"Take Two" Blogathon: Waterloo Bridge, 1940

 

Waterloo Bridge movie poster

How it Started

The story originated as a 1930 stage play by Robert Sherwood, which he based on his wartime experience with an English chorus girl. His main character, American chorine Myra Deauville, is unable to perform in London during World War I and turns to prostitution, meeting servicemen on Waterloo Bridge. Her boyfriend is Canadian soldier Roy Cronin, who doesn't realize she's dwelling in a brothel. Her comrade Kitty advises him to marry her. The landlady sees it as a chance to get money she's owed, but eventually informs Roy that Myra is a harlot. Nonetheless, he makes her the beneficiary of his life insurance, should he be killed in action. But Myra is the one who dies--on the bridge--during a German bombing raid.

The original Pre-Code film version, directed by James Whale, starred Mae Clark as Myra and Ken Douglass as Roy. In one of her earliest performances, Bette Davis appears as Roy's sister. The set-up tracks closely with the play, with the addition of Roy's mother, to whom Myra confesses the truth about herself. She runs off to London, Roy follows and proposes, the landlady reveals that Myra is a prostitute, but Roy hunts her down and on Waterloo Bridge asks her to marry him anyway. Before he's taken back to the army by military police, she agrees. An air raid begins, and she's killed on her way to a bomb shelter.

 Background to the Remake

David Selznick of his eponymous production company purchased the rights to the play, and MGM subsequently obtained them. To repay his father-in-law's studio for assistance in making Gone with the Wind, Selznick loaned out Vivien Leigh, who expected her co-star to be her lover Laurence Olivier, but he was unavailable. Robert Taylor was cast, much to her disappointment. They had worked together a couple of years previously, in A Yank at Oxford, filmed in Denham England at MGM's studio there and released in 1938. (Thus, "They're back again" on the movie poster pictured above.) Mervyn Leroy directed. Ultimately both Leigh and Taylor, who got on well, regarded Waterloo Bridge as their favourite film.

Joseph Breen of the Hays Office, upholder of the Production Code, was adamant that aspects of prostitution be eliminated. Filming took place in the first quarter of 1940, and the picture was released in mid-May. 

Leigh and Olivier needed the money from their respective film projects to fund their ambitious full-length stage production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, which they would open in New York before touring nationally. Vivien's repertoire of tragic and often suicidal heroines had begun with Hamlet's Ophelia, followed by Myra Lester of Waterloo Bridge, and soon thereafter, Juliet. In future, she would depict Cleopatra in George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (on film and on stage), and in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (on the stage). And she would garner her second Academy Award as the troubled and unstable Blanche duBois in Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams.

In 1956, a happy-ending version of Waterloo Bridge was released: Gaby, starring Leslie Caron. The action of the story was shifted from World War I to World War II.

The 1940 Waterloo Bridge

On September 3, 1939. Britain has declared war on Germany, and a loudspeaker instructs the crowd about about what to do during an air raid: blackouts, shelters, gas masks, thermoses, care of children, pets, evacuations.

On the way to Waterloo Station, to embark for battle in France, Colonel Roy Cronin asks his driver to take him first to Waterloo Bridge. Gazing on the river, he pulls out a small Asian ivory charm, and reflects on his past during the prior war....

During World War I, Roy encounters Myra Lester and a troupe of ballet dancers on Waterloo Bridge during an air raid. On their way to the shelter, Myra drops her purse and dives to grab her luck charm, nearly being hit by a vehicle. While sheltering, she and Roy chat and are mutually attracted but exchange first names only.

Publicity still, Leigh & Taylor costumed for their first meeting

Later that evening, Roy attends Myra's ballet performance.

Myra and bestie Kitty (Virginia Field) in the ballet

Publicity still of Taylor and Leigh

Publicity still, Myra as dancer

Roy gets two days leave, returns, asks Myra to marry him--he also has to ask for her surname. He informs his stuffy regimental officer of his intentions. The older man insists that Roy get permission from his commander-in-chief (a duke, who also happens to be Roy's cousin), and is reminded that he's heading to the front in two days. The duke, even more class conscious, is appalled to learn that Myra hails from Birmingham and is a dancer--in his day, dancers were for dalliance, not marriage. The couple hasten to the church only to learn that nuptials are prohibited at that hour, and the vicar advises them to return the next day.

Myra hurries to the dancers' boarding house to pack all the items she has purchased for her trousseau. She tells her chum Kitty she's being married tomorrow. Roy telephones to say his leave is cancelled and he departs in twenty-five minutes. In order to say goodbye, Myra will have to skip her performance.

