Born to Be Bad (1934)

Starring Loretta Young, Cary Grant, Jackie Kelk, Henry Travers & Marion Burns
Directed by Lowell Sherman
Produced by Darryl F. Zanuck
Twentieth Century Pictures

Born to Be Bad is a movie that sounds more interesting than it actually is. The racy plot presents Loretta Young in an atypical role as a bad girl and newcomer Cary Grant before he established his famous on-screen persona. The premise sounds intriguing but, ultimately, the movie fails to deliver anything worthwhile.

Loretta Young plays Letty Strong, a beautiful woman hardened by the harsh realities of life. In the opening scene, Letty is presented as glamorous and sophisticated while standing at the bar in a posh New York nightclub, surrounded by a group of admiring men and commanding the attention of practically everyone else in the room. However, behind this beguiling façade, Letty is really just a mess. She was a teenage mother and is now raising her young son (Jackie Kelk) on her own. As a result of this painful experience, the cynical Letty is determined that her son will be prepared for a cold and unforgiving world. She’s not only greedy and manipulative but also completely indifferent to the fact that her lax parenting has made her son a troublesome neighborhood hooligan. She loses custody of him and is heartbroken when he goes to live with wealthy businessman Malcolm Trevor (Cary Grant). Malcolm and his staid wife (Marion Burns) give Jackie a stable and supportive home for the first time. Letty schemes to get her child back but things are complicated when she and Malcolm fall in love.

Born to Be Bad ran into several problems during production due to its racy subject matter. The Hays Office, which was keeping a sharp eye on depictions of immoraliy on the screen, rejected the film twice and demanded any references to Letty earning a living as a prostitute be removed. Several of the film’s early scenes also had to be edited and reshot in order to appease the censors. In particular, the Hays Office objected to various shots of Young sitting on the floor in a nightgown with her legs opened, wrestling with her son, and appearing in various states of undress. The edits were done with a heavy hand and, as a result, the first half of the movie is a choppy mess. Director Lowell Sherman’s uneven pacing doesn’t help matters. The movie starts out on the wrong foot and never manages to find its stride. The running time is also curiously short. It’s only an hour long and the ending is very abrupt, giving the already far-fetched plot a decidedly unsatisfactory ending.


Despite these shortcomings, it’s still fascinating to watch Loretta Young play such an character. In real life, Young was an extremely devout Catholic who strived to only play “good characters” throughout her career. She was concerned with setting a good example for her fans so it’s unusual (and fun!) to see her play a bad girl. But she’s convincing.

Although the character has few redeeming qualities, Young renders her as sympathetically as possible. Her exterior is cold. She simply doesn’t care about right and wrong or the consequences of her actions. She’s only concerned with herself and has no problems lying, cheating and taking advantage of anyone until she gets what she wants. Of course, she looks beautiful doing it in some pretty Gwen Wakeling gowns. (The white number donned in the opening scene is especially nice.) But Loretta also manages to convey the fact that Letty is broken inside because of her struggles as an unwed mother. She’s a sad, broken woman who is simply looking for love and stability in spite of her bitterness at the hand life has dealt her.

My favorite part of the movie is the great chemistry between Loretta and Cary Grant. Grant had only been in Hollywood for a couple of years when he made this movie and had yet to forge an identity of his own. His character is bland and could’ve been played by any other handsome actor in Hollywood. Grant is given little to do besides wear a nicely tailored suit and react to Letty’s provocations. He’s also saddled with some pretty impossible dialogue. In one scene, he admonishes Loretta: “Oh, you’re bad. Bad all the way through. You’re just a beautiful bad girl!”


Corny dialogue aside, there’s a palpable sexual tension between the two stars. Although Malcolm is wary of Letty and tries to resist her very obvious advances, he is constantly betrayed by his body language. When they’re alone together, he always seems to be closing in on her, slowly but surely moving into her personal space until he finally can take no more and gives in to temptation. Their kisses are passionate and intense. Grant and Young would star in another movie together, the holiday classic The Bishop’s Wife (1947). This second pairing would prove to be much more successful than the first.

