The Actress (1954)
It’s a joy forever. I wish it had never ended. That’s mainly due to Spencer Tracy; but Ruth Gordon gave him the words. It’s about a young woman’s coming of age and her dream of being an actress (Jean Simmons is radiant as a young Gordon - a role that, oddly, almost went to Debbie Reynolds). Wikipedia muses with a condescending air: “the film ends without the audience seeing Gordon achieve her goals.” Is that why it was a flop? Or maybe because it’s the story of a young woman, not a young man? Or maybe because Simmons rejects a marriage proposal from the lovely Anthony Perkins in order to pursue a career? Hepburn used to say that Tracy’s genius was just to say the lines and mean them. Here Tracy seems to be stumbling over his words, which at first is so real I thought he was having memory issues. Then I realised the character is so intense that his feelings are changing faster than his mouth can speak. At first Tracy is so filled with destructive rage that he curses the foliage: “Why do they call this Elmwood Avenue when it’s full of maple tress?” Then he reveals the story of his own tragic childhood —which if handled by a bad actor and writer would end in the character having a breakdown, or a revelation. Instead Tracy is apologetic, furious — angry in spite of himself. There are so may details, like his annoyance with the cat named Punk who eats the Boston fern, or the moment when he shows Jean Simmons’ girlfriends his telescope, which makes us achingly uncomfortable, as he is the essence of a sad lonely, sweet, boring old man. Speaking of which, they are torturing this sad, lonely sweet, boring old man right now — I can’t bear to look at the news — saying maybe Ontario needs to go into another lockdown. I live in a town where 26 people have died of COVID-19. (Twenty-six out of a population of five hundred thousand and something?) Jesus. Should I just stop thinking about all this? I saw a sparrow today, flying over and over into its reflection in a window. Is that me? The Actress is about that crucial moment when the child must become.an adult. Jean Simmons must be an actress, not a gym instructor as Spencer Tracy desires (the delicious Mary Wickes appears only briefly — marching about resolutely and twirling a pair bowling pins — managing to give us all a frightening glimpse of that particular horrifying future). Simmons fears she will never get go to Boston “I’ll go raving mad, Momma! If I knew one single man who wanted a mistress I’d go in Boston and be a kept woman!” It’s not at all clear that Jean Simmons even knows what a ‘kept woman’ is, but she does know it’s a phrase that her mother certainly doesn’t want to hear. The self-effacing Theresa Wright responds: “For once, for all our sakes consider being normal!” We all went through that, didn’t we? That moment when we finally do something that our parents can’t abide, and, ergo, we grow up? Or did we? I’m not sure, as everybody just seems to love a good old fashioned lockdown. We’re just doing what Daddy Told Us To DO (and here Daddy is Doug Ford, who we all hated before ‘the crisis,’ but now it’s Father Knows Best). So when Daddy says don’t go out of the house we all smile that martyred smile, deftly lock the door, and suffer. Why? Perhaps we all want a Daddy? Perhaps we all wish to be children again? Well it’s a lot easier to just give in to the patriarchy. Think of the advantages. Sure, it’s frustrating to have that finger wagging at you all the time, but on the other hand it relieves you of all responsibility for your actions. If you ‘re too scared to go to Boston and become an actress, or too scared to come out of the closet — or to come to out of the house — it’s all okay, you are a good person, because you are doing what your parents told you to do. Obviously infantilism has been bubbling on the cultural stove recently, and it has created the perfect storm for this perfect virus that has gifted us with the abdication of any responsibility for our lives. When Tracy is blocking his daughter's dream he says; “Let’s let’ the cat out, and batten down the hatches, and go do bed.” How lovely is that? Why go out, after all? It’s night time, and it’s scary out there — or it’s day time and if you actually pursue your dream, it might just not come true. The title of the play that graces the marquee on Jean Simmons’ first trip to Boston is Oliver Goldsmith’s The Mistakes of a Night. I used to live for those mistakes. Today it was sunny and hot, and there were people out on the streets, and I took off my shirt off, and lowered my shorts to where you could see my bumcrack. Yup, I did. Let them laugh, let them scorn me, I might as well be wearing a scarlet letter —as I wore no mask — only pink sunglasses. Out on the gay street a nice thing happened — some sweet guy had stashed a bottle of beer next to where I was relaxing in the sun and he came to retrieve it, flashing a winning smile: “Thanks for watching it for me.” That gave me hope. Then I went into a dirty sex store — the one that sells porn videos and vibrating cockrings, (which I do admit I have been missing during this ‘extremely trying time’) and I made the mistake of speaking to the crusty owner. He’s always been a gloomy, bitter fellow, sure to have a negative word for me. I asked him if the porn video ‘cruising’ booths were open and he snorted: “not until there’s a vaccine.” So we have to wait until Fauci comes up with a cure (again?) before we can suck on somebody’s you-know-what? (I think you are aware of what specific activity I’m referring to. It’s something that your mother told you not to do, only she wasn’t willing to say it out loud either. But if you were like me you knew it was one of the ‘mistakes of the night’ that you could not live without.) Yes I’m desperate, and plan on going out later, lowering my shorts to bumcrack level and cruising Queens Park. Apparently there are sex-hungry men there. I’m going to see if I can get me one. But that’s will not be the only exposing I have done today, as here I have exposed myself as the same sad old man Spencer Tracy give us in The Actress. Because I am that sparrow flying at the mirror that is a window, and I don’t intend to stop.
