The Toy Wife

Last Tuesday, Austrian-born actress Luise Rainer turned 100. To celebrate, TCM spent that day airing a selection of her films, and I recorded most of them. I still need to watch The Great Zeigfeld and The Good Earth, but last night, I snuggled under the covers and took a gander at a film about which I knew nothing. The title alone intrigued me: The Toy Wife.

Luise, with her Austrian accent, plays the daughter of a Louisiana plantation owner; the fact that she has spent all of her cognisant life in a French boarding school excuses the difference between her accent and the polished Hollywood accents of her father, her older sister and all the other white people in the movie. At the opening of the story, the Brigard family returns to New Orleans, still under French rule, and settle back into their gorgeous plantation house, slaves and all (more on that in a minute). We learn quickly that Luise is not only the baby in the family, she's the most annoying and least likable. The character's name is technically Gilberte, already a bad sign, but everyone calls her by her nickname, 'Frou Frou.'

The naive Luise falls for a handsome lawyer named Georges, and they marry. Since Georges is played by Melvyn Douglas, the attraction is understandable. Georges still carries a bit of a torch for the older Brigard sister, Louise (Barbara O'Neil) and Frou Frou still feels some attraction for a younger bad-boy, Andre (Robert Young). Louise movies in with Georges and Frou Frou to help her sister become a better wife and mother, but finds herself doing all the work. Georges finds that his attraction to the other adult in the house more easily justified, and even more so when his flighty wife elopes with Andre. And so follows all the backstabbing and fighting over children that one would expect from a movie like this.

Between the gleaming foyers and glittering gowns you'd expect characters named Alexis or Krystle to show up randomly and pull on each others' hair pieces, but the real shocking element that sets The Toy Wife apart from other films, even Gone with the Wind, is the treatment of the slave characters. This HAS to be the reason that so few people have seen this film, the reason it's not on DVD. This movie has more speaking parts for black actors than any other film of 1938 as far as I can tell (except maybe for Gods Step Children). Most of them have names and at least basic differentiated personality traits, but they still have bad grammar and names like Brutus and Pompey.

The character played by Theresa Harris presents the most brain-exploding example. She smilingly introduces herself as 'Pick;' because she has no given name, everyone just calls her an abbreviated version of the pejorative 'Pickaninny.' This occurs when Frou Frou is getting acquainted will all the female slaves in the house, and Harris goes down on her knee to say "I wishes I could be your own pa'ticular darkie."

"You do, do you?" answers the benevolent Frou Frou. "Well then you shall be. But if you're going to belong to me you'll have to wear shoes and stockings."

Theresa Harris is an actress that I truly love. I've probably seen her in a dozen movies, and she always plays a maid, but she never lets the absurd dialog get the better of her. Every 'you is' gets treated with perfect diction, and it highlights just how beneath her such characters were. It's as if she's winking to the African American members of the audience, assuring them "It's ok, I know this sucks, but we'll get through it."

Allegedly, this was one of several projects given to Rainer as punishment for her difficult behavior. A reviewer on the IMDb calls it a B-Movie. With its amazing costumes (by the incomparable Orry-Kelly) and detailed set decoration, this period piece doesn't look at all like a B-movie. The direction by Richard Thorpe is too mannered for an already slow screenplay, which has neither economic passage of time or witty dialogue. A long movie, with an irritating lead character, equals a disappointment in my book. Rainer comes off as a capable actress who's doing the best she can with a problematic role. By all accounts she hated this movie.

One consolation remains: One can live through racism, hoop-skirts and winning two consecutive Oscars, and still live to be 100. Happy belated birthday, Luise Rainer. I'm sure I'll like you better as Anna Held.