Although it’s an insignificant film overall, Born to Be Bad is probably more interesting for modern viewers because it happened to foreshadow events that would occur in Loretta Young’s real life. In early 1935, less than a year after this movie was released, she would find herself unmarried and pregnant. The unexpected pregnancy and subsequent birth of her daughter was kept a closely-guarded secret for many years.

Born to Be Bad is not currently available on DVD but it has been shown on TCM.

Motion Picture Magazine (1941)

Let's take a look at which stars graced the cover of Motion Picture magazine in 1941. This is what movie fans saw on their newstands seventy years ago.

Gene Tierney, January 1941
Vivien Leigh & Clark Gable, February 1941
Ida Lupino, March 1941
Mickey Rooney & Judy Garland, April 1941
Olivia de Havilland, May 1941
Robert Taylor, June 1941
Betty Grable, July 1941
Veronica Lake, August 1941
Clark Gable, September 1941
Rita Hayworth, October 1941
Deanna Durbin, November 1941
Claudette Colbert, December 1941
Which cover is your favorite?

70 Years Ago...

This iconic photograph of Rita Hayworth was first published in the August 11, 1941 issue of Life magazine. She was not yet a major star when she was photographed by Bob Landry in Los Angeles for a cover story. She was under contract to Columbia and had already established herself with impressive supporting parts in important pictures like Only Angels Have Wings (1939) and Susan and God (1940). However, despite a major publicity campaign mounted by the studio to promote her, she had not yet been propelled to that next level of stardom.

In the summer of 1941, she could already be seen by audiences in two hit movies, The Strawberry Blonde and Blood and Sand, but she was on the cusp of something even bigger. Her next film, You'll Never Get Rich, was to be her first as a full-fledged leading lady and would also give her the opportunity to dance with screen legend Fred Astaire. It would mark the culmination of years of hard work and planning, not just by the studio's publicity department, but by Hayworth herself. She would be, in Life's words, a "triple threat singing, dancing glamor star."

According to Life, the photograph was taken at the home she shared with her husband, Edward Judson. She posed atop a bed in a slinky satin-and-lace nightgown, on her knees, and looking away from the camera with a slightly bemused expression on her face. She was undeniably sexy and absolutely smoldered on film but there was something deeper on display here. Rita's on-screen persona was that of a bold, passionate, and extroverted woman. However, in reality, she was more sensitive, reserved and quiet. This startling combination of tempestuous outer beauty and inner vulnerability contributed to her enormous appeal, especially with male moviegoers, and is captured perfectly in Landry's snapshot.

Several months after this photograph was published, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and America found itself at war. For obvious reasons, Rita instantly became one of the most popular pin-up girls among American servicemen stationed around the world and this picture in particular was a favorite. In fact, the picture became so well-known that Life published it again a few years later, in the November 25, 1946 issue, referring to it as "the best girl picture ever taken."

That praise may still hold true today. Bob Landry captured Rita's magic in his lens that summer day. It certainly stands as one of the most iconic photographs of a very special Hollywood star.

Newspaper Clipping

An interesting clipping from the July 20, 1933 edition of the Rochester Evening Journal:


I wonder what the folks in Jamestown thought when they saw their hometown girl in her big screen debut as a blonde slave in Roman Scandals?

Ten Interesting Facts About Lucille Ball

Here are ten interesting facts about Lucille Ball:

01. She attended drama school with another legend. Lucy briefly studied at the prestigious John Murray Anderson-Robert Milton School of Theater and Dance in New York City, New York. She was only 16 years old and living in New York City, over six hundred miles away from her home in upstate New York. The school’s star pupil at the time was a driven 18-year-old who was also destined to become a superstar: Bette Davis. While Davis thrived under the pressure of having to constantly rehearse and perform, Lucy was overwhelmed. “All I learned in drama school was how to be frightened,” she later recalled. Tired and homesick, Lucy dropped out after only a month and returned to her family in Jamestown.

