Category Archives: Pre-Code Reviews

Cynara
Directed by King Vidor
Written by Frances Marion and Lynn Starling from a novel by R. Gore Brown
1932/US
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Jim Warlock: That’s all I have left now – that I don’t have to lie about it.

It’s hard to go wrong with King Vidor, Ronald Colman and Kay Francis.  I loved this excellent romantic drama.

The setting is London. Virtually the entire movie is told in flashback as Jim Warlock (Colman) tries to explain to his wife Clemency (Francis) how he went from being a faithful, happily married man to having to exile himself to South Africa.  In happier times, Colman was a successful barrister with a  bright future. He and Clemency (Francis) have had seven years of marital bliss. Jim is a stay-at-home kind of guy and considered to be somewhat boring. Clemency has to go on a month-long trip to Venice with her flighty sister to distract her from a bad romance.  She encourages Jim to have some fun in her absence.

The minute Clemency has left the scene, Jim’s playboy friend John Tring (Henry Stephenson) encourages Jim to have a bit of extramarital fun . The two meet a couple of shopgirls in a restaurant and Ronald is clearly attracted to much younger brunette Doris Emily Lea (Phyllis Barry). He continues to resist and then John enters Doris in a bathing beauty contest Jim has to judge. Doris will stop at nothing to win her man. She tells him she has had other lovers and that she will say goodbye without a wimper when Clemency comes back. So Ronald and she begin a love affair. When Kay returns, though, Phyllis is too in love to give Ronald up, leaving him in a terrible dilemma. I will stop here. The movie ends with a courtroom drama and then segues into the present as Jim prepares to board his ship.

I really liked this one. All the principals are excellent and the story seems like something that could actually have happened.  If you are looking for a sophisticated adult romance, I warmly recommend this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85mQhvilfAEe

No trailer or clip so here’s a tribute to the director

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I also rewatched Marie Dressler’s charming performance as “Emma” (1932).  My review can be found here.

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.

The Mayor of Hell
Directed by Archie Mayo and Michael Curtiz
Written by Edward Chodorov, story by Islin Auster
1933/US
Warner Bros.
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Lawyer: Tell us what you know, I said! Never mind what you think!
Mr. Hemingway: Excuse me, boss. I ain’t no lawyer. I can’t talk without thinkin’.

 

I loved all three James Cagney movies I watched for 1933 and this one was my favorite.

Cagney plays a ward heeler and gang leader who gets paid off for gathering votes with an appointment as Deputy Commissioner responsible for juvenile detention centers. This is not to take up too much of his time and attention.  But when he arrives to see the reform school, he develops sympathy for the juvenile delinquents suffering therein from hunger and forced labor.

He falls for idealistic nurse Madge Evans who has a plan for reforming this hellhole. This involves improving conditions and creating a kind of Boy’s Town where the inmates form their own government and enforce the rules there own way.  This works out splendidly but only while Cagney is actually present.

Cagney is great as is Frankie Darro, who plays the boys’ gang leader and title character. Dudley Diggs is excellent as the corrupt, evil, sniveling warden of the reformatory. Despite a quite incredible ending the whole thing works beautifully. Recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4skVEOZrIL4

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

Is My Face Red?
Directed by William A. Seiter
Written by Casey Robinson and Ban Markson from a play by Markson and Allen Rivkin
1932/US
RKO Radio Pictures
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Morning Gazette Telephone Operator: And get the lead out of my WHAT?… oh, Mister Poster!

OK newspaper movie with a smackable performance by Ricardo Cortez as an unscrupulous gossip columnist.

William Poster (Cortez) plays a cocksure and obnoxious Walter Winchell-style gossip columnist who relishes digging up the most embarrassing dirt on famous names. He is also quite a playboy. For some reason, chorus girl Peggy Bannon (Helen Twelvetrees) has remained engaged to him for five years and is a source of a lot of juicy tips for his column. Eventually, Cortez takes a huge risk spilling the beans on Sidney Toler, an Italian restaurant owning mafioso. He also steps out on Peggy with heiress Mildred Huntington (Jill Esmond).

My favorite parts were the scenes with Zasu Pitts as the paper’s switchboard operator. Ricardo grins a lot but his character is really unlikeable. I like him as a romantic lead, but a comedian he is not. Twelvetrees has not let me down yet.

Cavalcade
Directed by Frank Lloyd
Written by Reginald Berkeley from a play by Noel Coward
1933/US
Fox Film Corporation
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Opening title card: This is the story of a home and a family… history seen through the eyes of a wife and mother whose love tempers both fortune and disaster… As 1899 ends, England is at war with the Boers in South Africa, but the tide of battle is against her… It is a national emergency… New Year’s Eve… our London family, sheltered through two generations of Victorian prosperity, awaits the headlong cavalcade of the Twentieth Century…

I enjoyed this upstairs/downstairs history of a London family and its servants as they navigate the turmoil of the period from 1899-1933.

I liked this better the second time around.  Last time I watched  in parts on YouTube with a less than wonderful print. Dana Wynyard, who played the matriarch, was truly wonderful in the role — very understated yet full of feeling. With Clive Brooke as her husband and Una O’Connor as their housemaid and Herbert Mundin as their butler, later turned pubkeepers. It’s kind of sad to think that by the time this was made another war and more sadness were already on the horizon.

The story’s anti-war message must have resonated with the Academy as the film won Oscars in the categories of Best Picture, Best Director and Best Art Direction. Wynyard was nominated for her performance.