Boardwalk Empire: The Real Dangerous Maid

“A Dangerous Maid” the title of Episode 3 of the second season of Boardwalk Empire, first manifested itself when Eddie Cantor came over to see the pregnant and very lonely Lucy Danziger. Lucy, it seems, has made a deal with Nelson Van Alden to carry his baby to term and he is paying her for that, and also to stay in the house without any visitors, music or fun.

Obviously she’s not exactly obeying that. If you were surprised to see Lucy drinking and smoking when Eddie comes over, he wasn’t. There were doctors advocating the harmful effects of alcohol on the fetus even much earlier than 1921, but others weren’t. As one book states:

“The use of alcohol during pregnancy is approved of by many practitioners who order brandy or wine for weakness feeling of nausea vomiting and loss of appetite but …. It has been pointed out that the prescription of alcohol during pregnancy is not unlikely to make the patient a drinker and that the children of such children are mostly stupid. During labor wine is also freely prescribed Theilhaber says that it has been the practice in Munich for midwives to order almost every well to do patient champagne during the expulsion period and as the patient does not finish the bottle the midwife feels it to be her duty to take what remains.”

Eddie Cantor tells Lucy the “Dangerous Maid” play is a real snorer, and we checked up on that. Turns out “A Dangerous Maid’ really was a flop. It was a George and Ira Gershwin musical with a script based on an earlier play called “A Dislocated Honeymoon.” The production premiered in Atlantic City on March 21, 1921. It closed down in Pittsburgh on April 16, 1921 after about 40 performances.

The one song that impressed anyone was “Boy Wanted” which was later recorded by Ella Fitzgerald in 1959.

Lucy confided some of her misery to Eddie Cantor, how after Nucky threw her over, she wasn’t careful and the next thing she knew … she was knocked up by a married man. Eddie seems to think everything will work out when the baby is born, but he doesn’t know, like we do, that Van Alden is just renting Lucy’s womb. Lucy says she wanted the baby at first, she wanted to mean something besides just “whoopee.”

This isn’t Lucy’s only conflict. She also wants to act. When Van Alden returns she is reading the script, even though we probably wouldn’t have been surprised if she couldn’t read (like Chalky White). But not only can she read a script, she can even pronounce “flibbertigibbet.” After we get a glimpse into Van Alden’s disturbed childhood — (“I was taken by an aunt to a Christmas Pageant in 1894. When my parents found out, they broke off all relations and I never spoke with her again.”) — he reminds Lucy of their financial agreement and that her pregnancy is “a sacred charge from the Lord.”

Later, Lucy inspects her fully nude pregnant body in the mirror and decides to end her pregnancy by throwing herself down a flight of stairs. As she tries to force herself to go through with this foolhardy plan (it didn’t work in “Jean De Florette ” either), who should show up but the delivery man with a Victrola and he even has a record handy and shows Lucy how to play it. He tells her that Mr. Mueller (Van Nelson’s alias) sent it. We haven’t found out yet if that is really true (it could have been Eddie Cantor since he knew the last name). The last we see of Lucy in “A Dangerous Maid” is when Van Alden returns to find her dancing to “All She’d Say Was Umh-Hum.” And we so wanted to find out what happened, especially after Mickey Doyle told Van Alden: “Treat a queen like a whore and treat a whore like a queen.”

By the end of the episode, the meaning of “Dangerous Maid” appears to refer to the girl who works for Margaret, who figures out that Margaret is “Peggy Rohan.” Why? Who knows? What possible threat can Katy pose to already living-in-sin Margaret? Not much, particularly with Margaret’s ability to turn cold on a dime.

The song at the end of the episode was My Man recorded by Regina Spektor for Boardwalk Empire, which was a hit for Fanny Brice and later Billie Holliday.

More from “A Dangerous Maid” on Margaret and Nucky, Jimmy and Al Capone