Category: Nominees – 1930s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five Star Final – 1932

This was a movie that was well-made and interesting to watch.  It had some great emotional content, an interesting and unique story, and some pretty good acting from most of the cast.  However, there was a definite flaw in the movie.  This was 1932, and some, though not all, of the actors were still using those over-exaggerated facial expressions that had been necessary before the talkies.  A few of the actors behaved like clowns while the rest of the cast behaved normally.

The movie’s big name star was Edward G. Robinson.  He was great as newspaper editor, Joseph Randall.  He had been in the business for a long time and wanted to earn enough money on which to retire.  He gets a chance for a big score when his boss, newspaper publisher, Bernard Hinchecliffe, played by Oscar Apfel, tells him to dig up a story that had been laid to rest twenty years earlier, that of a secretary who had murdered her boss who had gotten her pregnant, and then refused to marry her.  Though he is uncomfortable with the moral implications of his boss’s demand, he cannot resist the money involved.

The secretary’s name is Nancy Voorhees, played by Frances Starr.  She has since remarried to a man named Michael Townsend, played by H. B. Warner.  Nancy’s daughter, Jenny, played by Marian Marsh, is now grown and is engaged to Phillip Weeks, played by Anthony Bushell, the son of a high-class family.  To dig up the dirt on Nancy, Randall sends out a few of his sleazy reporters, one of whom is Vernon Isopod, played by Boris Karloff.

And there’s the set-up.  What follows is a film that is played out like a social commentary on the evils of tabloid journalism.  The underhanded and unscrupulous lengths to which Randall and his reporters go to get their story is shown in a very negative light.  They mercilessly invade the family’s privacy through lies, intimidation, and manipulation.  They carelessly destroy the family, even to the point where Nancy and her husband commit suicide from the shame of the scandal.

The final scene in the movie was the best scene in the film.  Jenny, distraught and hysterical over the deaths of her parents takes a gun to Mr. Randall’s office at the newspaper, intending to murder Randall and Henchecliffe for ruining her life.  She screams at them, asking them over and over why they murdered her mother.  Henchecliffe feels no remorse and wants the unfortunate girl to go away.  Randall feels so much guilt that he admits to the murder.  It was a surprisingly powerful scene that was a fitting climax to the film.

The stand-out members of the cast were, Robinson, of course, but also Frances Starr and Marian Marsh.  Starr had a difficult role to play.  She was caught between remorse, regret, fear, and hopelessness, and she really did a great job in her portrayal.  She wasn’t over-the-top or one-note.  Marsh really did a fantastic job, especially in that climactic scene.  Again, she was deeply emotional without giving us too much.  Well done, ladies!

Another lady who did a good job was Randall’s secretary, Miss Taylor, played by Aline MacMahon.  She played the stereotypical sarcastic lady.  She was like Randall’s conscience, making the cute wisecracks at all the right moments, and telling him that it was wrong for him to destroy the Townsend family just to sell more newspapers.  MacMahon played her part well.

But as I mentioned earlier, I have to shake my head at the buffoonish, silent-era performances by some of the actors, two in particular.  First was Harold Waldridge, playing the part of Arthur Goldberg, a company gopher who wants to be a reporter, and second was George E. Stone, playing the part of Ziggy Feinstein, the paper’s contest columnist.  Everything was so overdone it was almost nauseating.  True, they were not the only two, but they were the worst offenders.

One of the things that the film’s advertisements points out is that this is a pre-code era movie, meaning that it was made before the Hayes code was put into effect.  It didn’t show any nudity, but it did make several bawdy references to making love, something that the Hayes code discouraged.  And you have to really listen to some of the fast-pace dialogue to hear all the quick one-liners.  And it would also help to be aware of some of the lingo that was unique to the late 20s and early 30s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bad Girl – 1931 / 1932

OK, this movie was like a mild form of torture.  At first I was upset because I didn’t particularly like the two main characters.  Then, when I began to see the good people underneath the hard and cynical exteriors, their inability to communicate with each other drove me insane and I found myself ready to scream at them!  And even now, as I write this review, I am still having difficulty deciding if this is poor writing or incredibly effective writing.  The story drew me in and before I knew what had happened I was really hoping to see the couple resolve their problems.

