One of the most fascinating aspects of the research that I've conducted over the last four years for Greasepaint Puritan has involved learning about some of the works of art loved by Bradford Ropes. I'll be covering some of these plays, writers, and novels in depth in the book, but also talking about a few of them here on this blog. Some of these were directly influential on Ropes's own work. Others more obliquely illuminate aspects of his voice and style.
In the latter category, I would include Edward Percy and Reginald Denham's 1940 Victorian gothic stage thriller Ladies in Retirement: the source of a grandly entertaining and absorbing 1941 film version starring Ida Lupino, Elsa Lanchester, and Edith Barrett.
In the latter category, I would include Edward Percy and Reginald Denham's 1940 Victorian gothic stage thriller Ladies in Retirement: the source of a grandly entertaining and absorbing 1941 film version starring Ida Lupino, Elsa Lanchester, and Edith Barrett.
Ropes appears to have held Ladies in Retirement in high regard. In 1940, he co-hosted a "theatre party" (that is, dinner followed by a play) for friends attending the play's glamorous opening night at Los Angeles's Biltmore Theatre. The thriller had previously played a successful run on Broadway and also toured to Washington, D.C., Boston and Toronto, among other cities. Character actress Renie Riano and others joined Ropes for the theatre party. Ralph Bellamy, Adolphe Menjou and Sterling Holloway were among the stars spotted in the play's audience and in the lobby of A.L. Erlanger's now-demolished Biltmore Theatre, which adjoined the still-standing Biltmore Hotel.
Though both the play and the film are somewhat obscure today, Ladies in Retirement was a substantial hit in its day, as a showcase for a foursome of grand dame actresses: the great English star Flora Robson as antiheroine Ellen Creed; Estelle Winwood and Jessamine Newcombe as her sisters Louisa and Emily; and Isobel Elsom as chorus girl-turned-lady of the manor Leonora Fiske, whom Ellen murders as she tries to protect her mentally unstable siblings from neglect and abuse in 1885 England.
Gilbert Miller's original production, directed by Denham, received stellar reviews, as The Actors Company Theatre described in the notes for its 2010 revival: "The New York Journal-American wrote, '[the play’s] chills should settle the theatre’s problem of summer air conditioning,' The New York Post stated it was 'the murder play New York has been starved for these many, many months,' and Variety called Robson, 'quiet and closely-reined, yet with range, shading, emotional depth and persuasive sincerity.'" Critic Jay Carmody, writing about the production in DC, aptly noted the play's blend of the genteel, the macabre and the eccentric: "In the best tradition of such imports from England, the play is generously touched with comedy without ever sacrificing its sinister, doom-like mood."
Gilbert Miller's original production, directed by Denham, received stellar reviews, as The Actors Company Theatre described in the notes for its 2010 revival: "The New York Journal-American wrote, '[the play’s] chills should settle the theatre’s problem of summer air conditioning,' The New York Post stated it was 'the murder play New York has been starved for these many, many months,' and Variety called Robson, 'quiet and closely-reined, yet with range, shading, emotional depth and persuasive sincerity.'" Critic Jay Carmody, writing about the production in DC, aptly noted the play's blend of the genteel, the macabre and the eccentric: "In the best tradition of such imports from England, the play is generously touched with comedy without ever sacrificing its sinister, doom-like mood."
"Murder in the Thames Marshes" is how Ward Morehouse, reviewing the production in Toronto, described the plot of Ladies in Retirement:
"Ladies in Retirement doesn't attempt to fool you at any time. It takes you to an old house on the marshes of the Thames estuary, just a few miles from Gravesend. The time is 1885. The scene is the living room of a fantastic lady, one Leonora Fiske, who had her fling, and her romances, in the music halls, who wears snatches of make-up, plays snatches from Gilbert and Sullivan, likes a cold bottle, and wears a flaming wig. Her housekeeper-companion is Ellen Creed, played by Flora Robson. Ellen Creed is devoted to her two weak-minded sisters, who've been her charges all her life, and to the bleak house in the marshes she brings them for a visit. Their 'visit' goes on and on, Leonora Fiske rebels and orders the pair back to London, and such decision brings Ellen Creed to grim purpose. By the time Act Two begins, Miss Fiske has been done away with and the ladies in retirement, with the aid of the rascally male of the piece, Albert Feather, expertly played by Patrick O'Moore, take the story on from there."
"Ladies in Retirement doesn't attempt to fool you at any time. It takes you to an old house on the marshes of the Thames estuary, just a few miles from Gravesend. The time is 1885. The scene is the living room of a fantastic lady, one Leonora Fiske, who had her fling, and her romances, in the music halls, who wears snatches of make-up, plays snatches from Gilbert and Sullivan, likes a cold bottle, and wears a flaming wig. Her housekeeper-companion is Ellen Creed, played by Flora Robson. Ellen Creed is devoted to her two weak-minded sisters, who've been her charges all her life, and to the bleak house in the marshes she brings them for a visit. Their 'visit' goes on and on, Leonora Fiske rebels and orders the pair back to London, and such decision brings Ellen Creed to grim purpose. By the time Act Two begins, Miss Fiske has been done away with and the ladies in retirement, with the aid of the rascally male of the piece, Albert Feather, expertly played by Patrick O'Moore, take the story on from there."
