Blockade (United Artists) (1938)

Are those feminine thrill hunters born to adven¬ ture? Or do they have a it thrust upon them? Hollywood comes to bat in age- old dispute with striking ex¬ it a mple of a woman who leads % jjjfc. dangerous life through ™ no choice of her own Women, resolutely elbowing their way into fields once con¬ sidered the exclusive preserve of the theoretically stronger sex, have never neglected the field of adventure. Swashbuck¬ ling ladies such x as Molly have left her life of cultured leisure if she had not happened to meet and marry the world’s greatest flyer. And now Hollywood, never reluctant to settle mankind’s knottiest problems, leaps into the “why girls leave home” dis¬ cussion with an impressive ar¬ gument on the side of those who contend that women adventur¬ ers are really hearth-and-home lovers at heart. The argument is carried by no less persuasive an exponent than the beauteous Madeleine Carroll, who, as a peace-loving girl inadvertently embroiled in the current Span¬ ish Civil War, finds herself in¬ volved in the most hair-raising situations at the repeated risk of her life. And all the while she takes an active part in the conflict, she wishes she were well out of it, safe somewhere across the waters where peace is at least a not too remote pos¬ sibility. Mme. Chiang Kai-Shek, Chi¬ nese gentlewoman, was born to a life of quiet luxury but took an active part in history¬ making events. Pitcher, Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane have enlivened the pages of American history from its earliest chapters. And our own generation, with its Amelia Earharts, its Osa Johnsons, its Gertrude Ederles, boasts a nu¬ merous and impressive bevy of lady adventurers, explorers, warriors, soldiers of fortune. What is there in the mental makeup of womankind that causes her, ever and anon, to kick over the traces that fetter her to kitchen, fireside or hum¬ drum office and to leap, khaki- clad, into airplane, battlefield, or unexplored jungle? The psy¬ chologists, those modern sooth¬ sayers whose crystal ball is the human subconscious, are ready with an answer. In fact, they are ready with two answers. One school holds that the ladadventurers get that way from a deep-lying ne&'JH) prove that they are just as g>aod, just as able, just as fearless as men. As proof they point to the late Amelia Earhart, undoubtedly one of the most dauntless : * ■ , laying the part of a secret operative in "Blockade,” furnishes a of a peace-loving girl embroiled in situations of greatest peril through circumstances beyond her control. wn the “do-and-dare r school and my history holds no record of any by unfair dealings even when she gi- sat proudly and conspicuously of on the top of the ladder of suc¬ cess. Whether she determined to lead an untrammelled existence for this reason or some hidden ones, the fact remains that Annie proved that she had as stout a heart and as steady a nerve as any good two-gun man, and her fame was made much of by the wild and woolly Westerners. Turning the spotlight on more modern times, one can¬ not overlook the exciting ex¬ ploits of Gertrude =Ederle’s ca- jtmt. reer. Here is a woman who was "W consumed from birth with the ambition to do big things and K to stay deliberately away from A the arm-chair way of life. Ger- Wk trude, the girl who gallantly Hp swam the English Channel in |H| the summer of 1928, not only was not one to make much of a her feats, often telling friends: J JaBBprit "Jfw? “Whether they know it or not, ^ J? i M&M i fliers love flying because of the ^ $ >4* J- ' WmMztk aesthetic beauty of flight Itself.” IfllfWiiM i, ' Ilf J? In June 18, 1928, Miss Ear- hart had become the first woman ||H ^HR!P> to fly the Atlantic. The adven- |1 m v ^ ture launched her career in 91 WHHH aviation and in the months that followed she set up a flock of H9 |[||M^ 9 hB| ■*|S ■ flying records, among which might be noted that she was the first woman to fly solo across ■ W&W the Atlantic, the first to fly an autogyro, the first woman to make a transcontinental non- stop flight and the first woman to fly between Hawaii and Cali- Mm .J fornia. ^ J ap? It was neither wande ' ▼T ^ however, nor the lure of'._ ~*ju- la? applause which took little g ^ ; . Ljflll lll lllp Madame Curie out of the kitchen ' 4 and into the scientific labora- ^9H9|||f|^K W ^ J|p tory for a life which would j? WiJIwiZ-- tend the. frontiers of scientific I mM