Review Roundup: VIRTUE (1932) / SEARCH FOR BEAUTY (1934)

Hello Readers!  It's been way too long since I checked in -- hope everything's going well with you all.  Things are going great for me because every Friday in September, TCM is playing pre-Codes!  All the lurid goodness you can handle for 24 hours.  Paradise for this film fan!

Two that I enjoyed over the weekend (hooray for DVR):

VIRTUE (1932) is a gritty little melodrama about Mae (Carole Lombard), a prostitute ready to walk the straight and narrow instead of the streets, and Jimmy (Pat O'Brien), the taxi driver she begins a new life with -- only to have the old one rear its ugly, two-faced head.

I was going to write a full review, but Danny at Pre-Code.com has done a marvelous job of that already, so go have a look!   Allow me to add that Lombard is on par with Barbara Stanwyck in this -- the entire film feels more like a down-and-dirty WB production rather than Columbia.  Top-notch and I recommend it highly.

SEARCH FOR BEAUTY (1934) is crazy.  The plot of a health-and-fitness magazine trying to run a beauty contest almost doesn't matter; this whole film is sex on screen with a healthy thumbing-of-the-nose at the Hays Code.  It's gotta be the most salacious of the pre-Codes I've seen (and that's saying something)!  Danny at Pre-Code.com again does the honors with his review.  YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS MOVIE.  Also: Toby Wing Speaks!  She gets actual billing!  

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You may wonder why I'm no longer doing my own reviews.  Well, the fact is: there are so many other bloggers that are much, much better at it than I am!  So you'll continue to see poems, actor profiles, and other interesting tidbits on FF+SS, but reviews will be from other film bloggers worth your attention (and boy, are there some wonderful ones)!  I'll still be adding my two cents though. ;)

Review: Two Alone (1934)

Mazie (Jean Parker) lives in a world as bleak and unforgiving as a Grant Wood painting.  An orphan, she was adopted into a life of drudgery and servitude by a harsh farm family, headed by the deplorable Slag (Arthur Byron) and his shrewish wife (Beulah Bondi).  Their daughter, Corie (Nydia Westman, who you'll hear more about soon), doesn't seem to care for Mazie one way or another, only noticing her existence to laugh at her.

Somehow, despite the lack of love and affection, this little weed has grown into a wildflower; Mazie is beautiful, dreamy-eyed, and curious.  Her only friend on the farm is George Marshall (Willard Robertson), an older hired hand, and her heart is broken when he leaves -- though he does promise to come back and save her someday.

One day, Mazie stumbles across Adam (Tom Brown), a troubled young man on the run, and treats him with the first compassion he's ever known.  They recognize something in each other, these two castoffs, and before they know it they've formed a bond -- one they will desperately need to hang on to...

This movie touched me.  It's a soapy programmer, to be sure, and it starts a bit slow and rickety, but the performances are disarming.  Jean Parker imbues Mazie with an innocence that never devolves into dopeyness or gullibilty; both she and Tom Brown have such freshness, such vulnerability, that their love story never seems syrupy or overblown.   Arthur Byron plays one of the coldest, meanest characters in recent memory, and just when you think he might be softening...well, I don't want to give it away.  Charley Grapewin injects a bit of humor into the movie's darker moments with a small but pivotal role, and Zasu Pitts has a cameo as his long-suffering daughter.

Two Alone is a thinly-veiled Cinderella story, but it is also a very real and poignant tale of first love.  IMDb says it is also known as Wild Birds; it's worth seeing under any name.

I give this one:

5-Star Time Capsule: "The Show of Shows"

Once upon a time, sound and dialogue were added to movies, and “silents” fell to the cutting-edge “talkies”.  Studios were suddenly falling all over themselves trying to come up with the best way to feature their players with the new technology – and what better way than to have your most popular stars chatting, singing, and frolicking their pretty selves in a slam-bang celebrity variety show?

(image courtesy http://theinterrobang.com)

MGM drew first blood with The Hollywood Revue of 1929, but Warner Bros. answered right back with The Show of Shows.  Almost their entire star roster was featured in skits, comedy shorts, and musical numbers – lots of glitter and glamour.  The extant print available for viewing today is sadly missing the glorious two-strip Technicolor (aside from the “Chinese Fantasy” number, starring a very young Myrna Loy), but it’s not hard to appreciate the effort Warner Bros. put into making this a shiny and entertaining spectacle.