The film starts out with Sally Eilers playing the part of Dorothy Haley, a cynical woman who thinks that all men are players that are just trying to get fresh with a girl.  She goes to Coney Island with her best friend Edna, played by Minna Gombell.  While there she meets Eddie Collins, played by James Dunn, a man who thinks that all women are dizzy dames that want to control a man’s life

Dorothy is immediately impressed that Eddie seems to have no interest in flirting with any girl.  My problem with this whole set-up is that he is so disinterested that I don’t understand why she would want anything to do with him.  But no, she is attracted to him and they spend the rest of the evening talking.  They somehow hit it off, despite the fact that they are on the verge of arguing half the time.

But then, through a quick series of events, the two socially inept people agree to marry the day after their second date.  WHAT?!?  But not to worry.  As it turns out, they are very happily wed and Eddie goes out of his way to give her everything she could want.  In fact, he gives up his dreams of owning his own business and spends every last dollar of his life savings to give her a nice big home with beautiful new furniture because he thinks it is what she wants.

The problem is that he never discusses anything with her because he is so socially stunted and bashful about how much he loves her.  He surprises her with the new home.  If he only would have talked with her, he would have learned that she was pregnant and willing to live in a smaller home so that he could use his money to start his business.  So much hardship and angst could have been avoided in their story if only they knew how to talk to each other.

As an outside observer to their tale, I was about to start hitting my head against the wall every time they made their situation worse through their lack of communication.  But then I finally figured it out.  That was the point of the story.  These two people are so socially insecure that the drama was about their inability to talk to each other.  She was unable to express her true feelings for him out of fear that he would leave her.  He was so embarrassed by his own feelings that he couldn’t even tell her he loved her.

But in the end, right when they are about to split up because each thought that the other didn’t want the baby, they discovered that the opposite was true.  They were desperately in love with each other and they were both crazy about the baby.  Finally, we are left believing that they are going to go on leading emotionally fulfilled and happy lives.  But like many films that were made in the early 30s, the plot’s conflicts are all resolved within the last 90 seconds of the film.  So while I got the relief that I was wanting, I had almost no time to enjoy it before the film ended.

Incidentally, the title of the film, Bad Girl, makes little sense to me.  I don’t see how Dorothy was a bad person, just a bad communicator.  And she was no worse than Eddie.  In fact, the worst bad girl in the film was Dorothy’s friend Edna, and even she wasn’t so bad.  She just liked to verbally spar with Eddie because he couldn’t stand her, thinking she was one of those controlling dames.

I though Dunn was the best part of the film.  Becoming a husband brought out the best in his character.  He was so desperate to make his wife happy that he not only sacrificed his dreams, but did it with a genuine smile.  He loved her so much, he actually went into a professional boxing ring and got beat-up, just to earn forty dollars to get her what she wanted.  In moments like that he was adorable.  If only he was able to tell her how much he loved her.  It would have been nice if the film had ended with Eddie finally saying the words “I love you.”  We all knew he did, but I would have liked to hear him say it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Champ – 1931 / 1932

Wallace Beery is a very good actor, but he isn’t a very good boxer… but we’ll get to that later.  I just had to get that off my chest.  The Champ is a film about a boxer who was once a World Champion of the sport, but has since declined into habitual drinking and gambling.  The trouble is that he has a young son who thinks the world of him, despite being so often disappointed by him.

Beery plays the character of Andy Purcell, or just Champ.  His 8 year-old son Dink is played by child actor Jackie Cooper, who was already a known face in Hollywood as part of the Our Gang Comedies.  The two had a pretty good on-screen chemistry, though in my research, I learned that they didn’t get along so well off-screen.

The role of Champ was written specifically for Beery, and I had no problem at all with his performance, aside from the one I already mentioned.  He played drunk well, which is a more difficult accomplishment than one might think.  It is easy to play sloppy drunk, obnoxious drunk or rambunctious drunk.  But playing a believably alcoholic drunk requires more subtlety and finesse.  Beery played it well.

Now, I also have to say that I have never been terribly fond of child actors.  Too often, child actors act the only they know how to act: cute.  And cute for the sake of cute makes my skin crawl.  But Cooper showed more than just cute.  He actually displayed some real acting chops in his very demanding dramatic role.

There were several places in the film where he was required to cry which, even for adult actors, is not the easiest thing to do.  My research did not uncover any horrible tactics used to draw out his tears, such as telling him that his dog was going to be shot, something that actually happened on the set of Skippy, traumatizing the child.

The plot is a simple one, and yet it is remarkably effective.  The ex-champ, now loser, lives in poverty with his son, but wants to clean himself up for the sake of his child.  But alcohol and gambling are addictions which he cannot overcome.  The boy’s mother wants to take the kid out of the bad environment, but the boy loves his father too much to leave him.  In the end, Andy tries to become a prize-fighter once again in order to provide for Dink.  But after he wins the big match, his injuries are too much for him and he dies.  The boy then has no choice but to live with his mother.

