The Director, the Set, the Star, and Her Vibrator: Hollywood Lore from Yolanda and the Thief (Quote of the Day)

Lucille Bremer hiding something in Yolanda and the Thief?

Vincente Minnelli’s emphasis on visual effects and props sometimes led him to neglect the essential — namely the actor before the camera. The bathroom scene [in Yolanda and the Thief, 1945] was a case in point. Kay Thompson visited the set to watch the shooting, and recalls, “Lucille [Bremer] was in her elaborate bathtub, filled with soap bubbles and water, liquid soap and perfume. On the marble ledge of the tub was a telephone. It would ring, Lucille would pick up the receiver and say, “Hello,” and that gargoyle had to show through the arch of her arm. Vince [Minnelli] was riding the boom and had a man stationed underneath. “We can’t see the gargoyle, Mr. Minnelli.” Vince would come down and rehearse and rehearse. Meanwhile, here’s Lucille sitting in the bubble water, on a vibrator. [...]

Minnelli recalls the incident. “Arthur Freed and I did have an enormous fight, because Lucille seemed to pass out or become weak or something. It was nonsense, because I had the water warm — body temperature — and it was just a case of nerves.” Minnelli cannot remember anything about gargoyles, telephones, soap bubbles, or a vibrator. (167)

– Hugh Fordin, MGM’s Greatest Musicals: The Arthur Freed Unit

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