotous, slam-bang kind of movie with one subplot after another, but when the Andrews Sisters swing out with their famous “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” number, it takes off. Abbott and Costello played two losers who accidentally enlist in the army, and the movie caught the brassy mood—as well as the boogie beat—of its brink-of-war era. It grossed more than $10 million, and Abbott and Costello were in. Universal capitalized on the format, starring them in two more “wartime” movies that same year (In the Navy and Keep ’Em Flying) as well as in the first of their successful “horror” comedies, Hold That Ghost. These four 1941 movies, three of which had military backgrounds, put them on the cutting edge of what was on America’s mind as it moved toward World War II. Although they didn’t make another “military comedy” until the war was over (Buck Privates Come Home in 1947), it was the war that made Abbott and Costello stars.

  Abbott and Costello projected an aggressive form of comedy. In fact, their comedy universe is a war zone, which is why they were so perfect for World War II. They siphoned off fear into a safe bundle of laughs. They were clumsy about it. (The Three Stooges seem like ballet dancers by comparison; the Stooges knew how to toe-dance their way through a bunch of head-banging, finger-popping, and eye-poking as if Nijinsky had choreographed it.) Abbott and Costello are at their best with their verbal routines, which show an impeccable balance and sense of timing, and which indicate their total understanding of each other’s inner clocks. Sometimes Costello handles these routines on his own, as when he takes on a cop in In Society. “I’ll fight you!” he yells. “No! I’ll fight you,” says the cop. “I’ll fight you,” Costello rejoins, and “I’ll fight you!” comes back at an increasing crescendo. It’s funny, partly because two grown-ups are yelling at each other like playground kids, but mostly because it becomes an absurdist musical number. Sometimes there are sophisticated comedy lines: Costello dreams about what their future could be after he and Abbott are mistakenly invited to a Long Island house party: “We can be society plumbers!” The duo will stop at nothing to get a laugh and are willing to let the plot grind to a complete halt: Costello walks by a swimming pool, sees a man in a tuxedo, his top hat floating alongside, and he’s screaming “Help! Help! I’m drowning!” Costello jumps in and saves him, and when they get out of the pool, the man (a never-before-seen character) draws himself up and says, “I’m gonna sue you.” Costello asks why, and the man says, “I had a hat!”

  The coolly sophisticated (yet accessible) opposites to Abbott and Costello were Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, whose pairing in their popular Road movies produced one gigantic wartime hit, The Road to Morocco (1942). The comedy of Hope and Crosby was War Relief to Abbott and Costello’s combat zone. Bing and Bob could act zany if they had to, but everything they put on screen spoke of a laid-back self-confidence, a kind of “We don’t have to do this if we don’t want to” nonchalance. They were so good they could be arrogant about it. Most people don’t realize that between 1930 and 1970, two of the top five box office champions were Bing and Bob. They did more than make Road movies. Both separately and together, they were movie stars, recording stars, and later television stars. Their perfection as a movie comedy team was an unexpected bonus for World War II audiences and for their own career longevity. They counterbalance Abbott and Costello, their sophistication a relief from the hard-hitting desperation of the A&C comedy stance. Hope and Crosby moving through the frame are prime examples of movie stars on parade. In World War II, they exude a democratic attitude. “We’re not magical beings up here,” they seem to be saying. “We’re just a couple of schlubs trying to make a living.” To strengthen this “we’re one of you” attitude, they play jerks, failures. Hope’s character is always a coward and trying unsuccessfully to get a woman into bed. Crosby’s is lazy, a con artist ruthlessly willing to risk Hope’s life but never his own. They are improvisational and easily absorb each other’s skills. Hope is a comic, and Crosby is funny. Crosby is a singer, and Hope is musical. Both can really hoof a number. They were a perfect team, two wildly individual talents who could nevertheless subsume their individuality to become a smoothly operating musical comedy duo. They are natural, and they have warmth. It’s a strange kind of nasty warmth that comes out of Bob Hope, but it’s tempered by being reflected through the easy charm of Crosby.

  Although their box office held up after the war, Abbott and Costello were never really as popular as they were during it, when they were everyone’s favorite comedy duo. (Hope and Crosby, after all, weren’t really a comedy duo. They were two top stars who paired up in some films.) Later, Universal Studios had the inspired understanding that Abbott and Costello were a franchise, and that the studio also owned some others: Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy. Brilliantly they put the two together, comedy and horror, using established movie names. These films, such as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), were highly successful. Today this would be like having the Fockers fall into the Matrix, or go for a vacation on the Starship Enterprise or possibly meet the Wedding Crashers. It was a highly original idea that showed real business brains on the part of Universal, and it extended A&C’s movie careers beyond their World War II “bonus” years.

  EXOTICS

  The “make it all go away” of the war years didn’t show up only in crazy comedy. There were twisted plots, hysterical performances, dream sequences, and, my personal favorite, leading ladies in turbans, chunky jewelry, and harem pants (or even wearing fruit baskets on their heads).

