Category Archives: Pre-Code Reviews

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.

For the Defense
Directed by James Cromwell
Written by Oliver H.P. Garrett and Charles Furthman
1930/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

William Foster: [Addressing the jury on summation] Gentlemen, I’m not going to give you the usual baloney.

Lackluster filmmaking. But with Kay Francis and William Powell it is irresistible.

Powell plays a famous defense attorney who has a reputation for getting his clients off by fair means or foul. Francis is his lover. He showers her with expensive diamonds.

Francis loves Powell but chooses for some bizarre reason to accept the marriage proposal of another.

Kay is driving her drunken fiancé when she crashes into another car and kills the driver. The rest of the film is a courtroom drama.

This is a 75 minute film with a lot going on so there is little character development. There is also that clunky staging and pacing common to early talkies. But the stars certainly do twinkle. Criterion Channel is currently featuring a Kay Francis collection and it contains several films I haven’t seen.

A Bill of Divorcement
Directed by George Cukor
Written by Howard Estabrook and Harry Wagstaff Gribble from a play by Clemence Dane
1932/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Sydney Fairfield: It’s in our blood, isn’t it?

Katharine Hepburn was a little bit too mannered in her film debut. But boy did she light up a screen!  Fourth-billed after David Manners, she was definitely a shimmering star in the cinema firmament from her first line of dialogue.

Billy Burke was divorced long ago from institutionalized shell-shocked lunatic John Barrymore. It is the eve of her wedding day to the man she loves. Daughter Katharine Hepburn is happily engaged to David Manners.

Of course, Barrymore escapes from the asylum that same day expecting to find his wife waiting. Much drama ensues.

I enjoyed this mostly for the performances of Hepburn and Burke. Barrymore is fascinating to watch but takes his character right over the top.

Red-Haired Alibi
Directed by Christy Cabanne
Written by Edward T. Lowe from a novel by Wilson Collison
1932/US
Tower Productions
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

Like all New York hotel lady cashiers she had red hair and had been disappointed in her first husband. — Al Capp

Cigarette-stand girl Merna Kennedy gets hired by man-about-town Theodore van Eltz to pose as his wife at critical moments. She is unaware he’s a gangster. Eventually, she marries a straight-arrow widower and forms a mutual admiration society with his toddler daughter (Shirley Temple in her film debut). Complications ensue.

Actors are appealing. Plot is kind of meh.

A star is born

The Sin of Nora Moran
Directed by Phil Goldstone
Frances Highland from a story by W. Maxwell Goodhue
1933/US
Larry Darmour Productions
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

True love is selfless. It is prepared to sacrifice. — Sadhu Vaswani

Getting back in the saddle with some brief reviews of films I’ve watched since last time.

I had been looking forward to this one  because of its iconic poster. Zita Johann (The Mummy) plays the titular character. I love her exotic looks. Otherwise it’s kind of a meh “Back Street”-type melodrama where a girl sacrifices all to save her married politician lover.

Night After Night
Directed by Archie Mayo
Written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Vincent Lawrence from a story by Louis Bromfield, additional dialogue by Mae West
1932/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Hatcheck girl: Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!
Maudie: Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.

The way Mae West lights up the screen in her debut is the main reason to see this film. She wakes up this rather meh love triangle whenever she appears. George Raft said she stole everything but the camera!

Raft plays Joe Anton an ex-boxer who invested his winnings to buy a lavish mansion and convert it into a speakeasy. He’s not a gangster but he has many chances to stand up to them. Leo (Roscoe Karns) is his valet and enforcer.

Joe is seeing a floozy named Iris Dawn (Wynne Gibson). But he longs for the finer things and takes lessons in proper grammar and culture from Miss Mabel Jellyman (Alison Skipworth).

Joe spots beauty Jerry Healy (Constance Cummings) sitting alone a table in the club every night. It turns out the club is operating in the house where she spent a very happy childhood. The tables turned and now she is going to marry a rich man she doesn’t love (Louis Calhern).

Joe is instantly drawn to Jerry and invites her to tour her old home. The chemistry is right until Jerry informs Joe she is going to marry for money. Then he thinks she is no better than Iris and tells her so. Iris is also not about to let Joe go without a fight.

