Irene (1940)

RKO, 1940
Starring Anna Neagle, Ray Milland, Billie Burke, and May Robson
Directed by Herbert Wilcox
Music and Lyrics by Harry Tierney and Joseph McCarthy

Anna Neagle and her director husband Herbert Wilcox were two of the most popular figures in British cinema during the 1930's. Neagle could go from romantic comedy to musicals to historical drama (she played Queen Victoria twice) and make it all look beautiful and elegant. Hollywood noticed her two Victoria films and called her and Wilcox over to make four films for RKO. This was the first of those movies. How does the very British Neagle look in this old-fashioned, all-American story? Let's head to a mansion in Long Island, where Irish upholsterer's assistant Irene O'Dare (Neagle) is measuring chairs for new cushions, and find out...

The Story: Irene meets wealthy Don Marshall (Milland) at the Vincents' home, where he's charmed by her spunk and standing up to him. He buys the mysterious Madame Lucy's dress shop in order to give Irene a better job as a model. In order to promote their new gowns, manager Mr. Smith (Roland Young) convinces Mrs. Vincent (Burke) allow his models to attend her ball. She's thrilled to wear a beautiful new dress, until she spills Irish stew on it and ruins it.

Irene causes a sensation when she attends the ball in her mother's old blue gown and is mistaken for an Irish noblewoman. Mr. Smith takes advantage of this to promote her around town with Mrs. Vincent's son Bob (Alan Marshall). Don's furious, and Irene's grandmother (Robeson) is angrier. Irene's popularity also attracts attention from a gossip columnist (Louis Jean Heydt) who assumes she's a call girl. Now Don has to reveal who Madame Lucy really is and keep Irene from marrying Bob Vincent, or he may lose his lovely Irish lass forever.

The Song and Dance: Charming bit of froth with a lovely Technicolor sequence. Appropriately for a movie about modeling and clothes, the costumes are especially gorgeous. The famous "Alice Blue Gown" nearly pops off the screen. Burke and Young both have a lot of fun as the twittery rich woman who would rather change her furniture than her cushions and the fussy manager who wants to do nothing more than promote his store and his dresses, while Arthur Treacher does his usual butler bit as the head of the Vincent household.

Favorite Number: The show's most famous song "Alice Blue Gown" is heard twice. Neagle and Milland have dance to it at the ball in the dress of the title, which Bob Vincent and his sweetheart Eleanor Worth (Marsha Hunt) witnesses. The dress and the song becomes such a sensation, it's performed all around the world in a montage of singers from the American heartland to Japan to a big jazzy Harlem routine. Neagle's only solo dance routine is to "Something In the Air," and she certainly looks lighter than air in her wedding gown and ballet-tinged dance.

Trivia: Irene originally ran for 675 performances in New York in 1919, the longest-running show in Broadway history at that point. It returned to Broadway in 1971, with Debbie Reynolds as Irene O'Dare. Despite a troubled production, it was nearly as big of a hit as the original, running 574 performances. The revival was an even bigger hit in London with Australian star Julie Anthony.

Irene is a remake of a 1926 silent movie with Colleen Moore, which also has Technicolor sequences.

What I Don't Like: First of all, Neagle doesn't make much of an impression in her own vehicle. She sort of looks and acts like Irene Dunne with a (bad) Irish accent. Other than her two lovely dance routines, she doesn't really do much that makes you understand why almost every man in the movie falls instantly in love with her. I suspect her British movies probably did more with her talents. In the stage shows and silent movie, "Madame Lucy" was the name of the gay fashion designer who owned the shop where Irene worked. That wasn't going to fly in 1940, which is likely why they condensed characters and Irene ended up with the shop owner rather than the millionaire's son.

And why isn't the whole movie in Technicolor? It's understandable that they'd do color sequences in 1926, when color film was in its infancy, but Technicolor was more common by 1940. It seems kind of odd to go from black and white to color and back in a straight romantic comedy. This isn't The Wizard of Oz. I'd also love to know why this isn't a full-out musical. Not counting "Castle of Dreams" over the credits, there's no songs until almost half-way through.

The Big Finale: Nice enough way to pass an hour and a half on TCM if you like Neagle or 40's musicals.

Home Media: Currently available on DVD only via the Warner Archives.

DVD