L'ingrate cité

Having watched this movie many times -- it's in my library, I firmly believe that the role could only have been played by Bob Hope. To my mind, this is his best performance. That coupled with an excellent cast, highlighted by the duet with Jimmy Durante (and Jack Benny's cameo) make this a thoroughly enjoyable movie to watch -- just for fun. >

I was a teenager when James J. Walker was the Mayor of New York. Bob Hope doesn't look anything like him but catches the essence of his exuberant spirits and lack of responsibility very well. The narration by Walter Winchell adds just the right touch.

Paul Douglas is perfect as the Tammany boss. Hope is especially terrific in the dramatic conflict and emotional scenes with both Alexis Smith and Vera Miles. It makes me wish Hope did more straight-up dramas. It is especially a shame in retrospect, because after Beau James, Hope really never had the opportunity to make a good movie again (unless you count Critic's Choice which I don't).

If you enjoy nostalgic sad-and-funny movies about New York, this is one for you.

Over all the many times I've seen this film, it never once occurred to me that it might actually be historically accurate. Nor did it occur to me that it would matter much either way. This is the perfect glossy 1950s Hollywood 'biopic'... a totally charming film, yet with more emotional depth and dramatic substance than most that were cranked out in this politically-delicate period.

For starters, there's a totally charming performance by Bob Hope. This was the perfect part for him: the chance to seriously play a character who was never quite serious. Hope makes the good times effervescent, and the sad times not quite so sad. He makes the central love affair between a man and a city seem completely believable. (Where in real life, obviously things could never be so simple.)

But the real star of this film is the City of New York itself. Not the 'real' city... the fabulous city of myth, as only Hollywood can spin that myth. Resonant with names that are familiar even to people who've never been within thousands of miles of New York, and evocative of a history that even New Yorkers probably recall only vaguely. Just as The Untouchables etched out a stark black-and-white portrait of 1920s Gangland Chicago, Beau James paints a fond, Technicolor memory of 1920s New York.

It's true that Bob Hope's performance, while perfect for the film, was perhaps not Oscar-worthy. (The question would be moot if the Academy had the brains to give out occasional Oscars for the great art of Comedy!) But no matter... Beau James is a well-polished gem of a movie for more reasons than just Hope. Yes, it's corny, and commercial, and formulaic... but in the best way. It romanticizes something that really deserves it.

I wish I was watching it right now...

A recent biography of Hope on Channel 13 mentioned that his perennial joke at the Oscars about not getting the Oscar) was actually based on the truth. After 1944, when his close friend and partner Bing Crosby won the Oscar for GOING MY WAY, Hope was bothered by his inability to get nominated. One of his writers explained the problem: Hope could not read a straight speech in a script without fearing he was losing his audience. He had to always have a good one liner to leave 'em laughing. Unfortunately, this type of script doctoring prevented him from giving the type of performance that would have merited an Oscar.

Yet in the middle years of the 1950s Hope came close to achieving a balance of comic and dramatic possibilities. In three films (two biographies and one comedy) he played central figures with actual problems. They were THE SEVEN LITTLE FOYS, THAT CERTAIN FEELING, and BEAU JAMES. All three films are his best films. THAT CERTAIN FEELING deals with a man with major psychological problems competing with a superior,successful man (George Sanders) for the woman they love (Eva Marie Saint). THE SEVEN LITTLE FOYS gives a history Eddie Foy Sr.'s marriage to an Italian lady, and their children, and how (when his wife died) his sister-in-law tried to have the children taken from him. And BEAU JAMES (based on a biased, but well written biography by Gene Fowler)is about the Mayor of New York City from 1926 - 1932, James J. Walker.

Walker was a very popular mayor in the 1920s, re-elected by a majority (over Fiorello LaGuardia) of half a million votes (a considerable achievement then). But his administration was corrupt, and he was abandoning his wife for his girlfriend, Broadway actress Betty Compton. Judge Samuel Seabury tore the Walker administration apart in a series of hearings from 1930 to 1932. They culminated with Governor Franklin Roosevelt holding hearings involving Walker in Albany that showed he accepted "gifts" from people doing business in the city. Walker could not really explain away this behavior and he resigned. The handling of the scandal by Roosevelt assisted him in getting the Democratic nomination for the Presidency in 1932.

Hope does very well as Walker. He does have a serious role where his flippant jokes match the character. He also shows the right degree of serious behavior, panicked when Betty is spirited away by Paul Douglas and Tammany Hall, or when he tells off the citizens of New York at Yankee Stadium for electing him. But the gaps in the script - the unwillingness to show the uglier side of the corruption - prevent one from taking it too seriously. Hope deserves recognition for his performance here, but he didn't merit (nor receive) an Oscar nomination for BEAU JAMES.

This is a celluloid version of Gene Fowler's valentine to his old chum Jimmy. It tries to make a case that Walker did not realize his taking the bribes/gifts was wrong. Walker knew it was wrong, but he never admitted it - he had been brought up in a city run by the Hall, and he was doing business there exactly as every boodling Mayor of New York had done since the 19th Century. Walker (a good Catholic, presumably) also knew that he was committing adultery when he took up with Ms Compton. Later, after he left City Hall, he divorced his wife (playedwell by a coldly calculating Alexis Smith here) and married Betty. Interestingly that marriage eventually failed, although Jimmy and Betty did adopt a girl. Compton died in 1941. Jimmy in 1947.

Historians generally rank Walker among the worst Mayors of New York, and in the major cities of the U.S., in the twentieth century. However, recent scholarship has suggested that Walker was maligned. Nobody suggests that the corruption was not there, but it was to the interest of FDR and Judge Seabury (who had unrealistic political hopes of his own) to go after the Hall and Jimmy. Interestingly enough, Walker's old adversary Fiorello LaGuardia was more forgiving and pragmatic than FDR was. Walker went to Europe for a number of years with Betty (where did he have the money for this move - the film ignores this matter). When he returned (a Federal tax investigation decided there was nothing to go after), LaGuardia appointed Walker to be labor mediator in the garment industry. He did that job well. Also, some recent scholars seem to support what Darren McGavin's character says in the film. McGavin tells Hope that although he works only four hours a day he does more work each day than the last four mayors did working full days. The reason is that he's bright. There is evidence that he was remarkably adept at thinking out quick, to the point solutions on his feet.

As a Democrat, Walker had the constant problem of working under Republican federal administrations in Washington (Presidents Coolidge and Hoover). In his first term, Cunard and other oceanic lines announced plans for building bigger and faster steamships. This meant their current piers would be too short for them. Walker contacted the Department of Commerce (under Hoover during Coolidge's administration) for permission to extend the piers into the Hudson River. The problem was that this would interfere with transportation in interstate commerce on the Hudson (longer piers mean less room for boats sailing on the river). Coolidge and Hoover said no. When told this, Walker immediately asked if there was any problem of blasting into the granite bedrock of the island of Manhattan to extend the piers into the island. His engineers said it could be done. There was no further problem about the extension of piers. If Walker could think that clearly on such a problem he probably could do his job half-well. But his moral lapses can't be easily dismissed, as this film tries to do.

This is the closest thing to a good dramatic performance Bob Hope ever gave...and its pretty good. Of course, the film soft pedals and simplifies: Walkers great antagonists, Seabury and LaGuardia, barely appear in it. In fact, there is a great dramatic and tragic film waiting to be made of the Jimmy Walker story, with terrific roles for the actors who would portray the "little flower' LaGuardia, and the incorruptible, if cold -hearted, "man who rode the Tiger", Seabury, as well as Jimmy Walker ( not to mention his wife and mistress). Maybe Scorsese could do it someday.