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100 8 The Siren of the Picture Show Between September 1940 and January 1941, Hedy was busy shooting Ziegfeld Girl. She had pressed Mayer for a part in the film: “Mr. Mayer, I’ve done several dramatic roles. Now I’d like to do something Viennese style, a light, airy musical,” she recalled telling him.1 Mayer had assembled a team of writers to work on the script and was not amused when its producer , Pandro S. Berman, suggested that the Lamarr story line was dull and should be dropped. If Hedy was hot at the box office, she would stay in the picture; not only that, a rewrite would cost thousands. The mogul wasprovedcorrectinhisprediction.ZiegfeldGirl,madeatacostof$1,468,000, was a hit, grossing $3,901,000 on its initial release. Berman’s opinion was unchanged: “Hedy has no talent and is not an important person in any way. Film acting has more to do than looking icy beautiful.”2 Hedy had not been first choice for the role of Sandra, nor were Judy Garland and Lana Turner the first choice for the parts of Sheila, Susan Gallagher, the daughter of a struggling vaudeville artist, and the Irish girl from Brooklyn, respectively. Initially the leads were to be Joan Crawford , Margaret Sullivan, Eleanor Powell, and Virginia Bruce, but by the time the production was ready to film, MGM had a new generation of stars they wanted to cast in the parts. Similarly the original lineup of male stars, Walter Pidgeon, George Murphy, and Frank Morgan, was replaced by James Stewart, Tony Martin, and Charles Winninger. Ziegfeld Girl is a showcase film; directed by Robert Z. Leonard and choreographed by Busby Berkeley, it was a “backstage musical,” whose main focus was on what it took to create a musical, highlighting the emotional melodrama of success and failure. From the start, the film spotlights the process of becoming a Ziegfeld Girl. “Take off your hat and smile winningly,” all prospective dancers are instructed as they line up to audition. A running stream of banter allows the girls to hint at just The Siren of the Picture Show 101 what being a Ziegfeld Girl entails, information that the film’s prospective audience would have recognized, given the real-life Mr. Z’s well-known penchant for indulging in affairs with his pick of the troupe. The Ziegfeld tradition had already been the subject of the enormously successful The Great Ziegfeld, also directed by Leonard, in 1936. The new film clarifies its relationship with its predecessor by incorporating scenes from the former, notably the giant wedding-cake finale, this time with Judy Garland singing from atop the cake. More than that, each of the three central female characters was cast in a role that drew closely from her reallife persona. They were each also easily recognizable as bearing the traits of their real-life Ziegfeld counterparts. Lana Turner was the Irish “Red,” who is spotted working in an elevator, and removed from her working-class home, finds herself unable to cope with the attentions of wealthy male suitors and the temptations of drink. Eventually she collapses in an alcoholic daze onstage. As audiences would have known, the actual Ziegfeld Girl, Lillian Lorraine, destroyed her career with public drunkenness and disorderly behavior and, as Sheila does, would show up for years afterward haunting the corridors of the Follies. So strong were the resonances between Lana Turner’s offstage affairs and her onscreen character, that her role was expanded as the film was made.3 Judy Garland’s struggles with stardom were already becoming public, and Hedy’s foreignness and standoffishness were now considered her defining traits. Lest the audience fail to make the connection between Hedy and her character Sandra, Sandra is distinguished from the other performers by her accent, elegant clothing, aristocratic bearing, and Germanic fiancé, Franz (Philip Dorn). True to the profile of the new immigrant, Franz is a talented jazz guitarist, and Sandra is discovered when she accompanies him to an audition. “Kookatacha, look at that one! She looks better all wrapped up than the rest of them do unwrapped!” Jerry Regan (Jackie Cooper) gasps, drawing the attention of the other performers and the audience to Hedy on her belated entry into the story. Franz is rejected but Sandra is instantly swept backstage and signed up. Now she will earn enough money to buy back his classic violin from the pawnbroker, and her success, accompanied by her flirtation with the lead tenor...

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