Tag Archives: 1930s

The Marines Are Coming
Directed by David Howard
1934/USA
Mascot Pictures
First viewing

Lt. William “Wild Bill” Traylor: Anybody can obey orders. It takes genius to win a war![/box]

Poverty row comedy about wise-cracking Marine Corps Officer Bill Traylor (William Haines) who is always in trouble with the brass.  When Traylor arrives in San Diego, he assigned to duty under his nemesis Captain Benton (Conrad Nagle).  He promptly latches on to Benton’s girlfriend (Esther Walston), while avoiding the advances of Rosita, a stereotypical Latin spitfire who has been following him from post to post insisting he marry her.  When Traylor is forced to resign his commission, he returns as an enlisted man and the shenanigans continue in an unnamed Latin American country where the Marines are fighting bandits.

This film is notable mostly for being the last film William Haines ever made.  I didn’t like it much.  All the principals seem to have been instructed to plaster a big grin on their face and give it their all.  Everybody complied but that didn’t make the film amusing to me.

William Haines in 1930

The film, however, did inspire me to look up Haines’s biography.  He was a very popular silent star, regularly named #1 male box-office draw at the end of the silent era.  He was released by MGM in the early thirties, reportedly due to a fight with Louis B. Mayer, who wanted Haines to end his relationship with his lover Jimmie Shields and marry a woman.  Haines and Shields went on to be a couple for over 50 years and Haines had a very successful 40-year career as an interior designer.

Clip: Opening

Stand Up and Cheer!
Directed by Hamilton MacFadden
1934/USA
Fox Film Corporation
First viewing?

The President decides to improve morale during the Depression by creating a Department of Amusement headed by Secretary Lawrence Cromwell (Warner Baxter).  Cromwell selects Mary Adams (Madge Evans) to run the Children’s Division, and they promptly fall in love.  Meanwhile, some wicked industrialists are trying to sabotage Cromwell’s efforts to cheer up the nation.

Dig those hats!

The plot is an excuse for a variety review and, aside from the “Baby Take a Bow” number with Shirley Temple and James Dunn, this movie is a godawful mess. The routines progressively grow worse and worse until we are left with “Broadway’s Gone Hill-Billy”, a truly awful sketch involving Stepin Fetchit and a penguin voiced by a Jimmy Durante impersonator (!!!), and the “We’re Out of the Red” finale.  Yes, these are every bit as bad as they sound.

The ability of James Dunn to overcome this dreadful material led me to look up his biography. I really thought he was wonderful in 1931’s Bad Girl and was wondering what became of him. It turns out that it was the old story of alcholism rendering a talented actor unemployable. Dunn did have a comeback in 1945’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn which earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar but he retreated again into obscurity.

Website dedicated to James Dunn:  http://rememberingjimmy.com/about-james-dunn/biography/

Clip – “Baby, Take a Bow”

Kiss and Make-up
Directed by Harlan Thompson
1934/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing

Tagline: …a racy romance of a famous beauty doctor

Cary Grant plays Dr. Maurice Lamar, a Parisian plastic surgeon and beauty expert in high demand.  His efficient secretary Anne (Helen Mack) is in love with him.  His “masterpiece” is Eve Caron (Genevieve Tobin), though her husband Marcel (Edward Everett Horton) does not approve of the changes the doctor has wrought and divorces her.  Maurice marries Eve but is perfection all it is cracked up to be?

This movie was released just before the Production Code began to be enforced and you can sure tell by the double entendres and the amount of cheesecake on offer. In case there was any doubt, the first scene has the good doctor asking Toby Wing to disrobe and she is down to her scanties in a flash. The film also served as a showcase for the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1934 so there are multiple parts for the lovely starlets as the doctor’s assistants or patients.

The plot is slender and unremarkable. Good for something light or to see Cary Grant sing and look young and handsome. The art deco sets are also very nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx6vPYfRO9k

Clip – Cary Grant sings “Love Divided by Two”

Thirty Day Princess
Directed by Marion Gering
1934/USA
B.P. Schulberg Productions for Paramount Pictures
First viewing

[box] King Anatol: It’s extraordinary how much you look like Zizi! Tell me, have you any royal blood in your veins?

Nancy Lane: I don’t think so, Your Majesty.

King Anatol: Well, my dear, one can never tell.[/box]

A banker (Edward Arnold) wants to float a bond issue for the kingdom of Tyronia and brings its princess (Sylvia Sydney) to New York to publicize the deal. During her first speech there, the princess collapses and must be quarantined for mumps. The banker finds a lookalike stand-in in the form of Nancy Allen (also Sylvia Sydney), a struggling actress. He promises her extra payment if she can vamp crusading newspaper editor Porter Madison III (Cary Grant) into not denouncing the bond issue. Naturally, Porter soon falls in love with the “princess” and the feeling is mutual.

This is standard romantic comedy fare. The story is lifted slightly above average by the performances of the two leads and a script that was co-written by Preston Sturges.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tstMdiMW1bI

Clip – at the automat (the two men are scouting for a princess stand-in)

Now and Forever
Directed by Henry Hathaway
1934/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing

Penelope Day: Daddy doesn’t know anything about raising children.

Gary Cooper pays con man Jerry Day who travels the world one step ahead of the law with his wife Toni (Carole Lombard).  In China, he announces that he has a child and is going to sign her over to his ex-brother-in-law for $75,000.  Toni doesn’t care for this scheme and they separate.  Naturally, Jerry falls in love with Penny (Shirley Temple) as soon as they meet and the two reunite with Toni.  Jerry tries to go straight but is constantly tempted by a fellow con man (Guy Standing) who has something on him.  With Charlotte Granville as the society matron who wants to take care of Penny.

This movie is quite a departure from Shirley’s normal fare.  First of all, her part is secondary to the two adult leads, though she does get equal billing.  She does not play her normal role of bringing two people together for love of her and there is almost no singing.  It’s quite a dark story with an ambiguous ending.  That said, this is no better than your average melodrama of the time period.  Gary Cooper is an unlikely con man and Carole Lombard doesn’t have much of a chance to be wacky.