Monthly Archives: March 2022

Reaching for the Moon
Directed by Edmund Goulding
Written by Edmund Goulding and Elsie Janis based on a story with music by Irving Berlin
1930/US
Feature Productions (A Joseph M. Schenck production)
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Fandor

Roger: There’s a vast difference, sir, between the art of making money and the art of making… a lady.

A peppy but routine Pre-Code romcom enlivened by its cast and luscious art deco settings and costumes.

A devil-may-care aviatrix (Bebe Daniels) bets her buddies that she can get the attention of a dashing financier (Douglas Fairbanks). When she does, he pursues her on her sea voyage across the Atlantic. At first, the whole thing is a big joke to Bebe. With Edward Everett Horton as Fairbanks’ butler, Claud Allister as a British twit, and Bing Crosby, in his first solo performance on film, singing “When the Folks High Up Do the Mean Low-Down”.

I had mixed feelings about Fairbanks’ truly manic performance. He leaped about enough for a couple of swashbucklers. However, I found Bebe Daniels totally captivating. I never knew why she got top billing in “42nd Street” and now I do. It’s too bad she married and moved to England before her career solidified. However, the real reason to watch this movie is to see William Cameron Menzies art deco set designs. They are absolutely gorgeous. I need Fairbanks’ bed! The costumes are good too.

Up the River
Directed by John Ford
Written by Maurine Dallas Watkins
1930/US
Fox Film Corporation
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube

May: [May and June, twin sisters singing part of “The Prisoner’s Song” on the hayride wagon] ‘I’ll be carried to the new jail tomorrow, Leaving my poor darling alone, With the cold prison bars all around me, And my head on a pillow of stone…

Humphrey Bogart shines as a romantic lead in his first feature film.

Implausible but fun Fox prison comedy. I was about to explain the plot but it’s pretty complicated and really doesn’t make much sense. Suffice it to say that this prison is quite comfortable in many aspects. Spencer Tracy is a cocky career criminal/convict and Humphrey Bogart (looking very young and handsome) is an upper crust prisoner who falls in love with one of women convicts.

This movie manages to have choral singing, a talent show, a baseball game, a hay ride, and a romance all wrapped up in a prison story. It should have been a mess but I thought it worked in spite of itself.

This is the only movie in which Bogart and Tracy co-starred.  Both were making their feature film debuts.

The man could certainly act!

Seven Days Leave
Directed by Richard Wallace
Written by John Farrow and Dan Totheroh from a play by J.M. Barrie
1930/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.” ― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Never Never Land meets WWI in this sentimental story of mother love.

The story is set in WWI London.  Sarah Ann Dowey (Beryl Mercer is a humble widowed charwoman who is getting up in years.  She begins the story searching for a way to make a contribution to the war effort.  The only solution the Ministry of War can agree to is her offer to be charwoman at the Ministry.  She is very sociable and chats with her co-workers for a cup of tea and a good gossip at the local pub.  All her friends have sons in the war.  So she sets about creating one for herself.  She finds a newspaper article about a man named K. Dowey, who is in the prestigious Black Guard,  and his exploits in the war.  She has a vivid imagination and talks about him as if he was real.

Cut to Pvt. Kenneth Dowey (Gary Cooper in a Kilt!) in the trenches.  Dowey is a Canadian orphan who volunteered to serve in the British Army but became disillusioned by the endless war and deplorable conditions.  He is a known trouble maker. He has recently been wounded and is eligible for seven days leave. The brass give him this although they it expect to end badly and even doubt that he will return.

Dowey heads to London where he checks in to the YMCA.  Miraculously, a clergyman knows about Mrs. Dowey and steers Kenneth toward her house.  He initially goes there to chew her out but gradually melts under the outpouring of love by the old widow.  He reciprocates by showing her the high tone side of London.  I’ll stop here.

