Few stars rise as fast, achieve such success, and burn out just as quick as Luise Rainer. The first actress to ever win back-to-back Oscars, Rainer is also the most likely candidate for worst victim of the “Oscar curse.” After winning both of her nominations for Best Actress, Rainer’s career was doomed to a series of unfortunate events. The death of Irving Thalberg left her without a champion in the studio to craft material suited to her strengths, poor career advice from her then-husband Clifford Odets, and a studio that decided the best use of her new career achievements was to place her in a succession of lower-budget films in which she would be the star.
Intended as a “new Garbo,” Rainer’s relationship with Hollywood began already strained. Offered a three-year contract with MGM, she admitted that the offer was not what she had envisioned for her career. Rainer wanted to be a grand dame of the stage, but a viewing of 1932’s A Farewell to Arms with Janet Gaynor and Gary Cooper led to a change of heart. After the success of her first film, 1935’s Escapade with William Powell, Rainer did not take to stardom as well as hoped. She hated giving interviews and loathed the star system, the great irony being that she was working for MGM, the studio most prone to braggadocio about its roster of star talent.
Then she made her second film, The Great Ziegfeld. Hired for her large, highly expressive eyes, there was contention within the studio over her ability to pull off the role. Thalberg championed her for the part, seeing something within her that no one else could.
I’m sure that the real story of Florenz Ziegfeld is worthy of a three hour spectacle, but this movie plays so fast and loose with the story, unconcerned with dramatics in fact, that it clearly only wants to move as quickly as possible from one big production number or melodramatic scene to the next. The Great Ziegfeld is probably a more tightly constructed variation of the blossoming genre of thinly veiled biopics that MGM traded in over the following decade: a loosely constructed plot to disguise the fact that we’re watching a filmed revue. Later films like Words and Music feature better production numbers, but The Great Ziegfeld never drags for a moment despite the sense of bloat that occurs frequently.
Perhaps Ziegfeld is most illuminating about MGM’s figurehead, Louis B. Mayer. Here was a super-production without the fingerprints of Irving Thalberg, this one was all Mayer, and his ludicrous artistic vision. The story superficially concerns Ziegfeld’s rise, increasing lavish productions, and grand showmanship, but it’s really a bit of back-patting from MGM’s head-honcho. This is the type of elephantine cinema that makes clean sweeps at the Oscars, despite never truly deserving such accolades.
It’s easy to confuse biggest with being the best. The Great Ziegfeld certainly is BIG. Bordering on garish the production numbers are things that hit you over the head with the swirling gigs, rising curtains, and showgirls buried under sparkles and fringe. This sense of overly fussy production carries over into the three lead acting performances that are at times too large. William Powell, normally an urbane sophisticate that I adore spending time with, is lost here. There’s no tether for him to hold on to or arc for him to play. His Ziegfeld is unchanging from the first frame until the very last, with only age makeup to signify a major growth has happened. This is the master showman as saintly figure, yet another moment in which Mayer’s self-congratulations feels unearned. The amount of crocodile tears the production probably had to shed while he gave orders about this could have turned the Sahara into the wetlands.
Myrna Loy, normally a perfect foil to Powell, also feels lost among the glitter and pomp. Her third-place top billing is nothing but a bit of name recognition to pull in audiences. The movie is three hours long, and she shows up for the last forty-five minutes, roughly. She doesn’t capture anything of Billie Burke, and her performance mostly consists of a new hair color and nothing dramatic for her to play. Luise Rainer fares better in the sense that she has more scenes to play, but her performance is too mannered. Rainer projects a delicate nature, but her performance is brittle and fluttery, and she plays everything too large. The infamous phone scene is a study in the theatrical technique the Method generation sought to remove. It’s a decent enough performance, but to win the Oscar over Carole Lombard’s iconic work in My Man Godfrey? Strange.
As heavy-handed, teetering towards a grotesque celebration of quantity over quality, as The Great Ziegfeld is, it’s no worse than many modern Oscar winners. In 1936 this won Best Picture, and, frankly, it probably would stand a good chance of winning that title in any decade given the sheer number of bloated, banal films with epic running times that have claimed that honor. There’s some fine moments hidden within the colossal running time, but the film mostly plays as a enormous masturbatory bit of ego stroking from Mayer.
Perhaps Ziegfeld is most illuminating about MGM’s figurehead, Louis B. Mayer. Here was a super-production without the fingerprints of Irving Thalberg, this one was all Mayer, and his ludicrous artistic vision. The story superficially concerns Ziegfeld’s rise, increasing lavish productions, and grand showmanship, but it’s really a bit of back-patting from MGM’s head-honcho. This is the type of elephantine cinema that makes clean sweeps at the Oscars, despite never truly deserving such accolades.
It’s easy to confuse biggest with being the best. The Great Ziegfeld certainly is BIG. Bordering on garish the production numbers are things that hit you over the head with the swirling gigs, rising curtains, and showgirls buried under sparkles and fringe. This sense of overly fussy production carries over into the three lead acting performances that are at times too large. William Powell, normally an urbane sophisticate that I adore spending time with, is lost here. There’s no tether for him to hold on to or arc for him to play. His Ziegfeld is unchanging from the first frame until the very last, with only age makeup to signify a major growth has happened. This is the master showman as saintly figure, yet another moment in which Mayer’s self-congratulations feels unearned. The amount of crocodile tears the production probably had to shed while he gave orders about this could have turned the Sahara into the wetlands.
