Okay—so this here right down below is a screenshot from 1941’s The Maltese Falcon.
In it you sees Humphrey Bogart on the left, and that’s Ward Bond there on the right, and they’ve just found the extinct body of Sam Spade’s partner, Miles Archer.
However, that’s not why this here screenshot is—here. It’s here ‘cause I want you to look at what’s on that there wall between Bogie and Bond. Look real close now.
Wait, I’ll make it a bit larger.
You sees it?
All right, here it is in color:
Ahhh…..
So, this here’s a poster for a 1938 Warner Bros. B-movie (and about as ‘B’ as y’all can get) called Swing Your Lady. And this forgotten low-budgeter stars…Humphrey Bogart.
Seems this film’s dang poster got put up in this here Maltese Falcon scene by its director John Huston. ‘Cause he meant it as an in-joke on his film’s star. ‘Cause Swing Your Lady was, per Bogie himself, ’bout the worst movie he ever was in. So that there’s the joke.
Some joke, huh?
Waaal…yeah, the film was an embarrassment for Bogie, all right. It was one of them ‘hick pics’—films geared toward rural or ‘hick’ audiences (you know, waaay out thataway), and Warner Bros was cashing in on a popular hick-flick trend. Though at least Bogie didn’t have to play one of the hicks. Small comfort that may be.
Per Wade Austin’s essay “The Real Beverly Hillbillies,” rural or “hillbilly” films, popular from around the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s (I wrote about one here, Murder, He Says), often contrasted down-to-earth country folk with conniving city slickers, with the ruralites coming out on top. Which is how Swing Your Lady starts, with perpetually broke slick wrestling promoter Ed Hatch (Bogart) entering the hickified town of Plunkett, MO, to drum up a yokels match with his wannabe wrestlin’ champion, Joe “Hercules” Skipapoulos (Nat Pendleton). Now, Slow Joe ain’t the brightest bulb in the box (“The gorilla that walks like a man” is what one character says of him), but he’ll do nice things such as offer a posy of plucked dandylions to a lady. So you know his heart, if not his brain, is in the right place. Soft-hearted (as well as -headed) is what our Joe is.
Unfortunately, the town of Plunkett ain’t got a wrasslin’ candidate big enough to match big Joe in the ring, and a discouraged Ed, after clearing out a passel of clucking poultry from his car, ends up driving his vehicle into a ditch. But wouldn’t you knows it, coming to the rescue (and lifting the car with the ease of someone pluckin’ a posy of dandylions), is lady blacksmith Sadie Horn (Louise Fazenda), who’s got a physique like the Statue of Liberty’s. Jes’ not colored green. And she gives Ed an idee for who to put up agin Joe for that wrasslin’ match he’s plannin’…
But then a heap o’ trouble happens. ‘Cause Joe, gittin’ a gander at Sadie, falls but hard for her, she bein’ almost as big as he is, but a lot purtier. So he refuses to wrassle her—it being agin his gen’lemanly principles—and everyone’s as mad as several wet hens ‘bout it, includin’ Sadie (she’s got her heart set on buyin’ a bedroom set with her earnings, see); only there’s this feller Noah, who’s another suitor for Sadie’s substantial hand, and he comes a’roarin’ out of the mountains when he hears ‘bout Joe’s courtship. Now Noah, who’s as big and hairy as King Kong and as mean and grumpy as Godzilla, has a way of sayin’ things with a shotgun and live ammo; but, wouldn’t you knows it, all this hoop-de-doo gives Ed another idee for his wrasslin’ match…
So now the contest is gonna pit Lovesick Joe agin Mountain Man Noah—shure to be big box office, don’cha think?—with Sadie set to marry the winner. But then, just to het up things even more, Ed tells Sadie an untruth ‘bout Joe bein’ already hitched, with a passel of young’uns to boot, and Sadie gets plenty mad ‘bout that. So with pore ol’ Joe moonin’ heartsick-like over Sadie, and hoppin’-mad Noah itchin’ to get his big hands round Joe’s throat, and Ed’s girlfriend Cookie fumin’ at Ed for tellin’ all them whoppers ‘bout Joe, and townfolk totin’ their shootin’ irons to the match, jes to make certain everythin’s on the up-n-up—things shure are startin’ to git mighty hot for all con-sarned—
Waal, shucks, by now, I’ma laffin’ so hard, my pore head’s plumb fit to bust…
Some joke, huh?
