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Post by topbilled on Nov 18, 2023 14:55:15 GMT
This neglected film is from 1950.
A great Hollywood film
The film is based on a Cornell Woolrich crime story, so by most accounts it would seem like noir. But in some ways, it takes a cue from Barbara Stanwyck’s earlier picture STELLA DALLAS, since it’s about a single mother struggling to make it. Despite the noir elements and being a bonafide tearjerker, the story does manage to have a happy ending. I think the upbeat conclusion is the only way they could get it by the production code office.
Stanwyck’s character lies about the parentage of her illegitimate child, and she takes on a different identity to pass the baby off as someone else’s. However, she finds a redeeming love in the last few minutes of the film, which sort of balances out the errors in judgment she makes along the way. I’m okay with it, and if you view this film, I trust you will be okay with it, too. It’s a satisfying motion picture.
Some of the reasons it is so satisfying? Well, there’s the careful methodical way that director Mitchell Leisen establishes the pace, not to mention Stanwyck’s heart wrenching performance at nearly every turn. Plus the cinematography is particularly sharp– don’t miss the train wreck scene near the beginning, where Stanwyck and costar Phyllis Thaxter take a tumble. The special effects are superb in this sequence, and the violence is shocking and just pulls you right into what’s happening.
Often the supporting players help make an above average film a sublime one. Here, we have Jane Cowl in her last screen role. She plays a society woman trying to give her son and daughter-in-law a real shot at love and enduring happiness.
Also in the cast is Esther Dale as a fussy but well-meaning housekeeper (Miss Dale had the market cornered on that); Richard Denning as a doomed son; the already mentioned Phyllis Thaxter as his equally doomed wife; as well as John Lund and Lyle Bettger as Stanwyck’s various love interests. Bettger is especially smooth here in the role of a cad who nearly sabotages Stanwyck’s chance at a better life.
NO MAN OF HER OWN has a lot going for it. It works its magic on you. It grabs your attention and does not let go. And when you get to the end of the story, I am confident you will feel like I did– knowing you have watched a great Hollywood film.
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Post by Fading Fast on Nov 18, 2023 16:13:30 GMT
No Man of Her Own from 1950 with Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, Jane Cowl, Lyle Bettger and Henry O'Neill
No Man of Her Own is a soap opera noir with an almost comically unbelievable plot that works because of the impressive talents of the actors and director.
Barbara Stanwyck plays a single and pregnant woman (tsk-tsk) tossed aside by the baby's father, Lyle Bettger, with nothing more than a train ticket to the other coast and five bucks. The train crashes, killing a pregnant newlywed, played by the always wonderful Phyllis Thaxter, and her husband.
When Stanwyck wakes up in the hospital, she realizes, one, her baby was born and is fine, two, she's been mistakenly identified as the newlywed and, three, "her" wealthy in-laws are providing for her care.
The in-laws invite her and her baby, what they believe is their grandson, to come live with them, which Stanwyck does. These very nice people, played by Henry O'Neill and Jane Cowl, immediately embrace Stanwyck and their grandson. Since they never met their son's new bride before, they dismiss any confusion and inconsistencies in Stanwyck as being the result of shock from the accident.
The family's other son, played by John Lund, also a nice guy, seems to be suspicious of Stanwyck, but doesn't say anything. Stanwyck loves her new life, but feels guilt over fooling the family and is fearful she'll be exposed.
Just as things are settling in nicely and Lund begins to awkwardly court the living-under-the-same-roof Stanwyck ("sorry your husband, my brother, died, but what are you doing Saturday night?"), Stanwyck's former boyfriend, who left her flat when she was pregnant, Lyle Bettger, shows up with blackmail on his mind.
From here, the take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt story twists itself into knots with wills, bank accounts, a forced marriage, an incriminating check, guns, murder, a disposed of body, last-minute and from-the-grave potentially exculpatory evidence and much angst.
Yet you go along for the ride because Barbara Stanwyck, with the possible exception of Bette Davis (when she had the right looks for the role), is the only actress who could fireman carry this unbelievable plot over all its bumps and holes.
Stanwyck credibly portrays, first, a down-and-out single mother, then, a lucky but anxious doppelganger daughter-in-law and, finally, a woman desperate enough to contemplate murder. Her emotions and facial expressions credibly shift gears, time and again and on the fly, which has you rooting for her all along.
While it's Stanwyck's movie, Cowl, as the kind and smart mother-in-law, and Lund, as the brother-in-law who sees through Stanwyck's story, bring much-needed warmth and understanding. But it's Bettger, as the oleaginous ex-boyfriend blackmailer, who gives the movie both its tensest noir moments and an antagonist equal to Stanwyck.
