Category Archives: Pre-Code Reviews

The Devil to Pay!
Directed by George Fitzmaurice
Written by Frederick Lonsdale and Benjamin Glazer
1930/US
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Lord Leland: Now… now you’re blaming me for bringing you into the world!
Willie Hale: Heh, heh, I should be extremely mortified for your sake if I had to blame anyone else.

This is a pleasant romantic comedy made more pleasant by the dulcet tones of Ronald Colman.

The story begins in Africa where wastrel rogue Willie Hale (Colman) is auctioning off his house and possessions, which his father Lord Leland paid for, to pay his passage back to England.  Lord Leland is not too keen on accepting him back to the household but paternal love prevails and he is allowed to stay.  Willie then meets Dorothy Hope (Loretta Young), an heiress who is a friend of his sister and engaged to marry a Russian aristocrat. Their attraction is immediate.  But Colman has also met with ex-flame Mary (Myrna Loy), a sexy actress who would welcome a rekindling of their affair.

If you’ve seen many rom-coms of the era, you will have a pretty good idea where this is going.  There are the requisite number of misunderstandings before the requisite happy ending.

I enjoyed this for the stars and the witty script.  Loretta Young was only 17 when she made this film.  Colman was 38.

Clip – Colman negotiates for an Asta lookalike

Street Angel
Directed by Frank Borzage
Philip Klein and Henry Robert Symonds from a play by Monkton Hoffe
1928/US
Fox Film Corporation
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube (free)

Title Card: Everywhere… in every town, in every street… we pass, unknowingly, human souls made great by love and adversity.

Another beautiful romance from Frank Borzage and company.

The story takes place in Naples, Italy. Angela (Janet Gaynor) has grown up tough on the streets but hides a beautiful soul within.  She desperately needs money to buy medicine for her dying mother.  Her only quick route to this is crime.  So she attempts to sell her body and when she is unsuccessful she turns to attempted theft.  She is apprehended and sentenced to a year in jail.  She escapes and is hidden by a traveling circus.

There she meets poverty-stricken painter Gino (Charles Farrell).  They start out as painter and model but soon are madly in love.  Gino needs to move to Naples to seek a better lot in life.  Angela accompanies him despite the danger she will be picked up by the police and the fact that Gino knows nothing of her past.

In Naples, things start looking up when Charles sells Angela’s portrait (looking like the Madonna) and receives a major commission to paint a mural.  Can their love survive Angela’s rearrest?

This one didn’t make me cry like Seventh Heaven but it is certainly worth watching even if only for the visuals.  The acting is great too and makes the story line go down quite easily.

Janet Gaynor won the first Best Actress Oscar for her performances in this, Seventh Heaven (1927) and Sunrise: A Story of Two Humans (1927).  The film was nominated in the categories of Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.

The Iron Mask
Directed by Allan Dwan
Written by Douglas Fairbanks (uncredited) from novels by Alexandre Dumas
1929/US
Elton Corporation/United Artists
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime (free to members)

Porthos: Come on! There is greater adventure beyond.

Douglas Fairbanks’ final silent movie is a solid adventure with the customary Fairbanskian wit and flair.

The story begins during the reign of Louis XIII of France.  He is anxiously awaiting the birth of what he hopes will be a son and heir.  He gets a son, two in fact.  No one is aware of the birth of the twin except Constance, D’Artagnan’s (Fairbanks) lady love and lady in wait to the Queen, the Queen herself and the dastardly Cardinal Richelieu and De Rochefort. The latter plot to silence the ladies and take control of the second twin in hopes of destabilizing France.

D’Artagnanan and his bosom buddies the three musketeers serve the King with utmost loyalty.  Constance is killed and her dying words are “the other one”.  This puzzles him for quite some time.

Eventually Louis the XIII dies and the elder of the twins takes the throne as Louis the XIV. That is when De Rochefort trots out the younger, meaner, twin.  The real King is sent to a riverside castle where he is made to live in a dungeon wearing an iron mask that disguises his identity.  He finds a way to reach out to the musketeers and much swashbuckling ensues.

Fairbanks was already 46 when he made this but he could still swash a mean buckle.  The antics of the musketeers kept me engaged the entire time.  The music on the Amazon version did not do the film any favors in my opinion.  Much of it was modern sounding. The film is in the public domain and many versions are available for free on YouTube.