02. Her resemblance to a major star nabbed her a job. When Lucy returned to New York City, she was spotted by Hattie Carnegie, the proprietor of a chic boutique on Forty-ninth Street. Carnegie thought Lucy slightly resembled actress Constance Bennett, one of her many famous clients. She urged Lucy to lighten her hair in order to strengthen the resemblance and then hired her as a fashion model. Lucy was finally making a decent wage for herself but the rigors of living in the big city proved too much for her. She became overworked and ill and returned home once again.

Lucille Ball in the 1930s.
Constance Bennett in the 1930s.
03. She maintained a close but complex relationship with her mother. Lucy’s father died of typhoid fever when she was only three years old. Her mother, DeDe, remarried several years later and moved with her new husband to Detroit, leaving Lucy and her younger brother Fred in the care of relatives. DeDe eventually returned to her children in New York but she was forced to work and had trouble finding time for them. The experience of being separated from her mother had a profound effect on Lucy. She became determined to keep her family together. After she established herself as an actress in Hollywood, she paid for her mother, brother, grandfather and cousin to relocate to California. They lived together in a small rented house in West Hollywood. Her mother became a constant companion for her. DeDe was a devoted grandmother, much more than she was as a mother, and helped care for Lucy’s children. DeDe also strongly supported Lucy’s career. She was in the studio audience of every single series sitcom episode Lucy ever made.

04. She had one of the most famous pregnancies in television history. Lucy found out that she and Desi were expecting their second child during the second season of I Love Lucy. The pregnancy was written into the show. “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” the episode in which Lucy’s character gives birth, was purposely scheduled to air on January 19, 1953, the same day that she was scheduled to deliver her real baby via Caesarean section. Lucille Ball gave birth to Desi Arnaz, Jr. that morning and Lucy Ricardo had Little Ricky that night. The stunt worked. It was the most-watched television program up to that time with 71.7% of all American television viewers watching the broadcast. Accordingly, Desi Arnaz, Jr. was given the honor of appearing on the very first cover of TV Guide in April 1953.

Lucy and Desi, Jr.
05. She once registered as a member of the Communist Party. On March 19, 1936, Lucy registered as a member of the Communist Party in Los Angeles. She and her other family members did so to appease her eccentric grandfather, Fred Hunt, who was a dedicated Socialist. Her voter registration was eventually canceled in 1938 when she failed to actually vote in any elections. The fact that she had once registered as a Communist came back to haunt her once I Love Lucy became a smash hit. In September 1953, Lucy announced at a press conference that she was investigated by the United States House Un-American Activities Committee as a suspected Communist. The public was shocked. Desi Arnaz rushed to her defense, quipping to their studio audience before a taping that “the only thing red about Lucy is her hair, and even that’s not legitimate.” The HUAC ultimately was unable to link her to any Communist activities. Lucy was fortunate in that the scandal did not have any negative impact on her career.

Lucy and Desi meet reporters at the Desilu ranch to discuss the HUAC investigation.
06. Desilu wasn’t just a studio. Lucy and Desi bought a five-acre ranch in Chatsworth, California in 1941, shortly after their marriage. It was a quiet haven for the extremely busy couple, nestled away from the city in the San Fernando Valley. When it came to naming the ranch, the couple was inspired by Pickfair, the legendary home of silent screen stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. They similarly combined their names and christened it “Desilu.” They loved this moniker so much that they used it as the name of their production company in 1950. Lucy and Desi found the long commute to the Desilu ranch to be increasingly inconvenient and they decided to sell it in 1954. They bought a new home next to Jack Benny and his wife, Mary Livingstone, at 1000 North Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills that was much closer to the studio.

07. She had the same hair color for over forty years. According to hair stylist Sidney Guilaroff, the special henna rinse that gave Lucy her trademark color was perfected at MGM in the 1940s. Her personal hairdresser, Irma Kusely, wrote the special formula down on a piece of paper and Lucy used it for the rest of her life. She started wearing wigs exclusively on screen during the 1958-1959 season of I Love Lucy, but continued to dye her own hair the same shade even though it wouldn’t be seen on television.