Even with its outstanding acting talent, No Man of Her Own wouldn't work if director Mitchell Leisen didn't know how to usher the story past its holes by getting the viewer deeply vested in the characters.
He also amps up the noir by pitch-perfectly juxtaposing the calm and comfortable life of Stanwyck's new upper-class family with the desperation and impoverishment of her former life and ex-boyfriend.
No Man of Her Own's story is too messy for it to be in the pantheon of noirs, but its acting and directing are so good, it's a must-see for noir and Stanwyck fans. It's also an atypical but fun blend of soap suds and noir that ricochets your emotions all over the place.
P.S. There is a 1932 movie by the same name, but with a completely different story. |
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Post by marysara1 on Nov 18, 2023 20:24:40 GMT
Ricki Lake was in a remake of No man of her own.
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Post by topbilled on Nov 18, 2023 22:49:48 GMT
Ricki Lake was in a remake of No man of her own. |
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Post by topbilled on Nov 30, 2023 14:10:35 GMT
This neglected film is from 1935.
Fate
In a way it’s not easy to describe this film. Some consider it a work of surrealism. I see it as an example of something that tries to stay faithful to the theatrical charms of its stage version. Actress Constance Collier, known for her involvement in the Broadway production, adapted it. She receives a writing credit for her efforts in this big screen retelling.
The trick is to convey the dream aspects of the plot without it seeming as if it’s not rooted in reality. That’s why I don’t consider it a form of surrealism. With surrealism there is a blurring of reality with dreams and all the psychological mumbo jumbo that comes with it. But this story is about the reality that exists within a dream state— a conscious truth, not any subconscious desire or longing.
The young lovers are played by two beautiful stars– Paramount contract player Gary Cooper; and Ann Harding on loan from RKO. Miss Harding was brought in when Miriam Hopkins turned it down.
The child counterparts in the early part of the film are played by Virginia Weidler and Dickie Moore. It occurs to me that Miss Harding studied young Miss Weidler’s mannerisms carefully, especially how she uses her eyes— because in addition to the hair and clothing styles being a perfect match, we see Harding as a believable continuation of what Weidler has established in the initial sequence.
By comparison I don’t think Mr. Cooper is all that precise or deliberate with his acting here, which means his performance is weaker than it should be. He does slightly up his game during a few scenes when Ida Lupino appears as a woman that his character does not really find attractive.
John Halliday and Douglas Dumbrille are on hand as the heavies. Mr. Dumbrille is a stern uncle who fosters Cooper after the young man’s mother dies. It feels like a key chunk of the original narrative was left out, because we do not see, but rather are just told, how Dumbrille raised Cooper without much love.
Meanwhile Halliday is cast as Harding’s husband, a rich landowner who’s a total snob and quite jealous when Harding reconnects with Cooper.
It’s interesting how the childhood sweethearts are ironically reacquainted years after their separation. Cooper has become an architect working for a blind man (Donald Meek). He is commissioned to design a new stable for Halliday. Cooper’s role as an architect here probably cinched his later casting in King Vidor’s THE FOUNTAINHEAD (1949).
When Cooper reconnects with Harding as an adult, he doesn’t know at first that she’s his long lost love. The scene where they both realize the truth is magnificent. They also realize they have shared a dream, literally. And this becomes important when insecure Halliday attacks Cooper and ends up dead. Cooper is unjustly convicted for murder.
The last sequence is the most emotionally gut-wrenching part of the whole affair. Cooper is languishing behind bars, shackled in a cell and beaten to the point of having his back broken. He’s quite possibly in hell. It all seems hopeless…shades of a Victor Hugo tale.
But Harding visits him in his dreams and tells him things that are made legitimate during his hours awake. These real dreams occur for many years. The day she dies, he also dies. At that point, they are together forever.
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Post by Fading Fast on Nov 30, 2023 14:48:26 GMT
Peter Ibbetson from 1935 with Gary Cooper, Ann Harding and John Halliday
If they had been making movies in the nineteenth century, Peter Ibbetson, based on writer George du Maurier's 1891 novel of the same name, would have been the type of movie audiences would have understood and appreciated.
Du Maurier (grandfather of noted author Daphne du Maurier) was a writer of the Romantic Era where individual heroism, intensely felt emotions, a transcendental connection to nature, a general religious spiritualism and epic romances were celebrated as some of mankind's highest ideals.
All of these values imbue director Henry Hathaway's thoughtfully slow movie interpretation of Du Maurier's Peter Ibbetson.