Myrna Loy, normally a perfect foil to Powell, also feels lost among the glitter and pomp. Her third-place top billing is nothing but a bit of name recognition to pull in audiences. The movie is three hours long, and she shows up for the last forty-five minutes, roughly. She doesn’t capture anything of Billie Burke, and her performance mostly consists of a new hair color and nothing dramatic for her to play. Luise Rainer fares better in the sense that she has more scenes to play, but her performance is too mannered. Rainer projects a delicate nature, but her performance is brittle and fluttery, and she plays everything too large. The infamous phone scene is a study in the theatrical technique the Method generation sought to remove. It’s a decent enough performance, but to win the Oscar over Carole Lombard’s iconic work in My Man Godfrey? Strange.
As heavy-handed, teetering towards a grotesque celebration of quantity over quality, as The Great Ziegfeld is, it’s no worse than many modern Oscar winners. In 1936 this won Best Picture, and, frankly, it probably would stand a good chance of winning that title in any decade given the sheer number of bloated, banal films with epic running times that have claimed that honor. There’s some fine moments hidden within the colossal running time, but the film mostly plays as a enormous masturbatory bit of ego stroking from Mayer.
The following year saw Rainer pulling a complete 180 with The Good Earth, an adaptation of the Pearl S. Buck novel. Louis B. Mayer loathed the idea of Rainer playing a common peasant, demanding that she only partake in roles that highlighted the glamorous makeover and star persona they were trying to craft for her. Thalberg was her protective knight, more interested in giving her challenging and range-expanding roles than exploring whatever star persona Mayer had cooked up for her.
The plot follows the novel’s various detours and big set-pieces very faithfully, which is a problem. Buck’s novel presents a simplistic group of characters who don’t evolve or grow much, or are frequently lost track of for long periods of time before being reintroduced at random points. Her viewpoint was also clearly that of a white Christian bringing about salvation and modernity to the “backwards” Chinese, and they’re too often presented with child-like simplicity.
The worst offender of this is Paul Muni’s Wang Lung. Muni never disappears as effortlessly as he did in Scarface: The Shame of a Nation. He overacts too often, and adopts an accent that I suppose is his best effort at Chinese, but it just sounds distractingly “off.” Good thing he’s the main character with the most speaking lines. And Luise Rainer’s mostly silent O-Lan is certainly a better performance than the previous year’s hammy Best Actress turn, but her win here is odd. She’s solid, if nothing more. She’s mostly called on to suffer nobly, and the harder edges of her character have been sanded off. Her work is commendable, maybe even worthy of the nomination, but it’s not as good as Greta Garbo’s immaculate work in Camille.
The rest of the cast is filled out with white actors in yellowface, just like the leads. While Muni and Rainer aren’t familiar faces or voices as hard-set star personas, the supporting players were recognizable character actors at the time. Many of them sound like grizzled prospectors and not the poor Chinese peasants they’re supposed to be playing. This was to be expected of the era, sadly, but it becomes more egregious and ugly once you notice that all of the extras and bit players are played by Asians.
There are two solid reasons to watch The Good Earth, and they’re the big production scenes and the cinematography. Karl Freund’s cinematography is a highlight of any film bearing his name, and his work is similarly solid and commendable. I would have thrown him a statute for his work in Metropolis, Dracula, Camille, or Key Largo before this one, but his win here is still well deserved.
The Good Earth brings to life many of the memorable scenes from the book – the plague of locusts, the revolution and rioting, the vast scenes of drought and starvation. These segments are thrilling moments in which the film springs alive, shaking off the tendency towards tasteful suffering and turgid movie-making. O-Lan’s near-miss with a firing squad is one of the few scenes of high-tension.
Far too much of The Good Earth is wasted on making a large-scale epic, without bothering to populate it with memorable characters. There’s too many long-stretches of tedium setting in, or Muni mugging for the back row, or Rainer’s open-mouthed bowing and looking vaguely distressed. The big scenes show where all of the time and money went on the screen, shame they couldn’t put that kind of care into the rest of the production.
After this second Oscar win, of which Rainer prayed wouldn’t happen, she knew her career was up. The expectations upon her and any film starring her would be too great, and MGM’s disinterest in taking care of her material didn’t help matters. She disappeared from the film industry as soon as her contract was up, returned to Europe, studied medicine, and eventually made her way back to acting, both on stage and infrequent screen roles.
Time was not kind to Luise Rainer. Unlike many of the stars dubbed “Box Office Poison,” her star and legacy didn’t rebound or last. Despite the two Oscars, her name isn’t well-known outside of film nerds. Her two winning performances are good, even if the fact that she won them at all is slightly strange. Perhaps if she had actually taken that role in La Dolce Vita things would be different? Who knows. I can’t say I thoroughly enjoyed both of these films, but I’m glad I got my curiosity about her and the parts out my system. Maybe one day I’ll seek out the other eight films she made in Hollywood. I am curious about them.
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