Category Archives: 1931

Quick Millions
Directed by Rowland Brown
Written by Rowland Brown
1931/US
Fox Film Corporation
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Daniel J. ‘Bugs’ Raymond: I’ll bet we’ll be the best-dressed people there. That’s all anybody goes to the opera for.
Jimmy Kirk: I thought they only went to hear the music.
Daniel J. ‘Bugs’ Raymond: Sure, but those people sit up in the balcony.

Criterion Channel has a small collection of pre-Code Rowland Brown gangster films so I decided to indulge.

Spencer Tracy plays Daniel J. ‘Bugs’ Raymond, the boss of a protection racket. His downfall comes as the result of his infatuation with a millionaire’s daughter (Marguerite Churchill). Sally Eilers plays his jealous mistress and George Raft is his duplicitous second in command.

The plot is pretty routine but it is another reminder of what a great actor Tracy was. It is interesting just to watch him listening to the other actors. He is so natural.

Honor Among Lovers
Directed by Dorothy Arzner
Written by Austen Parker
1931/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

“When I went to work in a studio, I took my pride and made a nice little ball of it and threw it right out the window.” – Dorothy Arzner

This is ok but just that. Julia Traynor (Claudette Colbert) is a crack private secretary. Jerry Stafford (Fredric March) is her playboy boss. Jerry has a yen for Julia but she resists, only partly because of her loser boyfriend Philip Craig (Monroe Owsley).

One day Jerry asks Julia to join him for a round-the-world-cruise and accept a diamond bracelet she picked out for another of his flames. This shakes up Julia and she agrees to marry Philip.

After they marry, Philip loses his job and Jerry hires him as his financial assistant. Jerry doesn’t stop loving Julia and when Philip commits an impardonable crime she has a terrible dilemma. With Charles Ruggles and Ginger Rogers as comic relief.

I love these actors but the time or the script pulled really melodramatic acting out of them and made the movie less enjoyable than it may otherwise have been.

Svengali
Directed by Archie Mayo
Written by J. Grubb Alexander from a novel by George L. Du Maurier
1931/US
Warner Bros.
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime (free to Members)

Svengali: [to Trilby] There is nothing in your mind… nothing in your heart… nothing in your soul… but Svengali… Svengali… Svengali… !

I have several quibbles with this movie but loved my introduction to Marian Marsh.

The setting is Paris, France.  Greasy, creepy singing teacher Svengali (John Barrymore) uses his hypnotic powers to seduce his students and for other evil purposes.  He lives in a dumpy apartment and is famous for his lack of bathing.

One day, he meets beautiful artist’s model Trilby (Marsh).  He overhears her singing badly but remarks that the shape of her throat make her an ideal singer.  Trilby is sweet and is in love with Englishman Billee (Bramwell Fletcher).  Svengali tells him he can take away her frequent headaches with hypnosis and she allows him to try.

Eventually he hypnotizes her into being a celebrated concert soprano and into marrying him.  But can he hypnotize her heart?

Marian Marsh is adorable as the gamin-like Trilby. The film goes for a German Expressionist look but cheap production values do not help. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many obviously fake beards in one movie. The title role may be Barrymore’s hammiest performance ever – he looks and acts like a combo of Fagin and Rasputin and he can’t seem to decide whether his accent should be Swedish, Yiddish, or German.  Worth seeing  for Marsh.

Kept Husbands
Directed by Lloyd Bacon
Written by Louis Serecky, Forrest Halsy and Alfred Jackson
1931/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime (free to members)

Dorothea ‘Dot’ Parker Brunton: The minute I saw him, I didn’t give two hoots if he gargled his soup in the key of A Minor. That boy was made for me, and what’s more, I’m going to have him.

It is a given.  I will at least like a film if my heartthrob Joel McCrea appears in it.

Richard Brunton (McCrea) is a hard-working “steel boss” of humble origins who is studying nights to improve himself. One day he heroically rescues a fellow worker. When he refuses his boss’s $1000 reward, the tycoon invites him home for dinner.  Now McCrea was also a football hero and is a mighty attractive man. The boss’s daughter Dorothea (Dorothy MacKaill) wants him for Christmas.

Dorothea pursues Richard, he falls in love, and cannot find it in him to refuse her proposal. After the marriage, she expects him to enjoy her expensive and frivolous lifestyle and be at her beck and call. This gradually destroys Joel’s self-respect until he has had enough. Ned Sparks appears as McCrea’s mother’s boarder, always ready with a dark wisecrack.

There is nothing sexy or light-hearted about this movie. On the other hand, the acting is quite good. Unfortunately, McCrea never takes his shirt off. I liked it well enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHjdYRaiA2w

Cimarron
Directed by Wesley Ruggles
Written by Howard Eastabrook from a novel by Edna Ferber
1931/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Yancy Cravat: Why, we’ve had enough of this Wichita. We’re goin’ out to a brand new two-fisted, rip snortin’ country full of Indians, rattlesnakes, gun toters and desperados. Whoopee!

Sure did win a lot of Oscars for such a terrible movie.

Heroic editor and lawyer Yancy Cravat(Richard Dix) repeatedly abandons his steadfast wife Sabra (Irene Dunne) and family and helps to make Oklahoma great????!!!! In the end it is Sabra who holds down the family’s newspaper business and civilizes the new territory. This is basically an epic starting with the Oklahoma Land Rush and ending with the oil boom. The most impressive scenes are the land rush sequences. Otherwise, even usually reliable actors murder the overwrought dialogue.

Possibly I should cut this film some slack but I really do not feel like it. I hate movies like this one, especially when they are over two hours long and when they feature “comic” stutterers and dubious racial stereotyping etc. Instead I will nominate it for several awards: Worst Picture to Win an Oscar, Worst Performance by an Actor Nominated for an Oscar (Richard Dix), and Worst Performance by Irene Dunne in a Motion Picture.