That’s it, in a nutshell.  There are plenty of opportunities for the actors to shine.  Alcoholism is never a light-hearted subject.  Both Beery and Cooper showed some real emotional drama and turned in some pretty believable performances.  Cooper did a remarkably good job with the climactic scene where his father dies.  Even Linda, the mother, played by Irene Rich, did a good job with the small amount of screen time she was given.  I also have to give an honorable mention to Linda’s rich husband Tony, played by Hale Hamilton.

But there were two things about the film I didn’t really care for.  First was one actor in particular.  Roscoe Ates played the part of Sponge, one of Andy’s drinking buddies.  He played his part as an almost comical caricature.  He hiccupped and stuttered his way through his scenes and hammed it up for the cameras.  But he was the only one doing that, so it made him stand out when he was not supposed to.  I have to ask if that was the fault of the actor or the director, King Vidor?

Second was the fact that Beery had no idea how to box.  His wide sweeping punches in the ring would have been weak hits and would leave his entire body open to his opponent’s punches.  It might have even injured his elbows.  They should have gotten a professional boxer to teach him a few boxing basics.

Still, The Champ was a good movie.  The pacing was a little slow, but acceptable, and the drama was very well done.  Kudos to King Vidor for making a film that inspired filmmakers for years to come, even spawning a remake in 1979 starring John Voight, Ricky Schroder and Faye Dunaway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arrowsmith – 1931 / 1932

What can I say?  This was not my favorite Best Picture nominee, so far.  On the surface, this story had the potential to be a good one.  It has several elements that a good drama should have.  It has a bit of romance, a bit of drama, and a tragic ending that is supposed to stick with you after the movie is over.  But the way it was handled didn’t really work for me.  Here’s why.

The director, John Ford, made a film that had a pace which seemed strangely rushed and frantic.  It felt choppy and inconsistent.  I had already made this determination on my own, but when I did my research, I discovered that there was a reason for my assessment.  Studio Director Samuel Goldwyn had hired Ford as the director on the condition that he refrained from drinking any alcohol during production.  As a result, Ford sped up the filming as much as he could.

And it shows.  A typical scene would have a character walk onto the screen, say his lines quickly, and the scene would end.  The next scene would begin and the dialogue would be delivered, and the scene would end.  Cut.  Print.  Next scene!  Great!  Cut.  Print.  Next scene!  The odd pacing made me think that more time should have been taken to give the audience a chance to settle into the plot.

Ronald Colman played the lead, Dr. Martin Arrowsmith.  He is a brilliant scientist that has everything he needs to launch a great career as a medical researcher.  He has dreams and aspirations of becoming a giant in the field.  But right before his career is about to take off, he meets the love of his life, Leora, played by Helen Hayes.  His career is sidetracked and he becomes a simple country doctor, destined to live in mediocrity.

But so in love with her is he that within minutes of meeting her, he asks her out to dinner.  Cut.  Print.  Next scene!  By the time the first date is over, he has proposed to her.  Cut.  Print.  Next Scene!  They are unceremoniously married by a justice of the peace.  Cut…

Leora should have gotten to know Martin better before tying the knot.  True, she did love him, but he was overly-compulsive about his work, making a habit of ignoring her when he was in work mode.  As a result she became lonely, miserable, and obsessive about spending time with him.  When he gets a job as a true medical research scientist and is sent to the West Indies to combat the bubonic plague, she desperately follows him.  At the behest of his heartless corporate employers, Martin begins conducting medical experiments on human guinea pigs.

While there, he meets a New Yorker who is stranded on the island.  She is Joyce Lanyon, played by Myrna Loy.  They share an attraction, for each other, but he remains faithful to his wife.  Of course, we can see what will happen.  Martin finds his cure, but he is too late to save Leora who has contracted the disease.

I mention all this to illustrate the greatest example of how truncated the movie felt, which occurred in the last few minutes.  Because of his success at curing the plague, a great public reception takes place for Arrowsmith’s homecoming.  However, he decides to become an independent researcher, away from corporate money and his boss’s shady ethical practices and demands.  From out of nowhere, Joyce Lanyon shows up.  She walks on-camera, says she is sorry for his loss, and implies that she wants to see more of him.  He asks if she wouldn’t mind not seeing him for a long time.  She takes this to mean that he is no longer interested, turns around, and exits just as quickly as she entered.  Just like that.  Cut!  Print!  Next scene!

