So far as I am concerned, the reason Joan Blondell isn’t better remembered today is the Code. She was at her best when she was allowed to be sassy and independent, and the Code hampered that kind of role in women. There was no place for Blondell’s style of brassy independence. I’m not sure there ever has been since. Though it is true that my favourite of her roles involves her acting as the cynical pin to Katharine Hepburn’s ballooning hopes, and you can’t get tougher than that.
She was of the generation of performers born into vaudeville, and Joan Blondell was her real name, or anyway her full name was Rose Joan Blondell. Jack Warner wanted her to change it to Inez Holmes, and thank goodness she refused. She made nearly fifty films for Warners in the ’30s, and indeed she was one of the highest-paid performers of the decade. But the roles that started coming after that were not the sort that she was best at, and she dabbled in Broadway and television as well, never quite attaining the success of those early years again. The roles no longer had the same kind of snap.
I find myself wanting to use that kind of noun about her and her performances. “Snap.” “Brass.” “Zazz.” She was that kind of dame, the kind you want to use the word “dame” about. Most of her best performances are about women cracking wise at people. She’s a hoot in Topper Returns, managing to substitute all by herself for Cary Grant and Constance Bennett both. You assume that everyone who knew her will feel that their life is somewhat diminished because they don’t ever get to hear what she’ll think to say next. I’m not sure movies today really have a space for that, because I think they want the same characters to be meaner than Blondell’s characters usually were. Blondell’s characters take care of their friends.
Her best characters also had a rather matter-of-fact earthy sensuality. No one ever says that Peg in Desk Set is sleeping around, just as no one ever says that Bunny is sleeping with the tedious Mike. But you don’t have to. Peg has sex when she wants to and doesn’t let anyone tell her not to. By ’57, you were starting to be able to imply that again, but that kind of attitude had been underground for a couple of decades by then. Unfortunately, given Hollywood, those were the best years of Blondell’s career—can you believe she was 51 that year? A year older than Hepburn, in fact. I checked three times.
Another thing I like about Blondell is that she had a little weight on her and was still that bluntly sexual figure. Not fat, but not a rail, either. I think a lot of what I love about Joan Blondell is that she seemed real. There’s a lot of fuss about Ginger Rogers and various women of her ilk as being “girl next door” types, but let’s face it. A whole heck of a lot more of the women I’ve known over the years have been Joan Blondell. Which makes me a very lucky woman indeed, to have such friends. Her friendship with Bunny in Desk Set is one of the most natural portrayals of female friendship in cinematic history.