You can read a full list of all the skits/numbers and their performers here, so I make no apologies for the very subjective gushing about to follow.  Without further ado:

Jennifer's Completely Biased List of Best Parts 

• Lord Almighty and Christ on a cracker, I love Winnie Lightner.  If I had a time machine, I’d totally go back to see her on the stage.  She sings “Ping Pongo” and “Singin’ in the Bathtub” …actually, she doesn’t sing.  She belts.  She shakes the rafters with that voice, loud and glorious in the Sophie Tucker/Fanny Brice vein. 

(photo courtesy Find A Grave)

Lightner was an extremely popular vaudeville star who parlayed her success into some pre-Code films (not enough!).  Plus, she was from Long Island!

• The “Meet My Sister” number is chock-full of pretty, well-costumed cultural stereotypes posed by famous sisters.  Cute, but among the expected suspects (Dolores and Helene Costello, Alice and Marceline Day, Loretta Young and Sally Blane) were two pairs that made me ridiculously happy:

Alberta and Adamae Vaughn 

(photos courtesy Find A Grave and LucyWho.com)

Cute-as-a-button Alberta started as a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty and appeared in some 130 films before leaving the screen in 1935.  She worked with Harry Langdon and Stan Laurel, and was a 1924 WAMPAS Baby Star (the same year as Clara Bow).  

Her sister, Adamae, was a Baby Star herself in 1927.  Her career was much more limited, lasting only nine films, and she died at age 37 from undisclosed causes.  Strangely enough, she was in pictures first; it was only after a casting call needed a brunette that she brought along her sister.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Armida and Lola Vendrell 

(photo courtesy http://www.allstarpics.net)

The beautiful and diminutive Armida Vendrell (she was barely 4'11") started in a vaudeville dancing act with her two sisters, Lola (sometimes billed as Lolita) and Lydia.  Her talent and natural vivacity got her noticed; she started in short subjects, and by age eighteen was handpicked by John Barrymore to be the gypsy dancer in General Crack.  She was in 29 films, mostly dancing or playing typical "Mexican" roles, but never reached the big time.  

Sadly, I can't find any further info about Lola; her IMDb page only lists one Spanish-language film after her appearance in Show of Shows, and an image search only brings up photos of her more-famous sister.  

• John Barrymore doing a scene from Henry VI (Part III).  It’s Jack.  Doing Shakespeare.  Enough said.

(photo courtesy IMDb)

• The crazy, frenetic, brilliant dancers of the “Lady Luck” segment.  I tried looking them up everywhere, and I can’t find names – even IMDb only lists first names with vague “dancer” tags.  I can’t even describe how marvelous they were…oh here, just watch for yourself:

The shimmy dancer and the pseudo-breakdancing and the completely over-the-top parading around of Betty Compson (Mrs James Cruze, remember?) and the chandeliers made of WOMEN!!!   In color, this would’ve been breathtaking; rainbow streamers even rain down at the end.  Sigh!

I taped this off of TCM, so if they ever show it again, run to set your DVR.  You need to see this.  (Yes, even with Frank Fay as emcee.)  You will love it!

I give this one (as if you needed to ask by now): 

And Then There's Maude

Laugh and Get Rich (1931) is a cute little diversion with a familiar plot: good-natured blowhard gets the family into financial trouble, then gets into bigger trouble trying to get them out of it.  Hugh Herbert is the blowhard, Edna May Oliver his long-suffering wife, and cute-as-a-button Dorothy Lee is their daughter whose love life inadvertently saves the day.   Simple, amusing, and the perfect movie for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

The one person I enjoyed most however had little to do with the plot, and she was barely in the movie:

(photo courtesy Can't Stop the Movies)

Maude Fealy plays Miss Teasdale, a throwaway character who adds some comic relief in the beginning and end of the picture.  She has a couple of lines, and is instantly forgettable.  But!  How much fun it was to see her, especially when she's more familiar like this:

Born Maude Hawke in 1881, her elegant and heartfelt stage portrayal of Juliet in (what else?) Romeo and Juliet put her on the map.  Two years later, at only age sixteen, William Gillette himself selected her as his leading lady.  She was supremely talented, well-regarded, and -- as you can see -- colossally beautiful.  Having performed in films for them in 1911 and 1912, Thanhouser signed her to an exclusive contract in 1913; to get such a stage actress as her was a VERY BIG DEAL™.  She quickly became their most publicized photoplayer:

(image also courtesy Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc.)

