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Post by Fading Fast on Mar 9, 2024 16:20:47 GMT
From Topbilled's review:
This is spot on, she is a major talent: "Dressler, a previous Oscar recipient, is particularly adept at combining humor and pathos, sometimes both elements within the same scene, on the turn of a dime."
A question Re this line, "The quick “remake” (reshoot) was apparently the right way to proceed; there was improved continuity over McCarey’s version and PROSPERITY did well at the box office." Have you seen the McCarey version, or did you read this? It would be really cool if you've seen the McCarey version to compare.
My comments ⇩
Prosperity from 1932 with Marie Dressler, Poly Moran, Anita Page and Norman Foster
You don't usually turn to MGM for Depression Era grit, but in Prosperity, MGM employs one of its big stars of the day, Marie Dressler, to take the audience through an all-to-real run on a bank and its impoverishing effects on the community.
Being MGM and being Dressler, there's plenty of humor sprinkled in, but this is no light-hearted effort as we see a family get torn apart and a town struggle. It all starts happily in the 1920s when money and prosperity were plentiful.
Dressler plays the president of a local bank, because in precode Hollywood, which reflected real-world America, women did run some businesses. She took over when her husband died and clearly knows how to successfully and conservatively manage a bank.
She then steps down so that her son, played by Norman Foster, can take over. While he's not an arrogant young man, he sees an opportunity to be less conservative than his mother. It's the roaring twenties and times are good, so all goes well at first.
Foster also marries the daughter, played by Anita Page, of Dressler's long time frenemy, played by Polly Moran (who was teamed with Dressler in several other comedy-dramas). Then the Depression hits.
Moran in one of her many fits of pique, carelessly causes a run on the bank, which reveals to Dressler that her son had mortgaged the secure bonds she had salted away for just such a moment.
Foster believes the bonds will pay off in six months, so Dressler convinces the town to suffer through until then with her. She sells everything she has to raise cash for the bank's customers as she believes in repaying the depositors no matter the personal cost to her.
Dressler, her son, his wife and their now two children all move in with Moran who is insufferable to them. Nerves fray in the Moran household and in the town, while Dressler shows incredible resolve in trying to bridge the family and town over the six-month wait.
It's a story Depression Era audiences would understand well as bank failures and struggling families were common. Today we have FDIC insurance (a good thing) and endless government debt (not a good thing) as attempts to address these challenges.
The climax is a bit too Hollywood with fist fights and a crazy car-train-chase scene to recover the bonds. That's followed by a harrowing attempted suicide related to an insurance policy, but the point of Prosperity was made before its exaggerated ending.
Dressler, in her sixties and frumpy in appearance, but solid in character, struck a chord with 1930s audiences. She, in ways, was the average American at his or her best. God bless an America that could happily see itself in an older, disheveled woman with unflagging integrity.
Moran, is the movie's one off note as she overplays her hysterical frenemy role. Foster is fine, but he disappears when Dressler is in a scene. Anita Page, though, shows a quieter but equal-to-Dressler's fortitude in trying to keep her family together.
Today we have a government program for nearly every social ill and much-greater prosperity even in downtimes. Yet we have nowhere near the spirit or individual fortitude that, despite exceptions, overall, held the country together in the 1930s.
Prosperity is a good time capsule to remind us that, once, America faced much greater challenges than today with much less food on its plate, but it soldiered through. That might sound like a slogan or an old man screaming about kids playing on his lawn, but it's also true.
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Post by NoShear on Mar 9, 2024 16:46:51 GMT
From Topbilled's review:
This is spot on, she is a major talent: "Dressler, a previous Oscar recipient, is particularly adept at combining humor and pathos, sometimes both elements within the same scene, on the turn of a dime."
A question Re this line, "The quick “remake” (reshoot) was apparently the right way to proceed; there was improved continuity over McCarey’s version and PROSPERITY did well at the box office." Have you seen the McCarey version, or did you read this? It would be really cool if you've seen the McCarey version to compare.
My comments ⇩
Prosperity from 1932 with Marie Dressler, Poly Moran, Anita Page and Norman Foster
You don't usually turn to MGM for Depression Era grit, but in Prosperity, MGM employs one of its big stars of the day, Marie Dressler, to take the audience through an all-to-real run on a bank and its impoverishing effects on the community.