As very young children, "Gogo" and "Mary" share a brief idyllic friendship as English expats in an upscale suburb of Paris. After his mother passes, though, while he is still a very young boy, "Gogo," whose real name is Peter, is taken to England by his uncle.
The movie then fast forwards to where we see that the adult Peter, played by Gary Cooper, is a strong-willed architect with an unfulfilled romantic yearning.
He is sent on assignment to build new stables for the Duchess of Tower, played by Ann Harding, whom we realize, before Cooper does, is the Mary of his youth.
Harding is married to a decent and kind Duke, played by John Halliday, with whom she has a pleasant, albeit seemingly passionless marriage.
That's a lot of set up - and it takes some time to unfold - for the rest of the movie, which has two parts. First, Harding and Cooper have to discover their shared past as they fall in love anew and, then, fate has to, once more, brutally separates the two lovers.
Parted again, Romantic Era idealism kicks into high gear as Cooper and Harding connect through their dreams, which allows them to live in some spiritually linked neverland on earth until they can finally reunite in the afterlife.
There are of course more earthly details - stables to be built, Dukes to fight, courts to pass judgement and prisons to be locked in - but Peter Ibbetson's heart and soul is the timeless romantic bond Harding and Cooper share from childhood into the great beyond, despite many secular obstacles.
Their abiding love is metaphysically tied through nature as it is not just a physical attraction or regular love; no, theirs is a love for the ages, a love one would gladly die for because it is a love that exceeds our earthly constraints.
Harding and Cooper do a good job carrying the heavy burden of portraying that type of eternal Romantic Era love.
Harding is blessed with an ethereal beauty, a preternatural calmness and a captivatingly dulcet voice that makes her almost look and sound like a visitor from another planet who took a perfect human form.
Cooper is both that handsome, and that good an actor, that he can almost make you believe in an anything-is-possible world.
Cooper would, later in his career, play another strong-willed individualist architect in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.
Despite being known today as an ardent advocate of individualism and capitalism, Rand viewed her own writing as "romantic" in the sense of the Romantic Era.
She penned characters, like the architect Cooper played, as unyielding individualists passionately committed to the integrity of their work and the fidelity of their love.
Rand described Cooper's character as a hero not bowed by compromise or public opinion; a man of personal integrity and honor.
Seen in that light, Cooper's architect in Peter Ibbetson is an earlier incarnation of the Randian architect he would play a decade and half later.
Both his Ibbetson and Randian versions are really "romantics" willing to work for free (yes, even in the "capitalist-advocating" The Fountainhead), but the work must be carried out to their exacting standards.
Peter Ibbetson is a throwback movie to a time before there were movies; to a time in the nineteenth century when society's values were profoundly different than they are today or than they were even in the 1930s when the movie was released.
It takes an appreciation, or at least an understanding of the values of the Romantic Era to fully accept and embrace the intensely romantic Peter Ibbetson. But if one can adjust his or her modern cultural mindset, Peter Ibbetson is a pleasant trip to a more-idealistic time.
N.B. The 2001 movie Kate and Leopold examines a Romantic Era outlook versus our present-day "realistic/pragmatic" outlook when accidental time-traveler Leopold brings his nineteenth-century romantic views of love and his unyielding personal integrity to Kate's 2001 world of business compromise and casual sex. It's a fun romcom whose pivotal moment forces modern Kate to decide which world she prefers. |
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Post by topbilled on Dec 7, 2023 15:06:40 GMT
This neglected film is from 1940.
Ma and her boys
It always amazes me how much action gets packed into some of these studio programmers. In the case of Paramount’s QUEEN OF THE MOB, there isn’t only nonstop action but considerable character development.
The main character is a Ma Barker type woman known as Ma Webster who is masterminding various criminal activities across the country with her bad apple sons.
Well okay, all the sons are bad apples except one. He’s the one we’re meant to root for, since there has to be at least one decent member of this clan.
As played by Blanche Yurka, Ma is a clever, very resourceful woman. She seems to understand law and disorder better than most cops. That’s why she is able to stay one step ahead of the G-men (Ralph Bellamy and Jack Carson) for much of the movie.
Part of Ma’s success is evading the police across state lines by quickly adapting new disguises. She is also quite successful at blending into different neighborhoods– like a chameleon is she.
The most clever ruse in this reviewer’s opinion is the one where she passes herself off as a high society dame. She reasons that government agents wouldn’t think to look for her and the boys among the upper crust. There’s a marvelous scene where they are found out inside the home of a refined snob, played by Hedda Hopper.