But somehow, despite the hurried pace, the movie had a running time of 1 hour and 38 minutes.  I wonder how long it would have been if the pace had not been so frantic.  I’m sure it could have been handled with more delicacy and subtlety than this.  The pace just made the whole thing feel confusing and emotionless.  Frankly, I don’t think this should have even been nominated for Best Picture.  Though in its favor, it sometimes made interesting use of camera angles and lighting.

Cut!  Print!  Next Scene!  That was the last one?  Thank God!  Somebody get me a drink!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trader Horn – 1930 / 1931

OK, there are so many places to start with this review.  There were a number of aspects to this film that are worth mentioning.  There are some juicy stories surrounding the film’s production.  There is the surprising caliber of the acting, the production quality, the special effects, and the promotional short that accompanied the film.  So much to cover!

Well, Trader Horn is about the adventures of Alfred Aloysius “Trader” Horn.  A trader in the deep, dark jungles of Africa, Horn travels with his trusty native gun-bearer, Rencharo, played by Mutia Omoolu.  A handsome young thrill-seeker named Peru accompanies them, played by Duncan Renaldo.

Along the way, they encounter a fearless missionary woman named Edith Trent, played by Olive Golden.  She is searching for her long lost daughter.  After Trent’s death, Horn and his companions find her.  Having been raised by a tribe of African cannibals, Nina Trent, played by Edwina Booth, is now known as the White Goddess.  She saves the white men and Rencharo from a horrible fate, and they help her escape back to the civilized world to which she has never been.  Of course, love blooms between young Peru and Nina.

The plot was pretty standard and predictable, but what I found surprising was the quality of the acting.  This movie was made in 1931.  The silent era was not quite a thing of the past and the film industry, as a whole, was still trying to figure out how to make sound films.    The actors still showed signs of the over-exaggerated facial expressions and body language that were necessary in silent films, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.  Booth was the worst offender, but really wasn’t bad at all.

The use of native African extras was both appropriate and surprising.  The topless African women were featured unapologetically.  Also, the animals of the African wilderness were a prominent part of the footage.  In fact, Trader Horn has the distinction of being the first movie filmed on location in Africa that was not a documentary.  There was a lot of realism about the dangers of the African wildlife.

And that brings me to the most jaw dropping parts of the film.  Apparently, safety was not the main concern on the set of Trader Horn.  Sure, there were plenty of rear projection shots in which the actors played out their scenes in front of a movie screen that had the background images projected onto the screen from the other side.  But some of the stunts and animal dangers were real.  I mean really real!

Here is a great quote from Wikipedia.  “Many accidents occurred during filming in Africa. Many of the crew, including the director, contracted malaria.  An African crewman fell into a river and was eaten by a crocodile. Another was killed by a charging rhino, which was captured on film and used in the movie. Swarms of insects, including locusts and tsetse fly were common.”

Edwina Booth also contracted some kind of infection, probably malaria, and had health problems which forced her to end her career as an actress.  She sued MGM and settled out of court.  Also, the scene where lead actor, Harry Carey, swings across a river and a croc takes a snap at his leg?  Real.  Seriously!  And using the actual death by rhino in the final cut of the film?!?  Good God!!

And then there was the short promotional film that was included on the DVD, which was nearly enough to make me hurl.  They did a quick 10 or 15 minute version of the movie acted out by trained circus dogs with costumes and wigs.  There were also grown adults in animal costumes doing silly things to add to the hokey dog comedy.  After it was over, I felt ashamed for having watched the whole thing.

Still, the main feature was an alright film that had both an interesting plot, at least for the early 30s, and a pretty good cast.  But there was no way it was worth the cost in lives that were lost to make it happen, Best Picture nomination or not!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skippy – 1930 / 1931

OK, where do I start with this one?  This was a terrible movie that should never have been nominated for the Best Picture category.  It was nothing more than a glorified episode of Our Gang that was dragged out to an hour and a half.  It was stuffed full of annoying characters, bad acting, and an infantile plot.  All this because it broke the cardinal rule of movie-making:  Cute for the sake of cute is never cute.  Never.

Let me set this up for you.  Skippy is the character in a comic strip that was popular in the 1920s, 30s and 40s.  I found it interesting to note that the Skippy comic strip was responsible for several merchandising campaigns, the most notable of which is Skippy peanut butter.  They should have stuck with the peanut butter, and left Hollywood alone.

