Stingaree

                             Irene as Hilda Bouverie                           

Release date 05.25.1934

"Even a bandit must respect English womanhood! Why, the very foundation of empire is virginity!"

"Chastity, Madame, chastity! No empire would get very far with virginity!"

Good news for Mrs. Clarkson (Mary Boland): the famous composer Sir Julian Kent (Conway Tearle) from London is going to arrive soon at her Australian home. Convinced that she is an opera singer disguised as the wife of a rich sheep farmer, the only thing she got to do now is to prevent that her maid Hilda Bouverie (Irene) gets the chance to audition too, because Hilda is the real opera singer in disguise. Slightly disturbing all those plans is the highway gentleman bandit Stingaree (Richard Dix) who kidnaps Sir Julian planning to pose for him and so getting entrance to the wealthy Clarkson's house. When Stingaree shows up there, the only person around is Hilda practicing her singing. Stingaree instantly falls for the girl's beautiful voice, promises her to help her with a musical career and fittingly has a song at hand. The bandit posing as composer is indeed a composer!

Tonight is mine...

Soon after the return of the Clarksons Stingaree's real identity is revealed and he has to leave in a hurry but not without grabbing Hilda. On horseback they disappear into the bushes - literally.

  Hi-Ho...there we go!

Dammit! Sir Julian managed to escape Stingaree's valet Howie (Andy Devine) thus raining on Stingaree's parade who had a nice, very private audition for Hilda in mind.
Well, Stingaree will find another chance for her to sing for Sir Julian but not before he has shown Hilda that her voice is not his only interest in her…

 learning to love you, learning all about you!

  

The great day is here: Mrs. Clarkson performs for Sir Julian but soon he and the other guests are rescued by Stingaree forcing them at gunpoint to listen to Hilda instead. At gunpoint or not, Hilda sings beautifully “Tonight Is Mine” and Sir Julian impressed by her voice promises to take her to London to train her. Exit Stingaree, but this time his luck is against him and he is shot and imprisoned. Hilda is reluctant to leave but Stingaree insists on her putting her career first and “taking everything in her stride".

 Success, flowers and Hilda...

In the following years Hilda achieves indeed everything an opera singer can dream about - the public at La Scala and Covent Garden at her feet, fame, wealth and last not least the heart of her mentor Sir Julian. Nevertheless, Hilda can't forget Stingaree and she turns back for a gala performance in Melbourne. Will Stingaree show up there - conveniently he just escaped -  and will it be into the bush again  for Hilda??

real luck is on a horse's back

This film is an oddity, though a very entertaining one. While re-watching it I laughed a lot wondering if this isn't Irene's first comedy - in disguise of course. If I ought to take this plot seriously I just don't know what there is left to laugh about!
Mary Boland gives an over the top performance as wannabe opera singer and her audition for Sir Julian is hilarious, furnishing proof why singers have to practice in front of a mirror from time to time. Something Miss Dunne obviously did.

Don't forget the mirror!

In an interview in the 70s Irene remembered “Stingaree” mainly because of the opera singing she did in it and because she liked the torch song “Tonight Is Mine”- exactly the things I would remember about this film maybe with the addition that I always have a special liking for Irene's looks in period costumes. That lady certainly had a well-educated and trained voice and gets the chance to sing two arias. One is a part of the “jewel song” from Gounod's opera “Faust”, which Irene surprisingly sings a halftone flat than the original score. I really don’t know why - Irene's high notes don't sound like the limit of her voice to me here, but maybe she simply felt more comfortable singing it a little bit lower. Anyway, in the final analysis, we are in Hollywood and not on the stage of the Met or La Scala. 

Sir Julian, Annie and Hilda (Irene dressed in my favorite costume from this film)

The other one is an excerpt from Flotow's opera “Martha” and an original Irish song at the same time. Maybe Irene - mentioning her Irish origins frequently and obviously liking them - picked this one, but that's something we don't know. If I ramble on about Irene as singer and not so much about her as an actress, that's due to the fact that the outstanding part of this film for me is simply her excursion into opera. Beautiful enough - but Miss Dunne was where she belonged: in Hollywood. But of course I'm once again grateful that I decided on reviewing the films of an actress who offers me such diverse movies as “This Man Is Mine” and “Stingaree” in a row.
About Mr. Dix performance I want to quote the New York Post: “It is a preposterous tale, with Mr. Dix doing his best to prevent it from being even faintly credible.” (May 18. 1934) Couldn't have said it better - once again Miss Dunne is abandoned by her leading man. In the end,  Mr. Dix isn't much around anyway, only showing up in the beginning and the end of the film and in between pining away in some prison, unobserved by us though. To understand how the statuses of the two leads changed from their first enterprise together “Cimarron” (1931) to “Stingaree” one just has to look at the billing and how they are treated by the camera in their scenes together. Irene got first billing and a lot more attention from the photographer.