As for the one good son, he has married a lovely gal and has had a child. Of course, Ma longs to see the grandson she’s never met. In what is probably the best moment of the film, she sneaks into their home and poignantly introduces herself to the unsuspecting youngster. She is not totally heartless.
Of course all of Ma’s bad deeds do catch up with her. She is finally cornered and arrested on Christmas.
Perhaps audiences watching the film in 1940 were swayed by some of the sentimental aspects of the story. The country was still in the throes of an economic depression that wouldn’t end until the war was over. The real Ma Barker’s actions would not be fully endorsed by any moral and law-abiding person, but her exploits made headlines. She was familiar to audiences.
Do some families resort to criminal activity because of poverty? Though the Barkers’ circumstances became more desperate, they were still part of the community at large. This film depicts that, especially when Ma and her brood skillfully blend in with acquaintances. In a parallel life she is a sweet old lady who doesn’t want to rob another bank, she just wants a cup of sugar.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 12, 2023 12:47:38 GMT
This neglected film is from 1941.
The teacher and the conman
I watched HOLD BACK THE DAWN over two days, I guess because I wanted to be sure I absorbed it all carefully. I did not rush through this film. I had heard about its reputation as one of Paramount’s better romance dramas of the 1940s.
I understand the film is revered by many folks and critics laud the direction, writing, cinematography and performances. And yes, it is a rather effective film. But unfortunately I do not think it is a great film, which I will detail below.
The film is too drawn out in sections. The entire prologue with director Mitchell Leisen playing a fictional director on the Paramount lot is unnecessary. I am sure it was a novel idea at the time, to have the film’s director playing a director…with studio stars like Veronica Lake and Brian Donlevy pretending to be making a film on a soundstage with him, when Charles Boyer’s fictional character from this movie turns up, wanted by the police.
While the writers give Boyer a reason for seeking out this man when he’s in a jam with immigration, I just had a hard time believing he wouldn’t go to the consulate in Los Angeles or seek out a lawyer instead. He is supposedly telling Leisen’s character his immigration story during a lunch period. The film lasts almost two hours. That’s a long lunch! And when characters like this launch into lengthy recollections, they seem to remember every tiny detail, explaining every single point in voice over narration. It’s unrealistic.
The film’s story could easily have just started without the gimmicky flashback framing device…where we see him arriving in the Mexican border town, taking up residence at the run-down hotel.
In fact, the first scene with any real meaning is the one where he bumps into his old dance partner (Paulette Goddard) who pulls as many con jobs as he does. That’s where I would have started the story.
Another thing that doesn’t work for me is why he even needs the school teacher (Olivia de Havilland) to marry. Isn’t Goddard’s character divorced and now a U.S. citizen? So why wouldn’t he just hurry up and marry her, since they have made plans to go off to New York or Florida to fleece the rich? It doesn’t make sense that he needs to find someone else to marry.
As for Miss de Havilland’s role in the story, she is written as a stereotype which lessens her impact on me. The writers make her a cliched schoolmarm who can’t get a good looking man, who is a virgin, and who is easy prey for a slick gigolo like Mr. Boyer.
Why couldn’t she be a businesswoman, or an heiress whose fiance had died…she comes to Mexico to grieve and crosses paths with Boyer. She would still have been vulnerable but not so dumb. In short, she could have been a much more interesting well-developed character, devoid of stereotypes about frigid or virginal women.
I wasn’t keen on her bringing a group of school kids to Mexico without any other chaperones. Who does that? It was already unrealistic that American kids would be in school on the fourth of July, and that they would celebrate their country’s independence in another country. Not to mention the fact that they were all boys (not one girl in the class?) and that she was the only adult in charge of them in a foreign country. Totally implausible.
Equally implausible was the fact that after she marries Boyer and comes back for her honeymoon, she arrives in the same school bus? You mean to tell me she couldn’t have borrowed her mother’s car, or rented her own car?
And going back to the main premise for a second, wouldn’t it have been more realistic if she asked herself at least once, “why is this charming attractive man taking a liking to little old me of all people?” She has no common sense in this movie.
There are an assortment of other supporting characters at Boyer’s hotel, and quite frankly, a lot of them have negligible screen time and are not too memorable. They also seem to be stereotypes, not real flesh and blood people, trying to get across the border to have a life in America. None of them seem too impoverished, none of them seem to be suffering too much. At this rate, wouldn’t life in Mexico be just as good, better than whatever horrible plight in Europe they had been escaping?
