Guilty Pleasures: The Revolt of Mamie Stover

1956 Drama
From 20th Century Fox
Directed by Raoul Walsh

Starring
Jane Russell
Richard Egan
Joan Leslie
Agnes Moorehead
Michael Pate
Jorja Curtright
Leon Lontoc
Richard Coogan
Jean Willes

Jane Russell, famous as she was, only made 25 movies and the great majority of them should be burned.  Her most famous film, of course, and reviewed in these pages earlier, is Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, although Russell was overshadowed by the blonde, Marilyn Monroe.  The Revolt of Mamie Stover, which Monroe turned down, is the best dramatic film of Russell's career.  

It is based on a scorching novel of the same name by William Bradford Huie who also wrote The Americanization of Emily and The Klansman, among a number of others. 

Mamie (Russell) is a prostitute who is run out of San Francisco (she must have been really bad to have been run out of that city) and hops a freighter heading for Honolulu.  She meets the only other passenger, Jim Blair (Egan), who is returning to his Hawaiian home from a writing stint in Hollywood, and they spend much time together.

Mamie tells Jimmy of her hardscrabble life in Mississippi, poor as a church mouse, and how she was made fun of because of it.  She clearly has a chip on her shoulder and that fact is what propels her to want to make money, lots of money, so she can return to Mississippi in grand style and rub everyone's faces in her good fortune.

By the time the ship docks, it seems Mamie and Jimmy are pretty smitten with one another... this despite the fact that he has a fiancee, Annalee (Leslie), awaiting him at the dock.  When the two women pass one another, it's clear that Annalee suspects something is going on.  Mamie tells Jimmy she's got a job offer at The Bungalow, a dance club in Honolulu.

The sanitizing of the prostitution angle is one of the things that keeps the film from being better but the mid 50's wouldn't have tolerated the truth.  But equally problematic is that the screenplay keeps hinting at it.  To a degree the film reminds me of the three-year earlier From Here to Eternity and the Donna Reed character who was also a Honolulu prostitute in the novel and upgraded to a dance hall hostess for the film.  If FHTE had capitalized on Reed's character more, it could have been Mamie.

She goes to work for a tough woman, Bertha (Moorehead) and her mean enforcer Harry Atkins (Pate).  Mamie's given the rules... must live on the premises, cannot have a bank account or a boyfriend and mustn't be seen in the city's trendier hot spots.  All would bring negative attention to The Bungalow and Bertha won't have it.  Ladies who break the rules will deal with Harry.  Mamie breaks the rules.

Mamie and Jimmy traipse off to a fancy restaurant, sitting outdoors for everyone to see.  Mamie is aware of the staring and wants to leave but Jimmy wants to flaunt their relationship.  As bad luck would have it, evil Harry appears and threatens Mamie.  Jimmy goads him into a fight and Harry loses.

When he returns to The Bungalow, Harry and Bertha have this scene:

When December 7 arrives, Jimmy decides to enlist.  Mamie doesn't want him to but tells him she will wait.  He tells her that their relationship is conditional on her quitting her job.  She promises she will do so.

When she tells the boss she is leaving, Bertha offers her a greater cut of the proceeds and Mamie succumbs.  When Mamie realizes many residents are closing up their businesses and leaving Honolulu, Mamie buys up their properties cheaply.  She is looked down upon for her war profiteering but she couldn't care less.

Jimmy gets wind that she is still at The Bungalow and one day on  leave he shows up there.  Mamie is shocked to see him, knowing she has deceived him but again promises to quit on the spot.  We don't think the same about how life should be lived, he says as he walks out on her for good.

When we next see Mamie, she is arriving back in San Francisco.  The cops are awaiting her, telling her she's still not welcome.  She says she's on her way back to Mississippi.  She asks the cop if he would believe she made a fortune in Hawaii but left it all behind.  He says he doesn't believe it.  I don't believe anyone watching  believed she would leave her fortune behind.  It has all the looks, too, of a quickly tacked-on ending to redeem Mamie.