You gotta wonder why Warner Bros. had it in for Bogie before he hit it big. They treated him mighty rough during his lean movie years in the 1930s. Not only was he shoved into a lot (a lot) of B- and C-grade flicks, he had to slog through some real oddities—like that slick horror movie, The Return of Doctor X, with Bogie improbably cast as the Horror (read my post here). But before that, Warners had tossed him into this goshdarn hick flick, which made him look like a fool, and was a flop to boot. If Swing Your Lady was a sample of hick flicks of the era, waal—that might explain that famous Variety headline: “Sticks Nix Hick Pix.” They shure did this one.…
The film showcased the then-popular country music group, The Weaver Brothers and Elviry, who were well known on the vaudeville circuit and starred in a series of low-budget rural film comedies. Indeed, Lady‘s story veers crazily, like Bogie’s chicken-filled auto, between the Weaver clan’s twangin’ musical routines (with Penny Singleton, as Bogie’s girlfriend, joining in for several numbers, including “I’m Just a Hillbilly From Tenth Avenue”) and its jokester wrasslin’ plot-cum-redneck romance. I’m not surprised Lady flopped. The film can’t make up its mind as to what’s its audience: Rural Weaver fans who wouldn’t care for a slickified Bogie and co-stars Singleton, Frank McHugh, and Allen Jenkins (whose saturninely frozen features could match Buster Keaton’s for stone-facedness); or urbanites who might’ve been pulled in by the Warner Bros. label but not be enchanted by the hickster hoedowns. Lose-lose either way.
Swing Your Lady does have its cute and comic moments, although with jug band music twangin’ right from the credits, your heart might start sinkin’ right ‘bout then. If anything does save the film (a bit), it’s Nat Pendleton as Joe Hercules. Pendleton, a real wrestler (winning a silver medal at the 1920 Olympics), looks convincing wrapping an opponent round one meaty shoulder, but he’s more than a muscled hunk of beef here. His Joe is sweet yet sad, gazing on Fazenda’s Amazonian Sadie like a lovestruck calf yearning for a distant dandelion. His New York Times obit may have snootily labelled him a “Portrayer of Simpletons” (I mean, the guy spoke four languages and earned a Columbia economics degree), but Pendleton brings real heart and sympathy, and even intelligence, to his character. Joe may be a dumb palooka, but he’s a dumb palooka who’s been socked by the Divine Pash, and that counts for something. Joe may not know much, but he knows fer shure it’s Sweetheart Sadie what he’s a’hankerin’ fer.
As for Bogie—he’s still recognizably Bogie, talking fast from the side of his mouth, with that vocal speed and rhythm, and those jabbing arm and hand gestures you see him use in other films—such as, for example, The Maltese Falcon…speed-talking his way out of various jams (“You getting this all right, son, or am I goin’ too fast for ya?”). I’m sure he was MISERABLE making this movie, but he was enough of a pro not to let it show. He found a way to get through it, right to the bitter end, and make it bearable. Leastaways, I’m a’guessin’. But better things were soon to come.
Gotta hand it to Bogie: He stuck it out like a man. Demonstrating that, yes, you CAN recover from swinging ladies…
It should be an inspyra-shun to us all.
Bonus Clip: By gum, there really is a trailer for Swing Your Lady—in which Bogie is credited after the Weavers on the cast list – though mebbe that was something to be grateful for, ’cause by that point most folks woulda stopped paying attention…
Grand Old Movies 