Probably the best supporting character is the one played by Paulette Goddard, who gets above the title billing with the two leads. She is a self-professed tramp, a woman with one scheme after another whose primary goal is to separate unsuspecting fools from their cash. Her performance is quite refreshing, if not liberating, since she frees us from some of the far-fetched aspects of the Boyer-de Havilland romance.
The greatest scene in the movie is the one where Goddard lowers the boom on de Havilland and says the wedding ring is really hers, that Boyer lied about every single thing since day one. Credit to de Havilland for nicely underplaying the huge emotional realization, but the scene really belongs to Goddard who makes mince meat of her.
The ending of the movie is just as contrived as most of what comes before. Boyer crosses the border illegally when he learns his bride has been in a terrible car accident. He now has had the obligatory change of heart and zooms off to the hospital to see her, though he is now a fugitive.
We have scenes of him on the lam, with an inspector (Walter Abel) chasing after him. This leads back to the soundstage in Hollywood at Paramount studios.
But what is even sillier is Abel not filing any government reports, after apprehending Boyer and hauling him back to Me-hee-co. Surely he would have to document what’s happened, especially since there were other law enforcement agents involved. He would have lost his job if he overlooked Boyer’s crimes.
Though for the sake of the hackneyed romantic plot to work, the writers need Abel’s character to let Boyer off the hook. This way Boyer can be legally reunited with de Havilland after she’s made a full recovery.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 24, 2023 14:04:49 GMT
This neglected film is from 1943.
Make time for this one
Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray enjoyed a successful collaboration which began in 1935. For the next fourteen years the two stars would turn out a series of box office hits, all of them in the romantic comedy vein except one. These comedies had a specific formula, usually a variation on the boy-gets-girl plot. Situations were often outlandish, and the duo would encounter serious complications before the happily ever after inevitably occurred.
In NO TIME FOR COMEDY, Miss Colbert plays a glamorous career woman. She earns a substantial salary and develops a reputation as one of the country’s most renowned magazine photographers. The character is said to be inspired by Margaret Bourke-White. We learn Colbert won’t refuse any assignment, even ones where her publisher boyfriend (Paul McGrath) sends her to snap pictures of men working the city’s most dangerous jobs.
This is where Mr. MacMurray comes into the story. He’s a construction foreman with knowledge in engineering; and he leads a group of rough and tumble men. Not only do they labor despite hazardous conditions, the temperatures in an underground tunnel beneath New York’s Hudson River are quite hot.
What’s interesting about this set-up is how the job environments of the two main characters are so dramatically different. The contrast couldn’t be greater.
Director Mitchell Leisen has a background in set design, so we see Colbert’s apartment and office space elaborately furnished and decorated. She operates in a hoity-toity yet somewhat sterile atmosphere. She is not alone here, though; she has assistance from her sister (Ilka Chase) and receives visits at all hours from her numerous upper-class friends, which include Richard Haydn.
Meanwhile MacMurray toils under harsh and thankless conditions. He is usually seen without his shirt on, breaking sweat and busting his butt…trying to get his project completed on time. When Colbert first arrives to photograph him and his crew, the two do not exactly hit it off. Part of this is because the guys think that when a woman shows up down in the tunnel, it’s bad luck and she’s a jinx. Their superstitions seem verified when an accident soon takes place.
The romantic and comedic elements take shape when MacMurray arrogantly assumes that Colbert has the hots for him. He all but accuses her of lusting after him, since he is just so darn desirable and women can’t help but be drawn to him. She insists she finds him repulsive, regardless of how much skin he bares.
In fact, she calls him an ape several times in the movie. These are meant to be insults, but he takes these remarks as compliments. What’s a girl to do? The trouble escalates when she experiences a dream that Freud would have a field day analyzing. It involves a chair in her bedroom that she told him has more personality than him!
As Colbert tosses and turns in her sleep, the dream (nightmare?) continues. She falls off the chair and needs help getting up. A figure appears in the sky out of nowhere. It’s a bird. No wait. It’s a plane. No wait. It’s Superman. No wait. It’s MacMurray dressed as Superman.
Supposedly this riotous dream sequence was filmed in an enclosed area by Leisen and his cinematographer Charles Lang. For its time, the special effects and editing are rather advanced. Plus it’s clear that MacMurray and Colbert are having a blast filming it.
As the story continues, Colbert realizes this man and his brazen attitude have seeped into her subconscious. Of course it doesn’t help when he turns up at her place one day and asks to see the chair that she compared him to…she takes him to the bedroom to see it (big mistake) and that is when he impulsively kisses her.
As if that were not enough, he informs her and her sister that he’s been suspended without pay because one of the photographs that had been published in her company’s magazine was not very flattering. She now feels responsible for his temporary unemployment.
