Lady in the Dark (Leisen, 1941): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.30pm
This 35mm presentation, which also screens on April 28th, is part of the Ginger Rogers season at BFI Southbank. Full details here.
Time Out review:
A gorgeously garish adaptation of the Moss Hart musical, with songs by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin,
in which a high-powered fashion magazine editor (Ginger Rogers) turns to
psychoanalysis to resolve her inability to choose between three loves: a
middle-aged backer (Warner Baxter), an attractive but independent-minded
employee (Ray Milland), and a hunky movie star (Jon Hall). It doesn't bear too
close examination, since Hollywood got cold feet about the lady's
Electra complex, leaving only hints of her competition with mommy for
daddy's love, and completing the bowdlerisation by removing the haunting
key song 'My Ship'. What's left is a cardboard charade, but one given a
dynamic charge by Leisen's witty visual styling. The three dream
sequences, in particular, are superb, with the first two coolly
designed, respectively in shades of blue and gold, the third - the
circus sequence in which Jenny finds herself on trial for emotional
delinquency - bursting into full colour.
Tom Milne
Here (and above) is an extract.
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