The Cobalt Screening Room Balcony

Hey Jeff, cut the red wire. Or was it the blue wire? Hmm. Maybe that's why I'm not an electrician or bomb disposal expert.

But on a more serious note. What are you using for research on the movies from this period? Because I've found an amazing lack of original information on most movies from the pre-code era. Modern amateur reviews are what I find for the most part.

Space, I've been using The Cobalt Vault for much of the background (it's got extensions and books and all sort of material. But I usually start with IMDB and branch out from there to any number of different sources including my own books). As this period becomes more popular, we'll probably see a proliferation of materials available.

Today: Another classic!
Post #483: Giving even more credence to our quarantining, today's feature, another saucy Pre-Code Hollywood Special with Barbara Stanwyck, *Night Nurse* (1931), in the words of Bill Hader's Stefon, has everything: medical malpractice, drunkenness, drug abuse by doctors, attempted murder, attempted rape, child abuse, sexual promiscuity, rules bent into convoluted pretzels, dipsomania, bootlegging, milk baths, more punching, slapping, dragging and wrist wrangling than a wrestling match with Bobo Brazil, and a little undressing on the side. All this and more packed into 72 minutes without taking time out to breathe. And to top it all off, a bootlegger becomes the hero of the story. Great oogah moogah, can't you hear me talkin' to ya, it's a ball of confusion.

One of seventeen films directed by William Wellman between 1931 and 1933, *Night Nurse* turns out to be quintessential Pre-Code madness with Barbara Stanwyck as Lora Hart, a young woman forced to drop out of high school in her junior year to care for her aging mother, hoping to gain experience as a nurse trainee in a local hospital. Initially rebuffed by a stodgy Superintendent of Nurses Miss Dillon (Vera Lewis), she happens is given a chance when she receives the go-ahead from Dr. Arthur Bell (Charles Winninger), chief of staff who recognizes her drive after colliding with a revolving door.

Shown the ropes by her new friend, a more hardened student nurse B. Maloney (Joan Blondell), Lora proves to be a devoted, dedicated caretaker who occasionally finds herself constrained by the strict rules of the hospital, which tend to treat patients with distanced indifference. One night, for example, she treats the gunshot wound of a bootlegger, Mortie (Ben Lyon) without following the procedure of reporting it to the police, a kindness the effusive Mortie remembers, calling Lora "Pal" from that point on. Gum-chewing Maloney schools Lora in standard medical procedure: "Take my tip and stay away from interns. They're like cancer... the disease is known but not the cure." As for patients, Maloney advises, "There's only one guy in the world that can do a nurse any good and that's a patient with dough!" she says. "Just catch one of them with a high fever and a low pulse and make him think you saved his life and you'll be getting somewhere. And doctors are no good, either. What for? They never marry nurses. And the trouble with interns is they do. All a wife means to an intern is someone to sit in his front office when he starts practice and play nursemaid the rest of her life without pay. The thing to do is to land an appendicitis case. They’ve all got dough.”

Following graduation from Nurses' School, Maloney and Lora trade shifts in the private sector, being hired by a drug-addled society doctor Dr. Milton Ranger (Ralf Harolde) to care for the children of socialite Mrs. Ritchie (Charlotte Merriam) who prefers spending time in drunken excess and in the arms of her chauffeur Nick (Clark Gable, in one of his rare intensely unlikable criminal roles).

Recognizing the children, Desney and Nanny Ritchie (Betty Jane Graham and Marcia Mae Jones), are suffering from malnutrition, Lora confronts the doctor, Mrs. Ritchie and reveling partygoers at the mansion, being met with complete indifference and resistance, attempted sexual assault, and a smashing uppercut from Nick while the children waste away, their conditions hastened by Mrs Maxwell (Blanche Friderici), the Ritchie family housekeeper who will do nothing unless it's sanctioned by Dr. Ranger. The plot grows darker when Lora discovers the doctor and Nick have harvested a plan for the children's trust fund that will go into the pockets of Mrs. Ritchie if they die and Nick marries mom--if he can just keep her incapacitated with booze long enough to let nature take its course with the kids.

Indignation coursing through her, Lora realizes she has no concrete proof of this allegation and consults her old friend Dr. Bell, who has been taken off the children's case and whose hands are tied by professional ethics. "Oh, ethic, ethics. That's all I've heard in this business. Isn't there any humanity left? Aren't there any ethics about letting little babies be murdered?" Lora shrieks. How she manages to triumph is best left in a cloud here, since the fun of the film is seeing how it all plays out. But for sheer Pre-Code profanity, nothing will top a scene showing Lora completely fed up, trying to physically drag Mrs. Ritchie out of her bacchanalia to save her children, flopping her down on the carpet in disdain and standing over her, spitting "You mother!" Mama Mia, that's a some spicy meatball!

Stanwyck is formidable as Lora, easily eclipsing Joan Blondell though Blondell is wonderful, fanciful and buoyant in her role. Interestingly, though she plays a fairly street-smart, tenacious working class girl Lora believes she was made for this profession, even though she faints dead away after an unsuccessful operation assist. Clark Gable as the notorious Nick was a replacement for James Cagney, who was originally slated for the role, but got a little busy in filming *The Public Enemy* (1931). But Gable, sans mustache, is expertly menacing, vile and dangerous so early in his career. Director Wellman said of him, “Such savoir faire that he became a star. The powers-that-be at Warner Bros. liked his performance, but decided he was not worth fooling with, not star material: his ears were too big. They forgot to look at his dimples and listen to his voice and see his smile.” Years later Stanwyck recalled how fast Gable became a star: "On the picture’s first day in New York at the Strand, the theater marquee read: ‘NIGHT NURSE STARRING BARBARA STANWYCK’. The second day, the marquee read: ‘NIGHT NURSE STARRING BARBARA STANWYCK CO-STARRING CLARK GABLE’. By the third night, it read: ‘NIGHT NURSE STARRING BARBARA STANWYCK CLARK GABLE.'”

As freighted with controversy and beatings as it is, *Night Nurse* was originally even darker, as evidenced by this scene from the first draft: "Eagan (practical joking intern Edward J. Nugent) had put the skeleton in a baby carriage, which so startled Lora that she dropped the baby she was holding. Presumably, the baby died, and Eagan was subsequently fired." Gratefully, the skeleton was shifted to Lora's bed after a girls' night of breaking curfew and drinking and generally carousing with Maloney. Even so, *Night Nurse* allows plenty of opportunities to have our heroines disrobe before the camera while arguing over ethics, leading author Thomas Doherty (*Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1931-1934*) to cast it as "the most cynical of Pre-Code excursions down hospital hallways."

Framed in a Circle Of Life manner with an opening and closing scene filmed through the subjective lens of an ambulance, *Might Nurse* also promotes the depression's mistrust for authority through Ben Lyon's bootlegging hero Mortie, who brightens the screen any time he arrives. That the film ends on such an amoral note is worth mentioning, even as it's treated with comic flair. It's odd comedy to be sure, but it's employed well during downtime scenes and during scenes of intense vitriol. There is no real comeuppance for Mrs. Ritchie, who proclaims she's a dipsomaniac "and proud of it." The beatings are largely off camera, but some folks will be surprised by the violence perpetrated against women, though Stanwyck lands a beaut of a haymaker on Walter McGrail's Mack and forces him to cower behind the bar. But Wellman must have had his tongue firmly implanted in his cheek when we're introduced to Nick. . . the chauffeur in a zoom close-up, waiting for the soundtrack to hit an organ sting or an orchestral DUM DUM DUUUMMMM!

So, if like me you have a car that has been turned into a two-ton paperweight with a new battery that won't hold a charge for more than five minutes, and you're stranded on an island of immobility until Monday when the garages open again, plop this one in the DVD player or watch online, and you'll see your own frustrations melt away like the film of a milk bath.

Post #484 (Yet another in an endless line of Palindrome Productions): Life just keeps offering up challenges like a cheap pancake breakfast, and the syrup is starting to stick to me. I suppose it all started when my watch stopped and had to be sent to Detroit for a new battery--that was at the start of the Covid Plague, so my naked wrist offers no time signatures, leaving me to be a timeless man. Now my car has asked to be remembered with Taps until I can get it towed to Saginaw to be subjected to endless hours of tinkering with the electrical system. As it's our only car, we are now celebrating quarantining in a big way, leaning piteously on our dear next door neighbor to take us to Kroger as if we're 106-year-old shut-ins who want to pay for $300 worth of groceries with our penny collection. We'll pat our friend on the hand (if he'll allow us to get within six feet of him) and call him "a dear boy" then ask him over for some nice tea and Arrowroot cookies we've had on hand since our sons were teething, thirty-eight years ago. As Garrison Keillor said, God writes a lot of comedy--it's just that He's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know to play funny.

But let us interrupt this tirade with a side trip from our Pre-Code Hollywood offerings, jumping ahead six years to 1940 to engage in a little comedy of our own, today's feature, *Brother Orchid* (1940) with Edward G. Robinson in a self-parody that is pure gold. Originally slated to star James Cagney, who would have taken the role in a completely different direction, *Brother Orchid* is memorable for many reasons. But one of its greatest in-jokes is that of the five films in which they shared the screen, neither Robinson nor co-star Humphrey Bogart is killed. Among its other strengths are a sterling cast--Ann Southern, Donald Crisp, Cecil Kellaway, Allen Jenkins and Ralph Bellamy--some crackling dialogue (Ann Southern gives Robinson a rabbit's foot for luck: "My uncle wore it for 32 years. . . [I got it] From my mother. With her own hand she took it off of my uncle after they hung him"), and spry direction from Lloyd Bacon (famous for a roster of Warner Brothers tough guy films).

Little Johnny Santo (E. G. Robinson) tires of his job as underworld boss and decides to retire, handing over the reins of his empire to Jack Buck (Humphrey Bogart) while he tours Europe on his own to secure "a little class" for himself and his girl Flo Addams (a glowing, gorgeous and gloriously dim Ann Sothern). After a number of imprudent purchases (a crime boss can be bilked as easily as a skid row jamoke in European circles) including The Borgias' bed (manufactured in Grand Rapids, MI), penniless he returns to the States to reinstate himself as leader of the pack. Not so fast, says Buck who has turned the whole crew against Little Johnny, see? his only loyalists being Flo (now seen around town with a big-hearted rancher Clarence P. Fletcher (Ralph Bellamy)) and Willie "The Knife" Corson (Allen Jenkins) who has taken up residence in a sanitarium for safety.

Awww, Johnny doesn't like that, see? So he goes about retaking his enterprise, assembling a new stock of hangers-on, but things don't go as planned, and thinking he's been hoodwinked by Flo, Little Johnny is hunted down, wounded and left hiding in the woods, landing at the stone patio of a Floracian monastery overseen by Brother Superior (Donald Crisp). It is there he assumes the role of "Brother Orchid" who quickly rises to prominence as a novice monk through sheer chicanery. What follows is one of the best homages to Warner Brothers' crime files while offering laugh-out-loud humor and a warm subtext suggesting happiness is not so easily gained in the material world and the merit of honest work holds its own reward.

Since Robinson was a major pull at the studio, he wrote a cordial letter to producer Hal Wallis, petitioning for a role outside of the typical gangster genre in which he had gained prominence. He assured Wallis this shift was not based in "conceit or actor's temperament, but in order to do justice to my capabilities, as a whole," wishing to work on *Confessions of a Nazi Spy* (1939), a movie he wanted to make "for my people" (Robinson was the son of Jewish immigrants from Romania). Given the green light to play in the upcoming Jack London film *The Sea Wolf*, as a concession Robinson did *Brother Orchid*. At first reluctant to plunge back into the hard-boiled crime caper, he nonetheless signed on for the comedy.

Director Lloyd Bacon, who made 73 films for Warners, was known for his speed and efficiency. "He did things so quickly that I once accused him of taking bribes," James Cagney once cracked. Working with Cagney on tightly scheduled films, Lloyd never lagged. One time after Cagney and the cast had rehearsed a particular scene, Cagney said, "OK, Lloyd, are you ready to shoot?" Bacon grinned and said, "I just did!" According to TCM.com "Bacon stunned everyone by surpassing even his own speed record by shooting 47 takes in one day on the biographical film *Knute Rockne - All American* (1940)."

