Don't you love farce? My fault, I fear

[sovay]

Every obituary I have seen for Glynis Johns has led with Mary Poppins (1964), but I saw her first as one-third of the most famous of cinema tongue-twisters, doing her best along with Mildred Natwick to instruct Danny Kaye in the correct disposition of the pellet with the poison: "It's so easy, I can say it!" – "Well, then you fight him!" As a small child memorizing the routine on the scratchy autumn-colored fold-out couch of my grandparents' TV room, I absorbed without fully appreciating the comic yet valid genderbending of their relationship which is despite the best efforts of Angela Lansbury the central romance of The Court Jester (1956), taking for granted that Kaye's Hawkins could be assigned the nursemaid duties of caring for the rightful infant heir of their never-never olde England while Johns' Maid Jean served as the second-in-command of their band of greenwood outlaws, the Black Fox's Captain. Acutely aware of his standing as the only man in sight who doesn't buckle a swash, he mostly keeps his crush to himself except when it stumbles out in nicely queer statements like "Each time I see you as a woman, sir—" once she's assumed female drag for their mission, but nothing he does as he flails the rest of the movie through various burlesques of masculinity as either an elegant false assassin or the cardboard knightly lover he's fingersnapped into will make her love him any more than watching him gently lullaby the heir to sleep; emboldened to confide his doubts that "the Captain could ever be fond of a man who isn't a fighter," he hears to his encouragement that "tenderness and kindness can also make a man." She herself was brought up as a warrior, a passionate defender of freedom as expert in arms as her father: "I think he really wanted me to be a boy." – "Too bad," Hawkins sighs as they break their first, decidedly mutual kiss. "You'd have made a wonderful girl." It's clear all through the third-act fight scenes that if it weren't 1956, she'd have seized a blade and taken on Basil Rathbone herself, although she does at least get to clout any number of evil knights and catapult them into the sea. I formed the instant, enduring, and totally extra-canonical conviction that with the heir finally restored to his throne, Hawkins would handle the childcare aspects of a regency and Maid Jean would obviously serve as his tiny, formidable chief knight. I did eventually see Mary Poppins—probably at the same summer camp at the Arlington Boys & Girls Club where I received most of my exposure to Disney movies—but Johns in my memory would always look more like Maid Jean than Mrs. Banks, an impression not really dispelled by her perkily butch Wren in Perfect Strangers (1945) or her matter-of-factly non-human mermaid in Miranda (1948). She had the character actor's gift for turning up in far more movies than I marked at the time, so that while I'm thinking about South Riding (1938) or 49th Parallel (1941) I've forgotten No Highway in the Sky (1951) or The Card (1952). I would have seen her most recently in The Sundowners (1960), deftly forestalling the end of an affair with Peter Ustinov by affectionately, unsentimentally dumping him first. I would have heard her almost as early in A Little Night Music (1973), because "Send in the Clowns" was always playing somewhere on Standing Room Only. I am glad she got to make her century. I will watch something from it for her.

Comments

[coraline]

Holy crap despite the court jester and Mary poppins being two of my childhood repeat movies, I had never made the connection between the characters before. Let alone realizing she was Desiree in that recording of night music.

[sovay]

Let alone realizing she was Desiree in that recording of night music.

She was extremely versatile!

[sartorias]

Wasn't she wonderful? I absolutely loved the fact that she was so competent and brave and smart through THE COURT JESTER, seen endless times on local channels on Saturday nights while I was a babysitting teen. (I didn't know it was in color for years and years.) And she did it all barefoot.

[sovay]

And she did it all barefoot.

She did! I'd forgotten that. She was wonderful.

[pameladean]

When Stephen Sondheim died, I read Isaac Butler's article about him in Slate, where he tells a version of the story of how that song was written for "a non-singing role." Later I watched clips of an interview with Sondheim in which it was clear Johns's role was not non-singing, but, he said, she had "this silvery little voice" and he hadn't planned to provide her character a song in Act 2 because he thought their scene belonged to Frederick, not Desiree. But, he said, his director persuaded him, by directing the scene in a particular way, that really it was Desiree's scene, so he wrote the song. There was still some intimation that the song was somehow easy to sing or that Glenis Johns was somehow not up to doing just any song that might be provided.

