The “vulgar and outrageous” movie that became Martin Scorsese’s guilty pleasure
We’ve all got our guilty pleasure movies – some of us just aren’t afraid to admit to them.
Whether it’s a cringey comedy, a terrible low-budget action film, or a shark movie with the worst CGI you’ve ever seen, many of us can’t help but indulge in movies that don’t align with the rest of our tastes. But there’s nothing wrong with admitting to the fact that you might enjoy Nicolas Cage’s terrible remake of The Wicker Man as much as you respect the original. And it’s totally OK to be a grown man and love a girly rom-com, calling that a guilty pleasure simply suggests that you’re insecure in your masculinity.
The sooner we let go of the idea of guilty pleasures, the better. Yes, some movies are technically better than others, but sometimes, we just can’t help but like what we like, even if we try to fight it. Martin Scorsese hasn’t shied away from revealing his guilty pleasures before, and there is one he once admitted to loving despite it being “vulgar and outrageous”.
But sometimes “vulgar and outrageous” is good. A movie that revels in being a bit ridiculous and out-there can be exactly what you need sometimes, and Scorsese finds this in Lady in the Dark from 1944. Directed by Mitchell Leisen, the movie featured Ginger Rogers in the leading role and received widespread praise, including several Academy Award nominations. Yet, for Scorsese, he will always consider the musical a guilty pleasure.
“Leisen went all out here. The whole film is so vulgar and outrageous, there’s got to be something to it. The dime-store psychology is ridiculous, of course, but the dream sequences are marvellous kitsch. I love the fantasy element,” he explained to Film Comment.
Not only does Scorsese love the slight campiness of the movie, but he also thinks the songs and performances are fantastic. “I love the Kurt Weill-Ira Gershwin songs. I love ‘Jenny’. For me, the whole film builds to the point where Ginger Rogers sings, ‘Poor Jenny, bright as a penny’—and she opens her dress, and it’s fur-lined and red.”
In fact, the movie has stayed with Scorsese and even shaped his work, with the filmmaker adding, “The film has influenced a lot of my movies. I screened it before shooting New York, New York, to look at the colour and the use of lipstick, etc. Liza Minnelli was named after the Ginger Rogers character; her godfather was Ira Gershwin.”
Lady in the Dark might not be the sort of film we tend to think of when asked to name a guilty pleasure movie – it’s not exactly Sharknado or Face/Off – but at least Scorsese can admit that the movies he considers to be his guilty pleasures are also ones that have actively shaped his approach to cinema. Scorsese has only made one musical, New York, New York, but his love of the genre can be found through his appreciation for musicals in all their variations, from the widely heralded to those he considers kitschy guilty pleasures.
