Mannequin (1937)

Spencer Tracy watches Joan Crawford's mannequin act

Frank Borzage's Mannequin, which premiered in Los Angeles at the end of 1937. is an adequate romantic melodrama. A vehicle for two of MGM biggest stars, Joan Crawford and Spencer Tracy, it was the only time these box-office titans were paired together. The well appointed Joseph L. Mankiewicz production boasts sequences that border on lavish, like a penthouse cocktail party and a fashion show, but other Cedric Gibbons sets are appropriately dusty and dilapidated. The opening sequence in which Joan Crawford, the sole breadwinner in her family of four, mounts the shaky and dark stairs of her tenement after a hard day on her feet at a sweat shop puts one in mind of the dispossessed milieu of Seventh Heaven or the Tracy starrer Man's Castle. While this picture is not up to those two, there is enough of Borzage's love of humanity and a certain soft romantic glow to make the viewer pleasantly lulled.

The main fault of Mannequin is its central romantic triangle. Crawford's character is so  desperate to leave her Hester Street environs that she begs Eddy (the dull Alan Curtis) to marry her even though he is a self-professed heel, constantly losing money at crap games and the track. Tracy's character, a self-made shipping magnate, spies the two at their ramshackle wedding reception and treats them to champagne, sparking a pursuit of Crawford that lasts most of the movie. We know Eddy is a crumb from the get-go and Crawford's character somehow can't register that fact despite the repeated attempts of her wisecracking best friend, Beryl (a sharp Mary Philips). There is little heat between Crawford and Curtis. Partly this because Curtis has no zing, but also because Crawford is a little too old to be an ingenue. Things seem a bit warmer between Crawford and Tracy, who reportedly engaged in some hanky-panky between takes, but there is little for Tracy to do for much of the time. He looks awful, puffy and, despite the efforts of the MGM makeup department, prematurely aged. There are a couple of scenes of him addressing longshoreman, with terrific character bits from an uncredited Francis Ford, but usually he is stuck handing violet bouquets to Crawford.

This is very much a Joan Crawford picture with Tracy in support. Frank S. Nugent, in the New York Times, heralded the picture as a return to Crawford's "Queen of the Shopgirl" roots and praised her for her "regal" bearing. In the trailer for the film, MGM trumpeted that it was the "Joan Crawford's greatest picture in five years" (since Grand Hotel I guess), a curious endorsement which seems to admit that she had been in a box-office slump. Returns for Mannequin, however, were highly satisfactory. If the picture has not gained much currency over the years, it is because of its utter predictability. There is not much humor, save for Leo Gorcey, very effective as Crawford's shiftless and insolent brother. Ms. Crawford's outfits sometimes verge on the garish.

There are moments, though. Crawford surveying a shabby room. Tracy discarding an untimely bouquet. Crawford's mother telling her to get out of her marriage as Borzage frames Eddy and Crawford's Pa, two reprobates smoking by the fire. Most of the supporting cast is exemplary, including, besides those mentioned above, Paul Fix, Ralph Morgan, Oscar O'Shea, Elisabeth Risdon, and Blossom Rock. If you have read this far, despite my lukewarm feelings, you would probably enjoy this film.