Being MGM and being Dressler, there's plenty of humor sprinkled in, but this is no light-hearted effort as we see a family get torn apart and a town struggle. It all starts happily in the 1920s when money and prosperity were plentiful.
Dressler plays the president of a local bank, because in precode Hollywood, which reflected real-world America, women did run some businesses. She took over when her husband died and clearly knows how to successfully and conservatively manage a bank.
She then steps down so that her son, played by Norman Foster, can take over. While he's not an arrogant young man, he sees an opportunity to be less conservative than his mother. It's the roaring twenties and times are good, so all goes well at first.
Foster also marries the daughter, played by Anita Page, of Dressler's long time frenemy, played by Polly Moran (who was teamed with Dressler in several other comedy-dramas). Then the Depression hits.
Moran in one of her many fits of pique, carelessly causes a run on the bank, which reveals to Dressler that her son had mortgaged the secure bonds she had salted away for just such a moment.
Foster believes the bonds will pay off in six months, so Dressler convinces the town to suffer through until then with her. She sells everything she has to raise cash for the bank's customers as she believes in repaying the depositors no matter the personal cost to her.
Dressler, her son, his wife and their now two children all move in with Moran who is insufferable to them. Nerves fray in the Moran household and in the town, while Dressler shows incredible resolve in trying to bridge the family and town over the six-month wait.
It's a story Depression Era audiences would understand well as bank failures and struggling families were common. Today we have FDIC insurance (a good thing) and endless government debt (not a good thing) as attempts to address these challenges.
The climax is a bit too Hollywood with fist fights and a crazy car-train-chase scene to recover the bonds. That's followed by a harrowing attempted suicide related to an insurance policy, but the point of Prosperity was made before its exaggerated ending.
Dressler, in her sixties and frumpy in appearance, but solid in character, struck a chord with 1930s audiences. She, in ways, was the average American at his or her best. God bless an America that could happily see itself in an older, disheveled woman with unflagging integrity.
Moran, is the movie's one off note as she overplays her hysterical frenemy role. Foster is fine, but he disappears when Dressler is in a scene. Anita Page, though, shows a quieter but equal-to-Dressler's fortitude in trying to keep her family together.
Today we have a government program for nearly every social ill and much-greater prosperity even in downtimes. Yet we have nowhere near the spirit or individual fortitude that, despite exceptions, overall, held the country together in the 1930s.
Prosperity is a good time capsule to remind us that, once, America faced much greater challenges than today with much less food on its plate, but it soldiered through. That might sound like a slogan or an old man screaming about kids playing on his lawn, but it's also true.
The last paragraph is vintage Fading Fast... So, tell me, when are TopBilled and your books due out? |
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Post by NoShear on Mar 9, 2024 16:48:55 GMT
^ BunnyWhit's on fashion as well? Oh, also I Love Melvin's TCM-grooved one on the good bad movies??
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Post by topbilled on Mar 9, 2024 17:41:45 GMT
I haven't seen any of the footage McCarey shot for PROSPERITY. I wonder if any of it even survives. When I said that having Wood reshoot everything seemed to be the right decision, I was saying this with an eye on the box office receipts. Because Wood's version did well with audiences, I am sure MGM bosses felt justified in not releasing the version McCarey made.
Typically it never happens this way...they may replace a director and bring someone else in...but even with extensive retakes, they usually don't just throw everything out and start over due to the costs involved...plus if they have to start over and re-film everything, it will delay the cast from being placed into other films.
The other option is they can cancel the movie and just move on with a new project. (William Randolph Hearst scrapped one of Marion Davies' films since he was unhappy with the results, and it was never fixed or screened, it was entirely junked.)
In the case of PROSPERITY, my guess is that McCarey did not have a handle on the material. It caused serious continuity issues and a problem with story's overall tone, which prompted the front office at MGM to just press the do-over button. Dressler was a reigning queen at the box office, and they couldn't undermine her success with a bomb.
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MGM
Mar 9, 2024 18:14:39 GMT
Post by topbilled on Mar 9, 2024 18:14:39 GMT
Incidentally, the Davies-Hearst film I referenced is THE FIVE O'CLOCK GIRL (1928), made at MGM. One of Davies' costars was Joel McCrea. In a series of emails with McCrea's grandson Wyatt, I asked about that film. I said, 'are there any surviving copies? does any footage exist anywhere?' and Wyatt replied that to his knowledge, he thinks it is a lost film.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0018893/?ref_=tt_mv_close
Incidentally, I just checked the IMDb, and there is a page for this film that has 12 publicity stills. It seems 62 people have given it a score, and its average user score is 8.2 though I do not see any user reviews and I suspect people are giving it 9's and 10's without having seen it. LOL
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Davies
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Post by topbilled on Mar 13, 2024 16:19:06 GMT
This neglected film is from 1945.