  Lots of harem pictures were made during World War II. Their excesses in color, clothing, and design were appreciated during a time of rationing. These escapist fun fests were in happy contrast to many of the movies that were democratic and realistic. Hollywood could cut loose in a harem picture. It was a great filmmaking bonus: Anything goes!

  To go to a harem or pirate movie during World War II was to escape the daily grind. It’s very easy to dismiss such films as piffle, but this overlooks an essential fact about movies: the clever way the story could both conceal the troubles of the day and yet explore them in a safer mode. If a harem picture told a story about oppression, or false leaders killing or imprisoning good ones, or people fighting for freedom against huge forces of evil, or about alliances among tribes who were going to wipe out justice—in other words, if the villains seemed useful stand-ins for fascist
s—then it all worked out in a topical way, too. The hidden agenda of these films could be what was worrying everyone in the theatre, all masked by turbans and horses and Gypsies and jewelry and high-heeled sandals, and by an exceptionally beautiful leading lady in close-up after close-up. You could see your war won handily by sheiks on fast horses and by a romantic leading man with a charming sidekick. This was the only possible way it could all end: with our side triumphing. You didn’t have to grapple with it in realistic terms that might leave you depressed. You didn’t have to suffer through Bataan or Thirty Seconds over Tokyo. You could win the war out on the Technicolored desert in a far more fun-filled and reassuring manner.

  But such films require a special kind of star to make them work. And no one was going to waste the big names on them. The harem picture by design was really about sex appeal—gals in see-through harem pants and guys without shirts. The business looked for new stars who could be developed as exotics, suitable for the world of escapism the war was demanding for audiences.*

  MARIA MONTEZ

  Maria Montez

  Universal found Maria Montez. She was more than ready for her close-up. During World War II, when the need for colorful escape was deep, she made a series of fantasy spectacles that were hugely successful. Montez had a perfect oval face, dark eyes, smooth, clear skin, and a thick mane of hair. She was tall (five feet seven), full-bosomed, and had astonishing coloring. Originally from the Dominican Republic, she never learned to speak English without a heavy accent, but no one cared. She was stunningly beautiful and authentically exotic. And she knew how to promote herself, strutting around saying, “I am fabulous,” at a time when women were supposed to be modest. (Since she was pretty darned fabulous, she got away with it.) She was a girl who knew how to get her picture in the papers, a master of self-promotion. Without studio initiative, she appeared on her own around town in glamorous strapless gowns, sparkling jewelry, and weird hats with feathers on them, never waiting for the machine to get her out there. She would pose for any stills, do any personal appearance, and answer any silly question for any possible interviewer. She took her stardom seriously, never appearing in public unless she was dressed to the teeth in some showstopping outfit, and she always had something colorful to say. She used herself as the yardstick for everything. “I am so beautiful, I scream with joy.” Of Orson Welles, she commented, “He’s every bit as spectacular as I am.” And she knew how to be provocative: “The public likes you to be spectacular, but after it thinks you’re a star, it wants you to be nice. Now I am nice…and I don’t like it.” Montez was crazy like a fox. She knew there’d be no Madame Curie in her filmography, but she also knew silly films could make her a star. She accepted the formulaic plots she was given and made as many of them as quickly as she could. Montez has been called the Queen of the Bs, the Queen of Technicolor, and the Queen of Camp, but never anything less than a queen.

  Montez found her best co-star in Jon Hall. Here they are posed on the snake sofa in the glorious, Technicolor nonsense Cobra Woman.

  The Maria Montez movie formula featured glorious Technicolor, exotic settings, Montez in danger, her most popular co-star, Jon Hall, in danger, glamorous harem-type costumes adapted for modern tastes, comedy relief, plenty of fighting, and a short running time. (Why give anyone time to think about it?) Montez is always introduced to the audience through a star entrance. She might be sitting in front of a mirror (two Montezes!) or she might be leaning back against silken cushions as she’s carried along through the desert. But the first shot of Montez was always a money shot—a medium close-up that lingered, allowing the audience to enjoy her beauty and her turban and her jewels. Jon Hall was her equal in pulchritude and in talent level. He was tanned and handsome, with a beautiful grin, and enough athletic ability to portray the action side of her movies. Another staple of the Montez filmed universe was Sabu, the famed “elephant boy” from India, another example of the World War II exotic personality who briefly climbed to the top. The comedy relief roles in a Montez film included such characters as the heavyset Billy Gilbert or Shemp Howard of the Three Stooges, who plays a character named Sinbad in Arabian Nights (1942). (Sinbad’s friend, played by John Qualen, was named Aladdin. He complains that he has lost his magic lamp. “You’ve told that story so often, you believe it yourself,” snaps Sinbad.) Such comedy moments illustrate one of the fundamentals of the Montez movies: They were contemporary. Even though they were allegedly set in the Arabian nights, unreal desert places, strange islands with volcanoes, or Gypsy camps, their historical time frame was right now, “now” with bizarre costumes. No one cared anyway.