Fealy acted with Thanhouser until 1914, then went back to the stage, perfoming only sporadically in films (and then mostly around 1915-1917) until her bit parts in the 30s and 40s.  She also ran a drama school in Colorado.  Cecil B DeMille, a long-time friend of hers, always made sure she had a role in whatever picture he was working on -- her last being a laborer's wife, as well as voice dubbing, in 1956's The Ten Commandments.  Maude Fealy died in her sleep in 1971, at age 88.  Her funeral arrangements and interment were courtesy DeMille, who had provided for them in his will (he predeceased her in 1959).  

(Much thanks to the Thanhouser website for biographical info -- I have become quite the Thanhouser junkie!)

Shirley Chambers, the First "Dumb Blonde"

Was in the mood for something fun Wednesday night, so I popped in "The Half-Naked Truth", with Lee Tracy and Sofia Vegara Lupe Velez.   A fast-talking bit of fluff: Tracy plays a carnival barker/publicity hound  who, after a narrow escape from some trouble, decides to turn Velez into a "Turkish princess" (and manage her all the way to the bank).  Many twists and turns befall them (as you can imagine), none the least when the Ziegfeld-like Farrell (Frank Morgan) and his stage show get roped into the whole mess.  Silly and sparkling and very, very funny!  Good luck getting "Oh! Mr Carpenter" out of your head after it -- thanks again, Cliff Aliperti, for getting it even more firmly jammed in there!

She's got a big job for you.

Those of you who read FF + SS know my weakness for pre-Code platinum blondes, so of course I sat up and took notice when Ella Beebee (Shirley Chambers) entered the fray:

image borrowed from Immortal Ephemera

She was the perfect early-30s loveable ditz!  I just had to look her up and see what else she'd done.  No surprise then, when I discovered she was crowned "Hollywood's First Dumb Blonde".  Shirley began as a model in the late 20s, then became a Goldwyn Girl along with Toby Wing, Lucille Ball, and Betty Grable.  From there she garnered small, often uncredited parts in some pretty big-ticket films: Diplomaniacs, Dancing Lady, Viva Villa!, The Merry Widow, Nothing Sacred, The Women, and the role for which she was probably best known, "Belle's Girl" in Gone With the Wind.

She toured for a while in the early 40s with the USO, did some Broadway, and moved to television roles after returning to California in the late 40s.   Shirley Chambers died on September 11, 2011, at the age of 97.  

The Prodigal Daughter Returns

Good to see you all again!  *waves*  I've been away a long time, haven't I?


Something happened to me and my beloved classic films...they stopped being fun to watch.  Why?  Because I was perched on the edge of the sofa with a notebook all time time, furiously scribbling.  As much fun as the reviews were, they started to feel like homework.  I couldn't watch a movie without feeling like I needed to be documenting it.


So I took a break.  In the process, I've decided to change the format a little bit.


Look for me to write about the things I love, the movies I adore and the people I can't get enough of -- but in no formal fashion.  Hoping the poetry bug bites soon too, so I can share those again.  Those were always my first love.  :)

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Caught "Untamed" over the weekend (thank you, DVR) and Joan Crawford as Bingo has to be one of  my favorite characters of hers.  How in the world did she manage to look ten years younger in the beginning?  Her "spirited tomboy" was feisty and adorable and I missed her when Bingo went all proper.   The beautiful (hell, he was more beautiful than Joanie in this, and that's saying something) Robert Montgomery played his usual sophisticate self, all 85 lbs. of him.

Joanie said herself that the picture was "silly but fun" and she's exactly right.  However, she also said she was awful, which is not.  Only her reaction over her father's death in the beginning was waaaaay too melodramatic, but it was her first talkie.  You can't blame her.  

The Purchase Price (1932)

Barbara Stanwyck.  I've lost the ability to write anything objective about her.  Was there ever a more perfect person for the pre-Code era?  (Possibly Joan Blondell, but I digress.)