Looking back at the war, looking forward to freedom
I especially like stories made during the war about Nazis in America; Americans straddling the fence between right and wrong; and of course, a memorable villain who gets brought down in the end. The villain in this one is played by Edmund Gwenn and some other reviewers seem to be surprised that the actor, fondly remembered as Kris Kringle in a film made two years later at another studio, could be so nefarious on screen. Obviously they are forgetting his bad guy turn in Hitchcock’s FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (1940).
The leads are played by Metro contract player James Craig and European import Signe Hasso who this same year scored a hit playing a Nazi spy in THE HOUSE ON 92ND STREET (1945). Here she is not as deadly, but still just as cunning in a role as a confidence woman. I’ve written about Miss Hasso before, and she is without a doubt one of my most favorite actresses of the 1940s. There’s something sneaky, or should I say sly, about her performances.
Nobody really can play deviousness the way she does and this gives her an edge in romantic scenes. Mainly because while she is falling head over heels for Craig in this picture, she still cannot be fully trusted until she experiences a complete change of heart. So we have a unique taming as it were, but can we be sure that she will stay a reformed woman?
The plot comes from a book called ‘Paper Chase’ in which a confidence couple on their way back to the U.S. from Mexico stumble upon a racket carried out by the Nazis. Miss Hasso’s husband in the story is played by John Warburton, and this guy seems fairly mild. But the book reveals he was the mastermind of their various schemes in several countries and that he had taught his wife all the tricks of the trade. These tricks involved theft, blackmail, cheating at cards and other forms of dishonest behavior.
They meet up with a Nazi (Gwenn) on the way to the midwest, and they they lift some documents off him when their plane crashes. The papers are written wills in which the Nazi man will inherit four million dollars in bonds and securities. The money will be turned over to the Germans to help Nazi officials evade their crimes at the end of the war.
The book was written in 1940, and I suspect part of the story was updated by MGM since this picture was made at the end of the war. It plays quite realistically because I am sure Nazis were developing escape routes when Hitler’s Germany started to fall. The wills are a clever way for them to bring their money into America, and this confidence couple are on to their scheme.
However, Mr. Gwenn and his cohorts (played by Mabel Paige and Grant Withers) will do everything they can to stop the crooked duo from getting in the way of operations. Miss Hasso’s husband is murdered shortly after arriving in Ohio, so she ends up joining forces with Mr. Craig. He is playing a lawyer that had been hired to revise one of the wills by a Nazi conspirator that had a pang of conscience and was suddenly bumped off.
Since Hasso is now a widow, she is free to pursue a romance with Craig. She wastes no time doing this. The way she doesn’t shed a single tear over her late husband’s body and quickly refocuses her energies on obtaining the Nazi loot gives us an indicator of her character. Later she begins to see the light while on the run with Craig, especially when she starts to realize what it means to keep American interests safe from foreign threats to democracy.
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Post by topbilled on Mar 22, 2024 14:14:11 GMT
This neglected film is from 1943.
British saboteur
In a way this is a thinking person’s war film. Robert Donat plays a highly intelligent British gent who is sent into Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia to infiltrate a plant where the Germans are attempting to manufacture a new poisonous gas. Donat’s character must get his hands on the formula, then he must blow up the plant. Not an easy task. In order to carry out his mission, he assumes the identity of a dead Nazi officer.
Donat is perfectly suave in the role. Though one imagines how he might have fared if he’d been directed by Alfred Hitchcock. As things go, MGM director Harold Bucquet does an admirable job helming this espionage drama, though he was known more for a series of Dr. Kildare pictures churned out by the studio.
In addition to suspense and intrigue, there is romance thrown into the mix. Particularly since Donat becomes involved with a beautiful woman (Valerie Hobson) who may also be working to bring down the Nazi regime.
To the writers’ credit, Hobson’s character is a trifle mysterious at first. There is some engaging banter between her and Donat, as they both try to determine whether or not they can trust each other. When they do realize they’re on the same side, they are able to work together more effectively.