Lucy in the 1980s.
08. She was a groundbreaking businesswoman. Lucy and Desi created Desilu Productions in 1950 to produce I Love Lucy. The company expanded rapidly throughout the 1950s. In 1957, the company bought the RKO Pictures lot, giving it a total of 33 soundstages, more than both MGM and Twentieth Century-Fox. Desi Arnaz resigned as president of Desilu in November 1962 and Lucy succeeded him, thus becoming the first woman to head a major studio. She took an active part in running the company, serving as both president and CEO while simultaneously starring in The Lucy Show. She preferred performing to business, however, and ultimately sold the company to Gulf+Western in February 1967.

Lucy and Desi, Desilu executives.
09. A ski accident changed her life. During a family ski vacation in Snowmass, Colorado in January 1972, Lucy was seriously injured when she was struck by another skier, breaking her leg in four places. She was sixty years old but still highly active. The injury required surgery and forced her into a leg cast. She had no choice but to refrain from doing any physical comedy during the rest of the season’s episodes of Here’s Lucy. Her leg healed but it left her movement permanently restricted. This affected her ability to learn and rehearse the choreography for her starring role in the upcoming big screen version of Mame. The ratings for Here’s Lucy dropped drastically during the next season and it was canceled by CBS in 1974. Mame, released the same year, was a critical and commercial failure. This double blow seriously hurt Lucy's confidence. It would be twelve years before she returned to series television. She would never make another motion picture again.

10. She was an avid game-player. Throughout her life, Lucy loved playing all kinds of games, including cards, board games and charades. Her particular favorite was backgammon. In her later years, she often played it for hours everyday. Lucy was also a huge fan of game shows. Throughout her career, she was often a guest star on TV games like What’s My Line?, I’ve Got a Secret, Body Language and Password.

Lucy playing in a backgammon tournament in Palm Springs in the 1980s.

The Lucille Ball Centennial

Lucille Desiree Ball was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York to a telephone lineman and his wife. Her beginnings were humble but one hundred years later, she is an icon, one of the most widely recognized and well-loved women in the history of show business. Her image and influence is everywhere. She will always be with us.

Like millions of others, I was first introduced to Lucille Ball through afternoon reruns of her hit sitcom I Love Lucy. She was funny, always getting into trouble and making herself look ridiculous. I think we watched her everyday.

I remember the moment when I first discovered she was a redhead. Ricky referred to her in one episode as a “crazy redhead” and I was surprised. I suppose I’d never really given the matter of her hair color much thought before. After all, I’d only ever seen her in black and white. Was this common knowledge? I called out to my mom. “Did you know that Lucy had red hair?!” “Yes,” she replied, in a tone that confirmed for me that this was, in fact, common knowledge. “She was famous for it.” It was a revelation to me. Of course, she was a redhead. It suddenly made sense. This lady wasn’t an ordinary blonde or brunette. She was a redhead. She was different.

It’s strange that this memory has stuck in my mind over the years. But it has. Lucy is one of the very few performers that has always been somewhere in my consciousness. I don’t remember a time where I wasn’t aware of her. She’s just always been around. And although I’ve seen pretty much all of her sitcom episodes, she still makes me laugh. The familiarity of her shows is comforting. It’s like visiting an old friend. I love her for that.

Lucy really struggled to reach the top. Her success certainly didn’t come overnight. She climbed slowly but surely through the ranks, progressing from fashion model to chorus girl to bit player and finally to featured roles. Lucy appeared in 55 movies between 1933 and 1951. She knew all about hard work, appearing in all kinds of roles in a wide variety of pictures, mostly B movies. She bounced around the different studios, always looking forward to the next opportunity and hoping for the break that would finally catapult her to the top of the Hollywood heap. During these years, she appeared in a lot of forgettable movies (as well as a few good ones) but she gained valuable experience and really honed her craft.

