Monthly Archives: April 2013

Evelyn Prentice
Directed by William K. Howard
1934/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
First Viewing

Evelyn Prentice: There’s nothing wrong with those letters.They’re innocent.
Lawrence Kennard: Then why are you here?
Evelyn Prentice: There’s nothing safe with a man like you.

Engaging “women’s picture”/courtroom drama.  John Prentice (William Powell) is a high-powered defense attorney whose practice keeps him away from home most of the time.  Evelyn Prentice (Myrna Loy) is his long-suffering but adoring wife.  Their happy home is threatened when a beautiful client (Rosalind Russell) throws herself at John and an unsavory “poet” insinuates himself into Evelyn’s life.  With Una Merkel as Evelyn’s wise-cracking friend and permanent house guest.

I thought this one was a whole lot of fun.  It goes to show that Powell and Loy were the perfect screen couple even when the material gets more serious as here.  I had never heard of the director but he certainly keeps things moving right along.  I adore Una Merkel and she has a meaty part here.  This was Rosalind Russell’s screen debut.  She was still finding her way.  I seem to always get annoyed at courtroom dramas and here neither the judge nor the attorneys ever seem to have heard of concept “conflict of interest”.  The film was strong enough that the improbable ending was fine by me.

Trailer

Our Daily Bread (1934)
Directed by King Vidor
1934/USA
King W. Vidor Productions (as Viking Productions, Inc.)
First Viewing

John Sims: Don’t worry Mary. I know things are hard now but we’ll make it in the end.
Mary Sims: But how, John? Who’s going to save us?
John Sims: Not who, Mary, what. The bread will save us, the bread.

John and Mary Sims (Tom Keane and Karen Morely) are about to be evicted when Mary’s uncle offers them a farm which is about to be foreclosed on. Although they know nothing of farming, they move there. They meet a dispossessed Swedish farmer (John Qualen) who shows them the ropes. Then John gets the idea of starting a cooperative where tradesmen will work on the barter system. Before he knows it, he has an entire village on the land and the men are plowing the fields.

King Vidor made this film with his own money as a labor of love, having been captivated by the “back to the land” movement as a solution to the woes of the Great Depression. The acting is earnest, but not particularly great. Unfortunately, I could not watch the film without questioning most of the basic premises. If these people could make a go of it why were so many farmers losing their farms in the Depression? Of course it helped that the land was essentially free (somehow these people manage to get it for $1.85 at a foreclosure auction). The seed etc. was miraculously available free. Finally, these folks dam and divert a stream a couple of miles away to solve their drought problem. In real life, the farmers whose lands were naturally irrigated by the stream would have been there in a heartbeat with guns.

Excerpt – Jinnovation in Depression-era farming

Cleopatra
1934/USA
Directed by Cecil B. DeMille
Paramount Pictures (A Cecil B. DeMille Production)
First viewing

Cleopatra: Together we could conquer the world.
Julius Caesar: Nice of you to include me.

Cleopatra (Claudette Colbert) seduces Julius Caesar (Warren William) and then Marc Antony (Henry Wilcoxson) in an attempt to save her beloved Egypt from conquest by Rome.

The Hollywood epic is my least favorite genre of movie.  While spectacular, the sets here are more reminiscent of the studio backlot than of Egypt.  Claudette Colbert can’t help but be just a bit charming but the other acting is over-the-top when it is not just wooden.  Colbert wears many revealing gowns and there is plenty of suggestive dancing and gore to be had, but nothing near to that on display in DeMille’s <i>The Sign of the Cross</i> a couple of years earlier.

Re-release trailer