An important subplot involves a young employee (Glynis Johns) at the plant where Donat is working undercover. He becomes more familiar with her, when he rents a room from her mother. Eventually, it is learned that Johns is just as intent on sabotaging the Germans. But while Hobson applies her feminine wiles on the Nazi men she meets, Johns is a bit hardline in her approach and winds up dead.
Related to the death of Johns’ character we have a group of locals that comprise an underground movement. Donat is not quite sure who some of those folks are, so later on, he has to make a spectacle of himself in public to gain their attention and be taken to their hideout, where he can directly appeal to them for help in destroying the factory. Again, there is a lot of intrigue and dangerous situations to keep the average viewer engrossed. Especially at the end, when it seems as if he and Hobson may be separated forever.
Notes on the AFI website claim this was the first British production made by MGM in two years. I suppose the Hollywood studio became somewhat cautious during the early years of the war, worried about the safety of making movies in London while England was under direct attack by the Germans. Since Bucquet was originally from Britain and had served in WWI, he probably seemed a logical choice to be assigned as the director. Bucquet would only make two more pictures before his death in 1946.
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Post by topbilled on Mar 26, 2024 15:09:38 GMT
This neglected film is from 1950.
Mano nera
What we have is a competently made film that blends elements of noir with the gangster genre. It also has the requisite love story which somehow does not get in the way.
Sometimes MGM’s efforts at crime drama were too sterile, but this one is down and dirty which it must be if you’re telling a tale about mafia clans and retribution. Of course, the usual studio polish is applied in terms of direction, camera work and performances, but these aspects of the film do not draw extra attention to themselves. Instead the focus is on providing the audience with a gritty slice of life in Little Italy.
Perhaps the film’s strongest asset is Gene Kelly, totally cast against type. He’s playing a young Italian man who returns to New York City from Europe to avenge his father’s murder. Fresh off the boat, he runs into a girl from the old neighborhood (Teresa Celli) who agrees to help him.
Her relatives, except for a kid brother in her care, were all killed in an explosion that was set off by a killer connected to the mob. They have much in common in terms of what they’ve both lost, plus there are romantic feelings developing between them.
Added into the mix are a few important supporting characters. One of them is Marc Lawrence as a leader of organized crime that the cops have not been able to nail yet. He hangs around like a bad smell, upsetting the efforts of Kelly and Celli to create a citizens’ league that will root out local corruption.
We also have Barry Kelley’s turn as a decent police captain, as well as one of his underlings, a detective played by J. Carrol Naish. Mr. Naish shines in his role as a fellow Italian on the right side of the law, intent on bringing the big goons to justice and cleaning up the streets. His character is supposedly based on Joseph Petrosino, a real-life NYPD investigator who went up against the mob in the early 1900s and was murdered when he sought to deport several powerful kingpins.
In our story, Kelly goes to work for Naish, while studying to be a lawyer. Together they seek to end the extortion rackets that are occurring in Little Italy. Anyone in the neighborhood who opposes the mafia and refuses to pay protection money faces great danger.
Letters are received by the store owners that demand payment or else terrible things will happen. Things like the kidnapping of innocent children; homes being burned to the ground; as well as hits carried out that result in sudden death. The messages are signed with a mano nera– a black hand. Hence the film’s title.
There are several suspenseful sequences. The first one involves Naish’s murder, when he travels to Palermo, Italy to obtain criminal records on a few bosses that he wants to deport. There is a cat-and-mouse chase, filmed on MGM’s backlot, which leads to Naish’s character being slain.
The second notable sequence occurs late in the picture and concerns the abduction of Celli’s brother. Kelly goes undercover, with only his knife to fend off possible harm. He is temporarily outsmarted by some hoods and is held hostage himself. He manages to ensure the safe release of the boy, before he sets off a bomb that sends a bunch of criminals to hell.
Supposedly Kelly’s role was intended for Robert Taylor who was too busy making westerns at this time. Though he’d played a serious dramatic part on loan to Universal in the thriller CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY (1944), it wasn’t until he appeared in BLACK HAND (1950) that Gene Kelly had his first non-musical role at MGM. His dialogue in Italian is convincingly spoken. And he does such a fine job here alongside Naish and Celli, one wishes he’d been given more of these types of assignments.
