FOR THE LOVE OF MARY: Blu-ray (Universal, 1948) Universal Home Video
Odd, or perhaps telling of his own
rising star in the cinema firmament that Donald O’Connor was not to appear in
director, Frederick de Cordova’s For the Love of Mary (1948) – Deanna Durbin’s
swan song at Universal. Odd, because O’Connor and Durbin had made quite a
splash together in Irving Pichel’s Something in the Wind, made and
released the year before. For almost the entire decade, producer/mentor, Joe
Pasternak had wanted to make a movie of ‘Washington Girl’ based on a
story by Ruth Finney, about the romantic comings and goings of a White House
telephone operator. Pasternak’s departure for greener pastures at MGM in 1941
seemed to seal the fate of Deanna Durbin ever appearing in the movie. Durbin
was one of the few reasons Universal had remained in the black during the Depression,
but alas, by 1948, was rounding out her tenure as their temperamental grand
diva. Meanwhile, Pasternak was plotting to turn Washington Girl into a
tidy Metro programmer to co-star their resident soprano, Kathryn Grayson and
Dan Dailey. For reasons only known to the studio, this project never came to
fruition. And thus, Universal announced Durbin – reunited with O’Connor, would
star in a ‘new’ project – White House Girl, based on a story by Karl
Tunberg, with William Seiter to direct. Mary Loos and Richard Sale were assigned
script duties as the project inevitably moved to its next position in the
queue. Again, a derailment – O’Connor,
reassigned to The Wonderful Race of Rim Rock, and, regrettably, replaced
herein with the tepid/non-descript Don Taylor. This, likely suited Durbin, as
she preferred her ‘leading men’ to be subservient. Tunberg’s name was likewise
stricken from the record, replaced by Robert Arthur as producer with Universal
quickly assembling the rest of the cast, to include the even more invisible
Jeffrey Lynn and somewhat meandering Edmond O’Brien – pulled from a plum part
in Rogue’s Regiment (1948).
At this juncture, Universal
rebranded White House Girl as For the Love of Mary – ironically, the
original working title for Something in the Wind – and assigned Frank
Skinner to pen some ditties for Durbin to sing (conducted by Edgar Fairchild,
and staged by Nick Castle). As Frederick de Cordova knew Durbin socially, the
usual anticipated spate of spats between director and star, increasingly ‘a
thing’ on the set of Durbin vehicles, was neither anticipated, nor was it to
ultimately materialize. Durbin did, however, confide in de Cordova her
weariness in continuing to appear in pictures. It was ‘old hat’ by now, and
Durbin, having toiled within the well-oiled machinery of Universal’s hand-crafted
public image, was frankly fed up with both it and the system responsible for
its creation. In years yet to pass, Durbin would remain circumspect and silent
about airing her discontent in public with what she always considered a total
fabrication of who she really was, but, in her emeritus years, granted a single
interview in which she expressed her immense disappointment with the public
being fed this pre-processed image of her naïve and unwavering, singularly
scripted wholesomeness. In a final act of ugliness, Universal did an about face
and sued Durbin in 1948, claiming she owed them $87,000 advanced to her to
complete the picture. As for the results, For the Love of Mary proved an
off-kilter and silly nonsense in which the cloying romance at the crux of the
tale involved not only the President of the United States – pre-Clinton, and
quite innocent – but also, four Supreme Court Justices conspiring to have Cupid’s
arrow strike Durbin’s love-happy sap in the heart.
Hollywood of this day oft’
concocted featherweight fluff to fill run time – and rather successfully too.