Non-PC clip

Arrowsmith
Directed by John Ford
Written by Sidney Howard from the novel by Sinclair Lewis
1931/US
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Dr. Martin Arrowsmith: God give me clear eyes and freedom from haste. God give me anger against all pretense. God keep me looking for my own mistakes. God keep me at it till my results are proven. God give me strength not to trust to God.

Solid story about one physican’s struggle with disease both in his patients and in the laboratory?  It’s  an adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel.

M.D. Martin Arrowsmith (Ronald Colman) dreams of being a research scientist but abandons this in favor of becoming a country GP when he marries and needs to support his first love Leora  (Helen Hayes). Later, he rejoins his research mentor and works on a cure for bubonic plague. He and Lee take off for the West Indies where Arrowsmith’s mentor insists that he conduct an experiment giving half the life-saving drug to one half of the population and the other half nothing. Events set up a battle between the doctor’s head and heart.  With Myrna Loy as a society lady who wants to help Arrowsmith innoculate the masses.

The film suffers from a “white man’s burden” attitude toward race as well as from Richard Bennett’s horrendous Swedish accent. It was interesting to see uncredited early performances by Ford regulars Ward Bond and John Qualen. I can recommend if you are interested in a serious romance/drama. Colman and Hayes are excellent.

The film was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture; Best Writing, Adaptation; Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.

Taxi
Directed by Roy Del Ruth
Written by Kubic Glasmon and John Bright from a play by Kenyon Nicholson
1931/US
Warner Bros.
IMDb Page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Matt Nolan: Come out and take it, you dirty, yellow-bellied rat, or I’ll give it to you through the door!

Warner cashes in on Cagney’s success in “The Public Enemy” with another tough-guy role, this time as an embattled taxi driver.

A New York City crime syndicate wants to take over the taxi business currently conducted by independent cabbies.  Matt Nolan (Cagney) is one of these.  Pop Riley (Guy Kibee)is another.  Pop defends himself against  the syndicate with force and winds up in jail where he dies.  His daughter Sue (Loretta Young) tells a group of independent taxi drivers that violence is not the answer.  Matt strongly disagrees but Sue soon becomes his steady girl.

Despite his hot temper, Sue loves Matt and they marry.  At their marriage dinner, Matt spots the syndicate boss responsible for the attacks on independents.  He prepares to fight him despite Sue’s pleading.  In the uproar, the syndicate boss stabs and kills Matt’s brother.  Matt won’t tell the cops who did it because he wants to take revenge.  The rest of the movie is devoted to Matt’s revenge plans and Sue’s efforts to stop him from landing in jail like her father.

Cagney seems to spend more time playfully pushing around Loretta Young than he does fighting the bad guys. The most fun to be had in this movie is seeing Cagney speak Yiddish and do his first movie dancing in a fox trot contest with an uncredited George Raft. I liked this much better the second time I saw it.

The Lady Refuses
Directed by George Archainbaud
Written by Wallace Smith, Robert Milton and Guy Bolton
1931/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime (free to members)

June: There are two times when no one can advise a man. The first, is when he’s drinking too much. The other, is when he loves the wrong woman.
Sir Gerald Courtney: Does that bar… even a father?
June: *Especially* a father.

This obscure movie did not wow me.

The action takes place in London with a bunch of American actors trying to sound English. June (Betty Compson) has fallen on hard times and decides to take up prostitution. But on the very first night she hits the streets, the coppers spot her and chase her down. She seeks sanctuary In the posh townhouse of aristocrat Sir Gerald Courtney (Gilbert Emery).

Sir Gerald  immediately takes a liking to the obviously clever and pretty June and decides she is just the woman to distract his son Russell (John Darrow) from gold-digging hussy Berthine Waller (Margaret Livingston). June is highly successful at this, perhaps too successful, and succeeds in making two men fall in love with her.  With Ivan Lebedeff as Berthine’s boyfriend/pimp.

This is a so-so programmer though it did hold my interest.  Compson was ten years older than Darrow and looked it.

No trailer or clips so here’s a tribute to Compson.

Tabu: A story of the South Seas
Directed by F.W. Murnau
Written by F.W. Murnau and Robert J. Flaherty
1931/US
Murnau-Flaherty Productions
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube

The Girl: [writing a goodbye letter] I must go. Hitu is here and waits for me. You will die if I do not obey. I will go so that you may live. The tabu is upon us. I have been so happy with you far more than I deserved. The love you have given me, I will keep to the last beat of my heart. Across the great waters, I will come to you in your dreams when the moon spreads its path on the sea. Farewell.

In his last film, a late silent movie, F.W. Murnau gives us a simply beautiful Romeo and Juliet story set in the South Pacific.

Robert J. Flaherty was supposed to co-direct this film and it has a documentary feel to it with many rituals of Polynesian life captured. A strong handsome young man (Matahi) falls in love with a beautiful young Riri (Anne Chevalier). Matahi is an expert spear fisherman.  They live in Paradise and their love is idyllic.

Then aged warrior Hitu comes from the main island and announces the sacred virgin has died.  Riri is the chosen successor.  A man can be killed for even looking at her.  The lovers flee to Papeete which has been Westernized by colonizers to a certain extent.  Matahi also proves to be an expert at pearl diving.  He is tricked out of his prize pearl by white men.  Can the couple escape the long arm of Hitu?

This is beautiful to watch, the young actors are charming and natural, and the music is fun. It was Murnau’s final film. He died in an auto accident during post-production at only 42. Recommended.

Floyd Crosby won the Best Cinematography Oscar.