knowledge and swell the rec- vHk, % |hH| 1 * ord of human accomplishment. Madame Curie might truthfully | be called an adventurer of the j mind—a woman who never swerved from her purpose and her consuming interest in dis- covering the secrets of radium, in imminent danger of capture, It is hardly conceivable that any Molly took his place and worked _ ' woman except a truly extraordi- the gun against the enemy. Greatest of the lady adventur¬ nary one would have found the Among present-day women of ers was Amelia Earhart who, monumental patience and the action and danger, no one _ , . . undying devotion to a cause would ever have dreamed that aIter man y thrilling aviation which she dreamed would allevi- little Osa Leighty, an obscure exploits, disappeared on a Pa- a ^~ ia , a measure some of the young singer who had never . ft , - sufferings of mankind. been more than thirty miles clhc ho P- What strange force And now we turn to those from home until she met Martin impelled her to risk her life? other women adventurers who Johnson, would turn out to be might be called the inadvertent the most famous big - game ter of a family of wealth and ones—those who led a sheltered huntress of her day. Marrying culture, educated for a social life and evidently not destined SlPl^l^' *" 4 * ^ H •#:, f,,r exciting exploits. Yet the V*' little girl who had never been H Lindbergh, the towering airman *■**■ T \ ^ '-+■*-i* - * f H and the greatest flyer of niod- ern times, must surely take her | place in any list of immortal |fr / !< ,.j-aMw>fea9H^Hi^BH feminine adventurers. Certainly g,JaK^. •„ if environment and education L are taken into account, there -iHHH was never any indication that \ ■ y h » ; PH9HI young Anne would some day Wim sJ \ P r<)Ve to the world that she had IPi: » - iMMM liBBS an earnest desire for genuine ! aHIH achievement and a rich sense of drama. She herself cannot ex- 9 h| plain the impelling force which J?' urgec ^ ^ er to l earn to fly, to be- Jzm Y . fwH come her husband’s radio oper- W f w r y UHI ator, to accompany him on his I Mgm liBHS most daring expeditions. * ^1* A Mrs. Lindbergh, incidentally, tirnsim k l||g C k was the first woman to receive f j: th e Hubbard Gold Medal of the W$Mm i J 1 \ ^B|j||| National Geographical Society -C:v:: in 1934 for her work as co-pilot $ Wmm§ - fill i wm&mml . and radio operator on this flight lllllllf -‘W ; Which covered 40,000 miles and Calamity Jane, two-gun wom¬ an of the west, sought adven¬ ture from her earliest days. Portrait is from an old tintype. At any rate, this theme is the framework of the recently com¬ pleted Walter Wanger picture, “Blockade.” Miss Carroll, as the heroine, has Henry Fonda as her leading msi{>. The film mirrors the present civil strife in Spain—without taking sides. Miss Carroll portrays a girl who is unaware tihat her father is spying for both sides and she is innocently plunged into the j Oakley. Note the remarkable * resemblance to another daunt- [ less lady... Anne Lindbergh. * having cherished suppressed de- I sires for the simple and shel¬ tered life. Whether she was a deliberate adventuress in the sense that she wanted to rival the prowess of contemporary males is difficult to determine. It is sufficiently clear, however, ;i that she fearlessly adopted the l male codes of the period she lived in and dedicated her life to saddle, pistol and rifle. As a young girl Calamity was of medium height, strongly and beautifully made, with dark brown hair and eyes. Her brav¬ ery, her deadly skill in shoot¬ ing, her generosity and her sportsmanship make a fascinat¬ ing saga of excitement and color even for those who have made much of the unsavory de¬ tails of her private life and the shoddy gossip attached thereto. It is said that she was mar¬ ried twelve times and that most of her husbands died with their boots on. She had one daughter who was educated in an East¬ ern convent far from the no¬ toriety of the mother. When Calamity Jane was only 20, she enjoyed the reputation as a first-rank mule skinner; a few years later she shared with Wild Bill Hickok the limelight of the West at its woolliest. All men—even the barroom, tobacco-chewing variety — ad¬ mired Calamity, drank with her and swore at her. But none ever forgot that she was only a split second slower in going into action with a Colt than the fast¬ est he-man and therefore not to be trifled with. Everyone from the marshals down ack¬ nowledged