Jackie Cooper played the title role and it was almost embarrassing to watch.  Cooper was dressed in a costume that was specific to the comic strip, but which looked ridiculous on a live boy.  It consisted of a white shirt with a very tall collar, a polka-dot bow that resembled an ascot, a pair of shamefully short shorts and a coat that hung down to his thighs.  The coat covered the shorts and gave the appearance that Skippy was wearing a little girl’s dress.  Top it all off with a silly hat that looked like it belonged on an Italian organ grinder.

So, putting the lead actor’s farcical appearance aside, let’s look at a few more fatal flaws in this movie.  Child actors that could not act were used to drive the plot.  Cooper did alright with the script he was given, but there wasn’t a single other child who was not annoying enough to make me nauseous.

There was Skippy’s best friend Sooky, played by Robert Coogan, who said all his lines ridiculously slowly.  He opened his mouth far too wide to over-enunciate and had an inflection that made him sound like he was reading his lines from a telephone book.  There was the super annoying neighborhood girl, Eloise, played by Mitzi Green, who played the part of the village idiot.  Every time she appeared on screen, she shouted a trademark, “Yodle-odle-odle-odle” to announce her presence.  Eloise’s brother was the snooty know-it-all Sidney, played by Jackie Searl.  I just wanted to slap the director, Norman Taurog for subjecting the public to this kind of annoying child behavior.  And you could say, well, they are just kids behaving like kids, but you’d be wrong!  This was a display of kids behaving like an adult’s stereotyped version of children.

And the adults were all stereotypes and caricatures as well.  They had no depth, no personalities, and nothing to make them interesting in any way.  The plot revolved around Skippy and his friend Sooky as they tried to raise the $3 to buy a license for Sooky’s dog.  But in the end, they failed.  The dog was caught by the dog pound and put down.  Great!  Now we have bad child actors balling and crying!  As if the movie wasn’t already annoying enough!

There was a sub-plot of Skippy’s father, played by Willard Robinson, who was a city health inspector.  He wanted to close down the dirty shantytown where Sooky and his mother lived.  But in the end, when he sees his son in tears over the death of the dog, his hard heart softens.   He not only keeps the shantytown open, he buys Skippy a new bicycle.  Never-mind that the ungrateful Skippy thoughtlessly trades the new bicycle for Eloise’s dog to replace Sooky’s dead one.

As I mentioned earlier, the film was nothing more than a glorified episode of Our Gang or the Little Rascals.  I’m sorry, but those shorts were never funny, never cute, never endearing, at least not for someone with my modern sensibilities.  The problem I always had with them was that they had children acting like grown-ups.  It puts me in mind of the modern idea that sexy children are just disturbing.  Skippy wasn’t trying to be sexy, but you get the parallel.

Jackie Cooper was nominated for the Best Actor Award for his performance, making him, at 9 years old, the youngest person ever to be nominated for the award.  I liked him so much better in The Champ.  I honestly see no reason why this movie should have ever been nominated for Best Picture.

The Front Page – 1930 / 1931

This was a pretty funny movie, and like many movies of its time, it was a boundary-pusher.  It was innovative in it use of camera work and had a quick and exciting pace.  It was a film that inspired the movie His Girl Friday starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, and a remake that re-used the title, The Front Page, in 1974 starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.  A fourth version was made in 1988 called Switching Channels, starring Burt Reynolds, Kathleen Turner and Christopher Reeve.  The movie itself was based on a Broadway play using the same name.

Those little facts alone are enough to tell me that the script is probably going to be a good one.  This 1931 version starred Adolphe Menjou and Pat O’Brian.  It is a screwball comedy that centers on O’Brian’s character, Hildy Johnson, as he attempts to leave his job as a newspaper reporter to get married to Peggy Grant, played by Mary Brian.  The trouble is that he is the best at what he does.  His boss, Walter Burns, played by Menjou refuses to let him go.  Burns is an unscrupulous man who will resort to blackmail, manipulation, trickery, and any other means at his disposal to keep Hildy in his employ.

The press room is in a building directly across from the jail house where a man on death row is to be hanged the next morning.  Sheriff Peter Hartman, played by Clarence Wilson, is a moron who allows the convict to escape with his own gun.  Of course, this is the biggest news story of the century and the troupe of news men in the press room go bananas.  Needless to say, comedic hijinks ensues.

