Category Archives: Pre-Code Reviews

Blonde Crazy
Directed by Roy Del Ruth
Written by Kubec Glasmon and John Bright
1931/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Ann Roberts: He can’t do me any harm. I haven’t any money and I don’t shoot craps.

Peggy: Oh, yeah? Well, maybe you have something else he can use.[/box]

Nobody did snappy dialogue like James Cagney and Joan Blondell.

Bert Harris (Cagney) is a wise-guy bellhop at the leading hotel in a small mid-West town. He sells bootleg hooch on the side.  One day he spots cute blonde Anne Roberts (Blondell) who is applying for a housekeeping job.  He expects to get a tumble from her after he helps her win the position.  But she only slaps his face repeatedly.

They do eventually get to be friendly and she reluctantly agrees to partner with him on some cons.  Initially all goes smoothly but later they get taken by an even bigger crook (Louis Calhern).  They follow him to New York to get revenge.  Meanwhile, Anne is wooed by Joe Reynolds (a very young Ray Milland).  I was not expecting the ending at all!

This has some great pre-Code moments including shots of Blondell in a bathtub and plenty of double entendres.  Cagney and Blondell always perform at 110% and their energy makes for a very enjoyable romp with an abrupt and surprising finale. Recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK93CE-KIds

Indiscreet
Directed by Leo McCarey
Written by Buddy G. DeSylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson
1931/USA
Joseph M. Schenck for Feature Productions
First viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Jim Woodward: Let’s start this New Year’s right.

Geraldine Trent: I am starting it right, with myself.[/box]

As the film begins, Geraldine Trent (Gloria Swanson) is breaking things off with her philandering lover.  Segue to somewhat later and she meets the author of a book called “Obey That Impulse”.  They are kindred spirits and quickly fall in love.  Shortly after they become engaged, Gerry’s kid sister returns from school in Paris with her ex-lover in tow.  How will she warn her sister off the cad without revealing her sordid past?

The usually wonderful McCarey does not achieve the effortless charm of his later comedies in this film.  There is way too much silent style acting, with poses substituting for emotion. The dialogue sometimes also feels stilted and plodding.  Swanson sings a couple of songs in her trilling soprano.  This is highly rated so your mileage may vary.

Montage of clips

The Locked Door
Directed by George Fitzmaurice
Written by C. Gardner Sullivan from a play by Channing Pollock
1929/USA
George Fitzmaurice Productions/Feature Productions
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Frank Devereaux: Oh, I like you in a temper. I want to hold you close, knowing you don’t want to be held.[/box]

Barbara Stanwyck’s first credited movie role was the lead in this clunky early talkie.

Cad Frank Devereaux (Rod LaRoque) lures nice girl Ann Carter out to dine on a floating saloon that stays in international waters.  He has set up a private dining room and locks the door when she rejects his advances.  She is saved only by a police raid on the boat, which has drifted into U.S. waters.

A couple of years later, Ann has married her wealthy boss.  Frank surfaces again to seduce his sister to run away with him.  This time it’s Ann to the rescue …

This melodrama may set the record for most unbelievable ccincidences in the last ten minutes.  Even Stanwyck comes off somewhat stilted.  I lay the blame on early sound technology.

Montage of clips

American Madness
Directed by Frank Capra
Written by Robert Riskin
1932/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Thomas Dickson: I don’t want to hear any more about it. If you don’t get married I’m going to fire the both of you. Helen, while you’re downtown, you might stop in and make reservations for the bridal suite on the Berengeria, sailing next week.[/box]

Early Frank Capra movie presages It’s a Wonderful Life.

Thomas A. Dickson (Walter Huston) has presided over the Union National Bank for 25 years.  He is a people person who treats both his employees and loan applicants humanely.  Lately, his Board of Directors is up in arms about what they think are foolhardy loans made to small businesses.  He refuses to change his policy.

Dickson’s love for his bank takes presidence over paying much attention to his beloved wife Helen.  Lonely, she appreciates the attentions of womanizing cashier Cyril Cluett. Good-guy assistant cashier Matt (Pat O’Brien) walks in at an inopportune moment and is torn about whether to inform the boss.

Concurrently with all this, gangsters pressure Cluett to let them rob the bank to pay off a gambling debt.  Exaggerated rumors about the amount taken causes a run on the bank.  All of it adds up to a very bad day for Dickson.  With Constance Cummings as Matt’s girlfriend.

Dickson operates the way Peter Bailey used to do in It’s a Wonderful Life but with more success. Rapid-fire dialogue and a dynamic central performance by Huston make the movie classic populist Capra fare.  Recommended for the director’s fans.

Clip – One man’s answer to the Depression

Jewel Robbery
Directed by William Dieterle
Written by Erwin S. Gelsey from a story by Ladislas Fodor
1932/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Robber: The last place anybody would think of looking for me is in your bedroom.

Who knew William Dieterle had the Lubitsch touch?

The story is set in Vienna, Austria.  The Baroness Teri (Kay Francis) is bored in her marriage to an elderly nobleman.  She adores the jewels and furs he supplies, however.  He has just promised to buy her a 28-carat diamond ring.  Just after the couple make their purchase, an un-named Robber (William Powell) and his gang enter the shop for a daring daytime robbery.  They clean the entire store out at gunpoint.  It is lust at first sight between Teri and the Robber and he actually lets her keep her diamond.