Miss Stanwyck is a torch singer in a bit of trouble, and decides to escape it by becoming a farmer's mail-order bride.  The result is a warm, funny, charming picture, with more than a bit of Frank Capra about it (though actually directed, and beautifully so, by William Wellman).  George Brent plays the farmer and is immensely likeable -- he and Stanwyck have terrific chemistry and are (at the risk of sounding cliche) a delight.

The ending is a bit abrupt after the easy flow of the film, but I still enjoyed it very much.  Highly recommended!

I give this one:  

Review: Speak Easily (1932)

courtesy Doctor Macro

David Macleod writes in his indispensable The Sound of Buster Keaton that Speak Easily is "easily one of Buster's better MGM features".   I was skeptical, as I always am when approaching Buster's talkies, but I actually enjoyed this!


First, a plot summary.  From IMDb:


Naive, bookish Professor Post [Keaton] inherits a huge amount of money and decides that now he can afford to go out and enjoy life. He falls for a dancer in a bad stage show [headed by Jimmy Durante], and with his new money decides to buy the show and take it to Broadway. Will the Professor prove too nice to succeed in show business? Or will he triumph over bill-collectors, critics, and sexy vamp Eleanor Espere [Thelma Todd]?  (Ken Yousten)

courtesy Doctor Macro

I'm a sucker for backstage comedies, and this one plays like vaudeville.  Sure, Buster's natural talents are wasted -- it's always a little painful watching him in his 30s work -- but the film is surprisingly funny.  Jimmy Durante does his huge personality thing, but somehow manages to not overwhelm the picture (which I've heard is not the case for What, No Beer?); in fact, the two men play well off each other.  Thelma Todd spices things up, proving as usual that she wasn't just eye candy - she was a terrific comedienne.  

courtesy Doctor Macro

It's uneven, a bit creaky in spots, and the ending could've been better...but if you're going to watch one of Buster's talkies, you could most certainly do worse.


One thing I've been wondering: that panned shot of the skyscraper...was that recycled from The Crowd?  Sure looks like it!




I give this one:  




[A little note here: I must thank David and Graceann Macleod, for not only providing me with this film and the wonderful book, but for being fantastic friends as well.  ☺]

The Miracle Woman (1931)

"When do they bring out the elephants?"

When we first meet Florence Fallon (Barbara Stanwyck), she is angry.  Her father, the well-loved town preacher, has just died...and she is positive his untimely death was brought on by being unceremoniously dumped from the pulpit for someone younger. She stands before the congregation and spits fire, letting them know exactly what she thinks of them.  She is rage personified, down to her flashing eyes.  Afterwards, disgusted by both human nature and God, she joins up with a charlatan and channels her disillusionment into a stage show -- "preaching" in revivals whose miracles are finely crafted circus acts designed to strip the masses of their dollars.  That is, until one night, when a blind pilot named John (David Manners) accidentally steps into her act, and into her life.  Suddenly an existence of bitterness and deception gives way to something she hasn't felt for years: hope...

Stanwyck is terrific in everything I've ever seen her in, but this movie elevated her for me from great actress to one of my all-time favorites.  The camera loves her; I've seen precious few other performers who melt into the celluloid like she does.  Every emotion, every movement is pitch-perfect.  She sings a silly song in John's apartment and it's pure vulnerability; you see the wounded soul in Florence starving for nourishment, fighting to get out into the sunlight again. 

This is one of Frank Capra's earlier efforts, and he demonstrates a knack that would cement his role in Hollywood later on.  Rain pours when Florence and John first become friends...a baptism, perhaps, for both of them?  A pivotal scene towards the end involves an inferno -- purification by fire.  And speaking of fire, when Florence is seated by John's fireplace, Capra lets the light caress her like a lover.  Surely she has never been softer or more beautiful.

One final note:  Florence's stage performances are directly influenced by Aimee Semple MacPherson, an evangelist who reached her peak of popularity in the 1920s and 30s.  She was a fascinating person and definitely worth learning about -- especially if you do so before watching this movie. 

I give this one: 

Endings

In my reviews I often talk about the perfect “pre-Code ending”. What the heck does that mean?

