The Girl from Calgary

The thirties was where different types of films and approaches to film-making elbowed each other. Some survived and others are buried as fossils in a sort of Burgess shale.

If you want to understand what movies are, you need to see what it is not. And few things are as helpful as these fossils of the extinct.

This is one of the strangest assemblies. The seams don't match at all.

The story is about the random, offhand way which a rural gal is made a headliner. That actually happened with this actress so far as her career. But it characterizes the movie too, its capricious assembly.

It is superficially similar to hundreds of movies from this period: a story about a stage star so that we have an excuse to see a stage show. Movies were right at the cusp at this time between the traditions of the old stage and what we know today as movies.

But as I say, the splicing is so rough it startles.

It begins with genuine footage of a festival in Calgary, mostly featuring Native Americans. This is quite literally spliced. It is a silent movie and the placards are retained. Our heroine is from Calgary, it seems, simply so they could use this interesting footage. Otherwise, the Calgary connection makes no sense as the girl is French. While in Calgary, we see she is a rodeo star.

Plucky, you see.

She then travels to Broadway and is an instant hit. There is a love/exploitation story of the ordinary kind.

Here's the amazing thing. In addition to evolving what movies are, we see some evolution of what beautiful women are.

This "girl's" charms are her pluck, her batty eyes and her French accent which here is tied to an endearing whiftiness. That's also what endears her to the audiences we see, the men in which swoon. She does several sexy dances in skimpy outfits with open abandon.

But her sexy glances look absolutely stupid. They would be — are — the stuff of comedy today.

Her jouncy sexy dance and her feigned dumbness and exaggerated accent are similar stuff.

But if you wander into this, you will likely notice her figure first. She has a blocky waist, small bust and huge, huge thighs. Yet she puts on the skimpy costumes and stands in front of dozens of woman with features that have since become mandatory.

If this were today, it would be a bold comment about the shallowness of sex. For the time it was an odd splice of a performer into a sexy role as a bad splice.

And an obvious, cheap experiment in what works.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Advertised as a "comedy", this little movie certainly starts off that way and features at least one good laugh before the story changes pace and decides to become a heavy romantic drama instead. Indeed the last half of the movie is a sort of cheapjack Fanny Brice story, an impression re-inforced by both the stage antics and the appearance of Fifi D'Orsay. When not being upstaged by the irrepressible D'Orsay, the other players do what they can to save the day, particularly the exotic Astrid Allwyn who easily walks away with the movie's acting honors.

The film's minuscule production values are considerably augmented by loads of footage from the stock library. Most of this material (the Calgary Stampede, high-stepping chorus cuties from long forgotten stage musicals) is much more interesting and entertaining than the movie itself.

This film is a short trifle, running barely one hour. Fifi D'Orsay was primarily a supporting player, but here she is given the star treatment by poverty-row studio Monogram. She is cute and sings well. Her acting is okay, too. The opening of the film is from a Calgary rodeo from the early thirties. This was originally shown in Magnacolor but existing prints are black-and-white. The chorus numbers are lifted from 1929's The Great Gabbo, re-scored with different music. The story starts out as a comedy, but the second half becomes more of a melodramatic story of the machinations of show-biz types. The final result is a watchable programmer that will pass the short running time pleasantly enough.

Make sure you also read the other comments for this fascinating early talkie from Monogram Pictures... they each add excellent insight to the creation of this mosaic production. The DVD I have is from Alpha in the US and their output contains inconsistent standards, whilst the titles are often 'must see'. As a 1932 Monogram Production in some form of magnacolor (I can only guess which bits as this now is all just black and white) THE GIRL FROM CALGARY is essential viewing for fans of this company or this era. Fifi D'Orsay and Astrid Allwyn are both certainly gorgeous women, and tough guy Paul Kelly is a great leading actor, all three add a lot to what is clearly a film made of many unrelated bits. Fifi is a lot like Betty Boop, and Astrid is a sublime blonde, in the same style of Monogram star Belita who made SUSPENSE in 1944. The footage of the long long parade in reel one and later, the huge musical filmed from a major theater and show of the period add disjointed but workable storyline settings. It is because both are real with this movie filmed around them and shunted in through editing. It is as if the Monogram production office got the footage and then fashioned a story line to use them. Monogram repeated this very successfully using Navy props and footage in their 1952 drama FLAT TOP. This makes for enjoyable if peculiar presentation... but it does give great insight into low budget film making aspiring to be bigger entertainment, Sooo Monogram.

When you watch "The Girl from Calgary" today, you're very likely to be surprised at just how awful the lead in the film is and wonder how she ever got such a role. Well, I can't logically explain it, other than to say that standards were different in 1932 and perhaps Fifi D'Orsay wasn't considered terrible back then....or at least as terrible.

The film begins in the hotbed of musical entertainment, Calgary. A couple guys (including Paul Kelly) make a grand discovery of a ravishing singing sensation, Fifi. They decide to try to get her on Broadway (which is odd considering her VERY strong French-Canadian accent) and get no where. So, they go on a publicity campaign and soon people are flocking to see this sensation. This is odd, because her musical numbers are just god-awful and her charms difficult to decipher.

The bottom line is that even for a Monogram film, this is a lousy picture. Had the leading lady been more talented, spoke with an accent that didn't require captions or been prettier (I am not being sexist--the film harped on this aspect of the character), it might have worked better. I doubt if it would have been a good movie, but it certainly would have been better. As it is, it's a tedious film from start to finish and all the stock footage clumsily dumped into the film at the beginning sure didn't help.