There was a lot that was happening and if I had any complaint, it would be that it was too fast.  Specifically, the dialogue was often delivered so fast that I couldn’t understand what was being said.  I’m sure I may have missed a joke or two.  And there were plenty of jokes being told.  Even by today’s standards, some of the jokes were pretty darn funny.  The one that made me laugh out loud was a bit of a sight gag.  The crotchety Sheriff is yelling at Hildy, who is kneeling with his back to him.  The Sheriff says, “I’m going to send the bill to the Post tomorrow for all the wreckings that have been committed around here the last year.  How do you like that?”  Hildy replies, “That’s swell.  You know what else you can do?”  “What?”  Hildy then stands by raising his butt into the Sheriff’s face and says, “Guess!”

At another point, I was surprised when another character flips-off the mayor.  Even the very last line of the film is, “The son of a ***** stole my watch!”  They actually bleeped out his harsh language.  I just wasn’t expecting such a word in a film from 1931.

A few of the supporting actors are worth mentioning in particular, though their roles could easily be overlooked.  Frank McHugh played the part of “Mac” McCue, one of the reporters in the press room.  He was cute and funny and he stood out to me as a good comedic actor.  Peggy’s aged mother, Mrs. Grant, played by Effie Ellsler, was also very funny in a “Well, I Never!” kind of way.  I smile just thinking about her character.  In fact, the writing was so good that each of the seven or eight newspaper men in the press room had a distinct personality.  Each had a funny little comedic quirk that made them all memorable.  Wonderful writing!

And finally, I have to mention the innovative use of the camera.  Director, Lewis Milestone, was able to create an effect that we see in modern movies all the time.  He had a round table in the center of the press room.  The camera would circle the table so that each of the men seated at the table would be seen at the right time to deliver his lines.  It was very cleverly done.  In another instance, as the news men were laughing at the Sheriff, the camera repeatedly zipped up to the ceiling and then zipped back down to the faces of the laughing men.  Each time it came down, it focused on a different man, finally coming to rest on the face of the Sheriff as he became increasingly incensed.  It was a simple effect, but I haven’t seen anything like it in any other movies from the early 1930s.

This was a fun movie with a fantastic plot and a wonderful and witty script.  I give it two thumbs up!

1930 – 1931 – East Lynne

Well, I was finally able to find a copy of this film, a few years after completing my reviews for Best Picture.  Out of the blue, I found it on YouTube.  Apparently it is a bootleg copy, and it is missing the last 12 minutes.  The only existing original copy of the film is kept in the library at the University of California Los Angeles’s  Instructional Media Lab, Powell Library.  But watching most of the film is better than not watching any of it.

The film starred Ann Harding as Lady Isabella, a beautiful daughter of a penniless Earl.  As the story begins, the Lady is being married to Robert Carlyle, played by Conrad Nagel, a wealthy lawyer who owns a mansion in the country called East Lynne.  At the wedding, we are also introduced to Captain William Levinson, played by Clive Brook, a man with little money who has long been in love with Isabella.  Robert takes his new bride home to East Lynne, but she is received coldly by Roberts sour old-maid of a sister, Cornelia, played by Cecilia Loftus.

After a few years of marital bliss, Lady Isabella has a child.  But when it becomes apparent that she has become nothing more than a trophy wife for Robert, she allows herself to be kissed by the handsome Captain Levinson.  Cornelia uses the infidelity to turn Robert against her and he divorces her, swearing that she will never see her son again. In utter despair, she ends up running away with the Captain.  But when the captain gets caught accepting bribes at his job at the foreign embassy, he is fired, and exiled to Paris.  Thus it was that the couple are stuck in France during the Prussian invasion.  When the city is bombed, Captain Levinson is killed, and Isabella is injured so that she will eventually become blind.  Still she refuses to accept blindness until she can see her son one last time.

I liked the movie well enough, but I think I would have liked it more if it wasn’t so short.  It just felt like there was a lot more story there that was just left out.  And when I did a little reading about the source material, I discovered that I was right.  A lot was taken out of the original book, and some major plot points were put in.  I other words, the basic plot elements were there, but the farther into the film we went, the less it resembled the original book.

The biggest change the script made was the addition of the Prussian War, which, as far as I’ve read, was not in the source material.  It was a complete invention.  In the book, Levinson doesn’t die.  He fathers a child with her and then deserts her.  And Isabella didn’t lose her sight in a bombing.  It was a train wreck which, incidentally, killed Captain Levinson’s illegitimate child.  The film ends with Isabella sneaking back into East Lynne to see her son who is dying of TB.  The bootleg version I watched ended with her looking over the child’s cradle bed.  Ah, reunited at last.  But then the movie stopped, and I’m left wondering what else happened in the last 12 minutes.

