I watched Libeled Lady with William Powell and Myrna Loy on Turner Classic Movies last week, and it was a delight to see their chemistry together in something other than The Thin Man. While I appreciate the Thin Man series, it has become ubiquitous. I also noticed the chemistry between Powell and Jean Harlow, which is no wonder considering their offscreen romance. This past summer, I had seen Powell in Manhattan Melodrama, along with Loy and Clark Gable, on the big screen at the Portage Theater in Chicago. Manhattan Melodrama was the film John Dillinger had watched at the Biograph the night he was shot, and the Portage was showing it at 1934 prices to bring attention to Michael Mann’s film about Dillinger, Public Enemies. For a mere quarter, I got to see Gable, Loy, and Powell at a key point in their careers. Manhattan Melodrama represented the first pairing of Loy and Powell, while it cemented Gable’s identity as MGM’s dynamite male star. Yet, it was Powell who impressed me as the governor who refuses to commute the sentence of his childhood pal, played by Gable, because it was not the right thing to do. Both films reminded me of Powell’s powerful screen presence and his ability to meld his image as a sophisticated gentleman into any role. He played the urbane sophisticate, but he was never pompous or arrogant; he had a light touch that gave him the ability to handle comedy and drama with rare sincerity. I love most of Powell’s films — the Philo Vance mysteries, Life with Father, My Man Godfrey, Mr. Roberts — primarily because he is in them, but I think the best use of his screen persona has to be Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid.

Light and simple on the surface, Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid is a charming and perceptive commentary on aging, particularly its effect on a person’s self image. Powell plays Arthur Peabody, who is whisked away by his wife to an exotic paradise for rest and relaxation just before his 50th birthday. Already dejected because of the encroaching milestone, Peabody is dealt a low blow when his wife, Polly, admits that she doesn’t mind that he is getting older. She startles him with the revelation, “A wife doesn’t really feel safe, you know, until her husband turns 50,” implying that older husbands don’t pester their wives for sex. The admission emasculates him, and he feels estranged from Polly. The scene also belies the idea that the Production Code prohibited the depiction of serious issues regarding sex and relationships. The issues are there, they are just handled subtly. Screenwriter Nunnally Johnson had a keen sense for clever dialogue that was implicit with different layers of meaning, and much of the dialogue in this film seems simple on the surface but is rich in connotation.

While fishing in the ocean near tropical Key Aura, Arthur snags a living, breathing mermaid, whom he dubs Lenore. Because this is a name bestowed on the mermaid by Arthur, I wracked my brain for some meaning beyond its melodious sound. “Lenore” conjures up Edgar Allen Poe’s poem of the same name, in which the poet pines for a lost love who has died too young. That seems too morbid for the situation in the film, but “Lenore” is also the name Poe used in “The Raven” to describe the “rare and radiant maiden that the angels named Lenore.” I do not know if screenwriter Johnson was thinking of Poe when he selected the name Lenore, but Golden Age films are rife with literary allusions, so I would not discount it, especially considering the mythic connotation of mermaids in general. Makes me wish I had taken more literature classes in college.

Arthur brings Lenore, played by a youthful Ann Blyth, back to the resort where he and Polly are staying and hides her in the decorative pool. The mermaid represents the passion and desire of youth, which becomes apparent as Peabody tries to rekindle his feelings of romance and desire through interactions with Lenore. He teaches her how to kiss and cuddle, and she becomes more than a willing pupil. “My age means nothing to you, does it?” he murmurs to her.

It is significant that she doesn’t have an identity and cannot speak, so that Arthur’s dialogue in their scenes together is not so much conversation as it is his thoughts and reflections. Many of those thoughts are about the nature of attraction and desire — and the loss of it. No other characters actually see that Lenore is a mermaid, which suggests that she is a figment of Peabody’s imagination as he works through his midlife crisis. Polly and the butler do see Arthur carry something that resembles marine life, but they see only her tail. That Lenore is an idealized version of womanhood for Peabody is underscored by the use of soft focus and romantic lighting effects in the cinematography by Russell Metty. Her features are softened by a gauzy haze, while her hair sparkles with points of light.

LENORE: MERMAID OR IMAGINATION?

Polly finds clues of Arthur’s involvement with another woman, though she mistakenly believes his paramour to be pushy party girl Cathy Livingston. She leaves Arthur behind on Key Aura, where he becomes more and more enchanted by Lenore. When a nosy neighbor almost discovers her, Peabody realizes he must release her back into the ocean. Complications occur when local authorities believe that Arthur may have killed his wife, but he insists that Polly left him because he was harboring a mermaid. Eventually, Lenore returns to the depths of the ocean, and Arthur returns to Boston. He spills his tale to Dr. Harvey, a psychiatrist, who assures Peabody that he is normal, whether Lenore was real or not. Peabody realizes the significance of his enchantment with his mermaid and gives Polly one of Lenore’s beautiful hair combs, transferring his romantic desires from Lenore to his wife.

William Powell was the perfect choice to play Arthur Peabody; indeed, the film seems a vehicle constructed around Powell’s image. On the written page, Peabody is not a particularly sympathetic character. He is a self-absorbed, 50-year-old married man who becomes involved with a female who — mermaid or not — looks less than half his age. Powell, however, brings to the role his history of playing genteel, mature men of great charm and sophistication — a star image built from such films as My Man Godfrey, Libeled Lady, and the Thin Man series. He imbues Arthur Peabody with the attributes of sensitivity, morality, and civility, and these characteristics help to excuse the character’s weaknesses and signal that Peabody will carry his obsession only so far.

Despite the melancholy theme of growing old, Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid also features some truly funny scenes, such as when Arthur tells a clerk in a clothing store that he wishes to buy half a woman’s bathing suit! Other scenes guaranteed to make you smile (or, perhaps leer) are the underwater scenes with mermaid Lenore. Just after she hears Peabody declare his strong feelings for her, she dives below water and executes several impressive turns and maneuvers. Though she does not speak, her playful behavior is enough to express her joy. We see her cavort around a castle-like structure that looks like an illustration from a fairy tale, further suggesting that she is not real but an enchantment.

WEEKI WACHEE EMPLOYEES HELP BLYTH WITH THE COSTUME.

The underwater scenes were shot in Florida at a Golf Coast tourist attraction known as Weeki Wachee. Nicknamed the City of Mermaids, Weeki Wachee features women in mermaid costumes swimming underwater in carefully choreographed routines. The attraction was opened in 1947 by ex-Navy frogman Newton Perry, who had a theater constructed 15 feet underwater in a natural spring. Lenore’s water-dance was actually part of the choreographed routine of the Weeki Wachee mermaids, who doubled for actress Ann Blyth in the underwater scenes. Lenore’s watery home was part of the Weeki Wachee set. Weeki Wachee is still open for business, though it struggles to survive among the behemoth Florida attractions such as Disney World and Universal Studios.

Film fans who love the Golden Age are prone to saying that there are no major movie stars today who can compare to those from back in the day. We hear this type of cliche every time a big star dies, including last week when Paul Newman died. I am not sure if I agree with this sentiment, because every era has its important film stars whose screen personas speak to that generation. However, I might concede the point when talking about William Powell. Even when he was a young man, he exuded a maturity, grace, and sophistication completely out of vogue with today’s preference for boyish-looking actors, or worse, those stars who revel in roles as immature and juvenile characters. With his resonant speaking voice, elegant personal style, and innate sense of class, Powell represented what was “golden” about the Golden Age. And, that’s no cliche.