In pictures made after the code, especially those in the Forties and Fifties, whenever someone was “bad” – most of the time a woman who enjoyed being sexually active – he or she was punished by the end of the film for his/her behaviour. Did she lure someone else’s husband into her bed? BAM! Hit by a train in the last reel. If there wasn’t a punishment, then there was a reforming – perhaps she renounced her promiscuity and left town, to start a new squeaky-clean life. Lesson learned.

Pre-Codes have none of this. Think of Red-Headed Woman: Lil acts like a whore, and yet she gets exactly what she wants by the end of the picture. She doesn’t become a nun or get hit by lightning. Things happen the way they happen in real life: sometimes, people act terribly, and yet nothing bad happens, or they’re even rewarded. Best example I’ve seen recently was the end of Employee’s Entrance, where Warren William just continues with his behaviour, not changing an iota of it even after it causes pain and shame to quite a few people. To quote an oft-used phrase: “it is what it is”.

I know someone’s going to bring up Female, with its cheesy and disappointing ending. Yes, it’s true that it doesn’t quite follow the pattern. All I can say is, watch the first half of the film; I think perhaps such a strong woman was a little too threatening for Hollywood, and they needed to tone her down somehow. Such a case is the exception, though, rather than the rule.


Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. – Seneca

Street Scene (1931)

Let's play "guess which tenant they don't like"!

It’s summer, and the occupants of a tenement spill out onto the sidewalk in order to escape the heat. Conversation waxes and wanes, and everyone has their troubles…until one tenant’s problems envelop them all in a world of intrigue and, ultimately, violence.


I think the first thing that struck me about this picture was how modern it was, while simultaneously being a perfect snapshot of early 30s working-class New York. Every immigrant group was represented: Irish, Jewish, Italian, Swedish, each with their own quirks and stereotypes. The film is adapted from a play by Elmer Rice, and even though it retains some stageyness, it never feels static, thanks to the wonderful direction of King Vidor, In many ways, this film reminded me of a grittier, more jaded version of The Crowd, which he also directed.

Sylvia Sidney plays Rose, the oldest daughter of a couple on the rocks; Mom (Estelle Taylor) cheats with the milk money collector and Dad (David Landau) drinks too much. William Collier Jr plays Sam, the son of the Jewish family, raised by a long-winded Socialist father and a sister who tries to break him of his lifelong love for Rose. Both children are desperate to get out of the tenement but aren’t quite sure how…then Fate intervenes, and we aren’t quite sure for the better.

Beulah Bondi owns this picture with her portrayal of Emma Jones, the “mayor” of the apartment building and an informal narrator of sorts; it’s through her gossip that we learn the background of the folks living in the building, their heartaches and foibles.

This film was restored by the Library of Congress – the print can be a little scratchy at times but believe me, you will not even notice it. A gripping story with fine performances by all, and a slice-of-life ending that will keep you guessing.

(Something interesting I found out while Googling for pictures: Rice's play was also adapted into an opera/musical in 1946, with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Langston Hughes.  Catherine Zeta-Jones performed in a 1989 production.)
I give this one:

Picture Snatcher (1933)

Any film that starts with Cagney in a lavender bath is gonna be good.

Fun, speedy little picture, starring our bathing beauty as Danny, a ne'er-do-well gangster ready to "make good", and Ralph Bellamy as McLean, the editor who gives him that chance - little knowing what was in store.  You can take the man out of the business, but you can't take the business out of the man:  Cagney states that his camera "works just like a gun, trigger and all".  (Uh oh.)  Alice White is the love interest here, and I remember reading she was being marketed as the new Clara Bow (who was breaking down by this time); she's cute, and appropriately vivacious, but she's no Clara.   Patricia Ellis plays the "good girl", the one for which Cagney wants to better himself, and she does so with aplomb. 

Quick-thinking, fast-talking (this was early 30s Warner Bros after all), tense and exciting and smarmy as hell.   A moment of sweetness amongst the grit:  watch Cagney towards the end, when he's alone in the apartment.  He fills this brief wordless scene with such beauty of movement it's almost like dance.

For those confused by the movie's last line, it's "vass you dere, Charlie?", a catchphrase from a popular radio show of the time.  James Lileks goes into detail about it in his review, which is much better (and funnier) than mine.

Highly recommended. 

I give this one: