[With another
autumn upon us, a series on presences and representations of the season’s first
month in American cultural texts. Share your fall connections in comments,
please!]
On how biography
adds compelling layers and questions to a forgettable romantic comedy.
I honestly tried
to watch the 1961
romantic comedy Come September in preparation for writing this post,
but after a certain early point I gave up. Even the Wikipedia summary
of the film’s plot, and more exactly of who is wooing or leaving whom at any
given moment, is almost impossible to follow; and on watching the opening the
film feels more like an advertisement for Italy’s spectacular
Ligurian coast than a coherent story. And the part that I did most fully understand,
and that explains the film’s title, is more creepy than romantic: September is
the month when American businessman Robert (Rock Hudson) annually escapes to
his Ligurian villa with his Italian mistress Lisa (Gina Lollobrigida); but this
year his visit is moved up to July instead, and when he informs Lisa of the
change she cancels her imminent wedding to join Robert per usual. The course of
true love and all, but not exactly the sweetest way to meet these two
star-crossed lovers.
So not exactly a
must-watch classic—but if we delve into the biographies of the film’s stars, it
takes on additional and more interesting layers of meaning. For one thing, the
film’s two young lovers are played by popular crooner Bobby Darin
and up-and-coming ingénue Sandra
Dee, and the story of their connection behind the scenes is by far the film’s
most romantic: Darin and Dee met for the first time on set, fell in love, and
were married that same year. Portrayed in the recent biopic Beyond the Sea (2004),
with Kevin Spacey starring as Darin and Kate Bosworth as Dee, the marriage
lasted seven tumultuous years and produced their son Dodd Mitchell Darin before
the couple divorced in 1967. And no matter what the future held for these two,
there’s something fascinating about watching two young performers pretending to
fall in love while (we know) they were actually falling in love as well, and
the romance between these two popular artists makes for a much more compelling
story than anything presented on screen in Come
September.
And then there’s
Rock Hudson. It would be homophobic, narrow-minded, and just plain dumb for me
to suggest that a gay actor couldn’t play a straight character, and of course Hudson’s
entire career (much of it as the lead in romantic comedies)
would belie that notion. Yet at the same time (and of course I’m far from the
first to argue this), there’s something inarguably compelling about the reality
that one of the most popular, traditional (that is, starring in the kinds of traditional
love stories that were permissible and widespread in the buttoned-up entertainment
culture of the 1950s) romantic leads in Hollywood history was throughout his
life and career performing
that sexuality, acting the part of a heterosexual sex symbol. Sir
Ian McKellen argued earlier this year that when he finally came out as a
gay man (at the age of 49), it made him a better actor; “my acting was disguise,”
he put it, “Now, my acting is about revelation and truth.” Seen through that
lens, and given that he never came out publicly during his lifetime (although his
1985 diagnosis with AIDS led to awareness of his sexuality shortly before
and then after his death), Hudson’s acting was always a multi-layered, complex
facet of his life, and one that lends another compelling layer to a film like Come September.
Next September
text tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other fall texts you’d highlight?
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