Donald R. McClarey, blogger for Catholic Stand, a member of the League of Catholic Bloggers, says *Brother Orchid* is a wonderful screwball comedy with particular relevance during Advent and the service of selflessness. "It is a trip back to the Golden Age of Hollywood when literate, thoughtful films were considered mass entertainment. It is also a fine exponent of a facet of the human condition that is not much commented upon today, namely the seductive power of goodness." On the secular side, American Film Institute nominated *Brother Orchid* for its "100 Movies, 100 Laughs" list and "AFI's 10 Top 10-Nominated Gangster Film" list. Double duty with a moral message--what more could you want?
Ann Sothern, that's what.

Considered by her friend Lucille Ball to be "the best comedienne in this business, bar none," Ann Sothern nearly steals any scenes she's on the screen. Luminously lit with stunning close-ups by cinematographer Tony Gaudio, Ann's ditzy Flo is so immediately likable with her malapropisms and her easy charm that I immediately fell for her myself. By all accounts, though, Ann was reserved in her self-judgment: "Hollywood sold its stars on good looks and personality build-ups. We weren't really actresses in the true sense. We were just big names--the products of a good publicity department. Today's crop of actresses and actors have real talent. Good looks are no longer an essential part of the business. . . .
Sometimes, I'll watch an old movie on television and, once in a while, one of mine--such as *April Showers* (1948)--will come on and I'll watch it. And you know something? I'm always amazed at what a lousy actress I was. I guess in the old days, we just got by on glamour." I beg to disagree--her Flo is endearing because of Sothern's invisible acting; she's not *playing* Flo--she IS Flo. And the perfect support for Robinson's laissez faire attitude toward her.

This is one for the family, folks. It's perfect to drag you out of the frustration pit--as it did with me last evening--while offering an easy to swallow moral tone that makes this one a classic to be enjoyed again and again. I'd even drive to a theater to see it. . . if I had a car that ran.
Enjoy.
Jeff

I'm an Edward G. Robinson fan. But my favorites among his movies are his non gangster roles. Maybe I'll drop one or two into the Screening Room. I've gotten away from additions there. And maybe it's time to fire things up again over there.

Post #485: I've made no effort to suppress my love for Ealing Studios' comedies, and with good reason, for they are in my mind always good for pleasant understated set of laughs and smiles. Today's feature, *The Love Lottery* (1954) starring David Niven, fits cozily in their wheelhouse, though the following year the Rank Organization sold Ealing to the BBC and closed shop. The premise for this fluffy little satire could easily be the harbinger for the horrific "Reality" TV that would clog our systems half a century later, but played for laughs it's really quite a pleasant ride.

Much beset-upon screen idol Rex Allerton (David Niven) is slowly being chauffeured to distraction by the hordes of adoring fans that haunt his dreams and will never allow him a moment's peace in his waking hours. “I suppose there had to be two sexes," he laments, "but why did the other one have to be women? Why couldn't they have been plants or minerals?” Hounded into desperation in Hollywood, he tries to escape to his London home, only to be surrounded by besotted fans yet again. In sarcastic desperation he suggests to his PR agent a competition in which he is the prize, a Love Lottery. Obviously a plea for sanity and quiet, the lottery is rejected by the media on the grounds that it is exactly as it appears--a put on.

. . . Until The International Syndicate of Computation, a gambling syndicate headed by André Amico (Herbert Lom, with hair spiked just enough to suggest a diabolical stand-in), finagle a small Italian town to host Rex in relative anonymity in an effort to dupe him into becoming the grand prize in a *real* lottery. Assisting Amico is Jane Dubois (Anne Vernon), a mathematical number crunching whiz in on the con. (Don't ask how the Syndicate benefits from this lottery; I haven't the faintest idea, outside of somehow making millions of dollars, and I am not convinced we're supposed to question it either.) And so after convolutions of plot we find Rex resigning himself to Amico's blackmail and offering himself as the marriage material for the Lottery's winner.

Director Charles Crichton (who made the "Golfing" segment in *Dead Of Night* (1945), *The Lavender Hill Mob* (1951), a number of episodes of *Secret Agent* and *The Avengers* and would later make *A Fish Called Wanda* 1988) sprinkles surreal dance numbers throughout the film, registering Rex's inner turmoil to comic effect, while some camera trickery allows the Lottery's winner Sally (the radiant Sally Cummins, who holds second billing and doesn't show up until late in the film's 89 minutes) to become a crowd stampeding Rex. Though twenty-nine when she filmed this picture, she is relegated to a teenybopper role that unlike Ms. Cummins is sorely underdeveloped. Watching her interact with the 43-year-old Niven (suave as ever and always a delight) is rather uncomfortable due to Crichton's direction of their age difference, adorning Cummins in frills and poofy gowns against Niven's trademark tuxedo.

Much more at ease, as we're directed to feel, is Anne Vernon's Jane who becomes Rex's true love interest. Their relationship takes off quickly and deeply, interrupted by the shenanigans of the Lottery as it takes hold. It's best not to think too logically about *The Love Lottery* for it is broad satire of Hollywood's machinery, clipping along toward its conclusion at a pace that is both leisurely and quick. I doubt this Ealing Comedy will ever knock any of Sir Alec Guinness's farces off their pedestals, but it is good, smooth fun with very likable performances from everyone--including a very fast but welcome uncredited cameo in the last frames of the film by a heavy hitting Hollywood star.

Niven waived his fee for filming *The Love Lottery* in order to be in town for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth (the Queen) on 2 June. The Nivens had the pleasure of watching the procession with their friends the Bogarts. Evidently Prince Philip spotted David, whom he already knew, at a palace garden party and strolled over to say hello. David realized the prince had never met his second wife, Swedish fashion model Hjördis, and introduced her, “Hjördis, may I present Philip Prince…” Niven later admitted, “Not only did I twist his name,but I should have presented my wife to the Prince, instead of vice versa.”

Be on the outlook for two more familiar faces in the background of supporting roles--Sebastian Cabot and Theodore Bikel as members of the Syndicate.

*The Love Lottery* is a charming, gentle picture with relaxed performances all the way around. It will not win splendid accolades from international audiences, but it certainly is a nice way to spend a little time in gracious company.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #486: I don't speak Spanish (or any other fancy language); I even have a hard time with English most of the time. But for today's feature, *Red Dust* (1932), the only trailer I've been able to find is in Spanish. Our stars Clark Gable and Jean Harlow speak English, though the promotional copy is bilingual, enriching my modest vocabulary beyond "Mi casa es azul," which is not only fascinating but inaccurate as well (my house is grey, and lovingly my wife responded, "Nuestra casa es azul grisácea tonto!" Aww. Thanks, Honey. I love you too). Those two intense years of high school Latin, taught by the same teacher who instructed my dad and perhaps spoke it in the original, by the way, did much to make me a continental, suave man of arts. Why, I can still say "Galba est agricola" like it is second nature, even though I have yet to weave "Galba is a farmer" into casual conversation.

So in keeping with our international theme, our absolute classic Pre-Code Hollywood feature *Red Dust* is set on a rubber plantation in French Indochina during the monsoon season. Owner and harsh task master Dennis Carson (Clark Gable) is laboring to produce high grade rubber despite a lackadaisical Chinese crew, supply boats mired in mud, intense humidity, blinding dust storms and torrential rains coming at inopportune times. Into this pressure cooker comes Vantine Jefferson (Jean Harlow), an intensely seductive, wise-cracking good time girl taking refuge on the plantation after a run-in with the police in Saigon. If this isn't a recipe for some erotic slap and tickle with two combustible stars, I don't know what is.

But wait! There's more. After Vantine and Denny square off (and find a mutually beneficial union), calling one another "Fred" and "Lily," to simulate a total lack of interest in actually knowing one another by name, director Victor Fleming (*Gone With The Wind* and *The Wizard Of Oz* 1939) ups the ante with the introduction of an out-of-place, inexperienced engineer Gary Willis (Gene Raymond) and his high society wife Barbara (Mary Astor). Quickly falling prey to fever and nearing death, Gary thrashes and sweats under Carson's care while Denny casts a knowing eye at Barbara, who is worried to distraction while wearing clingy silk. Once Gary is out of danger, and Carson loses interest in Vantine (who jealously packs up and leaves) in favor of the classy lady Barbara, Carson sets Gary out on a three week surveying assignment in the jungle, excavating for a bridge. Boy, it sure is hot in Indochina, and even hotter in the compound where Carson has to deal with the unenviable position of being alone with a panting fashion plate. Poor guy.

The pure joy of this film lies in the interactions and dualistic treatment of sexual attraction. On one hand, Vantine is Carson's equal, matching him barb for barb with razor wit and a sharpness in their double entrendres that could slice a pineapple in one easy swipe. She is uninhibited, but not without heart, knowing exactly who she is and making the most of it. For her sex is recreational, but binding in regard to Carson, though she feigns indifference. When she decides to leave and Carson stuffs a wad of cash into her cleavage, we can see she is crushed by the brutal indifference of his action.

On the other hand, Barbara Willis is inviolate, a faithful wife who under other circumstances would never consider horizontal aerobics with a man other than her innocent albeit comfortably serviceable husband. But Carson represents brute force, sweating primal animal magnetism she has never known--and it's just so darned hot in here, far away from the cool confines of civilized martini swilling. . . so sex is enticing in its forbidden passion. When she slaps Carson for what she sees as his harsh attraction, Carson recognizes a sexual tension coiled beneath her respectable facade. [Dang, this sounds like a really bad Harlequin Romance, the way I'm explaining it. I need a shower]

For Carson sex is both recreational and ennobling, depending on the partner. Vantine is great fun, all angles and frowsy low cut casualness, but Barbara fairly glows in the morning when shot by cinematographer Harold Rosson against her softly focused white sheets and light dancing mischievously in her eyes. Vantine will sit in your lap and giggle naughtily as she twists you into a frenzy, while Barbara will stand as a statue across the room in a slinky gown by Adrian and toss her head back exposing her neck while pleading the ethical confusion she feels. Is it lust, or is it love? Is it live, or is it Memorex? Oh, what's a boy to do?

In this, the second of six Gable and Harlow pairings, the playful repartee between the stars is best evidenced in what has been called "the infamous rain barrel" scene: Vantine is bathing in the shack's cistern, joyously naked refusing Carson's demand that shades should be lowered for privacy. "What's the matter?" she says saucily. "Afraid I'll shock the Duchess? Don't you suppose she's ever seen a French postcard?" When Carson approaches, she complains that he's ignored her wishes: "Gee, can't a girl take a bath in privacy?" but then provocatively teases, loud enough for Barbara to hear: "Hey Denny, scrub my back!" Carson dunks her just as she's about to utter a flaming WTF expletive and lowers the shades. According to studio sources, a totally topless Harlow, being a joker, stood up during filming and called out something along the lines of "one for the boys in the lab!" Fleming quickly removed the film to save it from falling into the hands of black marketers.

*Red Dust* became an MGM hit, the fourth most popular film in the USA box office of 1932, garnering a profit of $399,000, despite lukewarm reviews from the critics. Today it's earned its place as a classic, in 2006 selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Yet its dramatic backstage history in itself has become the stuff of Hollywood legend: Greta Garbo and John Gilbert were originally slated to star, while for a time Joan Crawford was also linked to the production. But MGM intervened in the affair she was having with Gable and replaced her to end the relationship. It was Jean Harlow who experienced the greatest tragedy, however, when her husband of two months producer Paul Bern committed suicide while the film was on a Labor Day break. Fearing such a scandal would rock the production (there was some suggestion that Bern had been murdered, shot in his bathroom), Louis B. Mayer petitioned to have Harlow replaced. But after learning the polls indicated a tremendous sympathy for Harlow, Mayer pressed director Fleming to reshoot some scenes where Harlow's decolletage was somewhat diminished and to finish quickly to capitalize on the sympathy audiences felt. Harlow was back before the camera after a ten day hiatus, and Fleming brought the picture in on schedule.

The weather these days would suggest *Red Dust* is the perfect film on days of sweltering heat and humidity. As in many Pre-Code Hollywood films, it's a joy to see actors at the height of their game with a solid character study and enough scorching dialogue and scenery to burst your popcorn and bubble over your Coca-Cola in your paper cup. In other words, ¿quién es el mejor amante? Ella que tiene más energía y lujuria en el polvo! Bank on it.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #487: Today's feature, *Blonde Crazy* (1931), is a slap fest to beat the band, and I don't mean one of those stagey Turn Your Head When You See The Palm Of My Hand Coming, They'll Add The Sound Effect In Post-Production face plants. No, this is Pre-Code Hollywood, and when Joan Blondell connects with James Cagney, you can feel it in the back row of the theater. We're talking major smackdown time here. It's also one of the fizziest concoctions I've ever be exposed to since I was a kid drinking those fruit-flavored chalky tablets that dissolved in water (For those too young to recall, Fizzies was a big seller to compete with Kool-Aid. Oh Yeah!). With a working title like *Larceny Lane," this is a classic in every sense . . . except for the ending, which is, nicely put, ponderous.