7th Heaven
Directed by Frank Borzage
Written by Benjamin Glazer from a play by Austin Strong
1927/US
Fox Film Corporation
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube (free)

Chico: Not bad, eh? I work in the sewer – but I live near the stars!

Once in a great while, I find a new-to-me film that moves me to tears. This was one of those occasions.

The setting is Paris in the weeks before the outbreak of WWI.  Chico (Charles Farrell) works in the city sewers.  He is a happy-go-lucky guy who thinks of himself as a “very remarkable fellow”.  He is mad at God for not granting his prayers for promotion to a street washer position.

On day, Chico spots Diane (Janet Gaynor) who is being viciously beaten by her alcoholic sister.  He rescues her.  Shortly thereafter, a cleric gives him several religious medals and an appointment as street washer.  To keep his job, Chico must have a wife.  So he reluctantly invites Diane to live with him just until the police come to check on his marital status.  They will live in a seventh story walk-up garret apartment.  It’s not much but Chico thinks of it as heaven because of the view and Diane agrees completely.

We follow the development of the couple’s relationship.  At the last minute, Chico is called up by the Army to go to the front lines of WWI.  Will the couple reunite?

This plot might sound like a corny melodrama but I wept for most of the last half hour and thoroughly enjoyed it.  There is plenty of comedy in the first half to balance out the tears.  The direction and production are first-rate with lots of atmospheric lighting.  I love these actors.  Highly recommended.

Frank Borzage won the first and only Oscar for Best Director, Dramatic Picture.  Janet Gaynor won for Best Actress for her performances in this, Street Angel, and Sunrise.  Benjamin Glazer won for Best Writing, Adaptation.  The film was nominated for Best Picture, Production and for Best Art Direction.

Clip –  Do you think the makers of “The Artist” saw this movie?

Theme song with photo montage from the movie

The Racket
Directed by Lewis Milestone
Written by Del Andrews from a play by Bartlett Cormack
1928/US
The Caddo Company (Howard Hughes)
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube (free)

Nick Scarsi: Take a tip, Mac… change your racket.
Police Captain James McQuigg: I like my racket….

This was the last silent movie nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (until, arguably, The Artist (2011). It’s an action-packed prohibition-age gangster flick.

Police Captain McQuigg (Thomas Meighan) is an honest cop in a cesspool of city corruption. The city is divided into the territories of rival bootleggers Nick Scarsi (Louis Wolheim) and Spike. Scarsi is ready to make a move on his rival and tries, successfully, to get McQuigg transferred to get his worst foe out of the way. In the meantime, saloon singer Helen Hayes (Marie Prevost) makes a move on Joe, Scarsi’s beloved kid brother, out of spite.

The transfer does not deter McQuigg and he gets a lucky break when Joe is picked up for a hit and run accident.  After this, McQuigg brings Scarsi to his knees with the assistance of some reporters and Helen.  I  blinked and missed Walter Brennan’s appearance as an extra.

This is an entertaining movie with plenty of gunfights and some good acting.  I admire Louis Wolheims ability to be amusing and scary in turn in his part.  He had a promising career ahead of him as a character actor that was sadly cut short by his death from cancer in 1931.

Hook, Line and Sinker
Directed by Edward F. Cline
Written by Tim Whelan and Ralph Spence
1930/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

Addington Ganzy: Why, do you realize that since nineteen-hundred-and-ten, they have discovered 52 new ways of dying?
Wilbur Boswell: Oh, and you don’t look well.
Addington Ganzy: Yes, why, uh, uh… People are dying this year that have never died before!

In the early thirties people went for a variety of clowns like Laurel and Hardy or the Marx Brothers.  Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey were a competing comedy duo at the time and they make me laugh the most consistently of all.

The plot, such as it is, has the duo playing Wilbur Boswell (Wheeler) and Addington Ganzy (Woolsey), insurance salesmen eager to con people out of their money.  They meet up with  Mary Marsh (Dorothy Lee), a sweet young thing who has recently inherited a hotel from her uncle.  Wilbur and Mary pair up immediately.  The hotel turns out to be very run down but the boys somehow figure out a way to renovate it and market it to VIPs.  This is quite inconvenient for some gangsters who had been using the place as a hideout.

