Two radically different Norma Shearer characters: as loving (ditched) wife and mother in The Women, with Joan Crawford and Rosalind Russell (top); as a woman with a penchant for pointed feathers in Lady of the Night (bottom). She also enjoyed to be slapped around by Clark Gable in A Free Soul (below right)
Mike LaSalle on Norma Shearer:
"Shearer was at her best in the films no one sees: her silents. When you see her in the masterpieces she made with Monta Bell – or even in fluff, such as Lady of Chance – there's no question that she was a great silent-film actress. In the talkies, the work is uneven, sometimes in curious ways. … Generally, I think the mistake people make in approaching Shearer (probably the result of her atypical role in The Women) is in assuming that she played 'normal' women; that is, that she aspired to a Donna Reed or June Allyson-like placidity and couldn't do it. In fact, Shearer's screen quality was as proudly and inescapably neurotic as that of Bette Davis or Joan Crawford."
***
Norma Shearer remains one of the most misunderstood and underappreciated talents of the studio era. As LaSalle explains, in most of her starring roles Shearer was anything but the goody-goody Mary Haines of The Women. (Nor was she just a creation of her powerful husband, MGM's second-in-command Irving G. Thalberg.)
That said, one my favorite Norma Shearer performances has nothing "proudly and inescapably neurotic" about it. I'm thinking of the Heidelberg barmaid Kathi, falling in love with Ramon Novarro's Prince Karl Heinrich in Ernst Lubitsch's The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927). Kathi could have been a one-note character, as the role doesn't seem to require much; Shearer, however, gives Kathi the breath of multi-dimensional life: her subtle, delicate performance goes from hope-filled exuberance to disillusioned heartbreak without ever striking a false note.
Also, though very much forgotten today, Monta Bell was one of MGM's top directors in the second half of the 1920s. His six films with Shearer were Broadway After Dark (1924), The Snob (1924), Pretty Ladies (1925), Lady of the Night (1925), Upstage (1926), and After Midnight (1927).
Of these, I've only seen two: Lady of the Night, in which Shearer is excellent as dead ringers — one good, one better (to paraphrase Mae West); and the melodrama After Midnight, not one of Shearer's best showcases.
I'd never heard of Norma Shearer until I began watching TCM on a regular basis about one or two years ago. I was at once impressed with her work and bewildered as to why I'd never heard of the actress before then. I'd never gone out of my way to hear/learn about the likes of Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn or Joan Crawford but I'd heard of them none-the-less while growing up. Probably Shearer's decision to retire fairly early in her career had a lot to do with her obscurity. I think she possessed comparable talent on the same level of those ladies I mentioned. I would like to see more of her work.
Norma Shearer was wonderful in "Romeo and Juliet" as well. She was a beautiful and very talented performer. I hope people who watch Turner Classic Movies will become acquainted with that wonerful talent.