This story has no end: Part One
Going to the Movies: Icons and Idols
The “Frankie and Johnny” story has gone through a few cinematic adaptations over the years. It also appears in a few film musicals in productions that are otherwise unrelated to the “Frankie” story.
“She Done Him Wrong” (1933), stars Mae West as “Lady Lou,” and also features a young Cary Grant, and a young Louise Beavers.
The movie is just over an hour long. West sings part of “Frankie and Johnny” at about the 55 minute mark. You can watch from there to the end and pretty much get the idea of the entire film—and judge for yourself how much the conclusion rings true emotionally. If you’re a fan of watching Mae West deliver saucy one-liners to a bunch of straight-men (buh-dum-ching), the rest of the movie is a feast.
West’s film was the first one over which Frankie Baker sued and lost. The movie is set in the underworld of New York, and West sings part of the song. Lady Lou doesn’t appear to be particularly faithful to one man, and there’s a shooting or two. Other than that, the ties between Lady Lou’s story and Frankie’s are pretty strained.
Al Britt might have had a case.
“She Done Him Wrong” (1933) –full movie
If you’re interested in another Mae West “Frankie and Johnny” production, look here—performed when West was quite advanced in years. (It’s a YouTube clip that can’t be embedded). I think it was produced in 1976, when West was about 83 years old.
A very similar arrangement can be found on the link below.
What do Elvis Presley, Colonel Potter, and Elly May Clampett have in common? “Frankie and Johnny,” (1966).
I don’t recommend watching the full movie, although you can on YouTube. In this adaptation, Harry Morgan plays the songwriter and buddy to Johnny, Donna Douglas plays Frankie, and Elvis Presley plays…well, Elvis. For some reason everybody insists on calling him “Johnny.” I judge that it probably played very well for 14 year old girls in the 1960s. I tried to explain the basic plot to my wife and kept having to stop because of embarrassed laughter. “You see, a gypsy fortune teller tells Johnny…”The production of “Frankie and Johnny,’” the song, with Elvis’s Johnny singing it in the first person, does place it in a vaudeville-like context, which probably rings very true to part of the song’s initial popularity. The video below is from the middle of the film, it does some interesting things with the “morality play” aspect of the story—particularly relative to the roles other characters play in bringing about the tragedy for Frankie and Johnny.
The story falls somewhere in between a Shakespearean comedy of mistaken identity and an episode of “Three’s Company.” I won’t give away the ending, but rest assured, Frankie really does shoot Johnny.
“Frankie and Johnny” (1966)
(Featuring Elvis Presley, Donna Douglas, and Harry Morgan)
I can only think that “Lola Johnson’s” improvised performance in Robert Altman’s version of A Prairie Home Companion is meant to be part of that feeling of pre-apocalyptic decline he seemed to be going for in that film. This was Altman’s final film. The level of respect Keillor appears to have for the song makes me think that desecration is the ambition—ironic given how much we’ve seen done to the song to bowdlerize the story’s more unseemly elements.
Lindsay Lohan as Lola Johnson
in Robert Altman’s “A Prairie Home Companion” (2006)
“Is that the way the song goes?”
“Sort of, yeah.”
Finally, for your entertainment, and to show the power of this ballad to head back over the pond, I present Johnny Hallyday’s short music video of the song, in French. Let me know if you think it’s a faithful translation.
Next up, I’ll feature my favorite movie-related production of the song, and another movie performance that takes a truly surprising turn.
P.S. I’m aware of the Terrence McNally play, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, and the subsequent film adaptation with Al Pacino and Michelle Pfieffer. I’m going to pass on that one for now. One of my co-contributors is welcome to discuss it if they’d like, you are certainly welcome to add a comment below about it, or we’ll postpone it for another “Frankie and Johnny” week down the line.