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. ;)

Hollywood Blondes (that have nothing to do with wrestling)

I have a thing for 1930s peroxide blondes.  Hardboiled little things with vanilla-colored hair, tough and fiery and sure of themselves.  They turn up in every pre-Code movie, forever Party Guest #3 or Telephone Operator.  Even though I know they're a Hollywood invention, they've come to represent the Depression for me: women who know a thing or two about struggling and are willing to fight to survive.  Here are three I love:

Jean Harlow is the quintessential example, the Platinum Blonde who started it all.   Sure, she was sexy, but she was also smart as a whip and quick with a comeback.  (She was also very intelligent off-screen, too; one day I'll devote more time to the Baby, one of my favorites.)

Another favorite of mine is Toby Wing, the world's most famous chorus girl.  She never rose to the heights of stardom, but she was in quite a few important films -- yup, that's her getting serenaded by Dick Powell in 42nd Street -- and even though she was usually uncredited, she managed to earn a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

I absolutely adore Polly Walters and squeal when she shows up in a movie!  Her career was short, and mostly spent playing telephone operators, but her nasal honk and sweet little face is immensely endearing.  She did very well in Broadway, starring in a hit 1933 show called She Loves Me Not.

Almost everyone tried to go super-blonde when it was popular, with mixed results.  Here's Bette Davis early in her career: 

And here's Joan Crawford, looking, well...let's just say brunette suited her much better. 

(screencap courtesy The Crowd Roars)

Regardless if they're in the lead or only on-screen for a moment, these "broads" with a heart of gold are just one of the things I find so irresistable about the pre-Code era. 


(p.s.  I know I didn't mention Joan Blondell.  Shame on me!  She's fantastic!  Oh - and how could I forget Thelma Todd?  Yikes!)