 Irene and the back of Mr. Dix's head

Don't ask me how director William Wellman - certainly worthwhile to know because of such films as “Public Enemy”, “Night Nurse” or “So Big” for instance - got involved in this project. But here he is, offering solid direction but having to handle an utterly unbelievable script. The funny moments are not unintentional -  just look what perspective Wellman selected for Mrs. Clarkson's audition for Sir Julian and you know that he wanted us to laugh. Similar are the performances of the supporting actors from the slightly drunk Inspector (George Barraud) till Hilda's maid Annie (Una O´Connor) prattling in a Cockney accent and Andy Devine in one of his typical sidekick roles.

once again  - tonight is mine....

“Stingaree” grew on me while re-watching it for this review, simply because I had so much fun - and I always

love when Irene sings. Additionally, I like the score from the “hi-ho we are riding bandit theme” to Mrs. Clarkson's ballad “The Fisherman” - with mermaids of course!

Here is the music!  

Detour - Irene Dunne as singer

singing.....(Stingaree 1934- with Richard Dix)

If Irene´s singing voice would have been a little more on the weighty side I probably wouldn´t be sitting here. But as life goes when she auditioned for the MET in 1920 she was turned down with the statement of having too slight a voice. Thus her initial wish to become an opera singer didn´t come true, but this refusal led her to musical comedy and consequently to Hollywood...  

Little Irene grew up in a musical home under the guidance of her mother Adelaide, herself a musician. Adelaide taught her daughter as a very small girl to play the piano, singing lessons followed and Irene was early in life confronted with the fact that art is a lot of work: "Whenever I wanted to play with the neighborhood children I had to practice. There were lessons, lessons, lessons, always lessons." (Screenland, June 21  1937) If there ever was a doubt that the course was set for a professional life with music, it was blown away when Irene at the age of sixteen attended a performance of "Madame Butterfly". Irene remembered this evening in 1936: "It was as if I´d been asleep all my life...Farrar and the beauty of her singing had awakened me."(Movie Mirror, November 1936) What a wonderful opera for an awakening, Miss Dunne!

                   singing... (Unfinished Business 1941)

But before the access to the coveted stage some musical education was still to master. The core of it took place at the Chicago Musical College where Irene won a scholarship in 1919. Though busy with growing success at the theatre since 1922, Irene went on with her studies in Chicago till her graduation with high honors in 1926. This parallelism of work and study shows how serious she was about her formal musical education.

         singing...for once in the chorus (Unfinished Business 1941)

Music is always an important instrument in films. A tool to create atmosphere, to comment and interpret the ongoings on screen or to add subtext, which old Hollywood loved so much to do. Never, ever miss the lyrics of the songs in the background!

But to have an actress at hand for whom music was such a natural part of her being as it was for Irene, creates a new dimension. She sang in 26 of her 41 films and for all kind of purposes: to comfort, to put someone to sleep - and not only kids, to shut her man up, to get her man, to show that she is happy, in love, or even to prove that she is still nuts...and of course for sheer entertainment! Music is a self-evident element of Irene Dunne´s films.

                    still singing...(Never A Dull Moment 1950)

Her upbringing in a house which she describes as :"Music was as natural as breathing in our house."(Picturegoer, Feb.17  1945) is reflected in her natural performing style, though she is every inch an educated singer. It´s not an operatic voice but a well conducted voice with beauty and warmth - her phrasing and musical expression are flawless. Obviously Miss Dunne found  - through her turning to the musical comedy stage - the perfect kind of music for herself. Anyway a fundamental step a singer has to take: finding the material which is fitting for her/his voice.

             Lovely to look at...yes, indeed! (Roberta 1935)

             One of my favorites, with Fred Astaire as conductor

Our love for the opera and a singing education is something Miss Dunne and I have in common and that mostly when Irene is around a song isn´t too far away is one of the great joys for me in her films. Especially because I don´t have to compromise: Irene did not only sing beautifully for an actress, but she did sing beautifully for a singer.

Go on and sing my heart...(Love Affair 1939)

and another favorite, music by Harold Arlen,a song especially written for Irene

Thank you for all the music, Miss Dunne!