A brisk, bright and bouncy comedy, *Blonde Crazy* enlists the formidable talents of Joan Blondell, who plays newly hired chambermaid Anne Roberts at "the leading hotel in a small mid-western city," as she fights off (and eventually joins forces with) the finagling bellhop Bert Harris (James Cagney). Bert has dreams of conning people for the big score and has been handily working on plots ranging from simple chicanery to elaborate stings, his most recent setting up guest A. Rupert Johnson Jr. (Guy Kibbee) in a compromising position with Anne, profiting a tidy $5,000. While Bert sees Anne as a partner in crime, drawling "Hawww-ney" as a term of affection between them, Anne starts to fall in love with sights on a more permanent partnership. “The age of chivalry has passed," Bert says. "This, honey, is the age of chiselry.”

Vacationing in Chicago, joining what one cynic in the film the “Well dressed parade of parasites, aren’t they?” Bert and Anne meet Dapper Dan Barker (Louis Calhern) and his cohort Helen (Noel Francis), two high steppers who take to Bert immediately, sensing he might be grifter as well. Dan sets up a deal to fence counterfeit bills in exchange for $10,000 of his own money and the $5,000 Bert and Anne have (Bert and Anne's $5,000 in 1931 equates to roughly $82,000 plus change today). Discovering the job is actually a scam and he and Anne are now out their $5,000, Bert promises revenge, works a little convolution to get money back before Anne can find out about their loss, and plots another con against Dan.

Meanwhile, Anne meets a respectable stock trader, Joe Reynolds (Ray Milland), and figuring Bert will not step up and confess his love for her--he's always more concerned with a con than Anne, so she believes, and rightly so--she marries Joe while Bert travels the globe to reflect on how he's messed up everything he's ever touched. At this point the film takes an even more unexpected turn from bubbly comedy to drama, leading (No spoilers) to a resolution of action that in my mind seems completely out of place, manufactured simply to placate the moralistic undertow of the Hays Office. *Blonde Crazy* ended its 79 minute run with my exclaiming, "What, that's it, hawwww-ney?" For me it's not a calculated, discussion-inducing ending as in *Scarecrow* (1973) or *No Country For Old Men* (2007), which I find masterfully executed--it's just a truncation.

So if we're supposed to peek under the collected square heads of the Production Code, I guess we're in the blame shame mode: From the purest viewing none of the people in *Blonde Crazy* is one the level, and thus game for judgment. Bert is an unrepentant egoist for much of the film, gaining strength, courage and enjoyment--not to mention cash--from the people he's manipulating. He comes to realize too late that Anne is a prize in her own right, and does shift gaming gears late in the film, but he still has to pay the piper. Anne is much more above board, reluctantly but willingly participating in scams largely due to her attraction to Bert--and she's genuinely put off when she learns how Bert replenished their money supply, so morally she's heads above Bert. But she still bilks people out of money. Dan is mightily low on the totem pole, scamming the scammer, relying on Bert's own weaknesses and belief that he's smarter than anyone to strip him dry. And Helen is right there with him as she uses her sex appeal to hook the fish without conscience.

According to Pre-Code Hollywood.com, "After the market crash, the purveyors of stocks were seen along the same lines as fraudsters, selling the masses of America phony dreams for empty pocketbooks. Con artistry is merely a more honest extrapolation; at least when they take you, they make no extravagant promises afterward." There is a carefree joy in the exchange of illicit money--we honestly like and care for Bert and Anne, in spite of their rhythmic slapping, the sound of one hand clapping. But morals must be observed, and so their payoff to me seems much too harsh even though it promises a return to devotion, dedication and love.

Cagney and Blondell starred in seven pictures together, this one being their fourth teaming, and their chemistry is palpable on screen. Cagney is loose limbed and feather light on his feet, even allowing facial calisthenics to add to the breezy time he appears to be enjoying. Considering it's only his second leading role--the first lead being Tom Powers in *The Public Enemy* in the same year, again performing with Blondell--Cagney's performance is a pure joy--manic, wild, and rubber limbed. Here is cockiness is compellingly undercut by Blondell at every turn. What makes *Blonde Crazy* so much fun to watch is the obvious enchantment Blondell feels as she works overtime to stifle a spontaneous laugh every time she smacks Cagney, a running gag that becomes a subtext for love and attraction.

Cagney made 5 films in 1931, Blondell made 8 and the director Roy del Ruth made 10 films in 18 months of 1931-33. As Mick LaSalle points out in *Complicated Women*, Joan Blondell made 27 films between 1931-1933, as many as Greta Garbo made in her entire career. Blondell and Cagney remained lifelong friends after they met during an audition in 1929, of which Blondell wrote, "Suddenly, a few feet from where I was standing, squashed, I became aware of a young man's unforgettable face grinning at me. His hair was a Van Gogh, Renoir, Titian red with blobs of gold waving through. His eyes were delft blue, with the longest, thickest lashes I had ever seen. He blinked his eyes at me, and since I had never seen a blink like that before, I instantaneously fell in love. The jolt was so horrendous, I kept my eyes floorward."

A founder of the Screen Actors Guild, Cagney was contemptuous of most of his directors, and Roy del Ruth, who made five films with Cagney, was no exception. Not content with Cagney's self-styled facial tics and gestures which the actor felt brought the character to life, Del Ruth evidently told him to "knock it off," which led to several days of bland rushes which provoked the front office to demand Cagney be let alone to do what he felt was best. Del Roy ignored Cagney for the rest of the picture, allowing him free reign, which paid dividends.

In recent years *Blonde Crazy* has gained new popularity, causing revered feminist American film critic Molly Haskell to applaud, "the rapport between Cagney and Blondell--buddies, would-be lovers, he calling her "hon-ey" she self-reliant and soft, giving as much as she gets and more. Blondell's beauty as a 'broad' is that she can outsmart the man without unsexing him. Cagney's beauty as a man is that he can be made a fool of without becoming a fool. They flesh out the spare Warners script with intimations of love, life, confidence and sexual equality that only reinforce all one's suspicions that they don't make movie stars--or men--like they use to."

In the immortal words of Joe Franklin, this is one for the vaults, my friends. Enjoy it for the sheer chemistry and playfulness of two copacetic performers taking us for all we're worth. Hawww-ney!
Enjoy.
Jeff

Jeff, you're on a winning streak. I can't wait to see what's next. And, by the way, how many "stinkers" have Ya come across in your journey through the pre-code era? Some of them can be fun for a whole different set of reasons.

No stinkers yet, Space. But who knows for whom the bell tolls? I still have a handful coming in the next week.
Jeff

Post #488: After our viewing of *The Divorcee* (1931) with Norma Shearer, I was ready to plunge headlong into another female empowerment coupling co-starring Robert Montgomery, since the two had such a magnetic rapport. As luck would have it, I found the follow-up, which coincidentally was also written by Ursula Parrott. So it seemed a confluence of talents that would entertain as much as *The Divorcee*. Well, kinda. In today's feature, *Strangers May Kiss* (1931), filmed just after Norma Shearer had given birth and Norma felt extremely self-conscious of her post-partum appearance, she and Montgomery play off one another gloriously. I just wish the final effect were much less cynical and confounding though it provided some truly jaw-dropping moments that would test even the most flexible moral rubber bands.

By Pre-Code Hollywood standards, *Strangers May Kiss* raised the hackles with Norma's character Lisabeth Corbin sharing a kiss in a two-person plane with the pilot so passionately they almost crash, being surrounded by people who consume a Lake Superior of champagne and booze, throwing mad inhibition to the wind by engaging in a whirlwind affair with an unctuous news reporter (Neil Hamilton), and being unceremoniously dumped in Mexico only to bounce back by sleeping her way across Europe while remarking casually, “I’m in an orgy– wallowing. And I love it!” Not only that, but she's also--wait for it--head of The Geneva Sterling Limited cosmetics company. A woman in charge in 1931? Scandalous.

Not had enough yet? How about this--Lisabeth's Aunt Celia (Irene Rich), holding to traditional moral fiber, is a huge proponent of marriage, as she enjoys the perfect union with her husband (Hale Hamilton), saying sagely, "Marriage and love are not enemies. A woman doesn't know how to be in love until she's been married ten years." But then one night while everyone is out celebrating a night spot, our party spots Happy Hubby hobnobbing with a girl on each arm. And so somewhat dejected Aunt Celia, our best and only link to monogamy, returns home and commits suicide by flinging herself from her palatial de-lux apartment in the sky. She ain't movin' on up--she's going down in a big way. (It's actually the sudden stop that hurts the most.)

Comforting Lisabeth is a constant in her life, the lushly Steve (Robert Montgomery) who routinely proposes to her at the drop of an olive in his martini. But Lisabeth falls for Alan (Neil "Commissioner Gordon" Hamilton) who fears she might love him with the same intensity that Aunt Celia loved her husband, and takes a powder for month, leaving Lisabeth to laugh off the goofy advances of the charming Steve. When hit-and-run jerk Alan returns, she falls back in love with him (God knows why) and escapes to Mexico with him to live in carefree headiness until he prepares for a new assignment and drops the little 30-megaton bomb that he holds a wife in Paris. Holy infidelity, Batman! The Commissioner's a cad and a sh*t. “It isn’t very important," he rationalizes. "We don’t bother about it very much. Haven’t for years." Now get this--he tries to make himself look noble: "It struck me just now that I was keeping a secret from a friend. No reason why I should do that, is there?” Sweet Fancy Moses, what a lard lump.

And so Lisabeth embarks on a hedonistic tour de force which recalls her confrontation with Uncle Andrew after Aunt Celia did a half gainer out of her window: "Oh, quit will you! You make me sick! You think women should all be shoved into a coop - like hens. That is, good women! The only important thing you don't mention at all. You can't tell me anything! Women aren't human things to you! They're either wives or sweethearts! Get a house - and some furniture and some rugs and a wife!" Living that credo carries her along for two years, until she runs into Steve, who is as intent on marrying her as ever, but she responds, "Oh, look here Steve, what's the matter with you? You've been out for fun all your life. Ha-ha. All you men are. I found that out. The sweet grand things that a girl dreams about, don't interest men at all. They're just a nuisance."

. . . until Alan sends a telegram informing her he's now divorced and ready to jump back into her life with a proposal of his own. Once again good old Steve gets kicked in the teeth as Lisabeth puts on her track shoes and streaks over to Alan's apartment. But hold on, Folks, it's whiplash time once again--Alan has now caught wind of her dalliances and dresses her down quite severely, in good old double standard elegance, telling her in amazing superiority, "Women like you won't do. I won't spend the rest of my life looking at shadows on the wall." What a far cry from his initial reaction to her: "Gosh, you're lovely!" This guy is a pit stain on the starched shirt of love. But we'll always have Paris. . . .

Neil Hamilton was quoted in retrospect that Norma Shearer held her own marriage to Irving Thalberg, MGM's head of production, at a premium: "Her love scenes positively sizzled, and she would get so passionate with me -- before the camera's eye, of course -- that I used to wonder if she was getting enough at home. But she always walked off by herself after the scene, never hung around me, never made even the hint of a pass." According to her biographer Gavin Lambert: "The strain of holding her sexual drive in check during Irving's lifetime remained camouflaged until after his death. . . To get what she wanted and become Mrs. Thalberg, Norma had to disguise inner tension; three years later she was still disguising it, to conceal what she wasn't getting."

A complex woman concerned with success, Norma Shearer was always aware of her presence and performance. In *Strangers May Kiss* she glamorizes some of designer Adrian's most flowing creations, though, according to him, "She was obsessed with the idea that the pregnancy had left her pudgy, that the audience would be able to see through the fabric and undies straight to the stretch marks -- it was ridiculous." Cinematographer William Daniels confirms those self- recriminations as well: "She worried about her figure and her complexion and we dickered a lot about the lighting. I had to assure her several times that her figure was as svelte and shapely as it was before her pregnancy. 'I don't want the fans to see any difference,' she said nervously, 'I did my exercises, watched my diet, and I deserve to look good in this. I've earned the right!'" Even co-star Robert Montgomery found nuances in her performance and personal life of balancing motherhood, stardom and rise to power: "In *Strangers May Kiss* I sensed a new restlessness in her. . . Norma had such a strong inner drive, such a fierce discipline, she would have made it to all-out stardom no matter what the circumstances of her life."