The robber gives everybody the choice between smoking one of his “cigarettes” (pretty clearly marijuana) and getting locked in the safe.  Teri refuses to do either. When the cops show up, the gang gets away.  The Robber ends up stowing the loot in Teri’s bedroom. Both Teri and the jewels are then taken to the Robber’s pad for fun and games.

This movie is so much fun!  The double entendres fly between the utterly charming leads.  It’s only 68 minutes and I could have watched Powell and Francis do their thing for at least another half hour. The jewels and fashions are something to behold as well.  Recommended.

Five Star Final  
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Written by Byron Morgan and Robert Lord from a play by Louis Weitzenkorn
1931/USA
First National Pictures (Warner Bros.)
First viewing/FilmStruck

[box] Brannegan: For 2 cents I’d smash your face in.

Joseph W. Randall: You’d do anything for 2 cents.[/box]

Excellent cast gives this early Warner Bros. social realist melodrama some pizazz.

Joseph Randall (Edward G. Robinson) is the city editor of a sleazy tabloid.  The bosses decide that the paper is losing circulation because it is not quite sleazy enough.  They want to resurrect the 20-year-old Nancy Voorhees story in which a secretary killed the boss who had impregnated her.  They will bill it as a cautionary tale.  Randall goes along and assigns sleazy hypocritical reporter Isopod (Boris Karloff) to dig up new dirt on the old story.

Isopod tracks down the secretary and finds she is now married to Michael Townsend (H.B. Warner).  Her illegitimate daughter Jenny (Marian Marsh), who does not know her true parentage is about to marry the son of a wealthy stuck-up family.  Tragedy ensues when the paper prints the story over a mother’s pleas.  With Aline McMahon in her screen debut as Randall’s secretary.

This movie clearly betrays its stage roots with a lot of static long takes.  But with Robinson in command there is considerable dynamism in the acting.  The supporting cast is A-OK Warner Bros. quality to boot.

Five Star Final was Oscar-nominated for Best Picture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0qL1fs1c6k

Trailer- lots of spoilers

Blessed Event
Directed by Roy Del Ruth
Written by Howard J. Green from a play by Forrest Wilson and Manuel Seff
1932/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/FilmStruck

“The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism, and Selected Critical Prose

Rapid-fire pre-Code comedy was one of the first send-ups of Walter Winchell.

Alvin Roberts (Lee Tracy) sells classified ads for a tabloid for $35 a week.  When the gossip columnist (Ned Sparks) goes on vacation, Roberts is given the opportunity to take over for a week.  He has an inside informer at the maternity hospital, which gives him the opportunity to announce impending “blessed events” – especially ill-timed or out of wedlock ones.  Roberts’s hold-no-prisoners style leads to an increase in law suits and complaints but an even bigger rise in circulation and Roberts column becomes a regular feature.  Before long, he is raking in the big bucks by hosting a radio show as well.

Roberts uses his column to roast crooner/bandleader Bunny Harmon (Dick Powell).  When Bunny opens a new night club, he announces that Roberts is forbidden on the premises.Naturally, the newspaper man must take up the challenge.  We also get a subplot involving a gangster that is none too happy at his own coverage in the column.  With Ruth Donnelly great as Roberts’s long-suffering wise-craccking secretary.

Well, if for nothing else, I would be grateful to this movie for introducing the amazingly versatile Powell to the screen. Lee Tracy drank himself out of a career by the mid-30’s but was a bundle of entertaining energy, usually as a newspaper man or press agent, in a number of pre-Code films.  He’s fine in this one – matched in talent by a number of wonderful Warner Bros. character actors, Tracy does an amazing rendition of the reality of execution on the electric chair in this.  Recommended.

Girls About Town
Directed by George Cukor
Written Raymond Griffith and Brian Marlow
1931/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Give me a good script, and I’ll be 100 times better as a director. — George Cukor[/box]

George Cukor brings extra class to this delightful pre-Code comedy.

Wanda Howard (Kay Francis) and Marie Bailey (Lilyan Tashman) are “party girls” who get paid $500 a pop for being nice to rich old men in night clubs.  Wanda is getting bored and disgusted with the life but the wise-cracking Marie is out for every last dime she can get out of it.  One day their boss offers them work for a weekend on a yacht with Benjamin Thomas (Eugene Pallette).  Wanda reluctantly accompanies Marie.

Benjie turns out to be a specialist in bad practical jokes.  To Wanda’s delight, he brings rich young man Jim Baker (Joel McCrea) with him.  They kill time by “pretending” to like each other and by the time they disembark are in love.  Comic complications arise when we find out that Wanda has an estranged husband who expects to get rich on any divorce.

Oh for the days when “party girls” were dripping with jewels and furs and people spent their evenings in formal attire at nightclubs!  This one is heavy on snappy dialogue delivered by people who know how.  This picture also has Joel McCrea with and without his shirt and my friends know how that makes my heart go pitter pat!   Recommended.

Clip – Louise Beavers seen briefly as a maid