Harold D. Schuster | Dinner at the Ritz / 1937

ghosts of pansies past

by Douglas Messerli

 

Roland Pertwee and Romney Brent (screenplay), Harold D. Schuster (director) Dinner at the Ritz / 1937

 

As the 1930s progressed risqué humor of any kind in cinema became harder and harder to slip in, particularly since the stereotypical images of perverted sexuality, homosexual men and women, had been banned forever as referenced types. And as the Hays Censorship Board became more suspicious and aware of double-entendres and coded messages, in order the give their audiences a thrill, writers and directors turned to numerous other genres outside of the straight-forward romance to give a charge to the remaining possibilities of the now flat dialogue and straight-laced strictures of romantic sex comedies.

      Even in Britain, which after all depended upon the US audiences and code approval, sexual wit was replaced by historical costume dramas, biographical pictures, and murder mysteries, as well as the continuation of horror movies. Many of these contained within them romantic episodes, but tamed down as they needed be, the writers and directors could still excite their audiences with the possibility of the heroine and or hero under threat of being kidnapping, arrestment, or even murder or, just as often, being themselves involved with the detection of various royal plots, nefarious plans, or murderous escapades.

      Harold D. Schuster’s 1937 film, Dinner at the Ritz was clearly meant to include as many of these hot points as possible. Starring a beautiful woman with an exotic foreign accent, French actor Annabella as Ranie Racine, up against an entire consortium of six or seven evil embezzlers, including the Hungarian born Paul Lukas as the man her father had chosen to marry, Baron Philip de Beaufort.

     As the film gets under way, however, we discover that despite her good intentions to marry de Beaufort in order to please her father, Ranie is not at all in love with the man. Her father (Stewart Rome), meanwhile, has just lost nearly all his money through the evil work of the embezzlers of the bank’s bonds, and is about to name six of the guilty men to the Regent of France. Just before sending the letter off, however, he attempts to visit his future son-in-law de Beaufort to confide in him, only to discover, through of case of mistaken identity by a servant, that he is a friend of one of the men on the list, Brogard (Francis L. Sullivan), and he realizes that de Beaufort might have been involved as well.

     Meanwhile, the reason he has not found de Beaufort at home is that he has volunteered to drive Ranie to her dressmakers and, in a manner of speaking, is about to abscond with her to the country when, in argument with her over his decision, he gets into an accident with another car that just happens to be driven by the hero of our story, Paul de Brack (David Niven), who is so immediately attracted to Ranie Racine that he dares to crash a masked ball party she is hosting that very evening. De Brack, we later discover, is also a French government agent seeking out the criminals.

     We discern that fact, however, only later after de Beaufort kills Henri Racine at the party when the older man confronts him about his involvement in the bond theft and refuses to join de Beaufort and his gang or to rescind his letter, and after a series of nearly pointless plot convolutions that allow the film to bring in all the aspects of glamour it needs to wow its audiences.

     Encountering a lowly private American detective, Jimmy Raine (Romney Brent), who unlike the police, does not believe her father’s death was a suicide, Ranie joins up with him and, as a cover, works with a diamond merchant who allows the designers to deck her out in jewels as well as the permitting the makeup artists to die her blonde hair black and the costume artists to make her over into a rich Spanish marquises, and later an Indian princess—as well as permitting Annabella to perform in three quite different roles while traveling to Cannes, gambling in Monte Carlo, and eventually making her way to London. Paul de Brack trails along as a seemingly hanger on who attempts to make love to her in all her various disguises. We know that, despite the fact that he too will come under suspicion, that in the end she will have fallen desperately in love with him.

       I might take the reader through the various adventures this strange quartet encounter along the way, but except for a few exciting moments, they’re truly not worth relating. What is far more interesting is the fact that the man playing the American detective, Brent, is also one of the screenwriters, who concocted this pleasing Paella or, since most of the action takes in France, perhaps we should call it a tasty Bouillabaisse.

      Brent was born in Mexico, the son a Mexican diplomat who spent much of his time in North America. He was educated, accordingly, in New York schools and began his career with the Theatre Guild, working with Eva Le Gallienne, Helen Hayes and many others in the 1920s before he began performing on the British stage. In England he performed in Noel Coward’s famed Words and Music singing the renowned song “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” becoming a close friend of Coward’s, and being cast in another Coward musical, Conversation Piece until it became apparent to both him and the writer that he wasn’t the man for the role, Coward himself temporarily taking on the position. With Cole Porter, Brent wrote the story for the musical Nymph Errant. Returning to New York, he performed in numerous other New York stage plays and musicals and acted in several films.

     The reason I mention all of this is to establish the fact that Brent was clearly a wit, comfortable with if not himself involved in the gay world. And in the midst of this otherwise totally heterosexual murder mystery there is one scene that stands out for its seeming impenetrability or, I am sure to most viewers, stands as simply a meaningless few moments between other more important plot events.

     Ranie has traveled to Cannes to gamble at Monte Carlo where is attempts to lose—not very successfully the first time around—so that she might threaten to bet her diamond necklace and bracelet, luring in other gamblers as clients for the real thing (hers are clever imitations). While in Monte Carlo she, Jimmy Raine, and Paul de Brack—on the track of the king-pin of the embezzlers, Brogard, whose yacht is docked at Cannes—are all invited aboard. If Raine and de Brack are both interested in Brogard they also keep busy checking out another one in their attempts to discover what each other’s relationship is to the villain.

      Other than ogling the Spanish countess (Ranie), Brogard spends most of his time playing what we in the US call “Pick-Up Sticks,” what he describes as “Fiddlesticks,” the word meaning “nonsense” that was once used as a replacement swear-word for all other profane interjections. While Ranie sits at the table trying to encourage Brogard into giving her further information about himself, de Brack and Raine stand aside. The script goes something like this:

 

           Jimmy Raine (turning to Paul de Brack): Would you fancy a stroll along the

                  Crevette (?) as they call it?

