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SKYSCRAPER CINEMA This page intentionally left blank SKYSCRAPER CINEMA ARCHITECTURE AND GENDER IN AMERICAN FILM fp MERRILL SCHLEIER University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis • London The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges the work of Edward Dimendberg, editorial consultant, on this project. A portion of chapter 3 was previously published as “Ayn Rand and King Vidor’s Film The Fountainhead: Architectural Modernism, the Gendered Body, and Political Ideology,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 61 (March 2002): 310–30; reprinted by permission of the Society of Architectural Historians. Another version of chapter 3 was published as “The Grid, the Spectacle, and the Labyrinth in The Big Clock’s Skyscraper: Queered Space and Cold War Discourse,” Film Studies 11 (Winter 2007): 37–48. “Portrait of a Cog,” by Kenneth Fearing, is reprinted with the permission of Russell and Volkening as agents for the author. Copyright 1940 by Kenneth Fearing; renewed in 1968 by the estate of Kenneth Fearing. Copyright 2009 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmit- ted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schleier, Merrill. Skyscraper cinema : architecture and gender in American fi lm / Merrill Schleier. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8166-4281-6 (hc : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8166-4282-3 (pb : alk. paper) 1. Skyscrapers in motion pictures. 2. Sex role in motion pictures. 3. Masculinity in motion pictures. 4. Social classes in motion pictures. 5. Motion pictures—United States—History. I. Title. PN1995.9.S5535S35 2009 791.43'657—dc22 2008045191 Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer. 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents fp Introduction: Constructing the American Skyscraper Film vii 1. From Stumbling Blocks to Stepping Stones: Harold Lloyd’s Skyscraper Films 1 2. Icons of Exploitation: Gender and Class Disharmony in the Depression-Era Skyscraper Offi ce 59 3. Masculine Heroes, Modernism, and Political Ideology in The Fountainhead and The Big Clock 119 4. Mid-century Corporate Renewal and Gender Realignment in Executive Suite and Desk Set 193 Postscript: Recent Skyscraper Films 265 Acknowledgments 279 Notes 283 Index 345 This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTION Constructing the American Skyscraper Film fp In an act of defi ance and resolve, Howard Roark (Gary Cooper), the hero of the fi lm The Fountainhead (1949), bombs a housing project, intending to replace it with a towering skyscraper that is meant to redeem the government- subsidized property. This act of vandalism, which he accomplishes with the help of his wife- to- be Dominique Francon (Patricia Neal), is symptomatic of novelist and screenwriter Ayn Rand’s intention to juxtapose these two building types as il- lustrating antithetical concepts. To the author, housing projects were the prod- uct of Roosevelt’s New Deal, representative of federal handouts, community- based decisions, and collectivism, everything she found objectionable. Roark’s gesture is thus meant to stamp out not only the dwellings but the ideas they represent. In contrast, Rand viewed skyscrapers as the epitome of capitalist achievement, upward aspiration, and democratic values, which symbolized the hope of the future. Tall buildings are also linked to all aspects of Roark’s masculinity, from his refusal to adopt historical styles that Rand associated with deca- dent femininity, to his fi nal triumph at the crest of the tower. The hero’s gender identity is explored in relation to those of others, from craven bureaucrats to homosexually infl ected dissemblers who are employed to buttress Roark’s in- strumentality. A virtual “cowboy of the sky,” this lofty conqueror of space is poised to restore private ownership and individual initiative, which Rand be- lieved had been severely compromised under the Roosevelt administration. The Fountainhead underscores the manner in which skyscrapers in cinema are often invested with ideological signifi cance, meant to reinstitute partisan values, economically based philosophies, and gender positions. Over fi fty years later these ideas are still being debated in the public square. The events surrounding the destruction of Yamasaki’s World Trade Center (1966–75) and the deliberations swirling around the efforts to rebuild at Ground Zero bear an un- canny resemblance to various issues explored in The Fountainhead. In accord with Rand, many of the commissioners entrusted with the site’s reconstruc- tion subscribe to the view that the skyscraper is a symbol of all that America holds dear— its entrepreneurial spirit, bold conquest of space, and importance vii viii INTRODUCTION as a national public monument. Many have also invested the skyscraper with democratic import in an effort to contrast it with the barbarism of those that destroyed it. In the context of global politics, these “American” values are fre- quently reversed and the skyscraper becomes a symbol of western imperial- ism, neocolonialism, and oppression. Dubbed the Freedom Tower by Governor George Pataki, Daniel Libeskind’s original design (2003) for a 1,776- foot building, whose razor sharp skyward profi le echoed the Statue of Liberty’s welcom- ing gesture, underscores the manner in which skyscrapers still serve as potent sources of political ideologies.1 The unfortunate events of September 11, 2001, have reinforced my commitment to a three-decade- long effort to defi ne how tall buildings may both refl ect and prescribe cultural meaning in a perpetual dialogue between diverse constituencies, including architects, politicians, and a viewing public, among others.2 Rand’s creation of class- infl ected and gendered characters in the service of her conservative political and economic convictions also prompted me to refl ect on the meanings ascribed to tall buildings in cinema at various moments in fi lm history, seen variously as symbols of class aspiration and upward mobility, seminal masculine genius, tombstones of capitalism, hotbeds of illicit eroticism, beacons of democracy, or well- oiled business machines assisted by computer technology. The explosion in scholarship in gender and space inspired me to consider the manner in which these buildings affect male and female, rich and poor, and various racial and sexual identities in different ways.3 This led me to explore how “real” buildings, architectural discourses, and gender are inextri- cably linked, often employed by cinema’s cultural producers (e.g., novelists, screenwriters, art directors, directors, and actors), either advertently or inad- vertently, for ideological ends.4 This study builds upon the recent, burgeoning interest in cinema and architecture in general, and cinema and the city in particular. Donald Albrecht’s pioneering Designing Dreams (1986) initiated an exploration of the relationship between set designs and extant buildings, concluding that cinematic architects were instrumental in “constructing” their own brand of modernism, often more infl uential than their actual counterparts.5 Albrecht’s study was followed by Dietrich Neumann’s Film Architecture (1996), which augmented the former’s research and valuable fi lmography with several scholarly essays on discreet aspects of cinematic architecture, a descriptive and visual analysis of selected fi lms in which buildings were prominently featured, and useful information on previously unacknowledged set designers who helped fashion cinematic architecture.6 Neumann’s work was succeeded shortly thereafter by David Clarke’s edited anthology The Cinematic City (1997) in which the author asserted that there was still “relatively little theoretical attention directed toward under- standing the relationship between urban and cinematic space,” a gap his book attempted to fi ll with the inclusion of essays exploring cinematic and architec- INTRODUCTION ix tural genres from fi lm noir to the postmodern city by authors employing diverse methodological approaches and critical perspectives.7 Cinema and the City (2001), an anthology edited by Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice, expanded the inquiry still further by considering the intersections between “spatialization” in cinema and the way power relations are inscribed into social life. Operating from a Marxist perspective, the authors explored how cinema and the city inter- face to include the ways power is invested in certain metropolises such as Los Angeles, paying close attention to how fi lms are produced, distributed, and con- sumed globally.8 The present full- length study seeks to build upon the explosion of scholarship of the last two decades by considering how skyscrapers as a particular building type and the discourses surrounding them, particularly those related to gender, were translated into cinema.9 Why separate cinematic depictions of skyscrapers from those of other architectural types, such as hotels, department stores, or banks? A skyscraper’s height, suggestive phallic shape, grid- like shaft, and often particular compo- nents (e.g., elevators, penthouses, theatrical lobbies,

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