This is a unique movie.  You have to have the mindset to imagine this is a happy and sad fairy tale.  If you can, you will accept the Beryl Mercers extravagant performance as a slightly daft old lady with a good heart.  She is excellent at conveying this. It’s been awhile since I’ve see Cooper in a comic role.  I’m in awe of his straight-faced humorous delivery.  All in all, I enjoyed this movie.  Recommended but be aware that it is very sentimental and becomes melodramatic toward the end.

Tribute to Gary Cooper narrated by his Daughter

Ladies of Leisure
Directed by Frank Capra
Written by Jo Swerling from a play by Milton Herbert Gropper
1930/US
Columbia Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Crackle

Dot Lamar: You can’t weigh sex appeal.

I love a good melodrama when it makes me cry.

This Pre-Code romcom/melodrama begins at the studio of artist Jerry Strong (Ralph Graves) where a wild drunken party is in progress. When Jerry flees the highjinks, he meets cute with Kay Arnold (Barbara Stanwyck) a self-proclaimed “party girl” who is fleeing a party she attended on a ship. Jerry is sees something in her which represents “hope” to him and asks her to pose for a portrait. The two leads have quirky counterparts in the form of Kay’s roommate fellow party girl Dot (Marie Provost) and Jerry’s playboy friend Bill (Lowell Sherman).

Jerry keeps things strictly platonic and it is not too long before Kay is madly in love with him. Can these two opposites attract?   Not to give away too much but the course of true love never did run smooth.

I liked this far more on the rewatch than the first time around.  It is really quite a touching love story. Barbara Stanwyck is wonderful throughout. Last time I thought she cried too much in the second half. This time I was crying right along with her.  Even this early in her career she could deliver heartbreaking performances like this one.  Recommended.

Clip (spoiler from near end of movie)

International House
Directed by A. Edward Sutherland
Written by Francis Martin and Walter DeLeon
1933/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb Page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

[Peggy finds a litter of assorted kittens on her seat]
Peggy: I wonder what their parents were.
Professor Quail: Careless, my little dove cake, careless.

Another preposterous story allows Paramount to show off its stable of talent.

Professor Wong  is ready to show off and sell his new invention, “radioscope” – i.e., television.  People come from all over the world to the International House Hotel in Wu Hu (you can imagine the jokes), China to bid on the phenomenon.  The principal rivals are a Russian (Bela Lugosi) and young American Tommy Nash (Stuart Erwin).  Both of these have romantic troubles.  Professor Quail (W.C. Fields) drops in in his auto-gyro.  With Burns and Allen; Rudy Vallee; Sterling Holloway; Francis Pangborn; Cab Calloway; and Baby Rose Marie.

This is 68 minutes of fun.  But Cab Calloway’s “Reefer Man” number alone makes the film worth watching.  Baby Rose Marie belts out a perverse version of “My Bluebird’s Singing the Blues”.  I enjoyed myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EziqHFpFNmQ

This Day and Age
Directed by Cecil B. deMille
Written by Bartlett Cormack
1933/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

“And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations.
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through. – “Changes” by David Bowie

Cecil  B. DeMille makes even a crime story into an epic.

A high school holds a “Boy’s Day” in which the senior boys shadow city officials such as a District Attorney, a Chief of Police, a Judge, etc.  Simultaneously, a Jewish tailor is slain by Louis Garrett (Charles Bickford), the boss of a protection racket.  The boys try to get justice for their friend from the officials they are shadowing.  They learn the justice system is entirely corrupt.  So they organize the boys from all the high schools to apprehend Garrett for some vigilante justice.  Part of their scheme involves Gay Merrick’s (Judith Allen) agreement with her boyfriend (Richard Cromwell) to detain an enforcer who “likes his olives green”.  With John Carradine under the name John Peter Richmond in a small part as an Assistant Principal.

This is a strange movie to say the least.  The story and dialogue are somewhat naive.   But deMille directs the cast of thousands to great effect.  The “trial” at the end reminded me of the trial by the criminals in Fritz Lang’s M (1931), without the pathos of Peter Lorre. Very pre-Code.