Lobby card: Madame (Marie Ouspenskaya) upbraids defiant Myra

Madame, outraged by Myra's truancy, fires her--and Kitty, before the troupe departs for America. Both girls try for any job they can find--dress shop, tea shop--with no luck. Kitty says Myra should let Roy know about the dire straits she's in, he could help. Kitty is fearful, but Myra is too proud to ask for help. 

Roy sends flowers via a friend, with a letter saying his mother is bound for London and wants to see Myra. She decides to meet Lady Margaret Cronin at an upscale teashop. While waiting, Myra glances at a newspaper list of war dead--Roy's name is on it. She faints from the shock, but recovers consciousness. Lady Margaret arrives, apologises for being late, and expresses how much she's wanted to make Myra's acquaintance. A shaken Myra conceals her discovery, unable to bring herself to inform the older woman that her son has been killed. Her odd behaviour leads Lady Margaret to think she doesn't want to be friends yet, and she departs. Myra faints again.

Without employment as a dancer, or anything else, and no Roy, from desperation she follows her friend Kitty's example and becomes a streetwalker.

A long time later, on her regular evening rounds, she crosses Waterloo Bridge and heads inside the train station in search of a customer among the returning soldiers.

Myra the prostitute at Waterloo Station as soldiers return

Unexpected reunion with Roy

Because Roy lost touch with Myra, he's startled that she knew he was returning that day.

The face of shame, but she can't let on why

He takes her to a place to get some tea and catch up. While Myra weeps, he explains he lost his identification when wounded, and was in a German prison camp for the better part of a year. His mother came to Switzerland to retrieve him on his release and admitted she's lost contact with Myra. 

The face of guilt

Myra covers her purpose for being at the railway station by saying she was there to meet a friend--a girl. He wants to know if she's got a job--not that it matters, she has to quit so they can marry. He will never leave again and make her life easy from now on. And he rushes to the nearest phone to tell his mother they'll be traveling to Scotland on the next train that night. While he's away, she rubs off her makeup.

The face of uncertainty

Myra feels she has to confess what she's done to survive. She tries to tell him she can't go to Scotland with him. He assumes there's another man in her life, but she denies it and professes her abiding love. That's enough to satisfy him. She decides to accept her good luck and let him take her shopping, and to Scotland to join his mother.

When Kitty leans what has happened, she wonders if Myra can "get away with it"--not telling Roy that she prostituted herself during his long absence. Kitty advises Myra to go with him.

Roy's estate Scotland is palatial. Lady Margaret is thrilled to see her son, and warmly greets Myra. The neighbours attend an evening party to meet the bride-to-be and welcome the hero home from the war. The wellborn girls, wallflowers all, look down on Myra for being a dancer. Roy and Myra waltz together in a haze of happiness and passionately kiss in the garden. Myra declares she is happy, but Roy believes he sometimes sees fear in her eyes--believing it is because of whatever she endured during her solitary year on her own.

His cousin the duke is there and is entirely enchanted by Myra, inviting her to dance with him. She knows why he's so attentive: to clear her way with the condescending locals. He tells her they all think dancers are "racy"--which of course makes her painfully aware that a former streetwalker is an even racier and more shocking choice of bride. 

At Roy's ancestral home with his mother (Lucille Watson)

After the party, alone in her bedroom, she is torn about by guilt at her deception. Lady Margaret appears, wanting to clear the air about their London meeting. Her ladyship regrets not being kinder that day, and confesses she later realized that Myra had already known Roy was dead. After receiving a friendly kiss and being called daughter, Myra breaks down and declares that she can't marry Roy. She has to go away and never seen him again. Lady Margaret probes into what could be so terrible, before the awful realization dawns. And yet she blames herself for not finding Myra and helping her. She promises she'll never tell Roy about Myra's past.

On the way back to her bedroom, Myra encounters Roy, who returns the good luck charm she gave him in the air raid shelter on the night they met.

By morning she's gone, having left behind a farewell note. Roy races to London to find her. At the boarding house, he finds only Kitty, who hasn't seen Myra at all. He demands an explanation about what troubles Myra. After some protests, she takes Roy on a tour of her missing friend's usual haunts--bars, dance halls. Waterloo Station. No one has seen her. And by now Roy understands all too well. But he will always search for her, until he finds her.

Myra is on Waterloo Bridge, staring down at the river. An encounter with an aged streetwalker proves to her that she has no prospects of happiness, ever. She throws herself in front of a convoy of medical vehicles. Her good luck charm lands on the pavement.

In 1939, the older Roy clutches it--proof that he's aware of her tragic fate--in remembrance of his great lost love.

Reception

The film was hugely popular with the public and made a profit of nearly half a million dollars, receiving Academy Award nominations for Cinematography and Original Score. 