West’s character acts mostly as a way to entertain Mrs. Jellyman while Joe is off romancing Jerry. She slings around the double entendres with her customary boldness.

This was Raft’s first major role and he does a workman like job without being too exciting. The romance is pretty standard. But if you want to see West before she put on about 20 pounds this the place to do it. She looks gorgeous in her slinky gowns.

If I Had a Million
Directed by James Cruze, H. Bruce Humberstone, Ernst Lubitsch, Norman Z. McLeod, Stephen Roberts, William A. Seiter, and Norman Taurog
Written by a host of different writers including Joseph L. Mankiewicz
1932/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Mrs. Mary Walker: You wouldn’t fool an old lady, would you?
John Glidden: Not for a million dollars.

This is an anthology film meant to showcase the creative talent at Paramount Pictures.

The gimmick is that an ailing old multimillionaire (Richard Bennett) is on his last legs. He cannot find anybody worthy to take over his business. So he decides to start handing out million dollar checks to random strangers. It’s not so easy cashing a million dollar check. The effect of the gift varies in each story.

The cast includes: Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, George Raft, Jack Oakie, Charles Ruggles, Alison Skipworth, W. C. Fields, Mary Boland, Roscoe Karns and May Robson.

The stars are appealing and you get to see a lot of them even if it’s only in bits and pieces.

Tribute to Wynne Gibson with very good big band music from Artie Shaw

Broken Lullaby (AKA “The Man I Killed”)
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Written by Samson Raphaelson and Ernest Vajda from a play by Maurice Rostand
1932/US
Paramount Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

“Nobody should try to play comedy unless they have a circus going on inside.” – Ernst Lubitsch

I have never seen a Lubitsch melodrama. I hope never to see one again.

The film begins with images from the Armistice festivities following the German surrender in WWI. Paul Renard (Phillips Holmes) was a French soldier in the war. He is wracked with horrible guilt for killing German soldier Walter Holderin, whom he attended music conservatory with in France.

Paul travels to Germany to ask Walter’s family for forgiveness. We learn that Walter’s death has left his father (Lionel Barrymore), mother (Louise Carter) and fiancee Elsa (Nancy Carroll) with bitterness and unending grief. Dad also hates the French with a passion. So Paul does not get a warm reception.

But before Paul can pour his heart out, the family misunderstands his story and are absolutely joyful to meet anyone from whatever country that knew their son. Paul can’t bring himself to tell the full story. Then he falls in love with Elsa and she with him. Will Paul’s real story come out? And then what?

There are a couple of short sequences in this film where the Lubitsch touch can be detected – the beginning WWI montage and a 5-minute sequence in the middle of gossips up and down a street discussing the possible romance between Paul and Elsa.

I was moaning, groaning and complaining throughout the rest of the film. I like the actors very much but here they all wrench every bit of melodrama out of every overwrought line. I’m quite sure Lionel Barrymore was never this bad before or since. I wonder why Lubitsch did not restrain his players.

So I hated this movie. It has an IMDb rating of 7.6/10. Go figure.

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.

Flight
Directed by Frank Capra
Written by Ralph Graves, Howard J. Green and Frank Capra
1929/US
Columbia Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

Steve Roberts: [On the Nicaraguan rebels] You know damn well what’s going to happen if these people come along and catch you alive.

Too much love triangle.  Not enough flying.

Lefty Phelps (Ralph Graves) is infamous for having lost a football game for his college in a “Wrong Way Corrigan” style maneuver. One of the few people sympathetic to Lefty is Panama Williams (Jack Holt). Lefty joins the U.S. Marines. Panama is his flight instructor and befriends him. Lefty washes out as a pilot but becomes a flight mechanic. The two men both fall in love with beautiful nurse Elinor Baring (Lila Lee). Panama is too shy to propose so he sends Lefty to do it for him. But Elinor is actually in love with Lefty. This creates much bitterness on the part of Panama. The two end up in Nicaragua where Panama refuses to fly with Lefty or help rescue him when his plane crashes. Will he relent in time?

This is technically accomplished for its era. The Marines cooperated in the making of the movie and the best parts are the flight scenes. Otherwise, it is kind of dull and clocks in at almost 2 hours – much too long for the story it has to tell.

Colorized clip (full version on YouTube is in the original black and white)