I’m No Angel
Directed by Wesley Ruggles
Written by Mae West
1933/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Tira: Beulah, peel me a grape.

This has everything a Mae West movie should have, including a young Cary Grant.

Tira (West) is a sensation with her act in the sidehow of a circus.  She plays her many admirers like a fiddle.  Most of this involves the receipt of diamond bracelets and some sexual innuendos.  Finally, Tira is courted by Kirk Lawrence (Kent Taylor) and he asks her to marry him.  Problem is Kirk is already engaged.  Both the fiancee and friend Jack Clayton (Grant) try to persuade her to drop him.

Jack does succeed in breaking up the relationship but only because he falls in love with Tira himself.  When he hears damning information, he calls off their engagement.  This leads to a funny breach of promise trial.

The suggestive one-liners fly and West does some good musical numbers.  I’m especially fond of “They Call Me Sister Honky Tonk”.  I enjoyed this one a lot.

Design for Living
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Written by Ben Hecht from a play by Noel Coward
1933/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Gilda Farrell: We’re going to concentrate on work – your work. My work doesn’t count. I think you boys have a great deal of talent; but, too much ego. You spend one day working and a whole month bragging. Gentlemen, there are going to be few changes. I’m going to jump up and down on your ego. I’m going to criticize your work with a baseball bat. I’m going to tell you every day how bad your stuff is until you get something good and if it’s good I’m going to tell you it’s rotten till you get something better. I’m going to be a mother of the arts. – – No sex.
George Curtis, Tom Chambers: No.
Gilda Farrell: It’s a gentlemen’s agreement.

Fortunately Gilda is no gentleman and Ernst Lubitsch takes his celebrated touch just about as far as it can go in this delightful, sophisticated comedy.

The setting is Paris, France.  As the story starts, Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins) is drawing a caricature of two young men who are sleeping in their train seats.  These are George Curtis (Gary Cooper), a painter, and Tom Chambers (Fredric March), a playwright.  Gilda is a commercial artist who works for strait-laced Max Plunkett (Edward Everett Horton).  Both men start flirting with Gilda in French.  But soon enough it comes out that they are all Americans.

The two men share a flat in Paris.  Both fall in love with Gilda and she with them, but Gilda can’t decide who she likes most.  Finally, she decides they should remain platonic friends. She will move in and act as taskmaster and muse for the artistic endeavors of the men.

Before you know it George has a gallery show and Tom’s play is produced in London. When Tom has to travel to participate in the production, George is left alone with Gilda. Thereafter, all bets are off.

Turn about is fair play and the year after making the two-women-love-one man triangle in Trouble in Paradise (1932), Lubitsch pulled off an even more audacious two-men-love-one-woman triangle in this film. And all the parties remain so civilized!  The Ben Hecht screenplay sparkles as bright as the acting and direction. Very, very Pre-Code and highly recommended.

Murders in the Zoo
Directed by A. Edward Sutherland
Written by Phillip Wylie and Seton I Miller
1933/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Eric Gorman: [Said while sewing Taylor’s mouth shut] Mongolian Prince taught me this, Taylor. An ingenius device for the right occasion. You’ll never lie to a friend again, and you’ll never kiss another man’s wife.

If they had ditched the comic relief and the young lovers, this could have been an effective horror film.

Eric Gorman (Lionel Atwill) is a megalomaniac and is insanely jealous of his young wive Evelyn (Kathleen Burke “The Panther Woman”).  Worse he has a cruel, sadistic streak.  He and wife have just returned from a trip to the Orient where they collected animals for the zoo.  Despite Eric’s past horrific revenge on those who dare to come near her, Evelyn started a romance with Roger Hewitt (John Lodge) on the voyage home and has decided to leave Eric.  The body count mounts.

Simultaneously, we get the story of antivenin researcher Dr. Jack Woodward (Randolph Scott) and his fiance (Gail Patrick).  In addition, the zoo has hired Peter Yates (Charlie Ruggles) to publicize the new animals.  He attempts to do this despite the fact that he is plastered 100% of the time.