But it was a popular novel, to be sure, first published in 1861.  This was actually the seventh film version of the novel, the first six being silent films in 1912, 1913, 1916, 1921, 1922, and 1925.  And then it was done again as a 1976 film, and yet again as a 1982 British TV movie. 

I have to look at the four main characters to judge the caliber of the acting.  Harding did a fine job, as it was really her story.  My next favorite was Brook.  I think he was nearly equal in talent with Harding.  After that was Conrad Nagel, but unfortunately, it was a shame how much his part was reduced from what it was in the novel.  He just had so little screen time.  And lastly was Loftus.  I sensed a lack of energy in her performance that didn’t necessarily satisfy the character of Cornelia.

The music was good, but ultimately unmemorable. The costumes were also pretty good, and I noticed that they did something that is actually very trivial, but I’m going to guess that it was intentional.  People without money in the 1860s probably didn’t have much in the way of clothes, and so they didn’t have Isabella in a new fantastic gown in every scene.  There was a dress or two that she wore in several scenes, which totally made sense for the character.  I know… trivial, but I noticed.

All in all, it was a pretty average movie.  Nothing wrong with it at all, but nothing that stood out to me as above average.  It’s too bad, because with all the original material that was cut from the finished script, it probably could have been a lot better.  I mean, the film was 1½ hours long.   When you add back in the missing 12 minutes, it is nearly 1¾ hours long.  Plenty of time to keep some of the juicier elements from the book in, not to mention the back-stories for the lead characters.

And finally, I have to mention that there were several parts of the film that reminded me very strongly of the 1940 Best Picture winner, Rebecca.  I wonder if Hitchcock drew any inspiration from this earlier film.

The Love Parade – 1929 / 1930

The Love Parade starred Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald as the romantic leads.  It is a musical in which Count Alfred Renard and Queen Louise of Sylvania marry, each for their own reasons.  The count is a notorious womanizer and is recalled from his post in Paris, France after a string of scandalous affairs which included the Ambassador’s wife.  He returns to Sylvania and is brought into the presence of the Queen.  She is under pressure from her subjects to find a husband.

You can guess what happens next.  Or can you?  This film touched on a few themes that I was not expecting, such as the role of women in positions of power and how it can effectively emasculate the men who are with them.  It also displayed the general attitude toward women in the 1920s.  For example, it was believed that a woman, especially a woman of good breeding, was not a true woman unless she had a husband.  That was the life fulfilling goal of many women.

But the character of Queen Louise purported to have no need of any man.  She dreamt of romance or a lover, but had no desire to be ruled by a husband.  She wanted to be in complete control.  And when she gets what she wants, she treats him like nothing more than an obedient subject.

I suppose it might have been a bit of gender reversal.  I suspect that many trophy wives feel the same way as Count Alfred must have felt: like a possession instead of a spouse.  It devalues a person and wounds their self-esteem.  Part of being a happy person is the basic human need to feel useful and productive.  But this was taken away from the Count.

And, of course, this was a musical, so there was plenty of singing.  Chevalier, as always, is slick and charming, but I am beginning to see a disturbing trend with him.  I recalled another performance of his from 1958, 28 years later, in Gigi.  In that film he played a creepy pedophile who was supposed to just be a charming playboy in his 60s.  Here he plays a womanizer who is supposed to be a charming playboy.  I see a pattern.  But that being said, I have to admit… he is quite charming.  He has a very disarming smile that naturally makes you feel at ease.

There was also another minor character in the film that I really enjoyed watching.  It was the Count’s personal valet, Jaques, played by Lupino Laine.  He was cute and funny, intended to be the slapstick comedy portion of the film.  He and one of the palace maids, Lulu, played by Lillian Roth, get to do the only real dancing in the movie.  And it was their comedic dancing in the number Let’s Be Common, which showed off Laine’s somewhat acrobatic talents.

There was even a very humorous moment in the song Paris, Stay the Same, in which several dogs in the city began barking out the melody of the song.  This tells me that the film, fortunately, didn’t take itself too seriously.  It knew that it was a comedic musical and didn’t try to be too much else.

But in the end, I was left with a definite and defining message.  When the Count, tired of being treated like a simple subject and ignored when he tries to exercise any political power as the husband of the Queen, leaves Louise, she realizes that she loves him too much to let him go.  She basically hands him her kingdom, giving him complete political power and making him King instead of just the Prince Consort.  And in doing so, she finds true happiness, reinforcing the notion that in order for a woman to be truly fulfilled, she needs a man to be in a position of power and control over her.