Lucy fixes her makeup on the set of Kid Millions (1934).
The studios quickly noticed that Lucy really excelled in comedy. She could deliver one-liners with a sense of effortlessness and ease and, perhaps most importantly, she was willing to do the broad style of slapstick comedy that a lot of other actresses weren’t. Lucy was fearless in that regard. She didn’t mind looking like a fool. Although she regularly played a wisecracker on screen, she was actually quite serious in person. She wasn’t naturally funny. She just had an innate talent for playing comedy. Maureen O’Hara, her co-star in Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), recalled working with Lucy in her autobiography.

By the time dance classes were finished, Lucille and I were inseparable chums. We were a lot alike, two tough dames. She wasn’t hysterically funny off camera, more of a wisecracker with a quick wit and a short fuse. Lucille wasn’t a star yet, but she made no bones about the fact that she planned to be one. She was very ambitious and calculating where her career was concerned. – Maureen O’Hara, ‘Tis Herself

Despite this determination to become a star, Lucy still hadn’t found her place in the industry. She was certainly well-known but she hadn’t truly shined yet. She was finally given the opportunity in August 1942, when she signed a contract with MGM, the biggest and most prestigious movie studio in Hollywood. It liked to boast that it had “more stars than there are in heaven,” and Lucy hoped to become one of them.

MGM’s resident hair stylist Sidney Guilaroff first suggested that Lucy become a redhead. He knew that it would set her apart from the other starlets and accentuate her unique beauty. Her first MGM film, the musical-fantasy DuBarry Was a Lady, was also her first in Technicolor. With her flaming red hair, Lucy glowed on screen. If audiences hadn’t paid much attention to her before, they certainly did now. A year later, Life magazine published a feature article detailing her appeal and dubbing her “Technicolor Tessie.”

Lucille Ball is a colorful girl. The combination of her blue eyes, strawberry-blonde hair, coral-rouged lips and fair skin has led Hollywood cameramen, make-up artists and other technicians to award her the title of ‘Technicolor Tessie.’ Playing with words, they say she is technically perfect and colorful from any angle. Subject most discussed is the color of Miss Ball’s hair. Descriptions range from carrot-topped, apricot-colored, strawberry blonde and just plain orange to the highly polished, brassy interior of Tommy Dorsey’s trombone. – Life, August 9, 1943.

A color photograph of Lucille Ball from the August 9, 1943 issue of Life.
While Lucy’s tenure at MGM certainly helped her career, it didn’t prove to be as successful as she had initially hoped. After her contract expired in 1946, she began freelancing at other studios. She starred in her own radio comedy show, My Favorite Husband, which was a hit with audiences. But television was becoming increasingly popular and, in 1950, CBS asked her to star in a television version of the show. Lucy had other plans. She was willing to make the transition to television but only if she could co-star with her real-life husband, Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz. CBS reluctantly agreed and I Love Lucy was born. It premiered in October 1951 and was an immediate ratings hit.

Lucy and Desi pucker up for an I Love Lucy publicity still.
I get the impression that people think Lucy was washed-up when she finally found success on television and that simply isn’t true. Her movie career may have slowed down a bit, but she was still quite famous and relatively wealthy when I Love Lucy premiered. Lucy turned 40 years old in 1951 and she must have realized that her chances of reaching the top as a leading lady in movies were now considerably diminished. A shelf life has unfortunately always been imposed on an actress’s screen career, both then and now. As a woman ages, it becomes increasingly harder to get good roles. Going into television was a natural progression for Lucy. It allowed her to continue her career as a star, on her own terms, and in a new medium.

Of course, I Love Lucy was a tremendous success. It was rated the #1 television show for four of its six seasons and won multiple Emmy Awards, including two for Lucy. Audiences fell in love with her and elevated her to global superstardom. Jess Oppenheimer, the show's creator, producer and head writer, attributed the its massive success to its star.

Of course, the most important piece of magic was Lucy herself. Her radiant talent, her wonderful combination of beauty and clown, her sure touch for the human quality, which found recognition in every segment of the viewing audience, were the sparks that gave life to the entire series. She was truly one of a kind, and I thanked my lucky stars that our paths had crossed when they did. – Jess Oppenheimer, Laughs, Luck--and Lucy

Lucy and Desi Arnaz divorced in 1960 but her television career continued. She starred in two more hit sitcoms, The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy, before leaving television in 1974. Her status as a living legend was already firmly cemented. However, despite these later successes, it’s the original, I Love Lucy, that remains most treasured by fans.