I'd somehow missed the song entirely despite being a devotee of Judy Collins at the relevant time, and as I listened to it for the first time I just started laughing. Easy. Uh-huh.

I incidentally then went on a hunt for all covers of the song -- older women love to do it, and why shouldn't they, it actually acknowledges that we exist -- but I kept coming back to Johns. I'm not sure she actually needed assistance, but it really is her song.

P.

[sovay]

-- but I kept coming back to Johns. I'm not sure she actually needed assistance, but it really is her song.

I saw a local production of the show in high school and their Desirée was very good, but I don't hear the part in anyone's voice but hers.

[minoanmiss]

raises a light of agreement

[sovay]

raises a light of agreement

*hugs*

[asakiyume]

She wasn't an actress I knew to know, but I very much enjoyed looking through the life in pictures you linked to: thank you. I'm glad the world is so filled with interesting, talented people!

[sovay]

She wasn't an actress I knew to know, but I very much enjoyed looking through the life in pictures you linked to: thank you.

You're welcome. She was never someone I particularly followed, but I was always glad wherever she turned up, and her name in the cast list would increase my chances of watching something.

I'm glad the world is so filled with interesting, talented people!

They're important!

[imagine_that]

Court Jester is one of my favorites, and she’s so great in it. When I heard she had passed I definitely thought of that before Mary Poppins.

And my grandmother always wanted me to play “Send In the Clowns” on the piano when she came to visit. :)

[sovay]

Court Jester is one of my favorites, and she’s so great in it. When I heard she had passed I definitely thought of that before Mary Poppins.

I am glad this is true of multiple people I know!

And my grandmother always wanted me to play “Send In the Clowns” on the piano when she came to visit.

That's wonderful.

[vr_trakowski]

I saw her first in Mary Poppins, but I was a child and she made zero impression on me (the film itself didn't make much impression, I liked the books better).

I remember her most from While You Were Sleeping, which is one of the very few romcoms I can stand. She didn't have a huge part but they gave her the best lines.

[sovay]

I remember her most from While You Were Sleeping, which is one of the very few romcoms I can stand. She didn't have a huge part but they gave her the best lines.

I've never seen that one! She deserved the best lines.

[moon_custafer]

I’ve never watched it, but I keep meaning to because of the cast, and because it sounds kind of like a rom-com adaptation of I Married A Dead Man.

Meanwhile I just watched Johns sounding very Welsh in The Beachcomber.

[sovay]

I’ve never watched it, but I keep meaning to because of the cast, and because it sounds kind of like a rom-com adaptation of I Married A Dead Man.

I wonder if there was any connection. If not, it feels like more evidence for my unsubstantiated theory that screwball and noir are fundamentally, philosophically not so far from one another.

[moon_custafer]

They both tend to involve the floor dropping out from under the protagonist’s feet.

[sovay]

They both tend to involve the floor dropping out from under the protagonist’s feet.

That's it, that's the theory!

(Both also share a quantity of tropes played in different keys and feel to me like divergent channels for some of the same energy that went underground after the pre-Codes. But the overlap even sometimes in tone would account for why people keep mistaking The Big Steal (1949) for a film noir when it is a romantic comedy with a crime in and why The Big Sleep (1946) works at all.)

[vr_trakowski]

It's by no means groundbreaking, but it's gentle and fun and manages not to be too stupid. Of course, it has good actors doing most of the work.

If it sounds like something you'd enjoy (and you're not tired of Christmas movies), I'd recommend it just for the zingers.

[sovay]

If it sounds like something you'd enjoy (and you're not tired of Christmas movies), I'd recommend it just for the zingers.

I seem to have lost track of this comment at the time it was left, almost certainly because of crisis of cat, but the last time I followed up on a recommendation for a Christmas romance, it was incredibly, belatedly rewarding, so I will try to keep an eye out for While You Were Sleeping. Thank you.

[vr_trakowski]

You're welcome, and absolutely no worries. Crisis of cat is, alas, much more important. I hope the film tickles you if/when you come across it.