Sometimes Green

Musicals not being my favorite genre, I haven't recorded all that many of the movies Dave Karger has presented in the Saturday Musical Matinee slot. One that showed up a while back that sounded interesting and that I did record was a British musical from the interwar years: Evergreen.

Jessie Matthews stars as Harriet Green, a stage star in the revue era of musical shows in Edwardian England. As the movie opens, however, she's about to leave the stage as she's getting married to the Marquis of Staines. However, at the farewell party the night before the wedding, she's approached by her dresser, Mrs. Hawkes, who whispers something horrible into her ear. That something is revealed when she gets home and finds the long-lost Treadwell has returned. Treadwell was never Harriet's husband, but he is the father of the girl that Harriet has kept hidden away from both Treadwell and the public. And now that he's back and has seen the news of Harriet's upcoming marriage, he plans to blackmail poor Harriet. Harriet responds by leaving for her native South Africa and leaving Hawkes enough money to raise the little girl away from Treadwell.

Fast forward a bunch of years: the movie implies around 30, but the adult daughter doesn't seem old enough for that. We learn that Harriet died in obscurity in South Africa and, considering the way the plot runs, news never reached England. The young girl, also named Harriet but taking the name Hawkes, is all grown up and never knew her biologial mother. She's got some musical and dance talent, but with a depression on, she finding it hard to break in to the London stage scene. That is, until one day when she's hoping to get a job and who should show up but Harriet's old understudy Maudie (Betty Balfour), who immediately notices an uncanny resemblance between this young woman and the old Harriet Green, who would be about sixty by now. Of course, since the young Harriet is also played by Jessie Matthews, it's no wonder there's a similarity.

Maudie and a young man, Thompson (Barry MacKay) take Harriet to producer Leslie Benn (Sonnie Hale), who produced Harriet's shows back in the day and also sees the resemblance. So all of them come up with the patently ridiculous idea to pass the young Harriet off as Harriet Green the original, and that she has miraculously not aged a day even though she's 60. This is bound to cause a sensation, and bring all sorts of publicity which is in one way just what all of them need since with the economy being so tough, free publicity is worth it.

However, the publicity and fame also cause problems. At a press conference, the old Marquis of Staines shows up and eventually recognizes Thompson... as Harriet's son, which of course Thompson isn't. In fact, he's fallen in love with young Harriet and now can't do anything about that because the public would find out and the ruse about this being the original Harriet Green would be up. And that, as the movie informs us, would be serious fraud leading to prison sentences for the fraudsters. Worse is that Treadwell shows up again and immediately resumes blackmailing Harriet and Thompson.

I've stated before that musicals aren't my favorite genre, although Evergreen works because it falls into one of the two subgenres of musicals that work better for me. One is the biographical musical, with the other being backstage musicals where the main characters are actors. There, the musical numbers tend to fit in better since they're normally set in the context of a stage musical within the movie musical. And here, the story around all of it is one that works despite being fairly ridiculous. There's also one really interesting musical number that goes back through the preceding 30 years, with the 1914 section of women being turned into munitions quite daring for the costumes and effects.

I hadn't heard of Evergreen before it showed up on TCM. But I'm glad I got the chance to see it.