Reflections on ... The Female Animal (1958)

"Hedy Lamarr underscored her own decline by appearing as an aging movie star in Universal's tacky The Female Animal. Another refugee from the greener pastures of MGM, Jane Powell, played her daughter. The screenplay called for the two women to clash over stud George Nader."

From the book Flesh and Fantasy (1978) by Penny Stalling

Recently watched: The Female Animal (1958). Tagline: “It is said that when a woman fights for a man, she is like an animal!” I’m using this period of enforced social isolation to explore the weirder corners of YouTube for long forgotten and obscure movies. (My boyfriend Pal is accompanying me only semi-willingly). 

For her final cinematic appearance, 44-year old Austrian-born glamour girl Hedy Lamarr bowed-out ignominiously with this tawdry behind-the-scenes exposé that purports to rip the lid off the Hollywood glamour jungle. Lamarr plays dissolute middle-aged movie queen Vanessa Windsor, who finds herself vying with her own wayward daughter Vanessa (Jane Powell) when they both fall for impressively buff film extra and wannabe actor, Chris Farley (hunky prime beefcake George Nader). 
In her thirties and forties heyday the exquisite but inexpressive Lamarr was frequently a bit frosty, stiff and dead-behind-the-eyes onscreen. In her last film, she abruptly changes tack and gives a bizarre, brittle what-the-hell-performance, suddenly so “loose” she seems constantly tipsy. As the troubled, neglected and alcoholic daughter Powell is pure nails-on-a-blackboard - was she meant to be quite this shrill and unappealing? (The age difference between Lamarr and Powell, by the way, was only 14 years. No wonder they never convince as mother and daughter). 

/ Jane Powell, Hedy Lamarr and Jan Starling in The Female Animal (1958) /

Vanessa’s kept boy Chris, meanwhile, frets about becoming “a tramp.” (The scene where Vanessa buys him a new wardrobe of expensive suits evokes Gloria Swanson and William Holden in Sunset Boulevard). The Female Animal does have its compensations, though. The action pings between Vanessa’s Bel Air mansion and Malibu beach house hideaway, and both are gorgeous. Nader wasn’t the most charismatic of actors, but the film offers a nice celebration of his impressively chiseled and sinewy physique. There are countless opportunities to contemplate him shirtless, in swimming trunks or tight jeans. I’m not making assumptions about the preferences of director Harry Keller, but when it comes to filming Nader, he has what we’d now call a “queer eye” and for that let’s be grateful. (A discretely gay actor in the uptight fifties, Nader is more interesting off-screen then he was on: he lived with the same male partner for decades and was a life-long confidant of Rock Hudson’s). 

And the dialogue is juicily campy. As the original NY Times film critic noted in 1958, “far and away the best thing about Mr Zugsmith's production is the jaded ugliness and brisk carnality of the chatter.” He almost certainly means Jan Starling, who steals the entire film as Lily Frane, a former child star, now an embittered adult has-been. "I was the first child star ever to be chased around a desk!" she worryingly declares at one point. (Hashtag Me Too!). Hungrily eyeing Chris and comparing him to her own gigolo escort, she purrs, "I adore the clean-limbed American type too but somehow I always end up with veal scallopini and sideburns.” Starling's comedic performance alone makes The Female Animal worth catching. Funniest line: Vanessa impulsively proposes marriage to Chris, then rushes for the telephone to alert the gossip columnists. “This story, I think, should go to Hedda!” 

Watch The Female Animal below: