oswald, jean, and
teddy
by Douglas Messerli
Gilbert Pratt (screenwriter and director) Grandpa’s
Girl / 1924
Grandpa's Girl (1924) at first seems like yet another silent film centered around a
cross-dresser, in this case a young wealthy school-girl who—because she
attempts to get purposely expelled from her school so that she might join her
grandfather on a European voyage—is forced to become his hired “grandson” when,
in retaliation for her acts, her grandfather disinherits her and advertises for
a new “grandson.”
If
one is willing to accept this absurd plot device created, it appears, so that
Jean Bradley (Kathleen Clifford) can change into boy’s britches, then I guess
you can easily accept the even more absurd series of events that follows. Yet
some of these meanderings into the gender shift offer some fascinating
discussions, far ahead of its time, about how to “cure” effeminate men and what
to do when as a woman you are ordered by your pretend (or in this case “actual”)
grandfather (Jack Duffy) to marry another woman who is not only dim-witted but
is absolutely ugly and grossly overweight. And I haven’t even yet quite
assimilated the problems the movie presents when the granddaughter-turned-grandson
decides to transform her/his self yet again into a kind of flapper whom her
lascivious grandfather is nearly ready to rape or, alternatively, to run off
with and marry. And what, finally, do you do with a granddaughter, former
grandson, once you’ve disinherited the both of them, when she/he suddenly
announces her love for grandpa’s male secretary Teddy (Jimmie Harrison)?
Clearly, Gilbert Pratt’s comedy is not just a run-of-the-mill
cross-dressing comedy. With this movie it’s as if the cinema finally realized
that there were possibly serious consequences about successfully pretending you
were another gender, even if previously Zapata’s Gang, Mabel’s
Blunder, and, most importantly, I Don’t Want To Be a Man had grasped
that once the change had been made, it was not always so easy to return to
whatever you previously thought was “normal.”
In short, exploring gender meant also
exploring sexuality and society’s ideas about what gender and sex meant. One
might almost say that the intentional outward confusion was suddenly perceived
as leading to a kind of inner confusion that is more difficult to resolve.
The problem for Jean is that she is a spoiled rich girl who begins the
film packing up several large trucks of her wardrobe before she commits her
final assault against the hated establishment when she has spent her youthful
days. Her trick is to replace the ancient Egyptian beehive which a guest
lecturer is demonstrating to her classmates with a real beehive, so that when
he throws his treasure down on the floor to prove it’s become as calcified as
rock (the film doesn’t even try to explain why a scientist would want to hurl
his prize treasure to the floor) opens up with a nest of real bees threatening
to sting everyone sitting in the classroom. It works only too well, and the
girl is sent home, only, as she is about to depart, to receive a letter disinheriting
her for actions (Pratt does not attempt to provide a logical answer as to how
the grandfather has heard about her behavior so very quickly) and announcing
his search for a new grandson.
Showing up with the others applying for the job, she simply tells them
that an applicant has already been accepted for the job. And Grandpa Bradley
seems delighted with the new boy, Oswald, in his house, demanding that Teddy,
his secretary, immediately take him upstairs and give him a bath. Although the
new grandson insists upon his cleanliness, the Grandfather insists upon his
male secretary washing him down, another inexplicable wrinkle in a plot that
evidently doesn’t really matter to Pratt.
Besides, the director never follows up on what might have been a comic
scene of delusion or deception, since almost immediately after two Fortune
Hunters, daughter and mother (Babe London and Lila Leslie) show up at Bradley’s
door to court his young grandson. Even if the girl looks more like a
hippopotamus than a potential lovely daughter-in-law, the old man is convinced
that the girl’s absolutely perfect for his new grandson, who immediately
discovers that his new fiancée is so overweight that when she slips to the
floor there is no way that anyone can lift her back in upright position. Roscoe
“Fatty” Arbuckle might have easily played this role, except that in drag he is
far more feminine and daintier.
To
celebrate the occasion of their upcoming nuptials, the grandfather makes an
appointment with the shady duo at the Café Royal for that very night.
In
the meantime, Teddy, sneaking a look at his new charge through a keyhole,
discovers the boy applying makeup to his face and runs downstairs like a good
little soldier to report the boy’s strange behavior to his boss. The
grandfather also sneaking a view through the keyhole is shocked by what he
sees, declaring “There will be no creampuffs [read: gay boys], in my family”
and immediately calls for the biggest prizefighter to come and wallop the
daylights out of him.
By
this time already Teddy must have developed some affection for the boy since,
we are told, he tips him off about his grandfather’s intentions, and we see the
Oswald attempting to work out. But upon confronting the beefy prizefighter in
the flesh, he immediately knows there is no hope. Yet when the sparring begins,
a series of accidents and literal comedic “slip-ups” suggest the boy has won
the bout. But outside the door, not knowing what kind of beating Oswald is
taking within, Teddy pleads for the boy’s safety while his grandfather grins in
delight by the fact his grandson may soon have had the queerness beaten out of
him. When the old man finally opens up the door he witnesses what appears to be
Oswald’s final blow to the prizefighter’s mug, sending him sprawling to the
floor knocked out.
Still unconvinced his grandson is “cured,” Grandpa Bradley himself puts
on the gloves ready to spar with Oswald, but is hardly grazed before he hits
the floor, Oswald and Teddy together attempting to fan him back to
consciousness.
At
the engagement party we see Oswald himself taking a liking to Teddy, observing,
“You look really spiffy tonight, Teddy,” as he briefly straightens up his
friend’s hair.
Hardly are they seated before a gypsy dancer enters the floor, Oswald
pretending great interest in her gyrations as his grandfather, declaring the
boy is too young to flirt, demands they change chairs. It’s clear that despite
his old age, grandma has lost none of his libido. “She’s a pippin,” he
declares, almost jumping out of his seat with delight.
Fed
up with the old man’s chauvinist attentions to the dancer and, just maybe,
still sore at having him attempt to drive any feminine manners out of his male
persona, Oswald quickly gets up and disappears.
When the gypsy dancer finishes her number, the host announces a special
guest for the evening, “an added attraction.” Out comes Oswald/Jean dressed as
a vamp, with curly blonde hair, fan, and feathers. So aroused is the old man by
her gyrations, the applauding crowd, and the shower of confetti that suddenly
appears out of nowhere that he stands up and begins to dance with the femme
fatale, unwinding her gauzy outer garment to reveal her in flapper shorts;
Oswald, at the very moment when his grandfather is about to kiss him, pulling
off his wig —Victor/Victoria style—greeting him “Hello, grandpa.”
Furious at the turn of events, clearly not only for the deception but
that the boy has clearly not abandoned his feminine ways, Grandpa Bradley
chases him around the cafe, several males following in an attempt to pull him
away from to the kid, finally all throwing the old fool out onto the street.
In
the final scene the randy Grandpa is flat on his mattress, with nurses in
attendance. Despite his condition, he rises up out of bed to personally throw
Oswald out of the house, calling for his now “beloved” granddaughter. Teddy
quickly shows her into his room as her grandfather greets her with open arms,
telling her that he is through with grandsons. But while he isn’t looking Jean
takes off her female wig once again to reveal Oswald underneath, the grandfather
once more utterly rejecting his offspring. But this time Teddy speaks out,
saying that if “You don’t want her, I want her,” the pair hugging with joy. By
this time, quite obviously, we don’t know whether Teddy is in love with Oswald
or Jean, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Besides, Teddy has now played out the
role of a neutered figure in the Bradley house for so long that perhaps he is
unsure of his own sexual desires.
Los Angeles, July 16, 2021
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July
2021).
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