Let Us Be Gay

Let Us Be Gay is very mature material for wallowing in pre-code Hollywood baroque. It took very little and MGM was no longer producing the static talkies it had a year earlier. However, the content is truly perverse. Norma, who had just become the protagonist of The Divorcee, becomes the face of a play that Tallulah Bankhead did in England (and I'm getting the nagging feeling that she did everything in England before Hollywood). The classic arc with the theme of "once upon a time there was a woman, sweet and caring, her husband didn't appreciate her, then her whole world came crashing down and she learned to flirt..." works exactly as it should. After three years of living a boisterous life in Paris, the lovely wife has become an attractive coquette and her ex has finally started to drool in her direction. And now, dear viewers, it's up to you whether or not you want a happy ending. And wouldn't a possible re-marriage ending be more of a play on grief in your eyes? The Private Festival with Norma continues. (10/06/2016)