Perhaps Karen at Shadows And Satin.com summed it best: "What’s my problem with all this, you might ask? My problem is that Alan is a little bit of a jackass and Lisbeth, as she’s described by one of her best pals, is 'a little bit dumb.' And in both cases, a 'little bit' is putting it mildly. […] I mean, SERIOUSLY. It’s really jaw-droppingly awesome, though. If you haven’t seen it, make it your business to check it out. Just be sure you don’t have any blunt objects around, or you might feel compelled to chuck them in the general direction of your TV screen."
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #489: Smiles, everyone, smiles. . . . I intone wearing a white suit and extending a salutatory arm to today's feature in Pre-Code Hollywood. Welcome, my friends, welcome to. . . *Paradise Island* (1930) with Marceline Day (fresh from Buster Keaton's *The Cameraman* (1928)), Kenneth Harlan, Tom Santschi, and a smattering of other people you've probably never heard of. With good reason. This is not a movie--it's an intestinal endurance test. How do I hate thee, let me count the ways: Editing completed with a rusty band saw that was never plugged in, long stupid pauses within "conversations" suggesting there was no prompt coach off camera to feed the people their lines, overt racism as natives on the island are either unproductive and lazy or supercharged on hormones which have been transmitted directly to the skin via ugly sarongs, unbridled drunkenness (perhaps in the director Bert Glennon as well), subtly attempted rape and forced marriage, bar none the most inept "fight" sequences ever committed to silver nitrate (please combust in the projector, audiences must have cried), but best of all--completely random, uniquely demonstrative and horrendous bursts into song which will take the prize for worst lip-synching ever, and that includes Ashlee Simpson's debacle on *Saturday Night Live*.

Perhaps someone can help me here: Is there any substantive difference between saying a film like this is "perfectly atrocious" or "monstrously atrocious"? Don't they both suggest a certain level of incompetence that transcends the merely awful, though their modifying adverbs suggest divergent levels--"perfectly" implies a height of achievement, while "monstrously" intimates an egregious opposite? This is the type of semantic sh*t that keeps me awake at night.

And I honestly don't believe my rancor tossed merrily at this flick is due to my being forced to watch it on my Kindle, either. (Our beautiful 42-inch television in the bedroom decided to allow sound but no picture, no matter how gently I coaxed it back into commission, sweet-talked the remote, and lovingly beat the screen's housing with a hammer. So now we have a two-ton paperweight of a car that is out of commission--and a flat screen TV refusing to show its face. What's next, God? Locusts? No, wait. I mean that in jest, Lord (kinda)--don't take me up on that.)

True, *Paradise Island* is only 68 minutes, so, you might ask, how bad can it be? Well, I suppose it would depend on how much you'd enjoy sitting on a charcoal grill in your undies for 68 minutes. If you don't mind square-one sexism with swaggering sailors and seedy hustlers in tropical settings, and if you don't mind a little blackface on the natives with Betty Boyd trying to be sexy in broken English, and if you don't mind songs like "I've Got A Girl In Every Port," "Drinking Song" and "Lazy Breezes" not matching the faces they're coming from--you'll still have a hard time.

But let's start with the plot: Proper lady Ellen Bradford (Marceline Day) takes a boat trip to the romantic South Sea island of Tonga to marry her fiance, Roy Armstrong (the oaf of white bread Gladden James), who has gone ahead to buy a plantation and make his fortune for a comfortable life. Unfortunately, foppish Roy has invested most of his money in crooked card games with Dutch Mike Lutze (Tom Santschi), losing half his plantation to the grimy gambler, and staying in a near constant state of stupid inebriation. So when wide eyed Ellen (the only white woman on the island, we're told repeatedly, with the suggestion that white women are pretty hot property, commodities of envy) innocently tiptoes into Lutze's seedy dive, Lutze detours her to his house, claiming the passed out Roy asleep in the back room is actually "on another island." Naturally, Ellen places her trust in this unshaven bottom feeder until Roy returns from his job shortly.

In short measure Captain Jim Thorne (Kenneth Harlan), a manly man--we can tell because he sings deeply and likes to keep a girl on every knee while actually harboring a heart of gold--returns to the island with plans to revenge some previous dirty deal Lutze perpetrated against him. Seeing Ellen and saving her from Lutze's evil plan to douse himself in lilac water and take possession of the little white girl ("“Your offer interests me, but I’m not interested in getting… cockeyed," Ellen says to Lutze), Jim immediately places his goal of securing a ton or two of pearls on the back burner, turning his attention to Ellen. Discovering that Roy is a souse (“Good lord, he’s turned pansy!”) and later walking in on him practicing high impact aerobics with a native girl, Ellen falls out of love with him.

The rest of the movie plays Tug Of War between Jim and Lutze, with Ellen somewhere in the middle, as scams and countermoves drag the story toward its next spontaneous musical number. For comic effect, Paul Hurst as Beauty, Jim's first mate and handyman, paws native girls who crawl all over him like fungi (because he's a fun guy) and keeps an eye on Ellen for Jim, with all the smarts of an Icy Hot pad. One redeeming quality saves *Paradise Island* from being a total monsoon of decrepitude: In a smart moment late in the film, when Ellen comes to her senses and realizes Jim is really a good guy who wants to marry her, she responds with a rousing if surprising, "Hell yes!" which must be one of the earliest utterings of that expletive in talkies.

Almost the entire cast were well known during the silent age, which might suggest why this foray into sound pictures came from an independent studio Tiffany Pictures founded in 1921 and gone to ground in 1932 as part of the Poverty Row B-movies. As an intriguing bit of trivia, MGM bought all the studio's silver nitrate originals and burned them during the filming of *Gone With The Wind*'s (1939) burning of Atlanta sequence. Some prints still survive, among them *Mamba* (1930), said to be the first original Technicolor film, as well as eight westerns with Bob Steele and ten Ken Maynard films.

So from a historical perspective, providing a nice platform for the lovely Marceline Day, star of 64 films in her career, dying at 91 in 2000, *Paradise Island* might--and I use that term strictly--interest you. Or perhaps it will turn up on the anniversary reunion of *Mystery Science Theater 3000* one day, which would redeem it beyond recognition.
Enjoy (Fat Chance).
Jeff

So... this was a pre-code stinker?

I'm trying to decide which of Barbara Stanwyck's pre-code flicks I should double up with First Lady of Burlesque from 1943. It's not fair to try to do a direct comparison. But I wanna compare how they handled the nasty little nuances pre and post code.

Maybe I should try the comparison using movies by two or three leading actresses from both eras. But which ones? I must think on this.

I just bought the Pre-Code Frank Capra Collection, four of which star Barbara Stanwyck, but I won't get it for another two or three weeks. Dang pandemic. I also have a Norma Shearer-A-Thon coming perhaps this week. (Depends on our TV issue)
Jeff

Post #490: A perky little comedy-drama would be very welcome right about now, after the last couple days of questionable Pre-Code films filled with twisted emotional entanglements and idiots spontaneously combusting into song. So welcome to the fast-paced excitement of a big city newspaper in today's feature, *Hi, Nellie* (1934) with Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell and the marvelous Ned Sparks, directed by Mervyn LeRoy (*Little Caesar* (1931), *I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang* (1932), *Mister Roberts* (1955), and the only director nominated for eight Oscars for Best Picture). Alternately funny and suspenseful, *Hi, Nellie* is a rousing escape clocking in at a quick 75 minutes.

Managing Editor Samuel N. "Brad" Bradshaw (Paul Muni, equally adept at comedy and drama) soft pedals the disappearance of Frank J. Canfield, the head of the governor's investigating committee, at the same time a fortune in embezzled funds ($500,000 in 1934 translating into $8.8 million today) sends a bank belly up. Though every paper in town leaps on a connection between the two events, eviscerating Canfield as a thief, Brad sees the lawyer as a straight-shooter and refuses to rush to judgment. Raising the ire of the newspaper owner J. L. Graham (Berton Churchill), Brad is summarily demoted to helming the Heartthrob column, churning out advice to the lovelorn.

Bound by his contract (if he quits, he'll not be hired by any other newspaper) for $15,000 per year (or $290,000 today), he suffers the indignity while watching the vindictive replacement by his editorial second-in-command Dawes (Douglas Dumbrille) and his ex-fling brassy blonde Gerry Krale (Glenda Farrell) taking on the city beat after months serving her time as Nellie Nelson, the Heartthrob editor. [Brad had consigned her to that fate for missing a scoop; now he's seeing justice meted out just as he had with Gerry.] After three agonizing months of dispensing romantic advice and keeping one eye on the developments of the Canfield case, drinking to excess and being called gutless by Gerry, Brad is saddled with reader Rosa Marinello (Dorothy Libaire), a heartbroken young woman who asks "Nellie" to intervene between her father and fiance who have called off her wedding.

Sensing something hinky in a link between this diversion and Canfield's last known appearance at Rosa's address, Brad uncovers a connection to gangster Beau Brownell (Robert Barrat), who had seen Canfield as an anti-corruption fly in his criminal ointment. Accompanied by his hard-nosed pal Shammy (Ned Sparks), they track down clues in an opulent, extravagant night spot The Merry Go Round, which offers a carnival decor with a working carousel doubling as a revolving bar at its center. The real fun is about the start.

*Hi, Nellie* works as a comedy, a suspense caper, and a great examination of the high pressure world of journalism. Much more an ensemble cast than a winning vehicle for Muni, every character is etched with a singular personality that feels real and frenetic. Muni and Farrell demonstrate a witty and sharp-edged relationship, sparring and jabbing as equals in the newspaper ring. Muni moves effortlessly from drunken abandon to media darling once he starts taking the lovelorn column seriously, garnering the respect of everyone in the newsroom, including the publisher. Ned Sparks is a sour joy whenever he hits the screen, delivering punchlines with a believable snideness that belies a genuine professional journalist. And this was evidenced by the profits Warner Brothers accumulated--$407,000 domestically and $240,000 internationally. In 1934, that ain't hay.

Director Mervyn LeRoy said, "Of all the studios of [the mid-1930s], Warner Brothers was the most exciting. Under contract to the studio then were stars and, even more important, a coterie of character actors, great supporting players who could do anything." Glenda Farrell, who had worked with LeRoy on *Little Caesar, said of those fast-paced days at Warner Brothers, "“I went through the mill there . . . sometimes I would be in three pictures that were shooting at the same time.” *Hi, Nellie* offered her an opportunity to play the motor-mouthed Gerry in direct opposition to who she was off screen: “I never wisecrack … and as for gold digging, I’ve never been able to wangle a thing—everything I’ve ever had, I’ve worked for and paid myself.” And this was the second pairing of Muni and Glenda Farrell (both of whom worked on *I Am A Fugitive. . .* 1932) and third film Muni and LeRoy made, though LeRoy said *Hi, Nellie* "was an unlikely part for him, but he handled it magnificently."

If you enjoyed Ben Hecht's *The Front Page* (1931) or *His Girl Friday* (1940) directed by Howard Hawks, you'll get used to the rapid fire dialogue and competitive spirit evidenced in *Hi, Nellie*. It's a joy to see actors working so well with one another to create a hybrid of the best kind: comedy/drama/suspense crime thriller/romance. And it almost makes one nostalgic for Remington typewriters. . . but not those finger-staining carbons and ditto masters. I still have violet fingernails from those days.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #491: The original trailer seen today is a messy little affair, having been recorded in the audience of a big screen showing, hence the wacky jerkiness of the copy. But that seems to fit a bit as today's feature, *Dark Hazard* (1934), deals with the loping leaping of greyhound racing. Edward G. Robinson, teamed again with W. R. Burnett, author of *Little Caesar* (1931), is surrounded by recognizable Warner Brothers talent including Glenda Farrell, Robert Barrat, George Meeker and the to-be-famous Charlie Chan Sidney Toler. It's a weird Pre-Code picture whose moral might keep you guessing, but it entertains with sparkling, crackling dialogue and a funky take on gambling addiction. Directed by Alfred E. Green (*Baby Face*, 1933), *Dark Hazard*, the name of the greyhound in focus, runs (literally) 70 minutes without breaking stride even though Robinson himself assessed it this way: ”If you film buffs suspect I’ve skipped a picture I made called *Dark Hazard*, you’re so right. Try hard not to see it on TV. I loathed it.”