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Post by Fading Fast on Mar 26, 2024 15:49:43 GMT
The Black Hand from 1950 with Gene Kelly and J. Carrol Naish
The Black Hand, while a bit obvious in its storytelling and plotting, is still an engaging 1950 period movie set in the early 1900s in Manhattan's lower east side Italian immigrant community.
Of interest to students of film will be some of the movie's scenes that so foreshadow scenes in The Godfather Part II, one is forced to believe director Francis Ford Coppula saw this movie before making his famous Mafia sequel.
Gene Kelly, in The Black Hand, in a non-dancing dramatic role, plays a young man whose father, when Kelly was a boy, was killed by The Black Hand (think the Mafia) when his father went to the police to report on The Black Hand's extortion of the Italian community.
Kelly, who after his father's death was sent back to Italy, has now returned to the US and wants to find and kill his father's murderer and destroy The Black Hand.
After reuniting and beginning a romance with a childhood friend, a now young widowed single mother, Kelly is encouraged by her and an honest police detective, played by J. Carrol Naish, to forgo the vendetta justice he had planned to, instead, focus on becoming a lawyer.
The long-term strategy is for him to study, pass the bar and, then, work with the police and prosecutors to legally expose and bring down The Black Hand.
Most of the movie is Kelly pinging back and forth between passionately trying to avenge his father's death vigilante style now and doing the long, hard work of becoming a lawyer to fight The Black Hand legally in the future.
Along the way, as noted and a part of the movie that will be incredibly enjoyable for film historians, there are several scenes that foreshadow The Godfather Part II.
When Kelly moves through the street hussle and bussle of the Italian immigrant community, stalks his prey in the dark and narrow hallways of the tenement buildings or escapes across their ramshackled rooftops, it's as if you're seeing the black-and-white screen test of a young Robert De Niro for The Godfather Part II.
The Black Hand does a good job showing how the Mafia used pressure, fear and murder to extort money from the Italian immigrants, while the police, often already corrupted, looked the other way. It's a simplistic, but not inaccurate portrayal of the period.
The plot, also, can feel a bit too simplistic as we see a few good cops, detectives and immigrants who are selflessly willing to risk their lives ban together to fight for justice.
There is, though, a good twist about a detective, the J. Carrol Naish character, going over to Italy to gather evidence on The Black Hand that, literally, takes the fight back to "The Old Country."
Kelly is excellent as the young man torn between the instant gratification of taking justice into his own hands and doing the hard work of fighting The Black Hand from within the slower moving justice system.
Many of the characters we'd come to know in mob movies, including the smooth and likable mob boss who only uses violence as a last resort because it's bad for business and the psychotic thugs who work for him, are represented.
The scared honest citizens who "pay up" because they "don't want trouble," the cops on the take and the few honest cops and forthright citizens willing to risk their lives to change things are also here in early versions of what would become stock characters of the mobster-movie genre.
The Black Hand is a bit too studio-system formulaic to be a great movie, but it is interesting to see a version of the Mafia-comes-to-America story in an early incarnation.
You'll also want to see it for Kelly and Naish's engaging performances and the, as noted, foreshadowing scenes of the The Godfather Part II, which feels like cinematic archaeology. |
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Post by kims on Mar 26, 2024 21:16:25 GMT
Odd that the filmmakers made the Black Hand about an Italian. The Black Hand was the terrorist group in Serbia that greatly contributed to the start of WWI.
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Post by Fading Fast on Mar 26, 2024 21:28:47 GMT
Odd that the filmmakers made the Black Hand about an Italian. The Black Hand was the terrorist group in Serbia that greatly contributed to the start of WWI. |
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Post by topbilled on Apr 4, 2024 13:57:34 GMT
This neglected film is from 1956.
Corporate melodrama about a society of power
“I am a creature of power. I pursue it totally, and I obey it totally. You pursue it partially, and so you fail.” Says Burl Ives’ corporate titan to his underling Robert Taylor, whom he’s been grooming for the top spot upon his retirement…but now, he is going to demand a resignation, since he feels Taylor has besmirched the name of Amalgamated World Metals. The film is full of standoffs and surprising reversals not too different from MGM’s previous corporate melodrama EXECUTIVE SUITE.
