Sloan DeForest on Norma Shearer

 TCM's screening of The "DIVORCEE" earlier in the week prompted a viewing of the Ben Mankiewicz/Sloan DeForest take on the 1930 pre-Code, and I found fault with two observations shared by DeForest...

 First, as I previously touched on during the Sunday Live: Don't Be So Melodramatic! episode, the thrust of Jerry Martin's infidelity is not borne of feminism but, rather, reactionary retaliation, and even then, her newfound equality, however shocking in its day, fails to supplant the longing for Ted that she painfully experiences.
 Also, it's simply not true to imply that Norma Shearer had played nothing but ingenues in light affairs prior to her Jerry Martin casting. Shearer's silent period saw some edgy yields. Even her ingenue in M-G-M's first film proper, He Who gets Slapped, is hardly positioned amongst comedic fluff.


 I do agree with Sloan DeForest that it seems a bit "twisted" that Norma Shearer sought out the camera of George Hurrell in order to convince her husband that she could do sexy.