Jim "Buck" Turner (E.G. Robinson) is a gambler by trade and avocation who opens the film winning $20,000 and losing it almost immediately, requiring him to borrow five bucks for cab fare. Down at heels, he rents a room at a boarding house from the snooty Mrs. Mayhew (Emma Dunn) and her children, George (Hobart Cavanaugh) and Marge (Genevieve Tobin) Mayhew. Although Marge is dating well-to-do Pres Barrow (George Meeker), she falls in love with Jim and agrees to marry him if he gives up gambling and gets a regular job. “If you marry that gambler, you’ll marry into a life of trouble and disaster,” Mrs. Mayhew warns to no avail. Picking up work as a night clerk at the Hotel Northland, Jim is ridden mercilessly by influential John Bright (Sidney Toler), and taking all he can, insults Bright who gets Jim fired, goading him to settle the score at a local restaurant.

In one of the many change-ups in the narrative, Bright and Jim schmooze and drink the rest of the day away, with Bright offering him a job in California managing a dog racing enterprise. While there, struggling with the gambling pull with marge at home reminding him of it with every breath, Jim rekindles a friendship (loose usage) with brassy blonde ol' chum Valerie "Val" Wilson (Glenda Farrell), who immediately breathes life back into the "legitimate" Buck who struggles to stay on the straight and narrow. Now dogs ain't horses, so Buck's luck with picking a winner teaches him a lesson: “Well, it cost me forty bucks to find out dogs is just like horses. It ain’t how they look, it’s how they run.” And he falls in likable love with a grayhound named Dark Hazard, a sight that will warm any dog lover's heart. And Buck can own the dog for only $5,000!

So you can see the conflicts mounting by the minute: The pull of dog race gambling, the staid lack of support for Jim's interests from Marge, Marge's encroaching unhappiness (as well as her pregnancy), the lure of Val and her pals and "the good old days," and a man's love for his dog that isn't his. Domestic fires on the left of him, wanton desires to the right, Jim is a swirling torrent of torment and conflicting impulses, until Marge leaves him to his own devices. . . for two years.

The final act of the film continues the surprises, which I won't reveal here, but this one surely had me scratching my head over its tacit relegation of sympathies. Robinson as Jim is clearly the protagonist, a well meaning fool whose compulsions tend to be easily understood and strangely dismissible. Tobin's Marge also has reason to worry about Jim's late nights monitoring the dog track, his drinking (“Looks like you’ve been watering the bamboo all night,” she says) and covert gambling, but for me she hangs like an albatross for some reason, which is amplified by her brother George's sense of entrapment in his home and social construct. Meeker's Pres is a glass-jawed pretty boy who's technically not around long enough to make more of an impression.

Author W.R. Burnett came by his dog racing background honestly, as he owned Dark Hazard, played by the greyhound War Cry, referred to in the day as “the Man O’ War of the dogs,” winning forty-four races in one year. According to Pre-Code Hollywood.com, the film uses the dogs as a springboard to its moral: "But that’s not all *Dark Hazard* is about, by any means. So much of the film is built around Jim’s ego– his need for status and money– and how that pushes him back to gambling in order to prove himself worthy or better than those around him. The movie reveals itself to be an ode to the fiercely independent. There’s not a boss in the film who doesn’t get a comeuppance or a telling off. *Dark Hazard* says you have to be your own man and make your own way in life, which is pretty consistent with much of the early Depression-era moralizing."

Being a Pre-Code film, *Dark Hazard* has a few snippets of dialogue that were in all likelihood considered salacious, even if they were uttered between husband and wife: As Jim canoodles Marge in the side yard of their new cottage, watering the bamboo, Marge wriggles and says, "Jim, stop that! The neighbors will think we’re not married!” to which Jim replies, "Well, let's pretend we ain't." At Christmas time when Jim has to manage the front desk at the hotel, he lurches up to their apartment, snuggles and paws at Marge, pleading with her, "Just five minutes, Marge." And in one of the better exchanges between Val and Jim, Buck boasts, "It’s the first time I ever let you down, Val" while Val lies propped on up on a lounge accentuating her . . .pillows. And she answers the phone after this deflating confrontation, saying to the desk clerk, "“Hey operator, send up a porter with a wheelchair. Huh? No, I didn’t do anything to him.” With chutzpah like this, that joint is jumping.

So for all its unique flair and fast-forward scene transitions, *Dark Hazard* remains an oddity--not a standard Robinson gangster film, not quite a comedy, not really a romance in purest sense, and the audience doesn't really know where it's going some of the time, which you can either enjoy as a spirited jaunt or wonder over like the faux rabbit attached to the lead bar at the race track, humming along in a circle. Strange indeed, but entertaining nonetheless. Maybe you'll like it more than EG Robinson did.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #492: Uncomfortable--that's the best word I can summon as a reaction to today's Pre-Code Hollywood feature, *The Hatchet Man* (1932) directed by William Wellman and starring Edward G. Robinson and a completely, fully unrecognizable Loretta Young. You like violence? Check that box. Extramarital affairs? You got it. Opium usage? Yowsah. Chinese slavery? Oh yeah, we got it. But most disquieting to me--the use of Caucasian actors wearing yellow pancake make-up and broken English to depict the Chinese culture. Whoa. Over the line today, Smokey. You're about to enter a world of pain.

Dispassionately, we have to recall that in the 1930s, movie studios telling a dramatic story of the Tong wars in Chinatown had to face a choice: Employ white actors of merit who would provide a box office draw, even if they were caked with make-up, or release a film with Asian actors who, for whatever reason, were not well known, brand name stars, thus sinking the production at the box office. We're still in cinematic infancy, remember, with sound film just breaking the sound barrier. So for all its politically incorrect nuances it's carrying with it today, at least *The Hatchet Man* does some justice to the Chinese culture without resorting to an absolute egregiousness by poking fun at it as well. It is a tense drama steeped in tradition, even taking some jabs at the white race and its lack of appreciation of centuries' worth of history and tradition.

In 1917 Wong Low Get (Edward G. Robinson) honors the ancient tradition handed down from father to son of serving the Tongs as a Hatchet Man, a noble assassin who must mete out punishment against those who have violated Tong laws. In this case, Hop Li, member of the powerful Lem Sing Tong, has been murdered, and his death must be avenged. Wong is summoned to Sacramento by the council president, Nog Hong Fah (Dudley Digges), who assigns Wong to kill the murderer, Sun Yat Ming (J. Carrol Naish), Get's dearest friend since childhood. Conflicted between his ancestral duty and his loyalty to his friend, Wong resigns himself to the task just as Sun has accepted his fate by making out his will. Unaware that Wong is his executioner, Sun has left his entire household, including his prepubescent daughter Sun Toya San (played in adulthood by Loretta Young), swearing before Buddha that she will never know a day's sorrow. He absolves Wong, forgiving Wong's “innocent hand its stroke of justice.”

Today (1932) represents a shift in Chinese-American lifestyles as the Tong wars are all but forgotten and assimilation is underway. Sun Toya San is now celebrating her birthday, identified as her time of betrothal, and Wong, now a successful businessman, offers her his mother's wedding band, though he defies tradition and allows Toya to choose her mate. “My father's wish is also mine,” she replies and accepts his hand in marriage. But soon the Bing Foo, a Sacramento outlaw Tong, declares war, and Nog assigns gangster bodyguards to Get and Sun, a young "attractive" gangster Harry En Hai (Leslie Fenton) taking special interest in Sun.

Egg rolls hit the fan during the coming war, with Wong getting back into his traditional role and Harry leading Toya astray. Dejected but fully aware that he pledged Toya's happiness at all costs (and Buddha will find you if you betray him, doggone it), he gives her hand to Harry, is deemed unworthy, rejected by his peers, and is left to poverty. Until Toya later writes to him from China, rebuking her rash decision in “a living death more terrible than that which mercifully puts an end to suffering” and restating her love for him. Harry is now an opium smuggler and has sold Toya into slavery, so it's off to China we go to find a surprising and powerful concluding act.

William Wellman directs this all with a flair for visual metaphor, distancing the violence somewhat until a spectacular and shocking denouement. The sets are lush, filled with texture and detail against which our American cast parade in reverence, and Wellman's pacing is strong for at least the first half of the film, picking up speed again at the conclusion. Robinson is his usual strong presence, emoting powerfully and drawing sympathy with relative ease from the audience. Loretta Young unfortunately does not fare as well beneath her several layers of make-up and taped eyes, playing a shadow rather than a fleshed out character. She and Leslie Fenton are simply flat faced, flat footed in their romance, nearly unable to exhibit any emotion beyond the lip smacking, for fear of cracking their facial facades.

But unnerving is the strangely evocative "marriage" of Toya and Wong, given the fact that he has raised her for fifteen years. I can deal with the age difference, but the nature of their relationship (he killing her father by beheading him, elegantly shown in shadow and a cut to a doll with a lolling head) weirded me out, as the kids today say. Even though it's a small picture, Warner Brothers profited with it, earning $491,000 in the U.S. and $251,000 internationally, probably due to Robinson's performance and name recognition after *Little Caesar* (1930). But considering Warners procured a Romanian Jew (Robinson), a devoutly Catholic Utah girl (Young), and a New York via County Limerick emigre (Naish) joined by a Ranelagh, Dublin actor (Digges) and a Liverpool, Lancashire, England emigre (Fenton) to play the pivotal roles in a story of Chinatown in a racist studio system, I guess you could say they did all right for a 74 minute narrative in which Buddha plays a pretty vindictive part. I guess now I understand why author Sheldon Kopp suggested "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." Probably with a hatchet.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #493: In 1932, two years away from a hard line taken by the Hays Office, Warner Brothers' policy was that "two out of five stories should be hot," and that nearly all films could benefit by "adding something having to do with ginger." Around the same time *Variety* magazine determined of the 440 pictures produced in 1932–33, 352 had "some sex slant," with 145 possessing "questionable sequences," and 44 being "critically sexual," concluding "over 80% of the world's chief picture output was ... flavored with bedroom essence." Oh, the good old days. So in today's Pre-Code Hollywood potboiling feature, *Employees' Entrance* (1933), we find aggressive behavior in the board room and in the bedroom exercised by Warren William and a twenty-year-old Loretta Young. Yes, friends, it's another jaw dropper framed with a ruthless business sense that would make Gordon Gekko swallow his tongue, if it weren't tasked already in another endeavor.

Selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant," *Employees' Entrance* rams through its slight 74 minutes, leaving the audience nearly breathless as Kurt Anderson (Warren William), general manager of the Monroe department store, mows down the board of directors, owner, and all employees in his wrecking ball drive for profit. Ad copy in 1933 for the film read: "Department Store Girls--This is your picture, about your lives and your problems! See what happens in department store aisles and offices after closing hours! Girls who couldn't have been touched with a 100-ft yacht--ready to do anything to get a job! Beautiful models who whisper their dread of the 'Boss' who can 'make' or break more women than a sultan!" [Don't allow the quotation marks around "make" in that copy slide by without catching its sexual connotation] And it's not kidding--Anderson is a jackhammer businessman who wheels and wheedles and leaves a trail of broken employees in his wake while basking in a narcissistic glow.

After ruining a clothier who needed two extra days to fulfill an order, Anderson tours the fourth and fifth floors, finding young and attractive Madeline Walters (Loretta Young) camping out in one the store's display homes. Hoping to sleep on a couch in the department with the goal of being first in line the next morning for a job, Madeline draws upon Anderson's sympathy--no, strike that, he has no sympathy, empathy, just sociopathy--and he knows a done deal when he sees her. So after dinner and some wine. . . .

Madeline begins work the next day as a model for Monroe's splendid inventory, making friends with salesgirl Polly Dale (the ditzy, delightful and cute seductress Alice White) who will figure prominently in a few minutes. Clearly uncomfortable with the manner in which she secured her job, Madeline hopes never to run into Anderson again. Fat chance. As the Great Depression hits, sending the bottom line to one-tenth its original glory, and facing the grim reality voiced by Arnold Higgins (Charles Sellon), a thirty-year veteran of the store, " "I don't know if there's very much to be said. There's a depression and everybody's affected. I should say the thing to do is retrench, economize," Anderson digs in--"You're dead weight. Get out!" firing the old man, driving him to leap from the window of an upper floor. Does Anderson encounter grief or guilt? Be real. "When a man outlives his usefulness, he ought to jump out a window! That’s the trouble with most men – they don’t realize when they’re through,” he says in passing.