Obviously, it is a very outdated ideal.  Apparently, these people never heard of the concept of compromise.

The Divorcee – 1930

This movie surprised me a little and there are a few things that you need to know to explain why.  First it is important that this film was pre-code, meaning that it was made before the Hayes Code was created.  It dealt with marital infidelity in a much more casually indulgent manner than it would have been allowed to under the code.  Also, some of the drama was a little more intense than I was expecting.  In fact, the lead actress, Norma Shearer, got a chance to play a pretty dramatic role and had the opportunity to prove that she was a better actress than most, earning herself the Academy Award for Best Actress that year.

The year was 1930, so the film had to have been developed and made in 1929.  Some of the antiquated language seemed a bit of a giveaway, but only a little.  The clothes, especially the female fashions, were also very indicative of the 20s.  For example, the women all wore their skullcap-type hats that were very popular at the time.  Their dresses seemed to be in a transitional phase, not quite flapper costumes any more, and yet still not the longer, more glamorous gowns of the 1930s.  Also, the sets showed all those awesome Art Deco interior designs and architecture and that I love so much.  Add to that the music that resembled Dixieland Jazz, and Model A Fords with rumble seats, and you have a pretty good picture of the late 20s.

All of these thing combined to give the audiences of the day what they were apparently looking for: wish fulfillment.  Audiences wanted to go to the movies and see glamorous rich people living fast and exciting lives.  They all needed to be beautiful.  The only black people were servants or porters. It certainly was a different time.

Well, not everything was different.  I could see the story being told in a modern movie.  Shearer played Jerry, a working woman who falls in love with the poor Ted, played by Chester Morris, who we might remember from the 1928/29 nominee Alibi, and the 1929/30 nominee, The Big House.  Here, he played a poor but hard working man who has career ambitions.  The first time we see the couple, they are already making out with each other.  Ted proposes to Jerry and they quickly make the announcement to their friends.  Conrad Nagel played Paul, a man who has long been in love with Jerry.  Learning that she is marrying Ted, Paul gets drunk.  Unfortunately, he also insists on driving himself and several friends home.

Now, I have to mention the ridiculous rear projection of this scene.  I know it was standard practice for driving scenes to put the actors in a stationary car and then show the road twisting and turning behind them.  But this was done horribly here.  In order to make Paul’s drunk driving seem more perilous, they sped up the image of the road behind them.  He looked like he was driving about 90 miles per hour on a road that had more twists and turns than San Francisco’s Lombard Street.  Trees and fences were flying back and forth across the screen in an impossible way.  It didn’t make his driving look dangerous.  It made it look impossible and almost comical.  Anyway, the car crashes and nobody is hurt except for Dorothy, played by Helen Johnson.  She survives, but is left with a scarred face.  I also found it interesting that nobody seemed to be afraid for Dorothy’s injuries.  They only cared that her beautiful face had been disfigured.  How dare you make her ugly!

So Ted marries Jerry and Paul marries Dorothy out of guilt and pity.  But then, after 3 years of marital bliss, Jerry finds out Ted had once gotten drunk and cheated on her.  His response was that it meant nothing.  So to balance the scales, Jerry sleeps with Ted’s best friend Don, played by Robert Montgomery.  But then she feels so guilty, she confesses her infidelity.  Ted’s response becomes very one-sided.  He becomes so upset, he leaves her and files for divorce.  In anger at Teds one-sided reaction, Jerry decides to be as slutty as she can be, though strangely enough, she seems to go out carousing with a lot of men, yet makes a point of turning them down when they try to get her into bed.  When Paul learns that Jerry is single again, he tries to leave Dorothy so that he can run away with her, saying that he never really loved his wife.

I also thought it interesting that, they used cheap ways to imply Dorothy’s scarred face without ever showing it.  There was a brief hospital wedding scene that showed her head all bandaged up.  Then there was the scene where Dorothy begs Jerry not to steal her husband, despite the fact that she knows he doesn’t love her.  She wore a hat with a heavy veil covering her entire face, implying that she was so horribly ashamed of her disfigured face that she could never show it in public.

Well, to make a long story short, after spending a few years apart, Jerry and Ted realize that they still love each other and get back together.  The end.  Of course, as was the trend in movies from that era, the conflict lasted until the last minute or two of the film, then resolved so quickly that it left my head spinning.