But For the Love of Mary just rings with a tinny and tart pall, its
jokes sour, or worse, not funny at all, and the machinations to allow Durbin’s
lass to haplessly fall in love, more deliberately, transparently, and clumsily
revealed. The weight of the exercise rests squarely on Durbin’s shoulders. So,
it is saying much that when she is present on the screen, the picture manages,
in spite of itself, to remain a marginal entertainment. The chief difficulty
here is that screenwriter, Oscar Brodney is trying much too hard to resuscitate
the classic screwball of the 1930’s, updated for the more jaded post-war
generation. Alas, absent from the exercise is the slick and stylish panache to
have set the tone for fanciful farce then. Besides, would anyone of any
generation have believed the leader of the free world had absolutely nothing
better to do with his time management skills in the White House than to
untangle the bungled romance of a lowly switchboard operator?!?
For the Love of
Mary begins with Mary Peppertree (Deanna Durbin) eager to begin her career at
the White House. Previously, she held a similar post at the Supreme Court. But Mary
has an ‘in’. Dad, Timothy (Griff Barnett) has been a guard at 1600 Pennsylvania
Ave. for decades. Mary’s first call is from Ichthyologist, David Paxton (Don
Taylor), who is insistent to speak to the President about ‘his’ island in the Pacific.
Disconnecting David twice, Mary spends the rest of the afternoon fielding calls
from various Supreme Court justices – oddly passionate to reunite her with ex-fiancé/Justice
Dept. attorney, Phillip Manning (Jeffrey Lynn). After hours, Mary meets the
kindly, Justice Peabody (Harry Davenport) at a popular watering hole to discuss
their break-up. Alas, Peabody has brought along the man in question, hoping to
set the record straight, in Phillip’s favor. Instead, Mary tells her one-time
lover she ended their engagement not because she caught him with another woman,
rather, because she suddenly realized her ambivalence regarding his
philandering revealed to her, she was not actually in love with him. As the
conversation shifts to work, Mary’s derogatory remarks about David catch his
ear. Honestly, does everyone involved with this story dine at the same place?!?
Now, David presents himself to Mary in the flesh, assuring her, by whatever
means, he will wind up speaking to the President on his own terms.
Ah me, the couple-to-be have made rather
an awkward start of things. So, the next morning David arrives at the White
House gate, feigning an apology with a deliberate bribe of candy and flowers.
Mary is unimpressed and hurls his gifts back at him. Hurrying to her
switchboard, Mary receives a call from the President, but inexplicably hiccups
into the phone, causing the President to send his executive secretary, Harvey
Elwood (Ray Collins) to check on her health. Phillip telephones, offering to
drive Mary to Justice Peabody's soiree later that evening. Again, she declines
his offer. But later it is she who must drive David off the White House grounds
to prevent his arrest. Begrudgingly, Mary offers to introduce David to the President's
secretary if he drives her to the party. Believing Mary will not be attending
the gathering, the President intervenes again, this time, setting up ‘a date’
between her and Lt. Tom Farrington (Edmond O'Brien), a naval aide. Naturally,
this stirs Phillip to jealousy. At the end of the night, Mary politely kisses
Tom on the front stoop and prepares to go inside. Alas, David, having waited
for her return, now confronts Mary with his own passionate kiss. This startles
her and begins another round of hiccups.
Now, the President tries to do
damage control on Mary’s behalf, but reassesses his concern as David is clearly
an environmentalist nut job. To smooth over all this misdirection, Mary offers
to introduce David to Phillip, who can help him iron out the kinks with his political
issue. Tom arrives with official Presidential orders to escort Mary to a
private White House movie screening. Learning of the invitation, Phil grills David
about his relationship with Mary.