Vivien Leigh's performance was widely regarded as an admirable follow-up to her spirited performance in Gone with the Wind. As Myra, she exhibited an even wider range of emotion than she had as the stubborn, determined, ambitious, and hard-edged Scarlett. Her character was a softer creature, one who called for a demonstration of humour, charm, charm, hopefulness, joy, grief, desperation, guilt, and self-sacrifice. Robert Taylor received by far the most positive notices of his career.

New York Times: "...the remarkable Miss Leigh ...as fine an actress as we have on the screen today. Maybe even the finest." 

Los Angeles Times: "A woman's tragedy that is brilliantly delineated, with Vivien Leigh, of Scarlet fame, as interpreter, and Robert Taylor doing his best picture performance...Should appeal to a very wide audience." 

The Minneapolis Star: "A love story which demanded tenderness, sincerity, and deft acting. Miss Leigh delivers beautifully in all departments...Robert Taylor...may somewhat be overshadowed by his co-star, but that won't hide the fact that his is perhaps the best performance of his career."

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Biopic Blogathon: The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle

 

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, filmed in 1938 for release in 1939, was the ninth and penultimate pairing of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, and their final picture for RKO. And it was the duo’s first and only period piece.

Together we had drunk our cup of Fame

And side by side had loved, and worked, and played

And Life to us seemed but a happy game;

We met our fortunes laughing—unafraid.

Irene Castle

 Production Background and Source Material

 RKO’s script was based on Mrs. Castle’s books, My Husband and My Memories of Vernon Castle, but production was delayed for two years after acquiring the rights. The producers never refuted Irene’s firm belief that they would acquiesce to her demand for a nationwide search for the actress to portray her (inspired by David O. Selznick’s well-publicized "Search for Scarlett.") But from the outset, the project was intended for Ginger and Fred.

During pre-production, Ginger had her first meeting with the former ballroom and cabaret dancer, and reminisced about it in her memoir. “What an entrance she made! … I could hear the rustle of taffeta and the swishing of her dress. Then the door opened and in she swept. Irene Castle was tall, at least 5’10”. [Ginger was six inches shorter.] Everything she wore was gray: gloves, shoes, hat, and purse…She looked as if she had stepped out of a Vogue magazine from the early 1920s.”

Surprisingly, despite being offered the role of her own mother, Irene declined. She received script and casting approval, and was put under contract as technical advisor. An assertive personality and a stickler for accuracy, she insisted that Ginger appear as a brunette in the film, with short, bobbed hair in the style made popular as the “Castle Bob.” Didn’t happen. The director, Hank Potter, constantly ran interference, according to Ginger, “with care and tact.”

Irene achieved victory in the area of choreography and to a lesser extent, in costuming. She worked closely with Hermes Pan, already familiar with the Castles’ manual Modern Dancing, recreating dance steps she and her husband had performed. Ginger’s dance dresses were designed to replicate the ones worn by Irene, and she was excited by the prospect of wearing historical costumes from decades earlier. The studio spent a total of $2,775 on her wardrobe.

Irene & Vernon and Ginger & Fred

But Irene had scant understanding of the concept of “interpretation” and was constantly disappointed in Ginger, who later reflected that Fred had it easy, because Mrs. Castle was so intently focused on her portrayer. Besides, all along, Irene had wanted Fred to play Vernon, and was especially pleased that he could fit into her late husband’s military uniforms. During Fred’s early career dancing with his sister Adele, he’d often witnessed the Castles in action and remembered some of their dances well enough to help Hermes Pan revive them. was further instructed by Mrs. Castle herself.

The film contains seven dance duets, some extremely brief. The music and songs were faithful to those of the Castles’ performances, apart from “Only When You’re in My Arms,” which was composed for the film.

Although the movie was popular with audiences, it wasn’t entirely successful for the studio, failing to make a profit and recording a loss of $50,000.

 The Film

For audiences, then and now, accustomed to the lightweight plots of an Astaire-Rogers musical, the witty banter and repartee, misunderstanding-based conflict, and dances that reflect and inform the romantic plot, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle contains numerous differences. As a biopic, it’s a straightforward—if not wholly factual—presentation of the real-life performers’ courtship, dance partnership, and wartime separation, and (spoiler) a tragic accidental death. Fred, collaborating with Hermes Pan, choreographed solo dances for himself and to perform with Ginger, specific to the films they made together. The Castles were famous for exhibition dances performed for live audiences in theatres and cabarets. Their original creations became popular as social dances that anyone could learn—the Castle Walk, the Castle Polka, the Maxixe. They also added flair to existing dances like the Turkey Trot and the Foxtrot.

The Story. 