In the next part, she hires him as an assistant until his suspension ends. It’s not the best idea she’s ever had…they still don’t really get along, and he certainly knows nothing about photography. But she figures she can teach him. There’s an amusing bit when a bodybuilder (Rex Ravelle) shows up at her studio for a spread she’s shooting. Of course, macho MacMurray is a bit annoyed with this he-man Mr. Universe type jerk.
Another reason Colbert hired MacMurray to assist her is because she thinks that she will see all the man’s flaws up close and personal. If that happens, then she’ll come to dislike him so much that she’ll never have another dream or fantasy about him. You know where this is going…
She only falls for him more in spite of her best efforts not to do so. A further complication occurs when they go out on a new assignment, in which she’s scheduled to photograph a bunch of chorus girls at a Broadway theater. During these scenes, a sexy chorine (June Havoc) catches MacMurray’s eye, and they begin dating. This makes Colbert jealous.
However, we know that MacMurray and Colbert will still end up together to facilitate a happy ending. But getting there is a lot of fun. The dialogue is frequently witty, sparks fly, and there is a playful way that Leisen and his team put the material across on screen. No one escapes Cupid who has all the time in the world for love.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 5, 2024 14:18:38 GMT
This neglected film is from 1931.
Tallulah Bankhead is branded a bad girl
During the early 1930s Tallulah Bankhead, known for her illustrious stage career and scandalous personal life, was under contract to Paramount. She appeared in a series of notable precode dramas, often playing women who weren’t too unlike her real-life self. She would return to the stage and come back to moviemaking after a decade’s hiatus. Then try her hand at a few roles on TV. After all was said and done, she left behind performances on screen that give us a glimpse into the type of actress and woman she was.
THE CHEAT, one of the better examples of her acting style, was a remake of an earlier picture made in 1915 by Cecil B. DeMille. The DeMille version starred Fannie Ward, who was somewhat older, in her early 40s, playing a woman whose husband overlooks many of her ongoing indiscretions. One such indiscretion involves gambling and keeping company with shady people. The 1931 version, directed by George Abbott, uses the template of the first film, though the shady folks are more ethnically defined.
In the 1931 version, Tallulah Bankhead runs up a considerable sum at a gaming table, then signs an IOU to be held against her until she can square the debt. Normally, she would go to her husband (Harvey Stephens) but he’s over extended himself, financing a new venture that hasn’t gotten off the ground yet. There is a subplot where she is involved with high-class women raising funds for the Red Cross. She’s entrusted to put it in her private safe; though if they knew how corruptible she was, they’d find someone else to hold on to the proceeds.
At this point, another person has learned about the money in the safe, and they convince our troubled heroine to loan it to them for an investment that is sure to pay off handsomely. She goes along with it, because she not only needs the amount she owes the casino; she needs to return what she took from the Red Cross fund. However, the friend invests the money on a bad stock tip, and now she is without any money at all!
What’s a gal to do? If you are Tallulah Bankhead’s character, you find the most evil man (Irving Pichel) who’s been making eyes at you. Then agree to perform sexual favors, to raise the desperately needed cash. But since this is a sordid precode, just merely prostituting herself isn’t scandalous enough. When she’s with Pichel, he acts a bit extreme and after she won’t go through with what he has in mind, he brands her with a hot iron. Ouch!
This leads to a confrontation with Pichel. Soon Pichel ends up dead, and the husband (Stephens) takes the blame since it’s the honorable thing to do. Out leading lady’s conscience gets the better of her; yes, she does have a conscience. When it looks like Stephens is about to be convicted by a jury, she stops the trial and makes a bold confession that she’s the killer. Then she pulls part of her blouse down so they can all see that shocking tattoo.
One critic called the film high-end trash. But I’d say it’s not much different from the silent version made by DeMille, except the dialogue is audible and the visuals have a glossier sheen.
It’s still a story about a naughty wife plagued by a series of problems, who ultimately has a scarlet letter sort of moment in a public setting. We can’t help but feel moved by her plight, even she has brought most of it on herself.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 5, 2024 15:21:55 GMT
The Cheat from 1931 with Tallulah Bankhead, Irving Pichel and Harvey Stephens
Today, the most interesting thing about The Cheat is Tallulah Bankhead, who acquired her awesome name, amazingly, by being christened that way. In this movie, she plays an upper-class gambling addict, flirt and status-conscious wife of a man who deserves better.
At the opening, we see Bankhead rack up a large gambling debt that is quietly paid off by a wealthy man, played by Irving Pichel (a name Hollywood of that era should have changed). He's a bachelor whose hobby, or really obsession, is the Oriental culture.
