Authors In Vintage Movies: Primrose Path (1940 US black and white)

Review By Esmerelda Jones... Author of Vintage & Victorian Fiction

Adapted from the book February Hill by Victoria Lincoln

Ginger Rogers as Ellie May Adams

Joel McCrea as Ed Wallace

Marjorie Rambeau as Mamie Adams

Henry Travers as Gramp

Miles Mander as Homer Adams

Queenie Vassar as Grandma

Joan Carroll as Honeybell Adams

Vivienne Osborne as Thelma

Carmen Morales as Carmelita

As we wonder what the path might be, the screen presents a squalid estate overwritten with a quote from Greek Philosopher Menander. We are given a foretaste of the dreadful Primrose Hill. The path of all those who stay within its slush is certain.

"We live, not as we wish to --

But as we can".

(Menander 300 B.C.)

Little sister Honeybell (a sweet tartlette) darts in to the Adams' disheveled home gripping two snatched tamales. They are devoured in haste (lest they be reclaimed by the shop owner) by her and Grandma, who looks like a crushed corsage from the gay '90's. (Queenie Vassar, a stage actress, is most convincing in this slapdash ex-prostitute role. She elicits a cringe from viewers when later on in a cooking scene she spits into the pot, polishing it off with a swish of the dishcloth).

Ginger Rogers is clean-faced Ellie May Adams; a concerned daughter who encourages her father to finish his book so "... everybody'll be talking about you".

Miles Mander retreats into the dark, unshaven Homer Adams; educated alcoholic who is writing a book on Greek philosophy. His family however, converse in the slang of the poor. His wife Mamie must support everyone by means of prostitution. There is little regular work for anyone at Primrose Hill, and Homer Adams coddles himself with a gin bottle.

In his gloomy bedroom, where he slumbers his life away, stand his pretences to author fame; a small wooden writing desk, straight-back chair, books, flyaway notes and his muse, the bottle.

Ellie May Adams: "Don't you think maybe you drink too much Pa?"

Homer Adams: "It's only a substitute Ellie. A substitute for some dreams I once had. They've all gone. Whistling down the wind."

Ellie (looking over his collection of Greek philosophy volumes): "Wish I knowed more than I know".

Mamie breezes in with gifts. Ellie, disinterested in unwrapping her silk stockings, dawdles down to the beach to collect clams for Homer's broth.

Grandma sniffs the new perfume: "It's a shame to waste a good smell in a place like this."

Mamie (laughing): "Well... we can .......together some time." (Alluding to prostitution)

Grandma: "Yeah. You can always play a new tune on an old fiddle."

They relax at the table, sipping coffee.

Grandma: "It's too bad Homer don't do you a favor and get run over or something."

Mamie: "Oh Ma, poor Homer. Somebody has to look after him."

Grandma: "Of course it's gotta be you."

Homer enters, showing the withered and despondent face of a failure.

Grandma: "Are you still alive? Look at them eyes. Looks like a couple of grapes floating around in his head."

After sourly directing some sharp lines at his wife, Homer accepts her cash and heads off to buy alcohol.

He shoots an eyeball to Grandma: "I hope you're enjoying my degradation."

Homer fritters his 'writing' time away, spending it on accusing his wife, threatening to shoot himself, and deploring his lot in life. Yet no one is ordering him not to write his book. His deadline is 'whenever.' He searches every corner for excuses. Any reason will do except the truth. He's looking for the whip of direction. (In fact Ed Wallace will give the whole house a spanking in the final scene.)

Mamie and daughter Ellie have an intimate opening up on the front steps one night.

Mamie: "Somebody has to take care of the family. I done the best I knew how."

Ellie: "That's what them Greeks said... they say you don't live like you wanna. You live like you got."

Mamie walks through the bedroom door. We see a face drained with shock. "Homer, put that down." The viewers must assume that Homer shoots her in a drunken blur, although before dying she tells the police she accidentally shot herself.

This would-be author is impotent and immovable. Did he ever write? His notion of being a praised novelist (and then ensuring that he was powerless to carry it out) is a self-stroking fantasy. He is guilty of sending his dreams "Whistling down the wind". One of Homer's lines is: "My eyes are red with shame."

Trivia Note From IMDb.com: "The movie was banned in Detroit, and to placate censors the character played by Marjorie Rambeau, a prostitute, was killed".

©Esmerelda Jones