Zowie (flim version), with Ginger & Fred 

Young Irene Foote (Ginger Rogers), a New Rochelle doctor’s daughter, aspires to a stage career. When she encounters English vaudeville comedian Vernon Castle (Fred Astaire) at the seaside, where they save a small fluffy white dog from drowning, she invites him home and gives a drawing-room performance of “The Yama-Yama Man,” in a Pierrot clown suit, copying Bessie McCoy, the originator. It fails to impress her parents or Vernon. Later, at the railway station, the indifferent vaudevillian breaks into a dance, convincing Irene that his talents are wasted in broad slapstick comedy roles for producer Lew Fields (appearing as himself). She’s already smitten, he eventually succumbs. They dance together. They marry. They accept an employment offer from a pair of Parisian producers believing they will perform together as a couple. On arrival in Paris, with the little dog Zowie and omnipresent servant Walter (Walter Brennan), Vernon discovers that he’s supposed to appear in his old vaudeville routine. A chance encounter with a formidable female talent agent (Edna May Oliver), secures them a fine dinner at the Café de Paris restaurant and cabaret and the chance to dance there the following night. But when the extremely hungry couple sit down for their delectable meal, a Russian Grand Duke demands that they dance there and then. Vernon escorts Irene, in her wedding dress and lacy Dutch cap, to the floor. Their massive success and lasting legend are instantly assured.

Irene becomes a worldwide fashion icon, influencing dresses, shoes, and hairstyles. They exhibit their talents across the continent, these cross-country tours revealed in a process montage across a map of America. They acquire numerous animals in addition to Zowie, the little dog that brought them together. All is peachy—apart from occasional references to excess expenditures—until World War I breaks out, and Vernon feels the call to enter the fray on behalf of his native land. Irene embarks on a silent film career. Vernon’s daring exploits as an aviator are depicted. He and Irene meet up in Paris. Eventually he returns to America as a military flying instructor in Texas. On the day of his long-awaited reunion with his eager wife, he’s involved in a fatal airplane accident—and is lauded as a hero for saving his pupil’s life.

Reality vs. Fiction

Fred Astaire bears an uncanny resemblance to Vernon Castle, though his personality was quite different. As previously stated, Ginger looked nothing like Irene Castle and neither she nor the studio had any intention of altering her appearance.

Walter Ash, the family servant of Irene Foote’s family and the Castles’ devoted retainer, was a Black man. In later years, Irene complained about his being “whitewashed” into Walter Brennan in order not to offend exhibitors or audiences in the South. This might or might not be true.

The couple’s “meet cute” didn’t happen that way, and “The Yama-Yama Man” played no part. Vernon helped Irene get a proper audition with Lew Fields, who cast her in a show. Vernon’s barber shop routine, however, is based on fact.

The real-life Zowie was an un-fluffy bulldog-type. He did accompany the couple to Paris, where they performed in vaudeville revues and lived hand to mouth, as depicted in the film.

It was a male agent who booked the Castles at the Café de Paris. On that first night their dinner was interrupted by a Russian aristocrat who insisted on their dancing immediately, but it wasn’t exactly an impromptu performance—they’d previously rehearsed with the orchestra. Irene was indeed wearing her wedding dress and her Dutch bonnet. The Russian paid them a tip of 300 francs. The result was a six-month engagement at the same venue, augmented by private performances.

The Castles did travel throughout Europe with a German Shepherd dog that they brought back to the States.

The Castle House—its façade appears briefly on screen—was their dancing academy, and they operated the Sans Souci restaurant at 42^nd and Broadway, and a beachside nightclub. The movie makes it seems that they were financially as well as professionally successful as entrepreneurs, but this is misleading. Vernon had lavish tastes and was a spendthrift, causing practical Irene considerable dismay and concern.

During World War I, Vernon joined the Royal Flying Corps and was a distinguished and decorated aviator, receiving the Croix de Guerre in 1917. Achieving the rank of Captain Castle, he was transferred to Canada as a flight instructor before arriving in Fort Worth for that fateful final flight. He took the front seat and insisted on his pupil taking the rear one. This was his final act of heroism, because when he made his risky maneuver to avoid colliding with another training plane he was in the more vulnerable position, and it cost him his life. As indicated in the film, his student did survive.

Vernon Castle shortly before his death by airplane

The final image of the Castles dancing together leaves the impression that Vernon was the love of Irene’s life. This may be the case. However, his indomitable widow ultimately had nearly as many husbands (four) as Ginger Rogers (five).

Conclusion

In their own time, Fred and Ginger were the 1930s edition of the Vernon and Irene phenomenon—a wildly popular dance partnership, omnipresent in the media of the day, recipients of international acclaim, and cultural and fashion influencers. This biopic provided Ginger with the meatier dramatic role she’d been angling for. The movie concludes during one world war and at the time of its release a second such conflict was already well under way, and again the U.S. was slow to join the fight. The demise of Fred’s character, as Ginger points out in her memoir, presaged the death of their dance partnership, which wasn’t revived until they reunited a decade later for The Barkleys of Broadway at MGM.

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