This was a time when "the Oriental culture" was almost always portrayed as dark, mysterious and slightly evil by Hollywood. Pichel didn't pay off Bankhead's debt to be a good guy as Pichel and Bankhead know exactly what he expects in return.
Bankhead's husband, played by Harvey Stephens, is the good guy in all this who has asked his wife to rein in her spending a bit, at least until he puts over a business deal he's working on. She clearly can't tell him about her massive gambling debt after that speech.
That's the set up with a few side distractions about Bankhead borrowing from the mob and "borrowing" from a charity of which she's a board member, but the real story and climax comes down to how she's going to "pay off" Pichel.
With a check from her husband - his deal came through and he gave her the money to pay off the debt even though he doesn't know the details - Bankhead tries to repay Pichel, but Pichel doesn't want to be repaid in cash, he wants to be repaid in "trade."
What follows is a fast and dramatic climax, no spoilers coming, involving a brutal human branding, a fight, gun shots, a wounded body and a trial driven by self sacrifice and histrionics that no real judge would allow, but it makes for a heck of a denouement.
Putting a modern lens up to the movie, the representation of the Oriental culture, as noted, isn't balanced. The choice, though, was probably less about prejudice and more about Hollywood needing a nefarious and ominous overtone to frame Pichel's character.
The Cheat is not a particularly good movie, but it's fast and reasonably entertaining. Also, today it provides both a look at how Depression Era audiences saw the upper class and at a still-youngish Tallulah Bankhead.
Movies about the rich and silly were all the rage in the Depression. For ten cents (about $2.40 today), the moviegoer could peek into a world of luxury and ease. Yet the message in most of these pictures is that money doesn't buy happiness.
Whether that message was truly embraced by the public or not, they kept showing up to see the rich make their lives of ease difficult and unhappy. Certainly, no one wanted to be Bankhead in this one, despite her fancy gowns and servants.
Bankhead was a prominent theater actress who never fully made a successful transition to movies. Not helping was the fact that she was almost thirty when talkies began and she - known for smoking, partying and God knows what else - didn't age slowly.
Here, though, Bankhead is fine, but her male counterparts - Pichel and Stephens - are unimpressive as they often come across as if they are just reading dialogue. One imagines a more-engaging picture had, say, James Cagney and Richard Cortez been cast.
The Cheat is short enough at seventy-four minutes to be worth viewing to see an early Bankhead picture, plus there's enough lying, cheating, philandering and whatnot going on to make it a good example of precode nautiness.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 5, 2024 17:30:33 GMT
A beautifully restored print of THE CHEAT '31 is on the Criterion Channel through the end of the month. It's part of a theme called Precode Divas. I am hoping they do a theme on Tallulah at some point.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 17, 2024 16:02:18 GMT
This neglected film is from 1932.
First and only pairing for Lombard & Gable
Ordinarily, Carole Lombard and Clark Gable would not have had a chance to costar together in a film. This is because she was under a long-term contract with Paramount; and he was under a long contract with MGM; two rival studios that didn’t like to loan out their box office champs. However, Marion Davies wanted Bing Crosby to appear in her next MGM picture, and when Marion Davies wanted something she usually got it.
A trade was arranged, where Adolph Zukor loaned Crosby to MGM for GOING HOLLYWOOD, while Louis Mayer loaned Gable to Paramount for NO MAN OF HER OWN (not to be confused with a 1950 motion picture with the same title starring Barbara Stanwyck). Gable’s name would appear over the title, while Lombard was billed underneath.
Gable liked the script for this romantic drama very much. However, he was less in awe of Lombard. They got along, but were not particularly enamored of each other. Lombard was married to William Powell at the time, and Gable was also married to someone else.
Although their real-life romance didn’t begin until 1936, after both were divorced from their previous spouses, you can see sparks of what made them work as a couple in this production. Their characters meet rather innocently in a library where Lombard works, though Gable is anything but innocent (as a gambler on the run, hiding out in her small-town community). Because Gable is more the wolf type in this story, it is up to Lombard to reel us in with a softer, yet savvy, characterization.
We want her character, who’s longing for something greater, to find love and have her heart filled with contentment. But Gable needs to square things with a man he owes cheating at cards; and he also needs to reach an agreement with a persistent copper (J. Farrell MacDonald) on his heels. Eventually, he does settle these accounts, but not until he marries Lombard and brings complications and a baby into her life.