It’s a throwaway plot used to place one gag after another.  The boys are good at physical humor but I also love the way they deliver their dialogue.  Some of the double entendres are quite risque and pre-Code.  I’ve seen several of their movies and am looking forward to more.

Couldn’t find many clips but YouTube has many of the complete films for free

Hell’s Angels
Directed by Howard Hughes (Edmund Goulding and James Whale uncredited)
Written by Howard Estabrook and Harry Behn from a story by Marshall Neilan and Joseph Moncure March
1930/US
The Caddo Company
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube (free)

Helen: Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?

This movie shows what could be done at the dawn of cinema when unlimited amounts of time and money were thrown at one.

Two brothers, Monte (Ben Lyon) and Roy (James Hall), could not be more different.  Monte is worldly and cynical.  Roy is decent and honorable.  Roy is in love with Helen (Jean Harlow), whom he idealizes as a fine woman.  Jean prefers to wait for whomever next wants to show her a good time.  She starts off by seducing Monte.

Ben and Roy join the RAF and become pilots.  (Most of the characters in this are British but almost all speak with American accents.)  Helen follows them to France where she works at a canteen for pilots.

Who needs nudity when there are dresses like this and bodies to fill them?

Helen continues to break hearts.  Ben hates the war and is willing to do almost anything to avoid being killed.  Roy is brave and loyal.  Here is where the thrilling aerial combat starts.  When the brothers are captured, who will prevail?

The flying scenes and explosions are simply fantastic. Then throw in a super-sexy Jean Harlow in her Pre-Code break-out performance and you have one gripping film despite a little hoke once in awhile. I don’t know what I was expecting but this was a delightful surprise that held up perfectly on this re-watch. I saw the restored version with tinted sections.

The film was nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar.

In Old Arizona
Directed by Raoul Walsh
Written by Tom Barry from a story by O. Henry
1928/US
Fox Film Corporation
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental

[last lines] The Cisco Kid: Her flirting days are over. And she’s ready to settle down.

The plot is corny and the acting is over-the-top. But these things only added to the charm for me.

The Cisco Kid (Warner Baxter) is a stagecoach robber who steals only from companies not from passengers.  He’s an affable sort of Robin Hood who dotes on his girlfriend Tonia Maria (Dorothy Burgess), unaware of her serial infidelities.

Sergeant Mickey Dunn (Edmund Lowe) is on his trail.  He easily convinces Tonia to help bring her man in by promising her a share of the reward money.  Will the two be successful?

Baxter and Burgess take their characters way over-the-top, using every Latinex stereotype in the book, and Lowe is not far behind.  Despite, or maybe because of, this I found the film thoroughly entertaining.  It could not have been made post-Code for a couple of reasons.

Warner Baxter won the Oscar for Best Actor.  The film was nominated in the categories of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writing and Best Cinematography.

I hadn’t really thought of Warner Baxter as a handsome man until I saw this tribute.

The Big House
Directed by George W. Hill
Written by Frances Marion
1928/US
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental

John Morgan: You know it means the rope, Butch, if they catch you? Who’s in on it?
‘Machine Gun’ Butch Schmidt: Well, me and Olsen and Joe and the Hawk.
John Morgan: The Hawk? That means blood.
‘Machine Gun’ Butch Schmidt: No, he promised me he wouldn’t bump nobody off.
John Morgan: Why, he croaked his own mother.
‘Machine Gun’ Butch Schmidt: Sure he did. He cut her throat. He was sorry for it. He’s all right.

This forerunner of many better prison escape movies of the 30’s is made watchable by its actors.

Kent Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) is sent up to the “Big House” for 10 years for killing a person while drunk driving.  He is young, naive, and very nervous.  He is put in a cell with ‘Machine Gun’ Butch Schmidt (Wallace Beery) who is serving a life sentence for murder and John Morgan (Chester Morris), a thief also serving a ten-year sentence.  The two hardened criminals try to show Kent the ropes but he is a coward who would rather snitch than fight.

The story covers the planning and execution of an escape attempt.  Morgan falls in love with Kent’s sister (Leila Hyams) in a minor subplot.

The acting is good but I didn’t find too many thrills.  The main point of the movie seems to be to point out crowding and corruption in the prison system.

The Big House won Oscars for Best Writing and Best Sound.  It was nominated for Best Picture and Best Actor (Beery).  Amazing how Wallace Beery could be both so darn lovable and so damned menacing at the same time!