Constance Cummings in 'Night After Night.' Constance Cummings: Working with Frank Capra and Mae West (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Actress Went from Harold Lloyd to Eugene O'Neill.”) Back at Columbia, Harry Cohn didn't do a very good job at making Constance Cummings feel important. By the end of 1932, Columbia and its sweet ingenue found themselves in court, fighting bitterly over stipulations in her contract. According to the actress and lawyer's daughter, Columbia had failed to notify her that they were picking up her option. Therefore, she was a free agent, able to offer her services wherever she pleased. Harry Cohn felt otherwise, claiming that his contract player had waived such a notice. The battle would spill over into 1933. On the positive side, in addition to Movie Crazy 1932 provided Cummings with three of her few notable Hollywood movies: Washington Merry-Go-Round, American Madness, and Night After Night. 'Washington Merry-Go-Round' Directed by silent era veteran James Cruze (of the blockbuster Western The Covered Wagon), the populist political comedy-drama Washington Merry-Go-Round starred Lee Tracy as a Georgia Congressman battling corruption in the American capital during the Great Depression. A precursor to Frank Capra's superior Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) – with Tracy as an abrasive, fast-talking version of James Stewart's Jefferson Smith – Washington Merry-Go-Round features lofty ideas and ideals, besides a climactic speech in which Tracy declares, “I'm telling you, the ghost of these 56 signers [of the Declaration of Independence] would turn in their graves if they could see how crooks and gangsters and hypocrites have paralyzed our government!” Despite a few qualms about the film's comedy-melodrama mix, the New York Times' Mordaunt Hall was generally impressed with the screenplay by Capra collaborator Jo Swerling (Platinum Blonde, Forbidden), from a story by playwright Maxwell Anderson (What Price Glory, Saturday's Children). Constance Cummings, for her part, was deemed “a good deal more than just a pretty girl.”[1] 'American Madness' One of Columbia's few A productions of the period, American Madness was another socially conscious effort with the Great Depression as its background. Frank Capra himself, the studio's star filmmaker, directed from a screenplay by frequent collaborator Robert Riskin (It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town). In the role of a bank teller engaged to Pat O'Brien's chief teller, Cummings once again played opposite Walter Huston, cast as a liberal-minded banker (reportedly based on Bank of America founder A.P. Giannini) whose policies get him in trouble with the board. Regarding Frank Capra, Cummings would tell Matthew Sweet, “I think I rather fell in love with him.” 'Night After Night' trailer with George Raft, Constance Cummings, Mae West, Wynne Gibson and Alison Skipworth. 'Night After Night' Directed by Warner Bros.' Archie Mayo (The Petrified Forest) and starring the fast-rising George Raft, the Paramount release Night After Night is best remembered as the movie that introduced Mae West to the screen. Cummings was cast as a society girl (a role originally intended for Paramount contract star Nancy Carroll) who falls in love with rough gangster Raft. Mordaunt Hall was left unconvinced, complaining that “Constance Cummings is attractive … but she never for an instant impresses one as being the type of girl who would become interested in a man who runs a speakeasy, has a closet full of machine guns and thinks little or nothing of human life.” Regarding Mae West, Cummings would tell Matthew Sweet, “she wasn't what you'd call cozy.” First British foray In 1933, while still embroiled in the Columbia lawsuit and about to get married to English-born screenwriter Benn W. Levy (more on that below), Constance Cummings found work on the other side of the Atlantic. Her two British movies at that time were: Milton Rosmer's Channel Crossing, one more Great Depression-related drama, in this case tackling the pitfalls of unbridled capitalism. Matheson Lang and Anthony Bushell costarred. Comedian-filmmaker Monty Banks' Heads We Go / The Charming Deceiver, with future Hollywood players Frank Lawton (David Copperfield) and Binnie Barnes (Holiday). In this minor comedy, Cummings plays a model who, upon inheriting a fortune, attempts to pass for a movie star. In the British publication Film Weekly, articles with a Constance Cummings byline came out in March-April 1933. In one of them, she made a point of comparing the Italian-born (as Mario Bianchi) and Hollywood-trained Banks to her Night After Night director Archie Mayo. Leaving Harry Cohn for Darryl F. Zanuck With the lawsuit finally found in her favor, Cummings left Columbia. (The studio would lose an appeal in 1935.) She then signed with Darryl F. Zanuck's newly formed indie 20th Century Pictures, which was to distribute its films via United Artists. But despite an engaging presence and a pretty face – “chic and charming even as a starlet,” wrote film