Jeanne Eagels ** (1957, Kim Novak, Jeff Chandler, Agnes Moorehead, Virginia Grey) – Classic Movie Review 12,304

Kim Novak films Vertigo with Hitchcock.

The 1957 biographical film Jeanne Eagels is loosely based on the life of the 1920s actress, and stars Kim Novak in the title role. Jeanne Eagels’ family sued for defamation, objecting to the way she was depicted in the mostly fictionalised movie.

Producer and director George Sidney’s 1957 Columbia Pictures American biographical film Jeanne Eagels is loosely based on the life of the largely forgotten stage star Jeanne Eagels, omitting or fictionalising many aspects of Eagels’ real life.

Stand by for showbiz clichés by the dozen in this plush backstage biography, with Kim Novak starring as Jeanne Eagels, a 1920s dancer who uses those around her to storm Broadway’s heights, then only to fall victim to drug abuse.

Jeff Chandler plays Sal Satori, the carnival boss who gives Jeanne an early job; Agnes Moorehead is her drama coach Nellie Neilson; and Virginia Grey plays Elsie Desmond, the actress she walks over to get a Broadway role.

All three – Chandler, Moorehead and Grey – deliver involving performances, though Novak isn’t quite up to it, giving a performance that is insufficiently emotional and expressive, but then she has no help from the depressing, hollow-seeming, uninformative screenplay by Daniel Fuchs, Sonya Levien and John Fante. But, if dramatically it does not all work too well, it is still a very handsome, quite interesting picture, shot in black and white by Robert Planck, with sets designed by Ross Bellah.

The credit title ‘All events in this photoplay are based on fact and fiction’ reflects the way the screenplay can’t seem to decide about how best to proceed, or maybe it was just to protect the production legally. If so it failed because Eagels’ family sued Columbia Pictures for defamation, objecting to the way Eagels was depicted in the mostly fictionalized movie.

Real-life Eagels became a Broadway star in 1922 with Somerset Maugham’s play Rain. But Eagels began abusing drugs and alcohol and eventually developed an addiction.

Broadway star Eagels made 10 silent films, and then two talkies both in 1929 (The Letter, the only remaining record of her as a talkie actress, and director Jean de Limur’s 1929 drama film Jealousy, this apparently lost movie) and died at 39 from an overdose of chloral hydrate  on 3 October 1929, one month after Jealousy was released.

Kim Novak’s next three films were Pal Joey, Vertigo and Bell, Book and Candle.

The cast are Kim Novak as Jeanne Eagels, Jeff Chandler as Sal Satori, Agnes Moorehead as Nellie Neilson, Charles Drake as John Donahue, Larry Gates as Al Brooks, Virginia Grey as Elsie Desmond, Gene Lockhart as Equity Board President, Joe De Santis as Frank Satori, Murray Hamilton as Chick O’Hara, Will Wright, Sheridan Comerate, Lowell Gilmore, Juney Ellis, Jules Davis, Florence McAfee, Snub Pollard, and Joseph Novak.

Chandler extinguished Novak’s dress when it caught fire during filming.

Jeanne Eagels is part of the Kim Novak Collection released on 3 August 2010 in a DVD box set that also includes Picnic (1956), Pal Joey (1957), Bell, Book and Candle (1958), and Middle of the Night (1959).

Kim Novak turns 90 on 13 February 2023, making her one of the Notable Nonagenarians.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,304

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