  Almost no one was more fun to watch than Maria Montez. She was so willing to be passionately sincere about nonsense. In her first starring role (Arabian Nights [1942]), she sets that tradition, dancing the dance of one veil as if her life depended on it, which, in the plot, it did. It’s more kitchie-koo than choreography, but she just gets out there and goes for it. As the evil Naja in Cobra Woman (1944), she struts down to her old swimming hole in turban and high heels while drums pound and music swells. She tools along, obviously enjoying herself, her dangling earrings swinging, and a dozen handmaidens and six armed guards on patrol to tend her. Today every teenager around town can strut her stuff, but in Montez’s day, for a woman to swing out with that kind of ruthless self-confidence, that sense of her own power, was pretty amazing. Audiences respected her for it. If you’re going to play a cobra priestess who warns people, “Fire mountain grows more angry. I need more gold!” you’d better be amazing. One review of her performance went right to the point: “Zowie!”*

  Montez is seldom helpless. She’s a female action figure way before her time. When she plays twins in Cobra Woman, a nice one and a mean one, even the nice one demands, “Geef me dat cobra jool!” from her evil other, and pushes her out the window to get it. In Sudan (1945) she rides her horse to victory, beating out her male lover (Turhan Bey), and in Arabian Nights she tells us, “I do not desire love. I desire power.” (She is, of course, also asked to wear bare-midriff dresses and execute “harem” dancing. She always looks beautiful, however, even when it appears that her fashion designer might have been Carmen Miranda on an off day.) The bottom line of Montez is a brief but very real stardom. As a character says in Arabian Nights, looking at her, “She is a young moon, mounting the stairway to the stars.” Mounting it by stomping right on up!

  Even when Montez stepped out of her harem pants and into the real 1940s (and black and white) as in Tangier (1946), things didn’t change much. Tangier is a spy melodrama about Nazis and stolen art, but Maria Montez is still Maria Montez, there’s still a North African desert setting, still an exotic wardrobe for her with turbans and feathers on her head, and there’s still Sabu, although this time he sings, a pretty great shock. (Hall has been replaced by a doppelgänger, Robert Paige.)

  It’s one thing to become a popular movie star when you get to play Queen Elizabeth or Madame Curie. When you have to clomp around in wedgies and harem pants, saying, “Scheherazade fears no man,” your challenge is quite a bit bigger. Montez knew how to act as if her lines were Shakespeare, or perhaps as if the outcome of World War II depended on them. She was not ashamed to be a harem queen. She embraced it. There are only two ways to do the kinds of roles she was given—by winking at the audience with a sly sense of ironic humor or with supreme conviction. Montez played with conviction. It’s the more dangerous way to go, but it was her way.

  The Montez films were not technically Bs. Her movies were beautifully produced and are excellent examples of skilled filmmaking. In particular, the sets for Arabian Nights are imaginatively designed; the overall art direction is first-rate. The musical scores are stirring, and the story pacing is energetic. The Montez movies—especially the six in which she was paired with Hall—were highly entertaining, and legions of fans still care for them today.

  CARMEN MIRANDA

  Carmen Miranda

  Montez wasn’t the only exotic and inex
plicable type in World War II, of course. Besides Sabu and Acquanetta, there was the unstoppable Carmen Miranda, with her banana hats, four-foot wedgies, and chicka-chicka-boom musical numbers. Miranda—all five feet two inches of her—is peerless, and she survived World War II, though only just. She wasn’t really a leading lady, of course, but more of a musical comedy supporting player. Thus, she wasn’t a real movie star, but someone who did star turns in movies.

  Most people think of Miranda in her famous “The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat” number from The Gang’s All Here (1943), and who, having seen it, could ever forget it? This number is enhanced by phallic bananas, giant strawberries, bizarre choreography from Busby Berkeley, and showstopping lyrics. “When I feel gay / I dress zat way / Is something wrong wiz zat? No! I’m the lady in the tutti-frutti hat!” Miranda always stopped traffic with the odd clothes she wore. It was one thing to dress strangely when she was doing a number with her Banda da Lua. If she wore cherries in her hair, pinwheels on her hat, shocking shades of fuchsia and bright aqua—well, she was singing and dancing in her wedgies. But when she took on a character role, as in The Gang’s All Here (1943) or Springtime in the Rockies (1942), her “daytime” outfits puzzled everyone, and not just those of us who were children. Her gigantic purses, her hats with fringe and draped fabric under her chin, her jewelry that could have been fired out of a cannon—well, she was weird.* She took America out of the ordinary. But she, too, reflects the tenor of the times: “Take us away, far away, into a world of color and unrealistic stories.” She was an exaggeration and a welcome one.