.png)
When I first watched IN NAME ONLY, the shock of subverted expectations dominated my experience, which in turn engendered a reading marked by disappointment and unpleasant surprise. Going in blind, I naively jumped to the conclusion that a film boasting a roster of Cary Grant, Kay Francis, and Carole Lombard would be a comedic madcap. The shock of realizing otherwise unfortunately proved to be my strongest retention of detail (aside from the fact that Francis plays a marvelous, conniving bitch) in my initial viewing. Enough time has elapsed to allow me to adequately ruminate on my experience and ultimately, especially now having greater familiarity with both female stars, drew me to the conclusion that I needed to give it a fair reassessment.
RKO publicity featuring Lombard, Grant and Francis used to promote IN NAME ONLY. The bulk of this session is composed of deliberately misleading photos that often picture all parties jovially goofing.
Unencumbered by the unexpected, I eagerly launched myself back into the splendor of Fairfield County, where all three principal characters reside. I was awestruck at Carole’s dramatic competency, for she breathes a gentle vulnerability into Julie that lends considerable credence to the far-fetched plot. The rational is abandoned in order to present a sumptuous, exaggerated reality where chance is robbed of its very definition by being taken at face value. Every seemingly insignificant foible ripples into a greater one, amplifying the fatalistic cadence that envelopes the plot. All three actors were presented with a formidable challenge, seeing as a director as unimaginative as Cromwell lacked the talent to mitigate it even slightly.
While Carole’s pathos is certainly laudatory, I reserve the bulk of my praise for Kay, whose interpretation of Maida triumphs as the strongest performance in the film. Her execution is extremely nuanced, brimming with contradiction and complexity despite her limited amount of dialogue. The role of the villain, while easy to inhabit, is seldom executed effectively. Oftentimes, the actor pays no regard to the factors which engendered the character’s maligning or malice. Why should they? It’s far easier to capitulate to whim and primal instinct, unconsciously submitting to the familiar, one-dimensional essence of evil as we know it. What results is a caricature so unremarkable that it cannot conjure any strong emotion one way or another, whether it be pity or loathing.
But Kay Francis possesses a deep and psychic understanding of herself and of human nature, realizing that even somebody as contemptible as Maida amounted to something more than just spite. After all, she had just as much right as Julie to feel, which Kay demonstrates through vulnerable closeups, dissociative gazes, and furrowed brows. She forces the viewer to reckon with Maida’s humanity, appealing to emotion in order to beget further examination. Francis demands this focus of her own accord, actively distracting the viewer from the perils of the two “innocent parties” to consider Maida’s own fragility.
Another publicity still that scarcely suggests the hostility plaguing the relations between all three.
To do this at all is a feat in and of itself, but to execute it with such adroit precision in the company of Cary Grant and Carole Lombard is a particularly distinguished accomplishment. Kay has the smallest part of all three, and yet she compensates for such treatment by instilling a driving sense of intensity that envelopes the power of Grant and Lombard combined.
It is well documented that Lombard, a close friend of Francis’, helped her to land the role. The two were first acquainted at Paramount they both starred in 1931’s LADIES MAN. Initially, Francis had rocketed to stardom while Lombard’s career fell stagnant, but 1936 saw the just the opposite prove true. Lombard was cresting from her screwball success of La Cava’s critically acclaimed MY MAN GODFREY, secure in her oeuvre; Francis, on the other hand, found considerable disappointment with the unfavorable reception to her performance as Florence Nightingale in THE WHITE ANGEL. It sent her career into operative decline, with its failure ultimately accounting for the radioactive decay which was forcibly onset by Warner’s hostility. She was subjected to a string of shoddy B pictures as punishment in hopes that she would quit, but Francis would not hear of it. To her, acting was strictly a profession that paid the bills — but such a stance was outrageously taboo, especially for a woman. Francis was more than well aware of the studio’s deliberate attempts to sabotage her career, but clung on obstinately, fueled by spite and financial entitlement. After all, she was one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood. Why should she suffer on account of her own hard earned success? Nevertheless, Warner’s plan succeeded in some vein, inciting the beginning of the end of her career with his lethal treatment of her stardom.
Francis and Lombard were very close in real life — here they are spotted together in a party from 1936, around the same time the tide of their careers began to drastically shift.
The bulk of these final performances leading to her termination with the studio in 1939 are hallmarked, undoubtedly, by uninspired aplomb. While plenty competent in features such as MY BILL, she intones subliminally that the role is of little importance to her. With arbitrary control over her career’s growth revoked by a spiteful Jack Warner, she simply saw no point in prioritizing her performance. One has to admire such a brazen display of total disregard for a profession that expected her always to desire it.
It also explains why her performance in this film is so robust as well. Free of studio control and thus regaining her autonomy, Kay Francis began to view her roles no longer as sentences, but opportunities unimpaired by arbitrary opinion. No longer instilled with a lackadaisical sense of nihilism, Francis realized that she could once again take stock in the pleasure of her craft, particularly when it meant having the opportunity to work alongside good friends. Certainly, reuniting with Carole was more than enough to provide substantive zest and motivation to appear on set.
Solo publicity for IN NAME ONLY
History has unfairly overlooked what was, essentially, Francis’ grand comeback to the screen — largely on account of the fact that the role was minimal (it was no MILDRED PIERCE) and a project borne of a tiny, rather insignificant studio. Still, that does not revoke its value and importance, particularly in the canon of Francis’ filmography.
Maida’s character is principally written in such a way as to guarantee that the audience won’t lend her their sympathies, with her motives and actions increasing to the point of near psychotic measure by the film’s denouement. Yet Kay manages the impossible through her foolproof stratagem of effusing emotion in silent moments, employing facial expression and body language in order to construe a potent cocktail of justified motive and accessible humanity. Her methods are so effective that they often eclipse the larger love story at play. Maida, after all, incurs her fair share of unfortunate happenstance. Minimal information is given in regards to her past, leaving ambiguity that fosters intrinsic sympathy.
The equivocality of Maida’s background opens itself to two distinctively queer readings on different thresholds, each one buttressed unwittingly by Francis’ own real life bisexuality. The leniency afforded by the lack of exposition teases a possibility that Maida’s alleged ex lover was never truly an object of her desire at all, but rather another man whom she exploited as she saw fit, ultimately abandoning him once he could no longer serve her interests. This aligns with the classic queercoding often bestowed upon villains, particularly when paired with her cloying (albeit platonic) seduction of Julie.
One could easily argue that the tension conjured between Francis and Lombard alone constitutes a stronger chemistry than the Grant/Lombard pairing.
The other reading is far more abstract, and suggests that Maida’s experience as a whole is an allegory for the queer existence. In this instance, her affections for her past lover would be perceived as genuine, forcing her to capitulate a happy union in order to procure a sense of stability and security that would otherwise elude her. This interpretation denies Maida of not only emotional fulfillment, but personal agency as well. Again, though the circumstances stand radically different from the aforementioned situation, it still supplicates commiseration. While fate may not have smiled upon neither Alec or Julie, it arguably dealt Maida a far cruller hand.
Francis is not to be underestimated. Though the story transparently favors the logical union of Julie and Alec, its potency is enervated considerably thanks to the presence and depth that she imbues upon her character.
Comments