Guilty Pleasure: Ladies of the Chorus

1948 Drama

From Columbia Pictures

Directed by Phil Karlson

Starring

Marilyn Monroe

Adele Jergens

Rand Brooks

Nana Bryant

Eddie Garr

Steven Geray

Scouting the landscape as I was the other day on Marilyn Monroe's films, I paid close attention to her earliest work.  She made her first film in 1947 at 20th Century Fox and the next three there as well in 1948 but the studio didn't see anything special about her despite the fact that singing-dancing blondes were one of its specialties.  Then she was offered a contract at Columbia and after spending all of her time in classes there, she was offered a starring role in a little throwaway B effort called Ladies of the Chorus.

While there are various stages in her 32-film career, this movie is without question her first starring role and the 22-year old was beyond thrilled.  I thought she acquitted herself quite nicely but there's no denying this film would never have gained any steam whatsoever had it not been for her presence in it.

The other starring role went to one of Columbia's lower-level contract players, Adele Jergens.  While only nine years older than Monroe, Jergens played her mother and both were, well, ladies of the chorus.  That translates as burlesque according to the number of times that term is mentioned.  This isn't the shuck-your-clothes burlesque but singing, dancing, comedy, pretty girls, seals, dogs, etc.

Eight chorus girls backup the leading performer who one day cops an attitude and exits stage left for good.  Jergens is asked to take over the lead because she knows the woman's entire routine but she, in turn, shoves Monroe onto the stage and she becomes the one all the boys come to see.

One of them, Rand Brooks, from a wealthy family, becomes googly-eyed with the blonde vision, anonymously sending her daily orchids, until such time as they meet and she falls for him as well.  They want to marry so he asks Jergens's permission.

Jergens says it will never work out because he is from money and his widowed mother will not like a daughter-in-law who is a burlesque performer.  She says that happened to her in her youth (and we're provided a flashback to prove it and allow Jergens to have her own musical number) but Brooks says his mother (Nana Bryant) is not so narrow-minded.  

When Bryant wants to throw an engagement party at her mansion with all her society friends and Monroe and Jergens as the star attractions, Jergens makes Brooks promise he will tell his mother the truth before the party.  He promises he will.

He doesn't.  And because he doesn't, of course, there's a snafu when a member of a hired combo blurts out that Monroe is a burlesque queen.  Oh-oh.  It seems like the mother is grossed out and it's quite apparent her friends are.  But Bryant takes to the stage and sings a frothy little song and then lies when she addresses the congregation and says the song comes from her days as a burlesque performer.  Ah, all is well.

When MM signed on with Columbia she was given a drama coach and a voice coach.  The latter was Fred Karger, who was also Columbia's musical director, and MM promptly fell in love with him.  The drama coach was Natasha Lytess, autocratic and severe, who was in love with MM.  Lytess would leave Columbia and devote herself almost exclusively to the actress and would appear on nearly every film set to the utter consternation of each film's director.  It was Lytess who brought the idea of MM starring in Ladies in the Chorus to studio head Harry Cohn.  

She did just this one film for Columbia and when her six-month contract was up, she was let go.  Cohn would forever say it was the most careless mistake he ever made.

One thing that is interesting about her appearance in this film is that she is devoid of artifice that populated most of her more famous films.  There's no undulating lips, no heaving breasts, no squealing and not a shred of that breathy voice.  The two songs she sings solo, Anyone Can See I Love You and Every Baby Needs a Da Da Daddy, are sung straight and sung well.

I tried to follow the career of the statuesque Jergens after I saw this film (and no, not when it first came out).  But it was not all that easy following her because her name rarely appeared in poster art and she could easily be 12th in the cast listing.  Eventually, however, the tough-talking dame began appearing in many of the B westerns 

and film noirs I happened to see.  

She actually did start out in chorus lines (although she could not sing) and even understudied Gypsy Rose Lee for a time.   Like Monroe, she started at Fox and then wound up at Columbia.  The studio intended big things for her but it never worked out.  It didn't work out for a lot of the actresses at Columbia unless they were named Rita Hayworth or later Kim Novak.  Jergens married actor Glenn Langan, had a couple of kids and appeared content with domesticity.  Her last film was in 1956.  Ladies in the Chorus is likely the best role she ever had.

There is an interesting side note, something not often seen in the film capital.  When the movie was released, Jergens was top-billed and MM was second.  When everybody but everybody was talking about Monroe after 1952's Niagara, all of the actress's prior films got re-released.  Since her most high-profile film had been this one, the billing on the screen (not just print media) was changed to show MM as the only star above the title.

Brooks made one helluva lot of movies and yet, if questioned, I could have only named two... this one and Gone With the Wind, playing Charles Hamilton, Scarlett's first husband.  

It took only 10 days to film Ladies in the Chorus and it was only 61 minutes long... both facts certainly illuminating the type of movie of which we speak.  So, ok, this is truly a guilty pleasure.  It's pleasant enough although there's nothing about it worth carrying on about except Marilyn.  All her true fans have seen it, of course, and it is notable as being her first starring role.  I thought she was adorable in it.

Here's a scene:

Next posting:

One of my favorite MM flicks