Artify This is an ongoing column in which I take something trashy, cheap, or otherwise not-arty and make it into a modern art movie. This time, I will be looking at the cheepo Monogram Pictures detective film Detective Kitty O’Day.
What is it?
Detective Kitty O’Day is a Poverty Row detective picture which is more or less a rip off of The Thin Man movies. The plot is a fairly standard Dashiell Hammett murder mystery plot involving large inheritances and tawdry affairs but with a novel, at the time, twist: that the dead man’s secretary actually solves the mystery rather than the cops. The titular Kitty (Jean Parker) is on the case with as her boyfriend Johnny Jones (Peter Cookson), who is exactly as boring as his name suggests. Just like Nick and Norah in The Thin Man films, they jab at each other while trying to solve the mystery of who committed the murder.
The movie isn’t great. The script is clumsy and the film doesn’t quite know what to do in the middle half hour. What makes it at all watchable is Jean Parker’s performance, which is spirited and, for lack of a better word, feisty. She’s a joy to watch and she’s surely one of the reasons that made this film a hit. However, I think a modern art house remake could have real potential to be really good, so let’s Artify This!
What Can Be Salvaged?
The idea of remaking a cheesy detective story a s a modern period movie would be really interesting as it gives opportunity to offer a critique of the time (hopefully not in the sophomoric “This Picasso fellow will never amount to anything” style).
The feminist angle of the heroine showing that she has more to offer than simply being a secretary and through that, becoming the dominant partner in the relationship could be used.
Third, the inherent predictability of the detective story allows for it to be set aside or to have sections of it taken out to focus on digressions and allows sub-plots to overtake the storyline.
What Will It Be Like?
I toyed with the idea of making it like a modern artistic procedural like Once Upon A Time in Anatolia or Police, Adjective but then I thought of a more interesting idea. Instead, I’d like to emulate the style of late 60’s/early 70’s Jean-Luc Godard pictures in the use of a trashy genre film elevated to discuss ideas about social issues and cinema itself. The colors will be bright and the overall plot will be thinner and allow for digressions about gender politics and revolutionary political statements.
Added to the film will be a subplot that will emerge as the main plot toward the third act of the film. Johnny, being a 40’s man, will chafe under Kitty’s new found influence and power as the dominant partner in the relationship, leading to the second to last scene of the movie, a long single scene in which their relationship crumbles as the movie physically breaks down like the famous scene in Persona. Finally, at the end of the scene, the movie will completely break down and, in a reference to Godard’s La Chinoise, a title card with the phrase “The Last Scene of The Movie” appears, followed by the resolution of the detective plot in a self consciously facile way.
Recast it?
Certainly, as most of the actors in the original are either dead or way too old to credibly play their parts.
Kitty O’Day
For this we need someone who can affect an air of the 40’s and someone who can sell that she is a smart and witty woman. For this, I’d like someone like Keira Knightly or Anna Kendrick, who I think are variations on a similar theme (so to speak), although on the whole Kendrick has a little more snark in her than Knightly. In any case, I find they can both sell the role of a brassy, funny women who I think can sell a “His Girl Friday” type character with deeper dramatic sections.
Johnny Jones
Now in order for the movie to be totally effective, the actor who plays Johnny need to be instantly likeable, so that his regressive gender politics can be a surprise to both us and to Kitty. I’d suggest someone like Ryan Reynolds, who can play both likeable and unlikeable and I feel making that turn in the middle of a movie can be interesting. Also, his career could stand and injection of some art movie cred.
What Will It Be Most Similar To?
Late 60’s/Early 70’s Jean Luc Godard films like Tout Va Bien, Pierrot Le Fou and La Chinoise.
Peter Guilherme 