Part of what makes the film work so well is the strongly scripted plot. It offers no real surprises, since we know Gable will go straight by the end. But we see a clear-cut evolution for both main characters. They learn to trust in each other and in something greater than themselves.
Aiding in this narrative structure is the inclusion of several notable supporting characters who provide commentary about the goings-on involving the main couple. These side characters, besides the police detective, include Lombard’s mother (Elizabeth Patterson, who keeps the wholesome matriarch from being too syrupy sweet); and Gable’s ex-flame (Dorothy Mackaill) who initially wants to break up him and Lombard, but eventually cheers them on.
After the film was completed, Gable returned to his stomping grounds at MGM, and Lombard was on to her next assignment at Paramount. They would reconnect a few years later, and were married in 1939. By most accounts, it was a happy union like the one in this story, that lasted until Lombard’s untimely death in a plane crash in 1942.
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Post by Fading Fast on Jan 17, 2024 16:59:43 GMT
⇧ Excellent review Topbilled with some neat inside information on Gable and Lombard. Also, I love this line, "We want her character, who’s longing for something greater, to find love and have her heart filled with contentment." Well done.
⇩ My comment on the movie here.
No Man of Her Own from 1932 with Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Dorothy MacKaill, Grant Mitchell and J. Farrell MacDonald
No Man of Her Own is another movie example of the triumph of personality over plot. Future real-life married couple Clarke Gable and Carole Lombard sparkle in their only on-screen pairing, helped along by a strong supporting cast and precode fun.
Gable plays a wealthy New York City card shark who makes a very good living helped by his gang of likeable rapscallions that include perennial character actor Grant Mitchell, he fixes the card decks, and sizzling Dorothy MacKaill, she seduces the "marks" into the game.
The one fly in the ointment is a detective, played by another engaging character actor, J. Farrell MacDonald, who knows what Gable's gang is doing, but hasn't yet been able to arrest them.
Gable, "laying low" in a small upstate town and presenting himself as a NYC businessman, meets a local librarian, played by Lombard. She's a nice girl dying to get out of her small town (in precode land, young, small-town or county girls love coming to the big city).
She falls hard; he falls a bit, but on a coin flip that he loses, he agrees to marry Lombard (just go with it). Now in NYC, she moves into his fancy apartment thinking he's a successful Wall Street businessman, but he continues his card shark business almost in front of her.
Gable tells his friends his plan is to let the marriage play out a bit, then he'll ship Lombard back to upstate New York with some money and a fun memory. He believes it too, until he starts to really fall in love with his good hearted, sincere and sexy-as-heck wife.
She, of course, discovers he's a card shark, which she won't abide, but instead of ditching the marriage, she tells him he's too good to be a crook and that she's going to stick with it until he changes. Gable, who now wants the marriage to work, didn't count on this.
There are some surprises from here for fans of this style of precode (no spoilers coming), but the movie does take a few convoluted twists (this is a "just go with it" plot) until we get to the inevitable ending.
It's a ridiculous story that still works as Gable, Lombard and team are just that appealing. The future "King of Hollywood" looks like a handsome puppy here without his trademark moustache and too much on-screen energy, but the camera loves him.
Lombard, equally young, is more poised in her acting. Plus she's sexy and smart - smarter than Gable, as precode women often were smarter than their men. Her rival, here played by MacKaill, is also sexy as heck, as she tries to pull Gable back to his old world of "dames."
Being precode, there are separate scenes of Lombard and MacKaill prancing around in their anatomy-revealing underwear for no other reason than so that we can see these women in their anatomy-revealing underwear.
Added into this fun mix is Grant Mitchell as Gable's friend and partner. Look for the scene where Gable wakes this late-owl up early to discuss a problem, while all Mitchell wants to do is go back to bed. It's these funny but genuine scenes that make the movie work.
A scene that has both precode spice and general charm is when Gable and Lombard are in their train compartment the morning after their newlywed night. It captures their post-sex glow, their new closeness and their awkwardness over learning how to live together.
No Man of Her Own (a stupid title) is nothing more than a quick studio precode, but it also shows why the studio system worked for so long. It understood how stars, personalities, charm and prurience could easily overcome a silly plot.
Today, it is also a wonderful look at one of Hollywood's early golden couples before they became a golden couple. Gable and Lombard wouldn't start dating for several years, but here we get to see the two starring together on screen before they starred together in real life.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 17, 2024 21:24:03 GMT
Love this line:
Gable plays a wealthy New York City card shark who makes a very good living helped by his gang of likeable rapscallions
NO MAN OF HER OWN (1932) is currently available for streaming on the Criterion Channel as part of its theme: Precode Divas.
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