           Paul de Brack: I would not and that is not what they call it!

           Jimmy: (a few seconds later, pointing at his throat) I don’t know about you

                  But I have a sort of thing in my throat and I think a drink would cure.

          

           Paul: Why don’t you go and find out.

           Jimmy: Wouldn’t you like to try a similar experiment?

           Paul: No.

           Jimmy: Ah, be a pal.

           Paul: (turning to Jimmy and putting his hand upon his shoulder) Look, don’t

                 you ever get tired of my company?

 

Ranie has pretended to have a headache and has left the room, declaring she’s going to take a nap. When Jimmy is rejected by Paul, he leaves, encountering Ranie at the at the taffrail of the boat and joins her.

 

           Jimmy: Look, are you getting stuck on this guy de Brack?

                        (She looks at him somewhat testily)

                        Nah, don’t burn up. I can’t help liking the guy myself.

 

He then goes on to suggest, however, that he fears that de Brack is a phony.

     Obviously, one could simply overlook the seemingly meaningless chit-chat that goes on between our three central characters in this scene, but in its very oddness, not only in terms of its literal meanings but in its grammatical syntax, one suspects something else is going on, and that something hints at being quite sexual.

     Jimmy, the American does not know French well enough, it is clear, to say precisely what he means by “Crevette.” In French the word means a shrimp or a prawn, which makes utterly no logical sense. I have listened to this scene about 20 times and I am convinced that it is that word he utters, unless he’s further compounded it with the British word for tie or ascot “cravat,” mispronouncing it in some French manner.

      I turned on the written word version based on sound recognition which could make utterly so sense of what was said, rendering it “crevet.” For a while, I couldn’t imagine what Raine was attempting to say. Might he be asking that Paul take a stroll along the deck of Brogard’s yacht? Then it dawned on me that he was probably asking his friend if he’d join him on the famed Promenade de la Croisette, the popular place for public strolling along the Cannes strand, the grand crossroads or boulevard of that resort city, where traditionally people stroll—although not generally late at night as it now is the movie.

       Why does he confuse the croisette with crevette? With Bogard’s statements about “Fiddlesticks,” the nonsense game he is playing, we have already been invited to play our own (or at least Jimmy’s) game as well. Shrimp has long been an English word used to suggest a diminutive size, particularly with regard to the male penis. And yes, Romney Brent is a small man, particularly in relation to actor David Niven.

      But in urban dictionary parlance, moreover, it also means someone who has a sexy body, but not a beautiful head, just as you delight in the body of the shrimp but refuse to eat the head. Even in Spanish, camarón, in street terms, signifies someone with the body of a goddess but a face straight out of hell. Either he’s suggesting that his face might not be worthy of taking a stroll with, but his body is, or Paul’s face doesn’t attract him as much as his lower half does.

       But then he goes on with an even more suggestive comment, that he has a “thing” in his throat that needs curing, and wonders if Paul might attempt a similar “experiment.” If he were simply in bad need of a drink, he more naturally would have simply suggested that he’s thirsty and wonders if Paul might join him for a drink. But here he seems to hint at a different kind of liquid refreshment, having to do with his diminutive penis. Is he inviting him to try out a suck, to engage in fellatio, either to try out his or vice versa?

      Clearly, Paul is aware that Jimmy has been hanging around him endlessly and seems to want something more of him. And Jimmy even admits to Ranie, right after commenting on her sexual attraction to Paul, that he too “likes the guy,” the “liking” here meaning obviously something closer to her own feelings than to having simply good feelings about the man. He too seems to found him attractive enough to attempt to lure him away for a sexual “experiment” in same-gender sex.

      Surely, many will now truly claim, what they have long argued, that I am taking a perfectly innocent suggestion that Paul join Jimmy in a drink on the Promenade de la Croisette and turning it into something sexual. But that isn't at all what he asks. He asks him to join him in an experiment in clearing a "sort of thing" in his throat. While a scratchy throat might describe a kind of thirst, a "thing," let's call it a "lump in the throat," in my dictionary, at least, is usually caused by a feeling a strong emotion such as sorrow or gratitude--or even more often, sexual desire and love. 

       Finally, let us imagine that the word Jimmy is inventing to ask Paul to take a walk with him is actually “cravat,” closer to the voice recognition’s choice, “crevet.” David Niven was himself a kind of wit, and many of his bon mots have been shared over the years. One of his most famous maxims, however, is “"Tell me that I misunderstood a joke, but don't tell me that my choice of cravat is wrong." And certainly, a cravat is very much a thing at if not in the throat. Unfortunately, I have no indication of when he might have made this particular witticism. Yet it is almost comical when put into context with an observation made by German clothes designer Karl Lagerfeld, long after this film or Niven’s comment: “"If a person steps on your cravat, you are to blame because you were kneeling."

       This scene has nothing at all to do with the plot, but simply carries “nonsense” information that asks the viewer to briefly play along for the wit as opposed to the story which by this time we already know has to end with them foiling the villains’ plans, regaining the bonds, and paying off the honest investors of her father’s former bank. And, of course, Ranie will marry Paul, the required ending of all such romantic film fantasies.

       It is fascinating, however, that this kind of scene happens in several movies after the so-called Pre-Code days of Hollywood. Everything stops momentarily as the film takes off in a momentary tangent, almost like the way it did earlier, when the action stopped and the camera focused on a pansy who quickly threw a fit, waved his arms while muttering a bon mot, or simply told his master how to dress or how to properly behave before being wheeled off as the action of the plot resumed. I might almost describe these instances as the ghosts of pansies past.

 

Los Angeles, April 4, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April 2023).