Working Girl’s screwball roots

Halfway through Working Girl, Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) and Jack Trainer (Harrison Ford) crash an affluent wedding reception. Tess is sure that she can convince the bride’s father to invest in her revolutionary business idea. What Jack doesn’t know is that Tess, who claims to be a hotshot executive, is actually a secretary blagging her way up the corporate ladder. Met at the door by the bride’s parents, Tess and Jack seize upon the explanation that they are “friends of Mark’s”.

As a statement of intent, the film couldn’t be clearer about its screwball aspirations. (The specific allusion is to Bringing Up Baby, in which Katharine Hepburn explains Cary Grant’s presence in Connecticut in the same way.) It’s a moment that suggests a lineage between Griffith/Ford and Hepburn/Grant.

It’s true that Jack’s discomfort with his surroundings, and his anger at Tess, recall the impotent frustration of Grant’s David Huxley. Jack grimly sucks an elaborately decorated cocktail through a straw, channelling Grant’s way with silent comedy. Even his outburst at Tess sounds like a moment from Bringing Up Baby: “You’re like one of those crazed cops, aren’t you? The kind nobody wants to ride with, because his partners all end up dead or crazy.”

The moment is so good it merits another photo:

The film has motioned toward screwball in earlier scenes. Following convention, Tess and Jack’s first encounter is a classic “meet cute”: she goes to a party to develop a business acquaintanceship with him, he hits on her at the bar, she responds without knowing who he is, he doesn’t tell her. However, while the reference to screwball is clear, this is a determinedly post-Production Code encounter. Tess ends the night by passing out from a combination of alcohol and Valium.

The physically compatible couple.

While Ford’s performance owes something to Grant, the correspondence breaks down with Griffith. She bears no resemblance to Hepburn. A more fitting comparison, given her working-class background and determination to advance without falling back on sexual wiles, might be with Jean Harlow in Wife vs. Secretary.

"You want to be taken seriously?"

"You need serious hair."

If there is a Hepburn analogue in the film, it’s – note the first name – Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver), who plays Griffith’s unscrupulous boss. She’s an ice-cold operator who will do anything to close a deal. Unlike her secretary, she doesn’t think twice about using sex as a weapon in the boardroom. It’s no surprise that Weaver is fantastically funny in the role (there’s a great sight gag playing on her performance as Dian Fossey); what’s unexpected are the cracks Weaver shows in her armour. Ultimately, however, the film rejects her cynicism and selfishness. Despite their shared confidence, Katharine betrays the progressive feminism inscribed in Hepburn’s persona.

When Griffith does gets her own office at the end of the film, it’s not at the expense of female solidarity. She’s successfully crossed from Staten Island to The City without rejecting her past. The final shot of the film tracks back from Tess’ office window, taking in the expanse of the skyscraper. She has found a place in the business world through her own intelligence and ambition, an inspiration to best friend Cyn (Joan Cusack) and every other working girl.

Chico and Rita

A lush, vibrant film about Cuban musicians struggling to maintain love as their careers pull them apart, Chico and Rita hits two buttons for me. Firstly, I love the animation style, which employs simple broad lines to describe human motion. The eloquence of line is one of this film’s great successes, not just in depicting its characters but also in rendering dazzling cityscapes of Havana, New York, Hollywood, Paris and Las Vegas. Secondly, it’s a film about jazz that speaks not just to the history of the music, but also to the way it has been portrayed previously onscreen.

Havana, 1946

The plot is very familiar. A feckless jazz musician falls in love with a talented singer. Their romance is fuelled by a fulfilling stage partnership. However, personal and professional jealousies tear them apart. The jazz musician languishes self-pityingly, as his ex-lover’s star rises. After many years, they meet once more. The film ends on a bittersweet note, the happiness of their reunion tempered by the loss of youthful passion. I could be describing Scorsese’s New York New York.

The film sometimes fails to play interesting changes on this old familiar song. I found myself struggling through the opening sequences, where the first attraction between Chico and Rita was written so broadly that it was hard to care what was happening. Luckily, things really pick up in the middle section, when the action moves to New York.

In jazz films, NY is often the Bad Place, where pushers get you high and cops beat on you (see ‘Round Midnight and Bird). It’s nice, then, that Chico and Rita is eager to convey the excitement of the city, and the buzz felt by our Cuban protagonists as they explore the emergent bebop scene. There are some lovely “cameos” from Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Ben Webster and Thelonious Monk (and, elsewhere in the film, Chucho Valdes, Tito Puente, Chano Pozo, Nat King Cole and Marlon Brando). These appearances by famous men are brief, and all the better for that. There’s none of the hand-wringing reverence that mars Bird.

I loved the sequences set in Paris. Seeing Diz and Chico play Caveau de la Huchette was a thrill, as it’s a joint that Dolly Clackett and I have danced in. And there’s a nice touch as Chico queues at the cinema, a poster for Vertigo reminding us of the Hitchcocko-Hawksians cinephiles of the Left Bank.

The movie comes apart a little towards the end, as it shifts focus from Rita to Chico’s Buena Vista Social Club-style rediscovery. By privileging one protagonist over the other in this way, there’s a sense of over-balancing. The admirable delicacy of emotion maintained so far gives way to coarse sentimentality, at its worse in an extraneous final montage.

These problems of narrative aside, Chico and Rita is one of the most interesting and successful of jazz films. The music itself is gorgeous, beautifully integrated into the action, gently leading us through the lives of its players. There’s even a dream ballet featuring Fred Astaire and Humphrey Bogart (!), reminiscent of Gene Kelly’s choreographed interludes in Singin’ in the Rain and An American in Paris. The love and craft that has gone into this film radiates, staying with you long after the lights have gone up.