Without Russell the film wouldn't have worked at all.  But even with her it is still a bit flimsy and nonsensical.  And again that is due to the times.  The story of an upwardly mobile prostitute is based on a true story and if made today would be much better.  As it is, the story avoids diving into all those areas that would have made it a sincere drama.  And after all this, the Fox publicity releases called it steamy.  I'll tell you, schizophrenia reigned rampant over The Revolt of Mamie Stover.

Few could have bestowed Mamie with the charms that Jane Russell possessed... tough, longing for love, a beautiful face, a great Amazonian body and all seductress.  Fox costumer Travilla draped some beautiful fabrics over Russell's buxom frame to be sure.  After all, a dance hall girl must look her best.  Despite some obvious shortcoming in parts of the script Russell knew how to turn it on and bring Mamie to life.  It is wonderful coupling of actress and character.

With all said, the film's best acting does not come from Russell.  I think she was always capable of doing better work but she never seemed to take it seriously.  In some of her best scenes from any of her films, I always sensed she is winking at it all.  She loved the family atmosphere on film sets (particularly at her home studio, RKO).  She didn't want to talk about her motivation or the Actor's Studio.  She wanted to talk about football, kids and God and gossip a bit.  Even on this Fox film, she was surrounded by buddies... Travilla, Walsh and even Egan, with whom she made Underwater, a year earlier.  With all her sass, she rarely caused any ruckus or went the diva route.  She wanted to be known as a good broad who just wanted to have a good time.    

Egan and Russell adored one another, in a platonic way.  If things had been different, they might have had more, even a marriage.  They were a great cinematic match... two sturdy, athletic bodies. hot, good looks and easy-going manners.  Egan, unfortunately, was frequently wooden in his acting, and he certainly is here.  That doesn't imply than I enjoyed him any less than Russell.

Leslie & Egan with Leon Lontoc

At the time Jane Russell was one of my favorite actresses as was Joan Leslie.  Migawd, no wonder I dashed off to see Mamie Stover.  While Leslie's best roles were behind her, one questions why she signed on for this costarring role at all.  Without a shadow of a doubt, her part could have been eliminated.  It was of little importance that Jimmy had a fiancee.  The truth is she had several more scenes, including a confrontational one with Mamie, that were left on the cutting room floor.  It's a shame.  Maybe it says something about why this was Leslie's final big-screen film.

Yes, yes, the best acting in the piece goes to Moorehead.  She always knows the right thing to do.  She obviously has the right instinct to step into any part.  Though billed after Leslie, Moorehead actually has a larger part and she turns every scene she's part of into a jewel.

A funny aside concerns hair color.  In the book, Mamie was a blonde but Fox honchos thought the change was too stark for Russell.  For whatever reason they thought her hair color should still be lighter so they turned Russell's tresses red.  Maybe it helped understand why the boys called her Flaming Mamie.  But that all left a problem with famously red-haired Moorehead.  Her hair color couldn't clash with the leading lady's so Moorehead became a blonde.  I suppose no one wanted to talk about Leslie also being a redhead? 

When Michael Pate played characters who were anything from smarmy to scary to evil, no one did it better.  His Harry Atkins is downright frightening.

This film is a most unusual entry in the canon of he-man Raoul Walsh's testosterone-laden films which also translate as action-adventures.  One wonders how and why he came to Mamie Stover?  It is noted that he had just finished directing the western The Tall Men with Russell and Clark Gable.  She and the director got on famously so maybe she twisted his arm to helm Mamie.  Unfortunately, it appears he was totally out of his element and may have spent more time sipping mai tais and watching the sunsets.

Bravo to Leo Tover's gorgeous Technicolor photography and the beautiful Hawaiian locations.  Ditto to Hugo Friedhofer's score that is at various times sexy, emotional and sad.  The sets were all perfect.  Jimmy's hilltop home with its gorgeous views left no one any doubt that this was the type of life Mamie yearned for.  The Bungalow set left no doubt about the offerings... the purchase of tickets for a dance or a chat or whatever... and the series of rooms with watered-down booze, a cheesy record player and a timer.  

I was going to send this out under the good 50's movies banner but as I got to typing realized that in some ways it's not a good film, per se, but it certainly was an entertaining one for me and utterly irresistible.  

Have I mentioned Jane Russell's in it?



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