The 1941 Columbia Pictures film version, directed by Charles Vidor, gives a strong sense of why the play was so successful the previous year. It recasts Ellen with Ida Lupino: a younger Ellen Creed whom critics considered more overtly "sympathetic" than Robson's "closely-reined" murderess. But Lupino gives a complex portrayal of Ellen--by turns chilly, noble and uncompromising--in the best tradition of the 1940s women's film, and Isobel Elsom, as Leonora Fiske, returns with her blend of charm and hauteur from the original Broadway cast.
Other new additions to Ladies in Retirement include Louis Hayward (who had recently married Lupino) as Albert Feather; Elsa Lanchester (replacing Jessamine Newcombe as Emily) and Edith Barrett (replacing Estelle Winwood as Louisa). Married to Vincent Price, Barrett was also an in-demand Broadway leading lady who concentrated on her stage work. She's nothing less than remarkable in the film version of Ladies in Retirement, all pop-eyed curiosity and live-wire openness as the foil to Lanchester's reticent, suspicious Emily. The film also has wonderful sets, lighting and cinematography, wrapping the soundstage artifice of the Thames marshes, and the Estuary House, in swirls of fog and jagged snarls of trees.
Other new additions to Ladies in Retirement include Louis Hayward (who had recently married Lupino) as Albert Feather; Elsa Lanchester (replacing Jessamine Newcombe as Emily) and Edith Barrett (replacing Estelle Winwood as Louisa). Married to Vincent Price, Barrett was also an in-demand Broadway leading lady who concentrated on her stage work. She's nothing less than remarkable in the film version of Ladies in Retirement, all pop-eyed curiosity and live-wire openness as the foil to Lanchester's reticent, suspicious Emily. The film also has wonderful sets, lighting and cinematography, wrapping the soundstage artifice of the Thames marshes, and the Estuary House, in swirls of fog and jagged snarls of trees.
The film version of Ladies in Retirement, which can be viewed in its entirety on YouTube, abounds with wonderfully sinister and grotesque thrills and shocks: Ellen strangles Leonora Fiske as the latter plays on the piano The Mikado's "Willow, Tit-Willow" (a favorite from her touring days as a chorus girl); Leonora's flaming wig makes a surprise apparition from the realm of the dead. Officious, proverb-quoting nuns pop in and out of Estuary House, turning the thriller into a farce as sisters meet Sisters.
For all of the absurdity, the film treats the Creed sisters with respect and humanity. It turns a sympathetic eye to their marginalization in an 1885 London with little room for poor women who don't conform to domestic bourgeois norms: a frequent subject of gothic suspense drama. Both Louisa and Emily have been beaten and forced out of their lodgings for their socially unacceptable behavior. Barrett's Louisa may talk about pointing her telescope at the Thames and springing frogs into the marmalade--but she's also kind and adventurous. Lanchester's Emily earns the ire of Leonora Fiske "with her mania for collecting things" from the marshes, including bulrushes, shells and dead seagulls. However, she's also resourceful and conservation-minded. When Miss Fiske calls the sisters "insane," Ellen protests: "Please don't use that word again. Emily was right. But then people who have all they want never seem to understand what the smallest things mean to those who haven't."
For all of the absurdity, the film treats the Creed sisters with respect and humanity. It turns a sympathetic eye to their marginalization in an 1885 London with little room for poor women who don't conform to domestic bourgeois norms: a frequent subject of gothic suspense drama. Both Louisa and Emily have been beaten and forced out of their lodgings for their socially unacceptable behavior. Barrett's Louisa may talk about pointing her telescope at the Thames and springing frogs into the marmalade--but she's also kind and adventurous. Lanchester's Emily earns the ire of Leonora Fiske "with her mania for collecting things" from the marshes, including bulrushes, shells and dead seagulls. However, she's also resourceful and conservation-minded. When Miss Fiske calls the sisters "insane," Ellen protests: "Please don't use that word again. Emily was right. But then people who have all they want never seem to understand what the smallest things mean to those who haven't."
I would love to know what Ropes thought of Ladies in Retirement that night with his friends at the Biltmore. Evaluating the play from the film version, I think he would have loved its high theatricality--from Miss Fiske's mobile wigs to her Gilbert and Sullivan-singing past. Ropes often blended his camp wit with touches of the gothic and the macabre, as I'm discussing at length in Greasepaint Puritan. In this, Ladies in Retirement would have been right up his alley. Finally, the portrayal of tough, resourceful women navigating harsh patriarchal systems runs through all of his backstage novels; I think he would have been fascinated by Ellen Creed, as played at the Biltmore by Flora Robson. It must have been quite the theatre party.
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