FRANKIE & JOHNNY
Frankie & Johnny is about the difficult courtship of two working people who, though they work side by side eight hours at a time, cannot quite manage to communicate. If the idea sounds familiar, it should. Though based on an original play by Terrence McNally (who also wrote the screenplay), the movie echoes the plot of innumerable romantic films, probably the best and best-known of which is Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner.
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When people start talking about fantasy elements in romance, the magic they are ultimately referring to is the transformational power of love, the way two people can manage to change themselves and the world around them into something somehow mysteriously better. Marshall was probably being honest when he said the movie was about the interior change of his streetwalker heroine, even though all she does is trade her gaudy hooker getups for Beverly Hills togs. Appearances count for a lot in Marshall’s world, and an evening dress can easily be a signal of deep spiritual tranformation. But it doesn’t much matter how nice the clothes are if the person wearing them isn’t a looker.
Now in even the most complex movie romances, the central lovers are likely to be more beautiful than everyone else. After all, no one wants to watch a couple of pug uglies nuzzle on a 50-foot screen for an hour and a half. However, one look at a character is not supposed to tell you all you need to know about him or her–and that is the central problem wih Frankie & Johnny. Each and every figure is not just a caricature, but a quick-sketch caricature, a few broad strokes, one or two highlights. No one changes, no one is transformed into something better or even different. People simply accept the rewards, or sanctions, that their appearances have ordained. When the movie reaches for a mood of peaceful loving at its climax, it is tinny, ersatz. It is kitsch.
Marshall’s frequent tracking shots are smooth and graceful. But instead of wandering through a wider world and just happening upon Frankie or Johnny, these often complicated shots simply contrast the usual gallery of near-grotesques (never anybody too extreme or shocking to upset the mood) with a charming picture of the protagonists.
Like most of Marshall’s other films, Frankie & Johnny is photographed in particularly bright color, something like the flashy Technicolor used in musicals of the 40s and early 50s. It has a metamorphosing quality that helps make the characters seem more vivid, larger than life. But they’re not more than real; they’re less than real.