Lucy smoking a cigarette in the 1960s.
The impact that I Love Lucy has had on the world cannot be overemphasized. It not only helped define the medium of television in its earliest years but has also become an important piece of American pop culture exported around the world. Through reruns, Lucy has been introduced to successive generations of TV audiences around the world and continues to find new fans today.

Lucille Ball died at the age of 77 on April 26, 1989. Tributes started pouring in from around the world as soon as the news of her death reached the public. People magazine summed up what audiences loved about Lucy quite nicely:

Viewers adored Lucy—no TV performer before or since has been so dearly loved. We loved her Raggedy Ann looks: the big, red, floppy, bow-tie mouth, the baby-blue, sunny-side-up eyes, the ha-ha hairdo that topped her off like a giant orange dandelion. We loved her raucous guffaw that whacked the ear like a seal's bark, and her high-low voice that sometimes squeaked like Minnie Mouse and sometimes rasped and rattled like roller skates on rough cement… Above all, we loved her for being her all-too-human, indefatigably silly self: a Don Quixote in pin curls who tilted hopelessly but hilariously at the male establishment, a beguiling caricature of all those wistful hausfraus of the '50s who dreamed of conquering the great big world out there but time and again wound up bitchin' in the kitchen. - People, May 8, 1989.

Perhaps the most moving expression of what she means to the world, however, came while she was still alive. Sammy Davis, Jr. lovingly paid tribute to Lucille Ball in 1984 with these words:

Be proud, Lucy, of your legacy… The sun never sets on Lucille Ball. All over this worried world tonight, nations of untold millions are watching reruns they also watched the first time around. Joy requires no translation. God wanted the world to laugh, and He invented you. Many are called, but you were chosen. Clown you are not. All of the funny hats, the baggy pants, the mustaches and the wigs, and the pratfalls and the blacked-out teeth—they didn’t fool us for one minute. We saw through all the disguises, and what we found inside is more than we deserve. - Sammy Davis, Jr.

How true.

Happy 100 Birthday, Lucy.

An Introduction

Where do I begin?

I've always loved old movies. The first movie I ever saw was The Wizard of Oz (1939) when I was four years old. I was immediately hooked. I started watching more and soon found that I couldn't get enough. Something about them fascinated me. My obsession with watching old movies soon expanded to reading books about how they were made and the people who made them. Over the years, I've amassed quite a lot of information (some significant, some trivial) about classic movies and stars and I wanted to start recording my thoughts on them. A blog seems like the perfect way to do that. Plus, I've been looking for a creative outlet lately and writing regularly will probably be helpful in that regard.

I read quite a few film blogs and they're all very impressive. A lot of the content that these bloggers produce is outstanding. I'm not sure how my own efforts will measure up. I'm also not exactly sure what sort of things I'll be posting here. I don't have a film studies degree or any sort of credentials or expertise besides my love for the movies. So it's possible that I really don't have any idea what I'm talking about. But it's my blog and I'm going to write what I want so, if anyone is actually reading this, please just let me indulge myself.

Also, a warning: my tastes may seem a little odd to some other movie lovers. For example:

1. I've never seen Citizen Kane (1941).
2. I like John Payne more than I like John Wayne.
3. I've seen more movies with MacDonald and Eddy than Bogart and Bacall.
4. My main interest is in the movies and stars of the "studio era." I figure that this includes any movie made between 1930 and 1959.
5. I haven't seen many silent films. This is something I would like to learn more about but haven't yet.

I'm also really interested in history and enjoy reading about movies in their historical contexts. I like finding out about what was going on in the world when they were made and first released. It can really enhance your viewing experience!

I also really like lists. Something about efficiently compartmentalizing information in a list format appeals to me. This blog will probably feature lists in some manner.

Basically, I'm going to be making this up as I go along. We'll see what happens. Regardless, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I'll enjoy writing it. And please feel free to leave a comment!