Tales of Manhattan

Tales of Manhattanⁱ is interesting on one hand because of the absolute performance of Ginger Rogers as an adult woman, entirely made of eyelash and lipflash and so on and so forth - doubtlesslyⁱⁱ the model Jane Fonda spent her life trying and failing to imitate - and on the other for purely historical considerations. There's a wealth of little things that round out the idea of "how life was" back then (and while the blacks are very thickly parodied, it's not untrue to say blacks were substantially circus props in the US of 1942).

It's deeply unclear why Robinson's character would be first dropping out, then going back in ; it's deeply unclear why Rogers' character would switch one weak loser with ballsac in a sling for another, exactly identically weak loser with the ballsac in a slightly differently colored sling ; similarly there can be no sane explanation for the behaviour of the black dudes. The film, in other words, has no script, but this is not necessarily a disaster. Absence of script often signals the early stages of a project falling apart, but not always. Sometimes, as is the case here, the how actors do things is much more interesting than any conceivable why could ever have been. I really don't give a shit to know what impels Ginger Rogers to crook her head ; the crook of her head is however accomplished beyond all others.

There are certainly worse ways to spend an early afternoon.

1. 1942, by Julien Duvivier, with Edward G Robinson, Ginger Rogers, Rita Hayworth, Charles Boyer. [↩]
2. Her dad plays the Ginger Spider's victim, here. [↩]