I wrote a review of this film back in 1986. The film was based on a play that hit the stage in 1926 and which was followed by a silent film version the next year. In 1975 Bob Fosse developed a new musical stage version of the story, which was quite successful. In 2002 this musical was made into the film. Chicago, starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Rene Zelweiger. The latter played the Roxie Hart role. It was a very successful film and winner of several Academy Awards.
Roxie Hart, though based on largely the same characters is a different film. In 1942 the production code was in full force and placed restrictions on what you could and couldn't do. For example, screen couples, married or not always slept in twin beds. Any hanky panky scenes set in the bedroom required that one or both of the performers have one foot on the floor. The important rule effecting Roxie Hart was if someone committed a crime, they had to suffer the consequences. In the 1942 film they got around this requirement by having the murderer the story was structured around being not Roxie, but someone else.
I noted in the beginning of my review that Roxie Hart had been on the AMC channel a couple of times recently. I remember being overwhelmed with laughter at the film's spoof of Chicago during the roaring twenties when I saw it the year it was released. My memory was good, for it is still one hulluva funny film. Ginger Rogers plays the brassy Roxie, a hoofer hoping to become a star and who is charged with the murder of one Mr. Casey. The attorney who is going to get her off, "They've never hanged a woman in this county yet," is Billy Flynn, played adroitly by a flamboyant Adolph Menjou. The romantic lead, if there really is one, was George Montgomery playing a young very romantic cub reporter, Homer Howard. The film is also blessed with a wealth of fine supporting players, including the dry Lynne Overman (Jake Callahan) a cynical older reporter, Phil Silvers a very brassy newspaper photographer named Babe, William Frawley (O'Malley) an easily swayed juror, George Chandler (Amos Hart) who is low in the credits but deserving much credit for his funny portrayal of a dumb, injured husband, and Iris Adrian (Two Gun Gertie) one of Hollywood's premier hard-boiled dames of that period, and not to forget, Milton Parson who plays a deadly serious cadaverish radio announcer. During the trial, which is covered live on radio, the sponsor is an advertising doctor. In one commercial, Parsons intones, "Write us about your gallstones," This and all his lines are delivered with an ultra-serious deadpan tone. These are all mixed together with such other old pros as Sara Allgood and Spring Byington in parodies of a ladies jail matron and a genteel lady reporter, Miss Sunshine, respectively. You can think of Roxie Hart as another look at the world that MacArthur and Hecht parodied so well in Front Page. Nunnally Johnson wrote the very clever script in this film and easily equaled the former's comedic approach to Chicago, booze and crime.
The film opens with Montgomery; he talks like Clark Gable throughout the film which was apparently a trade mark of sort that he used, telling a tale in a saloon on a rainy night in Chicago in what is in the time frame of the early '40s. He is a seasoned reporter who, while downing a couple of shots, and thereby getting in the mood proceeds to tell the story of "Roxie Hart," the greatest of them all. This takes us to a flashback to 1927 with our being greeted by a couple of gunshots behind a door and being followed by two more. Later we see the police grilling Amos, who readily admits having fire the gun. Callahan is covering the shooting for his paper, when he notices a woman climbing stealthily down the fire escape. He hangs up the phone he uses, and hurriedly goes into another room, shuts the door, where we see Roxie for the first time in the form of a gum-chewing floozy with curly brown hair (it's supposed to be red for this black and white film): Ginger Rogers. Callahan charges back into the room and manages to subdue Roxie after a spirited tussle.
After he has had a chance to talk to her, he learns that she is interested in becoming a stage star. He persuades her to admit to the crime in order to assist her in achieving this career goal. He also says he will be able to line up the undisputed top attorney of that era, Billy Flynn, to handle her case. Roxie goes for the deal, and her husband, willing to be let off from the crime he committed, cooperates.
Roxie goes to jail where she quickly becomes its most famous inmate. Callahan's paper is trumpeting the case, and Amos Hart has come with almost all the $5,000.00 Flynn wants to take Roxie's case. Flynn tells him to call Roxie's parents when he hasn't got all the money. He does, and her father tells him no. After he hangs up he tells her mother, "They're going to hang Roxie." "Didn't I tell you?" the mother replies and they both go back to reading and rocking while sitting on the front porch of their little farmhouse.
Roxie is interviewed in the jail after she has had a run-in with Velma (Helen Reynolds), another lady prisoner, resulting in a kicking, scratching and hair pulling fight which is broken up by Mrs. Morton, the matron (Sara Allgood in a completely out-of-character role for her). She knocks their two heads together and exclaims, "Children, Children" to the unruly pair. Despite this outburst the interview goes on smoothly with all the reporters and Flynn in attendance, and ends up with Roxie doing the Black Bottom with everyone there joining in. This is initiated by Callahan inquiring if her Black Bottom rendition has been well received. Roxie replies, "I ain't had any complaints yet." This is one of Roger's two dance numbers. Later on she does a nice little soft shoe routine on the metal stairway in the jail.
Flynn concocts a story for Roxie, which she memorizes. It implies that the shooting of Mr. Casey was an attack of self-defense; she and the gentleman were fighting for his gun. She came up with it, shot him and says, "Everything went purple." Callahan asks, "Was it lavender or violet."
The court scenes are a riot and include a fight between the district attorney and Flynn. "No one can call me that and live," shouts Flynn after being denounced as a lying, etc., etc. by the district attorney. As Flynn tears off his coat and prepares to give battle, he whispers in the bailiff's ear, "Grab me, Billy." Fortunately several other officers have grabbed the district attorney, so the latter is not able to assault the angry Flynn being held back by the bailiff.
Flynn has singled out the jury foreman, O'Malley, as ready to eat out of his hand. This becomes quickly obvious from the performance of old pro, Bill Frawley, who does his jury scenes using his complete repertoire of facial expressions.
The trial comes to its conclusion with Roxie on the stand describing the whole incident. She had claimed to be pregnant in jail after having been reduced to second fiddle following the incarceration of the notorious "Two Gun Gertie." "Got a match, Bud," Iris Adrian in the role queries Callahan in her best hard-as-nails voice. Earlier when he was in the witness chair, Amos had declared he has divorced Roxie (when she was in jail) because, "the little stranger was too much of a stranger." Now Roxie testifying to the end finally brings up her unborn child and collapses in tears on the floor in front of the jury box. Flynn picks her up, and as Babe orders the latest in his many interruptions of the trial to get pictures. You see the cameramen flashing their old-style explosive flashes, with Roxie smiling upside down as she is held in Flynn's arms.
Well, the conclusion is obvious. Roxie goes free, O'Malley would have hung the jury even if it had taken a lifetime. The films ends with Homer (Montgomery, who as you remember has been narrating the story) going out in the rain where his wife is waiting for him. Here we see Roxie behind the wheel with about five kids. The film closes with her telling him, "Honey, I think we are going to have to get a bigger car next year."
The pleasure of Roxie Hart is essentially in the dialogue and delicious overacting. The lines are witty and well delivered. Rogers and Menjou are particularly adept, but the supporting players do a lot with small, juicy roles. If you want to see a sparkling version of Chicago's classic twenties, this will be your cup of tea.
Dick Gardner, Classic Films
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