From a perspective eighty years later, it's surprising to see Cary Grant second billed to Elissa Landi in Enter, Madame! (1935, directed by Elliot Nugent). Grant is so obviously the only bona fide movie star in the whole production that you wonder what they were thinking. Elissa Landi was only ever a minor star, even coming off successes in The Count of Monte Cristo and The Sign of the Cross (where she is completely blown off the screen by wicked, wicked Claudette Colbert). The rest of her output is mostly obscure apart from a supporting role in After the Thin Man. She retired from movies soon after. I don't know how her films did in their day; I can surmise that they were successful given the order of the billing in Enter, Madame! Charitably, Grant wasn't the supernova he would become a mere two years later and Paramount was hardly Warners or MGM. And he was second-billed behind his leading ladies in a couple of his other 1935 films, too. In spite of all this, the billing seems weird to me.
Posts