In Anderson's world of serial philandering, women are commodities to be traded: "What do you want me to do? Marry you? Bunk! When you dames get your claws in a man you don't let him go until you drag him to some alter and ruin his life. All you're looking for is a soft place to park for the rest of your life." And so when he discovers that Martin West (Wallace Ford), his longtime head of men's clothing now promoted to his assistant, has married recently, some of the shine on his wunderkind buddy wears off. He needs a man who will be at his beck and call 24/7 devoid of emotional entanglements. Even if--perhaps especially because--he's married to Madeline. “Let this woman go," he tells Martin. "Turn her loose. A little money’ll do the trick. That’s all any of ‘em want.”

A master manipulator, Anderson doubles the salary of Polly ("Oh, it's you. I didn't know you with all your clothes on") assigning her to occupy the attentions of his overseer Denton Ross (Albert Gran), so he can rule the roost without interference. More than happy to oblige, Polly complains only when she finds she has to learn how to play chess with the old man when she's not . . . diverting his focus. Martin spends increasingly long hours at the office, while Madeline continues working at a distance, until the night of the company party where the Wests quarrel, each going a separate way, and Anderson plies a tipsy Madeline with more drink while Martin sings "Sweet Adeline" with his buddies in a drunken stupor.

Now hold onto your morals for this one, folks. Suggesting Madeline get some rest, Anderson gives her his private key and sends her tottering up to his suite where she passes out on his bed. You might not be surprised to see Anderson follow a short interval later to find her unconscious in her silk gown, lying prone, and. . . Holy crap! said Frank Barone. Now maybe taking advantage of a drunken sleeping woman was all the rage in 1933, but today I believe we call it rape. I won't spoil the last act for you, but it's another case of wondering what sort of moral code is being perpetuated here. Remember: These are the days before the Hays Office started making people pay for their transgressions, so the final scene offers another opportunity to mutter "WTF?"

But seriously, folks, don't let my commentary dissuade from digging up this film. Much of it is very funny, as when a Jewish customer palms a football and asks what it's made of, only to drop it quickly when told it's pigskin, or when a wealthy dowager asks what floor the basement is on. Alice White's Polly, while certainly more that duplicitous in the scheming, is a cartoon delight, trading nuanced barbs with everyone she meets. Wallace Ford's naive Martin is a man torn between his monetary and emotional successes under the weight of Anderson's control. The rare moment he ascends beyond his low level confusion to indignant action is well worth Ford's character development.

While *Employees' Entrance* seems a scathing indictment of ruthless capitalism, Warren William's tyrannical mover (and woman shaker) does make everyone money, but given the backdrop of the Great Depression he is surrounded by fat bankers, gladhanders who exist only for a chance to puff up their own importance, and lazy executives who bloat in their own excesses and play golf during business hours in their opulent offices. So rather than being just an amoral (or immoral depending on your personal definitions) dirtbag, he becomes an anti-heroic ruthless success with a trajectory aimed at expansion and success. William has this role down pat, an oily Machiavelli who possesses a perverted charm and a heart of rendered lard.

Why is it, then, that *Employees' Entrance* is so compelling and even weirdly affecting? It entertains as a set piece of schadenfreude when the consequences are not tragic, a depression-era prototype for the symbol of strength and perseverance metaphorically aligned to a bust of Napoleon, a cautionary tale against the wages of unbridled and unchecked capitalism, a comedy of manners and sexual politicking, and a showcase for an actor who is not afraid to be almost irredeemably unlikable by those who cannot separate character from portrayal. That director Roy Del Ruth (*Blonde Crazy* and the first *The Maltese Falcon* both in 1931) was able to offer all this in a breezy 74 minutes with humor and tragedy mixing, shaken and stirred--that's a first rate feat.

Now don't let my moralizing about this zippy little tale convince you it's skippable; it's very relevant today and is lovely, if a little daunting, to watch. If for no other reason than seeing Loretta Young at her most impressionable (she made ten movies in 1933 and in the next two years had affairs with a married Spencer Tracey and Clark Gable, who got her pregnant), Alice White at her most energetically driven, Warren William at his most insouciant, and Allen Jenkins shuffling around in the background as the store detective, you just might find this a kick and a jolt. Knock yourself out with this one, and enjoy every minute of your unconsciousness [and no one will bother you at that time].
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #494 (Palindrome Productions ride again): I know Bette Davis is revered for her considerable talent, prolific film output and her much lampooned speaking style, and I respect her accomplishments and portrayals of her long career. I just don't care for her, that's all. And today's feature *Ex-Lady* (1933) is a Pre-Code Hollywood drew the disdain of its star, who called it "“piece of junk. . . [that] was supposed to be provocative and provoked anyone of sensibility to nausea." I just wish Ms. Davis had had an opinion about it.

Completed in just eighteen days, with director Robert Florey offered the film scant hours before the shooting was to begin, *Ex-Lady* stands as a mediocre effort that can't seem to determine if it's a romantic comedy or a drama. I would assert its main attraction is knowing it's Bette Davis's first big screen role, a headliner, to be parlayed into *The Petrified Forest* and *Of Human Bondage* in the next year. The big question we're to explore, I guess, is Can Love Survive Marriage? Commercial artist Helen Bauer (Bette Davis at 25) is a much sought after talent, both professionally and emotionally, as her art style grows in demand and her free spiritedness enrages her traditionally minded immigrant father Adolphe (Alphonse Ethier). Fiercely independent, a feminist before it became fashionable, Helen boldly eschews marriage, openly takes a lover Don Peterson (Gene Raymond at 22) and is pursued relentlessly by playboy Nick Malvyn (Monroe Owsley). Though Don and Nick are eager to marry her, Helen believes such an arrangement would stifle her independence. Her stance is understandable, considering the strident upbringing we can infer from her male-dominated immigrant family in isolationist America. "I went away from home to be on my own," trills Helen. "I don't want to be like my mother, a 'yes' woman for some man. I want to be a person of my own."

Such beliefs notwithstanding, Helen and Don marry after some back-and-forth: "I'm just about fed up with sneaking in...let's get married so I'll have the right to be with you," Don coaxes, though Helen replies, "What do you mean 'right'? I don't like the word 'right,' . . . 'right' means something. No one has any 'rights' about me, except me." You go, Ayn Rand. Once wed they travel to Havana for a ten-day honeymoon away from being business partners in Don's advertising agency. Watching a nightclub dancer undulate in an erotic entrancing dance, the couple silently signal to each other that they should exit to the veranda where they . . . share. . . a bench tastefully shown from the back, but you don't need to be Fellini to figure out how comfortable they are.

Unfortunately, returning home they discover they've lost some huge ad accounts in their absence and now face financial hard times. Darn those pesky honeymoons! Hard times loom, in the office much more than the bedroom, though there is some residual effect as Don comes to resent the honeymoon and finds his eye straying to Peggy Smith (Kay Strozzi), one of his married clients. Jealousy roars in Little Red Riding Helen who then reciprocates by dating the Tex Avery Wolf Nick. Nearly upstaging all this galavanting are the Art Deco intricacies of high-level living; the sets are all angles and shine with pretty people in furs, tuxedos and long, flowing white gowns that need to be jacked up by the women when they walk. It's all very pretty while egos take their lumps.

With a $93,000 budget, *Ex-Lady* earned $228,000 domestically and $55,000 internationally, despite Bette Davis's derision toward the marketing of the film: “It is a part of my career that my conscious[ness] tastefully avoids. I only recall that from the daily shooting to the billboards falsely picturing me half-naked, my shame was only exceeded by my fury.” As a smart, quick witted and business savvy woman, Davis didn't appreciate the tone of the film and the yearning, as Frank McHugh does, for a time when women were more subservient: "Oh, those modern young people. Give me the old fashioned girl. Do you remember the bustle? . . . I remember the hobble skirt. Oh, there was an invention! The hobble skirt - they couldn't walk fast nor far in the hobble skirt. You could trust them." Juxtapose that against Helen's initial reluctance if not outright disdain for marriage as she argues with Don: "We have a different sense of values. I don't want babies. When I'm 40, I'll think of babies. In the meantime, there are 20 years in which I want to be the baby and play with my toys and have a good time playing with them. . . . Sure, I want to do good work. But it isn't that. I want to stay young for a while and have a good time and not be dull and set. I don't want to be a wife."

We find a lot of that moralizing in the film, and it's not helped in great measure by Gene Raymond's portrayal. Oh, he's likable enough in a bland, uncarved block sort of way, but it's hard to guess the appeal Don holds for all these women. He's whiny at work, a lump at parties, a pipe-smoking homebody who can't keep up with his vital wife unless he's hooting over secret phone calls from Slinky Inky Peggy. It just appears that someone has peppered his salt shaker with saltpeter. Supporting players Frank McHugh, Claire Dodd and the weasely Monroe Owsley are given little to do but show up conveniently to advance the plot.

But again, it must be me (and Bette Davis) because I can easily dismiss this Warner Brothers picture while many viewers today applaud its forceful (?) portrayal of a woman in charge of herself. But Glenn Erickson of DVDSavant.com raises a particularly interesting point: "I think it is interesting that nobody seems particularly concerned that the sex in these movies might result in the obvious, a pregnancy. As the Production Code surely had a problem with that issue (and the culture at large seemed intent on keeping people ignorant about procreation), these movies just ignore the fact that Helen and Don's selfish lifestyles might be interrupted by a Blessed Event. . . . Babies aren't part of the 'thesis,' and in '30s movies they only seem to come to the poor or the well-heeled rich. Nobody has to quit a job over a baby, or permanently move back to Nebraska. The movies inadvertently give the impression that these women are risking only their 'honorable virtue,' not pregnancy... as if God had to be involved to get pregnant. If plenty of young women today become pregnant out of blind ignorance and inexperience, these earlier 'It's a Man's World' times must have been terribly harsh."

Okay. No more to say at this juncture. After all, it's another one of those "It's only 67 minutes" epics about pretty, rich and self absorbed people whose troubles involved suffering through an olive shortage for their martinis during the Depression with a little women's independence thrown in for good measure. Then again, maybe you'll be energized by Helen's resolve and forward thinking. If so, go for it, Bella Abzug, I'll stick with Robert Florey's direction of the Marx Brothers in *The Cocoanuts* (1929).
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #495 (or five easy payments of 99): God only knows what the movies of today will say collectively about our lifestyles in another seventy years. Will we look like automatons who giggle over special computer effects at the cost of story? Will holograms stare at our cinematic output and shrug, saying, "Well, I suppose we had to go through that period in order to get where we are today--the disembodied intelligentsia lounging in our ergonomic pods while our images do all the heavy lifting. Can you believe we actually *liked* unsubstantial narratives spliced between CGI sequences? How quaint, now that we've totally done away with character, motivation, causal reasoning and other archaic elements"?

Because when we look back at Pre-Code Hollywood, as we do again today with our feature *Skyscraper Souls* (1932), we might be equally surprised by its preoccupation with sex, greed, sex, capitalism and American greatness, sex, manipulation and, oh yes, sex. As was customary with MGM, sets are highly polished, glowing with an inner light, and performances are glossy as men sport tuxedos and women flaunt as much skin as they can without getting an awful burn from the klieg lights in inopportune places. Originally criticized by *Variety* during its release for extending the running time to an exhausting 99 minutes, *Skyscraper Souls* stands like an overcompensating phallic symbol of twisted affairs, Depression-era swindling and a few more weirdly moralistic death scenes.

I suppose it's intended as a romantic drama, as we follow a handful of plot lines all centered around the goings-on in the 102-story Seacoast National Bank Building in Manhattan, erected and primed to be owned by the high-powered entrepreneur (or market manipulator, depending on your philosophical bent) David "Dave" Dwight (once again Warren William, refining his philandering fortune hunter role). His the primary story: He's dealing with an illegal loan he's taken out, he carries on several affairs with his wife's (Hedda Hopper) full knowledge ("A man and wife should never live in the same house. When we lived in two houses, we got along much better. When we lived in two cities, we became quite fond of each other. Now that we live in two continents, we're probably the happiest married couple in the world"), shuttling her off overseas with large payments, he lies to his board and pays women to seduce investors, and he destroys the bank he works for with the sole intention of owning the building. In short he's just the sort of man who should run for President in the 2000s. And he's one of the more sympathetic characters in the film.