historian John Springer – Cummings' movie career didn't progress as one might have expected. In fact, her Hollywood roles were almost invariably decorative, requiring her to look blonde (her hair went several shades darker later in her career), pretty, and elegant. One exception was her supporting turn in John Cromwell's 1934 RKO release This Man Is Mine – Irene Dunne's that is, though the conniving, scene-stealing Cummings thinks otherwise. Ralph Bellamy was the man not quite worth fighting for in this conventional melodrama. Constance Cummings sings 'I Love You Prince Pizzicato' with Russ Columbo in 'Broadway Thru a Keyhole,' also featuring Texas Guinan and Hobart Cavanaugh. Things didn't improve much during her brief sojourn at 20th Century, as grade A productions went to other contract actresses or those on loan from other studios. Released in 1934, Moulin Rouge and The Affairs of Cellini toplined another “chic and charming” Constance – Constance Bennett – while none other than The Devil to Pay!'s Loretta Young was cast as the ingenue opposite George Arliss and Robert Young in the prestigious The House of Rothschild.[2] Although at that time Constance Cummings got to work for the likes of Lowell Sherman and William A. Wellman at 20th Century, and for William Wyler and James Whale at Universal, those were smaller, now largely forgotten efforts: Lowell Sherman's musical Broadway Thru a Keyhole (1933), with Russ Columbo and Paul Kelly. William A. Wellman's crime comedy Looking for Trouble (1934), with a pre-stardom Spencer Tracy and Jack Oakie. William Wyler's backstage drama Glamour (1934), with Paul Lukas and Phillip Reed. James Whale's mystery comedy Remember Last Night? (1935), with Edward Arnold, Robert Young, and Sally Eilers.[3] Leaving Hollywood, marriage to playwright Benn W. Levy In the early '30s, Constance Cummings – who at one point had been the object of affection of Universal's head of production Carl Laemmle Jr.[4] – met West End and Broadway playwright Benn W. Levy, an Englishman in his early '30s (born on March 7, 1900, in London) then working as a Hollywood screenwriter, chiefly at Universal.[5] Not long after their marriage in June 1933 (the couple would have two children), Cummings, her Hollywood career all but stalled, would shift her professional focus to the other side of the Atlantic. Although the British film industry lacked the prestige of even a B-list Hollywood studio like Columbia, London's theater scene was arguably the most illustrious in the world. In 1934, shortly before returning to Broadway in Samson Raphaelson's Benn W. Levy-staged comedy Accent on Youth, she traveled to London to star in the try-out of Sour Grapes, an American marital comedy by Movie Crazy screenwriter Vincent Lawrence that eventually made it to the West End. As it turned out, England would be her way out of the Hollywood doldrums. “Constance Cummings: Frank Capra, Mae West and Columbia Lawsuit” to be continued. Constance Cummings in 'Channel Crossing,' with Anthony Bushell (lying down) and Douglas Jeffries. Constance Cummings notes [1] The title and milieu of Washington Merry-Go-Round were taken from the 1931 bestseller penned (anonymously) by journalists Robert Sharon Allen and Drew Pearson. [2] As found in Robert Birchard's Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood, Constance Cummings was one of many actresses considered for the female lead in DeMille's 1935 period drama The Crusades. Loretta Young eventually got to play opposite Henry Wilcoxon in the Paramount release. 'Remember Last Night?' and James Whale [3] Information on Remember Last Night? can be found in Gregory William Mank's Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: The Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration. Universal's modest answer to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's sleeper hit The Thin Man, which starred William Powell and Myrna Loy, Remember Last Night? featured Constance Cummings and MGM contract player Robert Young as witty, carefree amateur detectives not unlike Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence. Actually based on the pseudonymous Adam Hobhouse's novel Hangover Murders, Remember Last Night? is also notable for featuring a post-Production Code, 15-second kiss at the beginning of the film. As found in Mark Gatiss' James Whale: A Biography, or, The Would-be Gentleman, Cummings would say about the director of Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein: “He was a most delightful man. Urbane, gentle and very warm, with a nice off-beat sense of humour.” James Whale's other film credits include: The Old Dark House (1932). Cast: Charles Laughton. Melvyn Douglas. Titanic's Gloria Stuart. Boris Karloff. The Invisible Man (1933). Cast: Claude Rains. Gloria Stuart. Show Boat (1936). Cast: Irene Dunne. Allan Jones. Helen Morgan. The Man in the Iron Mask (1939). Cast: Louis Hayward. Joan Bennett. Warren William. Joseph Schildkraut. Ian McKellen received a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of James Whale in Bill Condon's Gods