that underneath her tough exterior she was a staunch friend, a real sport and a square shooter. Here, | certainly, was no shrinking vio- |? let plucked from the dooryard and tossed into the world of action against her will. Hardly less amazing and spec¬ tacular was the career of Annie Oakley, the world’s most fa¬ mous “straight shooter.” Annie, whose poverty-stricken begin¬ nings and life of domestic slav¬ ery as a farm-hand would have squelched the ordinary woman, emerged a shining example of Few women look less inclined toward the "lady adventurer” type than Miss Carroll in real life. Annie Oakley, legendary femme gun-toter of frontier days, was a real life character. This picturesque portrait of her was popular during her heyday. women in all history, who pro- fracas, using her native cour- claimed repeatedly that it was age for death-dealing purposes, the duty of women to challenge But, psychologists will ask, and combat the supremacy of are women really like that? men in the field of arduous Would a woman devoted to the achievement. pursuits of peace and a quiet The opposing camp contends home permit herself to get that the feminine derring-doers mixed up in anything so hectic are adventurous against their as a full-dress foreign war? own deep-seated wishes — that And, being in it, wouldn’t she they are drawn into a life of try to find her way back to excitement through extraneous tranquility in short order? Well, circumstances and go on pur- let us look at some of the suing it despite a secret yearn- women in real life who have ing to get back to the tranquil been involved in stormy doings, confines of the home they de- and see whether they did it of serted. They cite, in support, their own choice, the example of an equally fa- Among the strong-arm ladies mous aviatrix, Anne Morrow of the past, few are more pic- Lindbergh, who never would turesque and colorful than Mar- ture, “Blockade,” Miss Carroll plays one of those fearless women whose fearlessness, like that of many real-life heroines, is not inborn but is thrust upon her. The film, which is being released through United Ar¬ tists, was directed by William Dieterle from a screenplay by the practised hand of John Howard Lawson. Henry Fonda is co-starred with Miss Carroll a s a young Spanish peasant- warrior, and in the supporting cast are featured Leo Carrillo, John Halliday, Reginald Denny and Katherine De Mille. In many scenes from Walter Wanger’s new adventure- romance, "Blockade,” Madeleine Carroll skirts the thin edge of destruction while longing for a life of peace and quiet. to displaying admirable mettle, existence until some turn of she was gay and light-hearted events changed the course of about it. Gertrude was a natu- their lives. Here, indeed, are ral-born adventurer. ladies who never dreamed that Also belonging in this cate- they would some day be lured gory of ladies who sought ac- out of comfortable homes and tion from some “obscure inner conventionally patterned lives to necessity” is that dare-devil undertake thrilling deeds and aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, who to discover in their make-up was determined to vindicate streaks of bravery and daring, womankind by thrilling the One of the first to come to mind world with deeds of explora- is Molly Pitcher, the American tory adventure which have heroine of the Revolutionary rarely been equalled by men. War. Unlike most pretty wives, Miss Earhart was quietly and Molly didn’t concentrate on her courageously dedicated to the household affairs the* while her proposition that women should husband John Mayes went to win their place in the annals of war to face death and destruc- worldly achievement, no matter tion. She bravely—albeit sor- what the hazards. Her last ad- rowfully—closed her little cot- venture undertaken with so tage and accompanied her artil- much verve and fearlessness at- lerist-husband right into the tests easily to the fact that midst of the fray. And in the Amelia had few peers when she Battle of Monmouth, when Mayes went up in the air. And yet, she was shot find his field gun was Full of action, femme interest and drama, this full-page Sunday story has everything it takes to make an exciting newspaper feature. Plant it in your local weekend magazine section for a strong box office boost for your show. Order the complete mat from Exploitation Dept., United Artists, 729 Seventh Ave., New York. Price, $1.20.