A real stand-out, though, is Maureen O'Sullivan as innocent pawn turned opportunist Lynn Harding. As secretary to Dwight's primary twelve-years-standing (and reclining) paramour and building manager Sarah Dennis (Verree Teasdale), Lynn is an untried darling being pursued by the annoying horndog bank teller Tom Shepherd (Norman Foster). In another one of those famous time compressions, Lynn beats Tom away with coy indifference, then ends up with him in full blown love, at which time he grows jealous and controlling, a "No wife of mine is going to work" sort of jerk. Lovely. We also have on hand a kindly Jewish jeweler, Jacob "Jake" Sorenson (the sadly underused but lovable Jean Herscholt), who is in love with a model cum prostitute, Jenny LeGrande (Anita Page). And to complete our tossed salad of love seekers we have Myra (Helen Coburn), who loves Slim (Wallace Ford) but is married to Bill (John Marston). Getcha scorecard right here, can't tell the players without a scorecard. Nor can you keep track of who's scoring with whom unless you got a card.

Faith Baldwin's novel, published just the year before, defines Dwight: "He had that thing called magnetism. No man had it to a greater degree save those historic men who move mountains and make empires.” William's Dwight is all that certainly, but more. Somehow he is humanized in all his transgressions (thank God after plying the naive Lynn with a trough full of champagne and rescuing her from a more lecherous friend, he doesn't force his intentions on her when she passes out on his bed, but sees her out), begrudgingly earning respect when he explains his chicanery with the stock market: "Listen, if I double-crossed somebody else for you I wouldn’t be a double-crosser. I’d be a financial genius. You’d profit by it. You’d love it. You’d love me. Id’ be your pal, your leader. But I put one over on you, so I’m a double-crosser. It’s all in the point of view, gentlemen. But don’t despair. There’s lot of small fry that you can double-cross. Just like the good old days … before you got out of your class.” Humph. He's kind of right, and he acknowledges it.

He's snide, greedy, and yet he draws distinctions between himself and the merely rich: "They laughed at me when I said I wanted a hundred-story building. They said it wouldn't hold together. But I had the courage and the vision and it's MINE and I own it! It goes halfway to hell and right up to heaven and it's beautiful! . . . I've achieved something big. Something worthwhile. Feel it under, it's solid! Even the fiercest storm can't budge it! It bends, but it won't break, and it stands here defiant!... Hamilton, did you ever stop to think, a million men sweated to build it: mines, quarries, factories, forests... Men gave their LIVES to it! I hate to tell you how many men dropped off these girders while they were going up. But it was worth it - nothing's created without pain and suffering! A child is born, a cause is won, a building is built! . . .Well, that's the difference between a man who makes money for the sake of having money - and a man like me. You crook!"

Lynn's relationship with Sarah--after twelve years of being dogged by Dwight, how can she possibly believe he's going to divorce his wife?--is the heart of the story as poor Sarah is more world weary and protective of her secretary. Sarah is a mother or older sister to the young girl, who finds herself over her head with the affections of Tom and Dwight, and Lynn is sweetly comical when she delivers "important papers" (a ruse) to Dwight's swanky party where she's plied with champagne and slips into drunkenness before our eyes (Maureen O'Sullivan actually slurring the word "shitty" rather than "silly" before the film lets it slide), and when she and Tom get into a real slapfest which is both shocking and pertinent to the story. O'Sullivan does have ample opportunity to appear in various levels of undress, but her character is so cute it doesn't seem salacious except in the eyes of spectators.

So what have we here? Unscrupulous businessmen, infidelities galore, drunkenness and illegal alcohol consumption during Prohibition, exercises in violence physical and psychological, swearing (disguised but made a joke of), stock market manipulation, suicide, murder, and sex, did I forget to mention sex? Amorality in all its glory. Multiple story lines with lavish sets and fast direction. What more could you possibly want? Except maybe one morally redeeming character. But as the Stones said, "You can't always get what you want."
Enjoy.
Jeff

And to think, most of society views this era as such an innocent time.

Post #496: With the temperatures plunging, reminding us who live in Michigan that there are two seasons--Summer and Winter, which may be interchangeable by the hour--it's time to bring out an absolute classic to warm our funnybones. Today's feature, Buster Keaton's *Seven Chances* (1925), stands (or falls over after an exhaustive run) as one of my all time favorites in the silent era. I first saw this in the theater back in the 1970s and remember laughing so hard I couldn't catch my breath as the tears ran down into my popcorn. It offers us one of the funniest, most surreal chase scenes I can recall, bubbling up into absurdity that is surely the mark of genius.

*Seven Chances*, a film Keaton initially disparaged and thought was a flop early on, was brought about largely by financial concern. At the time he was married to Natalie Talmadge, who had expensive tastes, spending $900 per week on clothes, roughly one-third of Buster's salary. Natalie's sister Norma, who along with her sister Constance was a film star herself, was married to producer and studio mogul Joseph Schenck, who produced Keaton's films, and to whom Buster was in debt. Finding the Broadway play by Roi Cooper Megrue on which *Seven Chances* was based contrived and limp, Buster turned the script over to his writing team Clyde Bruckman, Jean Havez and Joseph Mitchell. But according to Bruckman, "I could tell you and so could [writer] Jean Havez if he were alive that those wonderful stories were ninety percent Buster's. I was often ashamed to take the money, much less the credit."

The story involves nearly bankrupt financial broker Jimmy Shannon in love with the lovely Mary Jones (Ruth Dwyer) but too meek to ask her to marry him. On the morning of his 27th birthday he receives news that he will inherit his grandfather's fortune of $7,000,000 ($104 million in today's market)--provided he is married before seven o'clock--today. But his awkward proposal to Mary backfires when he lets it slip that he will inherit the money if he's married--to ANY girl, which Mary sees as a slight and turns him down. Panicked, Jimmy and his partner Billy Meekin (T. Roy Barnes) followed by his grandfather's lawyer Frances Raymond (Snitz Edwards) seek seven women (seven chances) from Meekin's list at the country club. All are a bust.

With time slipping away, Meekin decides to take it to the streets--alerting the newspapers to Jimmy's plight and offering him up to any woman who wants to be a helpmate--Just meet them at the church at five o'clock. And so every woman within fifty miles converges on the church to marry into Jimmy's great fortune, while Mary has second thoughts and sends a note of reconciliation via messenger on a horse to find Jimmy. In the meantime Jimmy has tried proposing to any woman he encounters, including a woman (his real sister-in-law Constance Talmadge) driving a car down the road. Arriving at the church moments before five, a despondent Jimmy, armed with tickets to Niagra Falls and Reno, falls asleep in the front pew, unaware that a literal 500 brides-to-be (extras hired for the sequence) are swarming the pews behind him. When he awakes, the chase is on. The original film was designed to end with a fade out as Jimmy tried to escape the thundering herd.

The result, which Buster disdained until he took it to a test screening, was a more than capable entry in his canon. But when he gauged the reaction from the audience he was inspired to add arguably one of the best four-minute chase sequences committed to film. Buster said, "Do you know, three little rocks saved me! Our fade-out was on me, running down the side of a hill, all those weirdos after me. A real dud, and we knew it. However, we previewed it. Medium laughs, a few giggles through all that chase. Then, suddenly, just before the fade, a real belly laugh. . . so we ran the ending slow at the studio. There it was. I had accidentally dislodged a rock. It started to roll after me. On its way, it knocked a couple more loose and there were three little rocks chasing me. . . So we went back and milked that gag. . . built a hundred and fifty rocks of papier-mache on chicken wire, from baseball size up to a boulder eight feet in diameter.

"We found a longer ridge, and. . . triggered them in sequence. We assembled the gals again, a hundred feet back and used a starter's gun. On your marks, get set, and bang! I only had to kick the first little one and then keep going. The key words are 'keep going' because it built up to an avalanche right on my heels. So naturally, I stumble - if it's not in the script, I stumble anyway - and the big one knocked me twenty feet in the air. When I staggered up and staggered on, it was for real."

Performing all his own stunts, Buster directed the film to glowing reviews, as usual placing himself in very real physical danger as some of the rocks weighed in excess of 400 pounds. The 5'5" acrobat understood physics arguably better than any other silent screen star, and his list of injuries is jaw dropping. As a child he was known as "The Human Mop" as his father in a vaudevillian act would throw him across the stage into scenery unharmed. In *Sherlock Jr.* (1924) he performed a stunt of being smashed in the face with a torrent of water from a spout; underestimating its power, he knocked his head into a rail, got up and finished the scene, but complained of headaches for several days afterward. Later it was determined that he had fractured his neck. In his famous *Steamboat Bill Jr.* (1928), fifty percent of the film crew did not show up for the filming of his most famous scenes: the facade of a three-story house falls down on top of Buster, who is saved from being crushed by a well-placed window--a fraction of an inch one way or another would have crushed the actor, a feat so frightening that the crew who DID show up for its filming refused to watch. But Buster remained unfazed.

Film Critic Adrian Martin said, "Long before the scientific theories of chaos, with its model shapes and patterns, Keaton was the cinematic poet of abstract catastrophe, a deranged mathematician at work and at play in what J.G. Ballard called 'the limitless geometry of the cinema screen.'"

Keaton is known as the Great Stoneface, though that moniker is not entirely true. Keaton said, “One of the first things I noticed was that whenever I smiled or let the audience suspect how much I was enjoying myself they didn’t seem to laugh as much as usual. I guess people just never do expect any human mop, dishrag, beanbag, or football to be pleased by what is being done to him. At any rate, it was on purpose that I started looking miserable, humiliated, hounded and haunted, bedeviled, bewildered and at my wit’s end.”

Mike D'Angelo of AV Club must have read my mind: "For some reason, there is nothing funnier to me than Buster Keaton running at top speed. Part of that probably has something to do with the nature of “top speed” in the silent era: Action scenes were generally undercranked during shooting, so that projecting them “normally” (at what could still be a highly variable rate from theater to theater, or even from show to show) resulted in fast-motion hijinks. . . . Truly, I think it’s mostly just that he runs funny, in much the same way that, for example, Chaplin walks funny. I do believe I could identify his 100-yard dash 10 times out of 10 with his face obscured."

Folks, this is pure dynamite, so whatever you're doing, take time out--less than one hour--to revel in the comic genius that inspires awe and peals of laughter. You will not be disappointed. And if you haven't seen *Seven Chances* I envy you, for it's amazingly choreographed manic wonder.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #497: If you're going to cozy up with today's feature, the 65-minute soap opera *Their Own Desire* (1929) with Norma Shearer in an Academy Award nominated role (she lost out to herself for *The Divorcee* (1930)), just keep repeating, It's an early talkie, it's an early talkie, and as such it's and interesting as a historical document. Because if you settle in expecting a riveting drama of crossed loves, parental betrayal and woman empowerment, or if you're anticipating a Pre-Code potboiler that will sear your eyebrows, or if you just want a movie that won't make you wonder "Why the hell did they make this?"--if you seek a beautiful peninsula, look around you, but don't watch this movie.

You can blame the cast only slightly as the transition into talkies was staggered. Norma Shearer does a good job overall in this her third talkie, though she tends to telegraph her emotions more than she will in years to come. Robert Montgomery has not yet perfected his suave smoothness, appearing stiff and occasionally exaggerated in his movements. But I was most disappointed in Lewis Stone, who exhibits all the fluidity of Slurpee so frozen you could pop your eyes out of its sockets trying to draw some nourishment from it. He is stiff, overly dramatic in his sweeping gestures when subtlety should be employed (blame the silents again), and as comfortable in his acting as a penguin in tennis shoes.

Francis Marion, the prolific screenwriter responsible for over 150 scenarios including *Anna Karenina* (1930) with Garbo and *The Champ* (1931) as well as many Mary Pickford films, does the honors here with a capable story involving young polo-playing socialite Lucia 'Lally' Marlett (Shearer) who navigates the family drama of her novelist father Henry (Lewis Stone) finding love away from his doting wife Harriet (Belle Bennett) in the arms of the slightly younger Beth Cheever (Helene Millard). "You youngsters!" he argues. "You think that life is all over at 25 to 30, eh? No more emotions, no more thrills, no more romance for the middle age. Well, oh, kid, let me tell you, nature has changed all that. We do surge with emotions. We do have thrills and we do thirst for romance. That last romance." So it's twenty-three years of marriage and phfffft!