The film moves slowly, methodically, towards an inevitable showdown between Ives and Taylor. We find out in the beginning that Ives has long taken pride in nurturing Taylor along in business, but when he sends Taylor to London to finalize a deal with another metals company owned by Cedric Hardwicke, he is disappointed that Taylor is not as ruthless as he expects him to be. In fact, Taylor softens considerably when he’s in London, falling in love with a European refugee (Swiss actress Elisabeth Mueller making her Hollywood debut).
Not only is Ives irate about the bungled merger, he’s also upset that Taylor won’t be able to marry another woman whom Ives handpicked for him. Yes, Ives’ character has a god complex in the worst way. Any other method actor would have had trouble reigning in the scenery chewing, but Ives to his credit, manages to be both larger than life and adversarial, as well as subdued when necessary.
Helping to balance out the scenes between Taylor & Ives are several notable supporting players. We have Hardwicke, of course, who provides some integrity in the negotiations…as well as some key domestic moments with Mary Astor as Ives’ wife.
Also, Charles Coburn is on hand as a board member with sway. We’re never told much about the background of Coburn’s character, how he made his money, what his exact connection is with Ives. But he is an important presence. He spends much of the film looking on, until he must take decisive action for the good of the company.
The film’s director, Henry Koster, does a good job eliciting strong performances from the entire cast, including Taylor who is better than usual. In some ways, the cast has its work cut out for itself, since the studio decided to photograph this one in CinemaScope, which means there is a lack of intimacy, as the emphasis is on spatial compositions stretched across a wide screen. There is a lack of much-needed close-ups which would have made the story resonate more, especially the scenes where Taylor and Muller first meet and fall in love.
Interestingly, there is plenty of political discussion woven into the story. Mainly because Mueller’s character is a foreigner during the cold war, and in xenophobic U.S.A., she is automatically suspected of being a communist.
Taylor is afraid to have Mueller investigated, so that task falls to Coburn. But Taylor must be willing to confront the truth, whatever it may be, if he is to hold on to any power of his own. Of course, we know Mueller is innocent, and her reputation is being trashed by Taylor’s business enemies. A good deal of the plot has been set up to lead us into a boardroom meeting where Taylor will ultimately triumph in matters of industry and in matters of the heart.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 17, 2024 13:34:48 GMT
This neglected film is from 1931.
Unusual courtship will probably result in unusual marriage
Leading lady Irene Purcell who brought her role from the hit Broadway play to this MGM screen version was signed by the studio based on the strength of her stage performances. She would only make two more pictures at Metro, then freelance briefly at other studios the following year. So, with only a two year tenure in Hollywood resulting in just six motion pictures, she has the leanest of filmographies for a studio star. But she made an indelible mark regardless, before returning to Broadway.
For all intents and purposes this is not a vehicle for newcomer Purcell, though; it’s a project for Metro’s leading man William Haines, the only member of the cast to have his name above the title in large lettering. Haines’ flamboyant personality suits this story of an irresponsible youth with a devil-may-care attitude, shunning convention at every turn. When his uncle (C. Aubrey Smith) decides something must be done about the nephew’s reckless behavior, our main plot kicks into gear.
The two men wage a bet that if Haines is not able to prove that the gal (Purcell) Smith has chosen to be Haines’ wife isn’t immoral like many women seem to be, then Haines will give up his gigolo antics and settle down to marriage. Smith has help from the girl’s aunt (Charlotte Granville, recreating her stage role) who would also like to push Haines & Purcell together.
At first, there is a lot of silliness with Haines leading Purcell on, and Purcell rejecting him, which is new territory for Haines with women. Then things turn predictably serious when Haines realizes he’s falling in love with Purcell and almost wouldn’t mind losing the bet to uncle and ending up married to Purcell after all. But when it seems there will be a happily ever after, Purcell learns the truth about Haines who has been impersonating a dance teacher (code for gigolo) and that he’s really a titled British lord.
The last sequence has Purcell deciding to turn the proverbial tables and teach Haines a lesson, by letting him think she’s a loose woman, so that his ideal of the perfect woman is shattered. Of course, he finds out it’s all just a gag, and she’s leading him on as he had led her on earlier. They do finally settle down at the end, but we know theirs won’t be a conventional marriage.
While the two stars do not radiate a ton of sexual chemistry, they perform opposite each other with great panache and we root for them as a couple. Helped by pros like Smith and Granville, the whole thing ends up a merry affair, one of the more delightful precode romps that come to mind.
