Sidney Olcott | Monsieur Beaucaire / 1924

the powdered mannequin

by Douglas Messerli

 

Forrest Halsey (scenario, based on the fiction by Booth Tarkington and the play by Tarkington and Evelyn Greenleaf Sutherland), Sidney Olcott (director) Monsieur Beaucaire / 1924

 

Some blame Sidney Olcott’s direction of this 1924 film on its box-office failure and the fact that most of the characters seem trapped into the centers of the frames with vague action at its edges or nothing important going on. But we might as well point to the plot in which, except for a couple of sword fights for which the central character—Louis Philippe de Bourbon, Duke de Chartres, Prince of the Blood, First Peer of France, Governor of Dauphine, Knight of the Golden Fleece, Grand Commander of the Knights of Malta, Commander of the Saint Esprit, of the Order of Notre Dame, of Mount Carmel, of St. Lazarus in Jerusalem (Rudolph Valentino)—endlessly longs for, nothing else much happens except for endless introductions and long conversations that end nowhere. The director had already produced several dozens of quite decent films, including just the year previous the charming Marion Davies vehicle Little Old New York. Most actually blame Valentino’s wife Natacha Rambova, who oversaw the art direction and costuming of this movie, for her constant intrusions into Olcott’s territory, and one suspects that may indeed have been the problem. The costumes seem to be what this film is most about, along with the sets standing in a blur in the background expect for the ballroom scenes.

     In short, this is a costume drama without the characters being fully enable to enter into their clothing. What drama exists is focused primarily in the body of Valentino, whose handsome and highly powered white face remains at the center of most of the frames when either Princess Henriette (Bebe Daniels), Madame Pompadour (Paulette Duvall) or Lady Mary (Doris Kenyon) aren’t scolding him.           That body is certainly worth wide-eyed attention, particularly in the early scenes where an older person of lower rank who has worked in the court forever is given the sacred duty of dressing the Count, which events and some of the endless conversations keep postponing so that we can worship the thin, but nonetheless virile Valentino’s naked torso for some long time. It is perhaps one of the gayest moments (in both senses of that word) of entire film, where even the postponement of dressing turns into an almost campy moment of delight in the Latin Lover’s physique.

       As a gay man, I loved it. But I can well sympathize with the heterosexual men gnawing on their gums in impatience as the Count, after shaving, is powered, pawed, and fawned upon for no other purpose but to take the nasty Henriette to the Madame’s chamber in order to apologize for her impropriety of the day before.

       Although King Louis XV (Lowell Sherman) has commanded Henriette to become the Duke’s wife, she has told the Duke to his face that she wants nothing to do with him, believing him not even to be a man, with his reputation, evidently, as a courtier. Finally, pulling on his shirt, he takes the Princess to the Queen, but to no avail, since she even further evokes horror in her responses, refuses to properly apologize, and takes a short moment of conversation with the Duke that he believes to be a sexual “rendezvous,” but which turns out only to be another jab to his male pride.

 

      The Duke of Chartres has obviously no intentions of trying to tame this shrew. Can we blame the poor boy for taking off as soon as he can to England, where he pretends he is the French Ambassador’s barber. After all, everyone in the male service of Louis knows that the Duke has dared to shave himself. He must be good at it.

        Alas, unlike the demon barber of Fleet Street, we never get to see Monsieur Beaucaire as he now calls himself, shave anyone other than his friend Miropoix (Oswald Yorke), who lets him play with his whiskers only because some friends have searching for the Duke, forcing Beaucaire to prove himself as being able to play out his new identity. And as soon as he’s finished, he’s off to the park where he witnesses the Duke of Winterset (Ian Maclaren), the villain of the piece, his partner in crime Badger (Frank Shannon) and the beauty of Bath, Lady Mary (Doris Kenyon) out for a stroll. He dares, as a mere commoner, to even approach her, but it clear she will have nothing but the best of the upper class.

        Eventually he catches Winterset cheating at cards, and blackmails him into introducing him as royalty, the Duke of Chateaurien (the Duke of Nowhere) at the ball that very evening. He attends in the most darling white short heavily-brocaded waistcoat with leggings you’ve ever seen! And when Badger, just to test him, asks whether all the French women are similar to one the Duke of Chartres refuses to marry, Beaucaire describes the Duke as a scurvy man, but slaps Badger in the face with his pure white glove to challenge him—for the very first time—to a swordfight.

       In this world of proper manners, frankly, there isn’t much else for a man to do that might bring him pleasure. He wins, of course, stabbing Badger in the shoulder, and returning to properly court Lady Marly Carlisle, to whom, as a lover of roses, he becomes a true Rosenkavalier. The only problem is that we never see anything but the swords, no bodies, even as lovely as that of Valentino, behind them.

       Things between of two of them go swimmingly, allowing him to dress in a waistcoat of florals and fleur-de-lis which I can only imagine to be red—this film bringing out the true fashionista in me—for dinner with Mary. The truly scurvy Winterset, meanwhile, plans an attack of several of his henchmen on Beaucaire the moment he leaves the dinner. Once more he fights them off quite forcefully, although he is clearly no Douglas Fairbanks, mostly circling his opponents rather than leaping onto the parapets in order to fell them. But he kills at least two before himself being wounded.

        At the very moment his friends come to his side to save him with Lady Mary pleading for his well-being, Winterset reveals that the man she has come to save is really only a barber. Appalled she scurries away in her horsecab as quickly as she can, leaving her Rosenkavalier to fend for himself or die. So much for true love in this unhappy saga.

       Beaucaire mends, pondering the fact that he truly doesn’t love the role of cavalier and misses the straightforward dismissals of Henriette. But upon discovering that it is the Saturday Assembly, he determines to attend in order to return things to order. The only problem is that Winterset has put an army of men around the place so that he will find no entry.

        No fear, Beaucaire dresses in the cloak of a great lady and attends, all the male eyes darting immediately to the strange woman with a fan in front of her face. He enters the chamber and retires to a back room, to where Molyneux eventually escorts Lady Mary, who is once more offended by the presence of the barber. Westminster and Badger also discover his intrusion and are ready for another row with the man now claiming to be the Duke of the Blood, a title they claim he has stolen.

 

      At that moment the French Ambassador himself appears with a messenger bearing a decree that the Duke has been forgiven and may return safely to France. To their shock the messenger hugs and kisses the barber! As they call out for his true name, the Ambassador finally unmasks the imposter barber with the full name and credentials I have cited above. Mary attempts to beg his forgiveness, but he merely thanks her for helping him to realize that the woman he truly loves, Henriette, would have married him even if he were a lackey, as long as he were a virile man, which he has proven to be.

      The Duke returns to France, asks Henriette’s forgiveness, and receives her love and promise to marry.

      Here, finally, we get the true Valentino, a mere mannequin with a pretty face in a wig, no impetuous gaucho, kidnapping sheik, or even a passionate bull fighter. Americans may be utterly fascinated by royalty but they can never come to love them. Valentino had lost his mojo two years prior to his death. Is it any wonder that he felt he now needed to fight for his lost honor?

      In this film Valentino is indeed quite pretty, but is as powerful merely as a powder-puff, a man forced to return to his proper position in society in drag. One can only offer up a toast to Rambova for knowing just how to utterly emasculate this macho Hollywood creation while the rough Italian dancer probably thought he was creating great art.

 

 

Los Angeles, May 20, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (May 2022).