Realizing her mother has attempted suicide before, Lally rallies to her crushed mother and disdains the relationship between her idealized father and his snotty, snooty paramour. Together Lally and Mom scatter to their Lake Michigan home to regroup and pull themselves together. As luck and love and Hollywood would have it, Lally makes the scene, a gay (happy) free loving spirit who's sworn off all men, and one day as she frolics in the pool of the Norconian Resort Supreme, a fully clothed, dashing John Douglas Cheever dives after her, steals a kiss underwater and begins a whirlwind pursuit of her. Of the onscreen courtship, Norma Shearer recalled, “*Their Own Desire* didn’t stop the world from spinning, but it was an attractive picture. I remember a scene with Bobby Montgomery—we were in each other’s arms dancing on a mirrored blue floor while seductive violins played something called ‘Blue Is the Night.’” (You can see all this in the snippet accompanying my commentary.)

Of course the course of true love never runs smoothly, so when Lally learns John is the son of the woman who stole Lally's father away, life gets complicated in a Doctor Dolittle Pushme Pullyou kind of manner. It's all capped with a late night rendezvous in Lake Michigan where a torrential storm capsizes their little boat and leaves them stranded on one of its forty-some-odd islands. O-kay. But toward what end? There is little if any humor to leaven the picture, which smacks of melodrama and hysterics. There is nothing noble in Henry Marlett arguing with Lally, threatening to hit her "If you were not a girl" when they disagree about his clandestine affair. Women are treated as property to be owned or weak willed whiners with bad hairdos. How, exactly, are we to understand Lally's mother? Is she a grasping, manipulative matriarch, an egoist who's so self-pitying that she'll gladly toss aside her daughter's happiness for a constant source of hand holding?

And Norma Shearer herself felt this was a step back into the "coquettish girliness" roles she was trying to abandon, admitting "Irving made me" do this one. (You might recall Irving Thalberg, the head of MGM productions, was her husband at this time--and her drive to play more substantive roles moved her to be photographed in lingerie by George Hurrell to convince Thalberg she could play the temptress in *The Divorcee* (1930), which was released three months after this film and won her an Oscar for Best Actress.)

*Their Own Desire* cost $351,000 and grossed $855,000, and today a whopping 90% of Amazon viewers rate it at four or five stars, with a concluding 9% rating it at three stars. So even though my reaction to it is a shrug large enough to provoke the use of an Icy Hot shoulder patch, *Their Own Desire* has its share of supporters. I'm fairly conversant on silent films and Pre-Code Hollywood, but for me this was little more than a puddle splash which has neither the reason nor passion to register a droplet. Now don't get me wrong--I like Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery together (Norma petitioned to get Montgomery on this picture), but this one had me checking every ten minutes how much longer it was going to last. It looks locked in soundstages with noticeably weak transitions and very theatrical, stagey tableaux. All in all, *Their Own Desire* cries for characters we can care about, plied with a few Monster Energy Drinks to get the whole thing moving. I am reminded of the old commercial jingle obviously inspired by this film, "Take Sominex tonight and sleep. . . safe and restful sleep, sleep, sleep. . . . ."
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #498: Today's Pre-Code Hollywood feature, *Let Us Be Gay* (1930), obviously is not a lesbian protest film asserting independence from judgment, but another conscious departure for Norma Shearer to play a high society woman escaping her threadbare marital confinement. Cinematically it jumps on the heels of Academy Award winning *The Divorcee* (1930) while still giving Norma ample opportunity to vogue and pose in gowns by Adrian, her favored designer. And from a cinematic point of view it's still firmly cemented in the awkward staging of the early talkies, the camera pretty stationary all the way through. But it's pleasant enough in its 79 minutes with the real scene stealer being Marie Dressler, who infuses the basic screenplay with the eccentric energy of a velvet steamroller.

For the first time the glowing Norma gets to inhabit the body of a well trod doormat Kitty Brown who giddily accepts her domesticity by flitting around husband Bob (Rod La Rocque), fawning over him as she cautions their two children to play quietly so Daddy can sleep, serving him breakfast in bed, and chirping an annoying little ditty "I love you" as if they're the only words she knows. So dressed down is she, playing dowdiness with no makeup or apparent gracefulness, that the audience has roundly admitted they didn't know it was Norma Shearer in the role. She is definitely setting us up for a fall, which comes quickly when we discover Bob is having an affair with snarky blonde Helen Hibbard (Helene Millard) who brassily invades their home to break the news to Kitty. Ding dong dell, Kitty's in the well. . . of tears.

With the expediency of a title card we move three years into the future, where extravagantly flirty, self-assured Katherine Courtland Brown, now a fashion designer wearing gowns by Adrian, is called to Paris to assist an old friend, dowager Mrs. "Bouccy" Bouccicault (Marie Dressler), in breaking up a disastrous diversion entreating her granddaughter Diane (Sally Eilers). And so the vivacious, slimmed down and upwardly mobile Katherine (nee Kitty) makes her grand entrance, immediately entrancing every male in the Bouccicault manor, and that includes Diane’s nervous fiance, Bruce Keene (Raymond Hackett), amateur poet Wallace Granger (Tyrell Davis), and charming bon vivant Townley (Gilbert Emery). But it's not Bruce who draws objections from Bouccy--it's the man polling for Diane's affections regardless of her engagement, one Bob Brown! I will now pause while you all gasp in surprise.

According to Norma Shearer, who discovered she was pregnant during its accelerated 26-day shoot, “We had lots of fun making this one. Miss Dressler was always forgetting her lines and making up clever new ones. I was definitely, as the French say, 'in bloom.' I became clever, too, hiding myself behind sequined fans, pieces of furniture, and even behind Miss Dressler.” Irving Grant Thalberg, Jr. was born two weeks before *Let Us Be Gay* opened to rave reviews in New York, as the public was said to have celebrated Norma's "double triumph."

With a script from Frances Marion based on a stage play by Rachel Crothers, *Let Us Be Gay* cost $257,000 and grossed $1,199,000. Compared to *The Divorcee* (1930), this one is much more tame, since only the men are unfaithful, and the gowns are not so revealing as to cause a scandal. But cheeky little dialogue rife with double entrendres place it firmly in the Pre-Code era. The newly transformed Kitty says, “Well, my one little talent, clothes, is beginning to make money. When I can pay my own bills, men may come and men may go.” Bouccy responds, with a slight overexaggerated eyebrow wiggle, "Are you trying to imply that, until this point, there haven’t been any *coming*?" And Kitty underscores the joke with “Now Bouccy, that’s not like you. That’s clumsy. I’m surprised at you.”

And I have to admit, the forced coquettish laugh Kitty launches at the drop of a handkerchief gets old mighty fast, to the point of grating like fine cheese. When Bob finally confronts her and remarks that she seems to have rid herself of the Brown name "very successfully," she shoots back, “I hope so. Three years in Paris ought to improve any woman. Like you, I’ve been amusing myself with anything and everything that came my way. I know how a man feels about those things now.” Bazinga. So all this parrying and thrusting sets us up for the denouement and a couple questions: Since Rod LaRocque is such a lifeless stalk of celery, or if you prefer a petrified stick, what in God's name does Diane see in him? Why would Kitty entertain for a moment entertain the possibility of a reunion with him? Is Kitty truly a "wild woman" who inspired the Beach Boys song "Round round get around, I get around"? Or is she playing a vengeful role?

QUASI-SPOILER ALERT: These little naggers really cut *Let Us Be Gay*'s ending into shreds. For me it's lazy writing or a rush to tie up ends that makes the rolling of the MGM "The End" credits such a huge letdown. It's as if Kitty, within the confines of the story, suffers an instantaneous psychic break or a lightning fast bout of schizophrenia, one minute buoyant and genuinely happy, the next aflood in remorse and acceptance because MGM wanted a happy ending rather than a true one. In the span of less than two minutes everything that was promising and redemptive does a face plant in the concrete. We know that Norma had suffered from morning sickness every day of the shoot, but until the end we wouldn't know it; the last scene is like the Coyote running full tilt into one of his paintings of a forced perspective tunnel, only to realize there's no depth, only solid rock. It was great for the Road Runner, but disastrous for the pursuer.

*Let Us Be Gay* is a cute picture overall, fairly bubbly and lovely to watch, but the conclusion should have stayed in the closet and never seen the light of day.
Enjoy.
Jeff

Post #499: A slight change of pace today, a breather from Pre-Code Hollywood, moving across the ocean to the Ealing Studios for one of their lesser efforts, today's feature, *Meet Mr. Lucifer* (1953) with Stanley Holloway and Peggy Cummins, as resplendent as ever as a young newlywed seduced by the power of that new medium, television. This is a gentle but searing satire of the tube and its diabolical influence--not so much the programming but the cathode ray sucker of time and devotion itself. Framed more as a dream in which a stage actor (pantomime) Sam Hollingsworth (Holloway) drunkenly knocks himself unconscious and descends to meet the Devil (Holloway again), the main drift follows the insidious power unleashed on an innocent public, in this case three separate but interconnected households.

Old Nick likes to invent something new every generation that will bring misery and heartache to those who use it. The wheel, he says, got things rolling, but now the theater is lagging as television takes center stage in everyone's lives. But he needs Sam to nudge it along. It becomes important to realize commercial TV did not come to Britain for another two years, so the BBC's offerings were quite literally the only shows on the air--no competition of additional channels--and their content today would seem uninspired at best (square dancing, scientific talking heads, musical programs).

And so we commence our leading into temptation with Mr. Pendalty (Joseph Tomelty), an old-fashioned, abacus-working gentleman having exhausted his forty-one years at the firm, forced into retirement not with a watch but with a new television as a parting gift. Since Mr. Pendalty doesn't own so much as a radio technologically, he immediately becomes entranced with this new household fixture, seeking assistance from the newlywed couple upstairs--Jim and Kitty Norton (Jack Watling and Peggy Cummins) on such challenging tasks as turning it on and off.

Soon Mr. Pendalty's modest home is overrun with spectators of the new marvel, prompting more funds spent on food and drink to be a good host until the attraction wears off, and the Nortons take over ownership of the set. In true devilish form the tube besets them with the same problems until finally it ends up in the possession of lonely pharmacist (chemist) Hector McPhee (Gordon Jackson) who pines away every night to Miss Lonelyhearts (the luscious Kay Kendall) who seductively croons romantic tunes. It's all very episodic and moderately charming, though the premise winds down to nothing in the end of its 83 minutes.

I find it ironic that a mere three years after Ealing Studios made this film it had to close up shop, somewhat due to the rise of commercial TV. Even as the heads of Ealing Studios were a bit wary of satirizing television's power, they "outsourced" the direction to Anthony Pelissier, whose unostentatious career as director of six films concludes with *Meet Mr. Lucifer* outside of a few shorts for television in the ensuing years. Popular criticism today suggests Stanley Holloway is underused, while his voice when playing the Devil was dubbed by Geoffrey Keen.

As Dr. Keith M. Johnston of the University of East Anglia, suggests, "Sex is also central to two of the stories: Kitty ("a much more attractive instrument of the devil") makes a pointed off-screen request for Jim to come to bed because she's cold (she also uses seduction to convince him to buy a TV), Pat and Jim's sexual attraction (albeit one fostered by her adopting a more traditional housewife's role, building a fire and offering to make him supper - which he describes as 'throwing her sex appeal at me'), and Hector's sexual obsession with the singer."

It's a slight bit of fun with unassuming performances from everyone involved, though Gordon Jackson's turn from uptight, niggling misanthrope to helpful, joy-filled humanitarian under the spell of the binding Kay Kendall's siren--and back again when her show is canceled--is both poignant and humorous as his mania encompasses his ability to live in harmony with those around him. As always Peggy Cummins is bouncy, supportive and sexy while a veritable chorus line of English cameo players adds to the mix to create a pleasant viewing experience, but not one that will keep you trawling the sites for a copy to own. . . unless you are ravenous for mere snippets of vintage 1950s football (soccer) games, primitive cooking shows, horse racing, and visions of hell that look like low-budget community theater productions. Having just finished watching all 514 episodes of the original nighttime soaper *Peyton Place* with one of the worst finales ever committed to TV screens, my wife and I can testify, after that, hell don't look so bad.
Enjoy.
Jeff

I know I'm a bit quirky to say the least. But for some reason, this last post made me wanna binge some Benny Hill.