and Monsters (1998), also featuring Brendan Fraser and Lynn Redgrave. Carl Laemmle Jr. [4] Carl Laemmle Jr. was the son of Universal co-founder Carl Laemmle. Besides James Whale's horror-comedy classic The Old Dark House, the sci-fi thriller The Invisible Man, and the musical Show Boat, among Laemmle Jr.'s nearly 150 credits as a movie producer/executive producer were: Best Picture Academy Award winner All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Dir.: Lewis Milestone. Cast: Lew Ayres. Louis Wolheim. Dracula (1931). Dir.: Tod Browning. Cast: Bela Lugosi. David Manners. Helen Chandler. Frankenstein (1931). Dir.: James Whale. Cast: Colin Clive. John Boles. Boris Karloff. Mae Clarke. Best Picture Academy Award nominee Imitation of Life (1934). Dir.: John M. Stahl. Cast: Claudette Colbert. Warren William. Louise Beavers. Rochelle Hudson. Fredi Washington. The Good Fairy (1935). Dir.: William Wyler. Cast: Margaret Sullavan. Herbert Marshall. Frank Morgan. Reginald Owen. Gregory William Mank mentions the Carl Laemmle Jr.-Constance Cummings connection in Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: The Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration and in other publications. In Hollywood Dynasties, Stephen Farber and Marc Green state that Junior Laemmle, as he was known at the time, and Cummings were briefly engaged, but Carl Laemmle nixed the marriage because she wasn't Jewish. Ironically, Cummings would end up marrying Benn W. Levy, who also happened to be Jewish. Constance Cummings and husband Benn W. Levy (in drag) are briefly seen in this early '30s Frankie Darro short.[6] Benn W. Levy [5] In the early-to-mid-'30s, Benn W. Levy's few but hardly minor screen credits, whether solo or in collaboration and on both sides of the Atlantic, included the following: The dialogue for Alfred Hitchcock's first talkie, Blackmail (1929), starring Anny Ondra and John Longden. James Whale's 1931 version of Waterloo Bridge, starring Mae Clarke and Douglass Montgomery. Richard Boleslawski's romantic drama The Gay Diplomat (1931), toplining Genevieve Tobin, Betty Compson, Ivan Lebedeff, and Ilka Chase. James Whale's The Old Dark House (1932). Paramount's Marion Gering-directed romantic triangle drama Devil and the Deep, starring Tallulah Bankhead, Gary Cooper, and Charles Laughton. Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast's Topaze (1933), based on a Marcel Pagnol play which Levy himself had adapted for the Broadway stage. John Barrymore and Myrna Loy starred. Victor Saville's British-made Loves of a Dictator / The Dictator (1935), a Mayerling-like historical drama starring illicit lovers Clive Brook (as Dr. Friedrich Struensee) and Madeleine Carroll (as Queen Caroline Mathilde of Denmark). In England, Levy also acquired his one and only screen credit as a director: The Alfred Hitchcock-produced Lord Camber's Ladies (1932), a crime drama starring stage legends Gerald du Maurier and Gertrude Lawrence, in addition to future Ronald Colman wife Benita Hume and Nigel Bruce (Dr. Watson in Universal's Sherlock Holmes movies of the '40s). Lord Camber's Ladies is notable as the only film produced but not directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Among Levy's early '30s Broadway credits were the adaptation of Pagnol's Topaze (1930), starring The Wizard of Oz's Frank Morgan; and Springtime for Henry (1931-32), with Leslie Banks, Nigel Bruce, Helen Chandler, and Frieda Inescort. Directed by Frank Tuttle and adapted by Tuttle and Keene Thompson, a 1934 film version of Springtime for Henry was released by Paramount. Otto Kruger, Nancy Carroll, Nigel Bruce, and Heather Angel starred. That same year, Victor Saville directed the British musical Evergreen, based on a Levy play. Jessie Matthews, Sonnie Hale, Barry MacKay, and silent era veteran Betty Balfour starred. Frankie Darro autograph hunter [6] Besides autograph hunter Frankie Darro, Constance Cummings, and Benn W. Levy, the short features the following: Cummings' Night After Night costar George Raft. Miriam Hopkins. Fay Wray. Gene Raymond. Jean Harlow. Richard Dix. Jeanette Macdonald. Paulette Goddard. Charles Chaplin. Arline Judge. George Bancroft. Constance Cummings' Film Weekly comment via Anthony Slide's A Special Relationship: Britain Comes to Hollywood and Hollywood Comes to Britain. John Springer quote is found in They Had Faces Then. An earlier draft of this Constance Cummings article erroneously listed Wesley Ruggles as the director of Night After Night. Ruggles actually directed Mae West in another movie, I'm No Angel (1933), costarring Edward Arnold and Cary Grant. Alison Skipworth, Wynne Gibson, Mae West, George Raft, and Constance Cummings in Night After Night trailer and Cummings image: Paramount Pictures. Russ Columbo and Constance Cummings Broadway Thru a Keyhole clip: United Artists. Image of Douglas Jeffries, Anthony Bushell, and Constance Cummings in Channel Crossing: Gaumont British Picture Corporation, via britishpictures.com. This article was originally published at Alt Film Guide (http://www.altfg.com/).