Incensed, as the sun does indeed seem to set and rise on the loves of
Mary Peppertree, David announces he will be leaving Washington immediately. Enter,
Tom’s pal, newspaper publisher, Samuel Litchfield (Frank Conroy), distressed by
Tom’s involvement with a lowly switchboard operator. When Mary and Tom arrive
together on a date, the restaurant owner, Gustav Heindel (Hugo Haas) informs
Elwood he saw Mary kissing David. Elwood contacts the navy while Phillip plots
to set the Justice Department on the case. At Elwood's behest, David takes Mary
out. Again, his kisses lead to her having a fit of hiccups – a sure sign she is
in love. Phil and Tom arrive, confront David and Mary, quarrel and then depart,
leaving everything unresolved. But the next morning, Mary is inundated with
well-wishing on her engagement to Tom. Huh?!? Discovering David is not a U.S. citizen,
Elwood plots to have him deported, but then realizes David owns the Pacific Island,
also home to a $300 million U.S. Naval base. David would be perfectly in his
rights to ask the Navy to vacate immediately! But instead, David fashions a Senate
resolution for the American annexation of his island with two provisions:
first, Phil and Tom are given appointments far away from Washington, and,
second, he and Gustav are made U.S. citizens. The President agrees. However,
when Mary calls the President with the good news of her engagement to David, his
kisses again cause them both to suffer a round of hiccups.
For the Love of
Mary is a daft and dull rom/com overloaded with saccharine. Deanna Durbin is
its sole saving grace, warbling a handful of songs, culled from newly written ‘On
the Wings of a Song, and time-honored pop standards – Moonlight Bay, I’ll
Take You Home Again, Kathleen, and, Let Me Call You Sweetheart. For
Durbin purists, there’s also a splash of opera. She warbles Largo al
factotum from The Barber of Seville. Alas, the cavalcade of songs is
not enough to dissuade us from the turgid and tedious plot. Juggling potential
suitors is one thing. But these boys dangle like elements in a mobile around
Durbin’s sun and moon of a gal/pal. Even at 90 mins., For the Love of Mary just
seems to run on and on – its ‘much ado about nothing’ romantic entanglements
balling up until the convoluted yarn simply falls apart. Again, the glue here
is owed Durbin’s enigmatic presence. She is always ‘on’, even when the material
given her is decidedly ‘off’ in the extreme. But I think Durbin had the right idea
here. Even without the unpleasantness that transpired between her and Universal
immediately following this movie, her retirement from pictures came just in
time to spare her the indignation of a slow, sad decline into mediocrity – arguably,
from which her latter-age pictures never entirely escaped unscathed. Durbin’s
legacy is irrefutable. Apart from her star on Hollywood’s ‘walk of fame’, and hand
and footprints forever ensconced in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theater,
Durbin – in her time – was wildly popular, enough to be parodied in popular
cartoons and become the inspiration for many a pop tune. Russian
cellist/conductor, Mstislav Rostropovich cited Durbin as one of the most
influential artists of the 20th century, while Indian-Bengali film
director, Satyajit Ray, in his 1992 lifetime achievement Oscar acceptance speech,
referenced her as one of only three cinema personalities he was compelled to
write to in his youth. So, while there may never be another Deanna Durbin,
there are certainly far better movies to be had from her Universal tenure than
this!
For the Love of
Mary arrives on Blu-ray via Universal Home Video and, it is saying much,
that although much of her filmic and aural history was reported to have been
destroyed during the infamous Universal lot fire, this movie has somehow
survived in near pristine condition. The elements used here are solid, with exceptionally
nuanced tonality and, to reveal a considerable amount of fine detail, minus age-related
artifacts. Film grain is marginally suspect. In fact, it does not appear at all
for long stretches, though oddly, without ever devolving into an ugly, waxy
mess. The DTS 2.0 mono sounds as good as one might anticipate. Universal is up
to its old tricks here. So, no extras and no chapter stops. Bottom line: Durbin
did far better work at the studio – some of it already on Blu-ray, though much
of it still MIA on home video, including the infamous absence of her only noir
thriller, Christmas Holiday (1944) – much sought after by film fans,
though unlikely ever to see the light of day. For the Love of Mary looks
just fine in hi-def, while virtually unexceptional in every way as an
entertainment. Judge and buy accordingly.
FILM RATING (out
of 5 – 5 being the best)
1.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
4
EXTRAS
0
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