{"id":41707,"date":"2014-05-09T06:00:49","date_gmt":"2014-05-09T10:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=41707"},"modified":"2015-01-13T01:54:09","modified_gmt":"2015-01-13T06:54:09","slug":"were-not-dressing-1934","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.moviefanfare.com\/?p=41707","title":{"rendered":"We’re Not Dressing: Because We Can’t, Really"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Were<\/a>\u201cThe shipwreck hasn\u2019t turned out as well as I\u2019d hoped.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

I am not the world\u2019s first and foremost Bing Crosby<\/a>\u00a0fan. Or even second and secondmost. This may come from the majority of films I\u2019ve seen of his where he invariably plays a newcomer to a stuffy town\/military unit\/church\/pre-War Austro-Hungarian Empire that simply can\u2019t abide his hip lingo and smooth talking ways. Each is grating in its formula and presumption, desperately painting Bing as the with-it rebel out to teach everyone a couple of easy lessons about loosening up and living a hip life.<\/p>\n

Luckily, Crosby hadn\u2019t quite hit upon that formula in 1934, as very much evidenced in We’re Not <\/i>Dressing<\/a>, <\/i>probably the only film that features threatened rape as part of its romantic comedy climax and<\/i> an extended sequence with a bear on roller skates wreaking havoc. Bing still teaches everyone a lesson and sings a few songs (five, actually, five long songs), but, save for one person, his lessons don\u2019t stick. More on that in a bit.<\/p>\n

\"WereHe plays a sailor named Stephen who is a crew member on the oversized yacht Doris. The ship Doris is owned by the millionairess Doris (Carole Lombard<\/a>), a fickle character that is heavily reminiscent of those shrews who always must be tamed. She has a pet bear named Droopy, and Stephen is assigned the humiliating task of calming the bear by crooning \u201cGood Night, Lovely Little Lady\u201d. Stephen is rebellious in that quiet Bing Crosby way, leading Doris to slap Stephen and Stephen giving her a kiss in response.<\/p>\n

To kick the plot into high gear, Doris\u2019 bumbling\/sloshed Uncle Hubert (Leon Errol) manages to single-handedly sink the ship. Doris and Stephen end up on an island with Hubert, his golddigging girlfriend Edith (Ethel Merman<\/a>), and two gold-digging princes, all dressed in evening wear\u2026save for Stephen in his sailor outfit and Doris in a robe, since she hadn\u2019t had time to dress before the boat went down. Now Stephen is the only one with any survival skills, and the spoiled rich must learn to kowtow to him if they want to survive.<\/p>\n

Also, not that it helps much, but George Burns<\/a> and Gracie Allen<\/a> are lurking on the island as well. As I noted in my review<\/a> of Six of a Kind, Gracie\u2019s \u201cidiot savant\u201d routine is far more fun when she portrays an agent of chaos than someone the audience is supposed to have a lick of sympathy for. Here she\u2019s especially malevolent, with her tropical island Moose Trap one of those gags that oscillates between dumb and hilarious once every few seconds.<\/p>\n

Ethel Merman has kind of a weird “chubby Lilian Roth\/sexy Fanny Brice” thing going on, which are not words I\u2019d ever expected to write in my life. Merman\u2019s quite energetic and matched well with Leon Errol, who plays a boozed, spoiled baby in much the Edward Everett Horton vein. Almost the entirety of the rest of the cast is wallpaper, including Ray Milland<\/a> as one of the faux princes out to schmooze his way into wealth.<\/p>\n

Spoilers.<\/b><\/p>\n

The exception is Carole Lombard. Her big break in\u00a0Twentieth Century was hardly two weeks away from this film\u2019s release and you can already see much of her comedic persona formed. Though not as elastic as she is in Twentieth, Lombard manages to wring a great deal of humor and emotion out of her rotten-to-the-core character.<\/p>\n

\"WE'RE<\/a>Lombard\u2019s Doris is obviously smitten with Stephen from the beginning but must overcome her own prejudices and assumptions to admit it. This isn\u2019t easy, as Doris\u2019 upper crust nobility has given her carte blanche to be as wicked as she wants to be, an opportunity that she seizes upon when she\u2019s the only castaway to realize that George and Gracie\u2019s well-equipped nature study provides the party an easy avenue to be rescued. Doris opts to keep quiet and use the opportunity to give Stephen a month\u2019s time to be the caveman alpha-male. It appeals both to her desire to undercut him and her desire to see him without a shirt on.<\/p>\n

Naturally, such a ruse doesn\u2019t please Stephen when it\u2019s uncovered by Gracie. She ruins a romantic interlude to inform them that a number of ships have arrived on the other side of the island. Stephen, as I described above, feels his masculinity deflated by Doris\u2019 manipulations, and chooses to insult her femininity in response\u2013 she\u2019s not even worth ravaging for her deception.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a decidedly pre-Code moment, something that speaks to the extreme sexual frustration they both feel for one another. Their t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate must overcome the class and temperament differences, though the movie gives us a ringer to help leap the chasm: Stephen is actually an architect who just booked his way as a crew member to get to his new job in New York.<\/p>\n

So when he demands in the final reel that she ditch her fortune, family and friends to live with him as the major breadwinner, you know that she\u2019ll still be okay. She\u2019s marrying down, but still into a comfortable lifestyle\u2013 not exactly feminist, but acceptable to Depression-era audiences. The man is in charge and the shrew is tamed.<\/p>\n

End spoilers.<\/b><\/p>\n

\"WE'RE<\/a>We\u2019re Not Dressing is an oddity, one of those kitchen sink comedies that Paramount indulged in mixed with a lot of promotion for Bing\u2019s newest album and the George and Gracie comedy team. Somehow, in spite of its messiness, the combination of Lombard\u2019s fiery performance, the roller skating bear, and, yes, Crosby\u2019s low key comedy, the movie is still a fun, jaunty, and insane (if dated) piece of work.<\/p>\n

Proof That It\u2019s Pre-Code<\/strong><\/p>\n