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 17, 2024 13:49:46 GMT
Just a Gigolo from 1931 with William Haines, Irene Purcell and C. Aubrey Smith
Even in 1930, "testing" a woman's "virtue" before marriage had to feel a bit contrived as the 1920s was hardly a chaste decade. Yet if you simply run with Just a Gigolo, it's a fun precode elevated by Irene Purcell's spirited performance and uber cuteness.
The plot has a playboy lord, played by William Haines, being forced into an arranged marriage by his English uncle, played by C. Aubrey Smith. But Haines strikes a bargain with his uncle to first test the virtue of his potential bride, played by Irene Purcell.
Since the two "kids" have never met, Haines is going to masquerade as a gigolo - a hired male dance partner, sometimes with "benefits -" to compromise Purcell's chastity. He has thirty days to, umm, "succeed." If he does, he's free; otherwise, he'll marry her.
Much of the movie is Haines trying like the dickens to bed Purcell as she, unaware of the "test," just uses Haines as a dance partner and escort. The "tension" comes as the clock ticks down and Haines still can't get Purcell to, well, dance between the sheets.
It's no surprise that Haines and Purcell are falling in love, but she thinks he's a gigolo and he still thinks she "loose." There are, naturally, a few angry moments as the truth eventually starts to spill out, along with a few extra plot twists.
Unless you're new to these types of precode sexcapade movies, you'll guess the rushed climax, pretty early on, but the fun is the silliness along the way. And the fun is Purcell.
For whatever reason, Purcell's Hollywood career was brief, but here she shows she had everything a leading lady needs: looks, acting talent and that something special stars have. She easily could have been another Myrna Loy or Carole Lombard.
Haines is good, too, as he was a very popular star at the time. But he feels dated to the era in a way that Purcell does not. Purcell has so much modern female spirit that had she been born at the right moment, she'd have made a heck of a Rachel on Friends.
The other fun actor in this one is C. Aubrey Smith, Hollywood's first choice throughout the 1930s whenever it needed a stuffy upper-class older British gentleman who somehow comes across as sincere and kind despite all his pretentious airs.
Nobody, then or now, is dumb enough to really believe this picture’s plot is real, but these Depression Era "foibles of the rich and stupid" sex romps were popular movies at the time.
They allowed a struggling public to escape for an hour or two to a world of black ties, evening gowns, chauffeur-driven cars, penthouses, airplanes and the silly problems of rich people.
Today, old movies like Just a Gigolo are fun time capsules more of Hollywood movies than of any real world. Yet being a precode, at least casual sex wasn't a crime stripped from the screen as would happen after 1934 when the Production Code was enforced.
At just over an hour, the movie is still escapism for us today, but with the added benefit of seeing stars like Purcells and Smith who were fortunately captured on film and not lost forever as so many theater actors of that era were. |
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Post by topbilled on Apr 17, 2024 14:15:12 GMT
What a great remark:
it's a fun precode elevated by Irene Purcell's spirited performance and uber cuteness.
I suspect that what happened with her is the studio found her redundant. Her style was similar to Myrna Loy, whom they signed a short time later...AND any sort of sex farces the writers came up with, would have gone to Marion Davies who got first choice of comedy scripts during those years (the more dramatic stuff was given to Garbo, Shearer & Crawford).
Watching her in this film Purcell kept reminding me of someone, and I realized that she seemed to resemble Ruth Chatterton.
The next MGM picture she did, called THE MAN IN POSSESSION, was remade as PERSONAL PROPERTY with Jean Harlow. So I think that while Loy might have been stylistically Purcell's equivalent, it was Harlow who would best embody the spiritedness you refer to, as the studio commodified this type of screen persona going forward.
Purcell did a supporting role in an Ann Harding picture at RKO called WESTWARD PASSAGE in 1932. Then there were two other pictures at other studios, before she went back east. She continued to headline Broadway productions through the 1930s. But she was financially very well off, and while she still did touring stage productions, it seems like she wasn't interested in stardom like so many actresses her generation. So her life went in a different direction.
It really is a shame that she didn't continue to do minor roles like Mae Clarke did, or that she didn't try roles on television later. She was a fine, very skilled actress, especially in these types of comedies. Perhaps if she had been contracted by Paramount, instead of MGM, she would have come to the attention of someone like Ernst Lubitsch and would have been more popular.
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