Flickers in Time

The Rich Are Always With Us
Directed by Alfred E. Green
Written by Austin Parker from a novel by Ethel Pettit
1932/USA
First National Pictures (Warner Bros.)
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box]Tagline:  Witty, Naughty and Gay . . a spectacular story of how the other half lives – and loves – and lies.[/box]

Sophisticated love pentangle holds the interest with lush production values and some good acting.

Caroline Grannard (Ruth Chatterton) is the richest woman in the world.  She is being wooed by devil-may-care writer Julien Tierney (George Brent).  She flirts madly with him but will remain loyal to weak-willed husband Greg Grannard (John Miljan).  In the meantime, Caroline’s friend Marlbro (Bette Davis) is madly in love with Julien who won’t give her a tumble.  When Caroline discovers her husband’s affair with Allison Adair, she divorces him.

It would seem to be clear sailing for Julien and Caroline, but she cannot resist the urge to mother and bail out the hapless Greg.  Can Malbro exploit the situation to her advantage?

The story is sort of light weight but holds the interest for the film’s 71 minute running time. This was one of the first pairings of Davis with Brent, her favorite leading man, and they have an energy and charisma not matched by others in the cast.  I have never figured out why Chatterton was supposed to be so captivating but she sure does wear clothes well.

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The Cabin in the Cotton
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Written by Paul Green from a novel by Harry Harrison Kroll
1932/USA
First National Pictures (Warner Bros.)
First viewing/FilmStruc=

[box] Madge: I’d like to kiss you, but I just washed my hair.[/box]

Pre-Code shenanigans take second place to class conflict in the Deep South.

Sharecroppers, also known as “peckerwoods”, spend backbreaking hours picking cotton for the landowner.  The whole family participates, down to the youngest children.  At the end of each year, they are deeper in debt to the company store.

Sharecropper Tom Blake finds a way to send his eldest son Marvin (Richard Barthelmess) to school where he excels.  When Tom dies, it looks sure that Marvin will need to go back to chopping cotton.  However, Madge Norwood (Bette Davis) daughter of landowner Lane Norwood has a yen for Marvin and soon he is living with the Norwood’ and keeping their books.

Marvin is also expected to spy on the sharecroppers. who are suspected of stealing cotton.  For their part, Marvin’s extended family, which includes some of the main culprits, wants his help in selling the cotton in the big city.  Marvin’s final challenge comes when the sharecroppers burn down the company store and the ledgers therein.  Marvin has a copy of the books and is really caught between a rock and a hard place.  With Dorothy Jordan as the sharecropper who loves Marvin and a host of Warner Bros. character actors.

I’d heard of this mainly for the iconic line quoted above but its actually quite a good movie of the period.  The screen lights up whenever Davis appears but Barthelmess has more to do and does it quite well.

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Movie Crazy
Directed by Clyde Bruckman and Harold Lloyd
Written by Vincent Lawrence et al
1932/USA
The Harold Lloyd Corporation
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Miller: What kind of parts do you play?

Harold Hall aka Trouble: Aw, heroes.

Miller: Well, that means we gotta get a dame.[/box]

I haven’t seen a lot of Harold Lloyd films.  If they are mostly like this one, I am not a fan.

Harold Hall (Lloyd) is starstruck and answers a Hollywood producer’s call for new faces. He accidentally slips the photo of a handsome man in with the letter instead of his own. Harold is invited to Hollywood for a screen test.  Before he can get that far, he manages to destroy an entire film set while acting as an extra.  His screen test is an even bigger disaster.  Most of the movie covers the relationship between Harold and starlet Mary Sears (Constance Cummings), which is rocky due to his penchant for creating mayhem where ever he appears.  For some reason she begins to find this endearing after awhile.  But the big break comes when the big boss thinks all the film footage they have is hilariously funny.

I’ve been kind of under the weather and that may have influenced my response to this movie.  I found Lloyd’s antics irritating rather than funny in the main.  Give me my new 30’s faves Wheeler and Woolsey anytime.

Clip – Harold Lloyd meets Constance Cummings

City Streets
Directed by Rouben Mamoulian
Written by Oliver H.P. Garrett; adapted by Max Marsin from a story by Dashiell Hammett
1931/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/YouTube

[box] The Kid: When you talk to me, take that toothpick out of your mouth.[/box]

Rouben Mamoulian brings “art” and flashy camera moves to the gangster flick.  It works out remarkably well.

Spunky Nan Cooley (Sylvia Sidney) lives with her sleazy stepfather (Guy Kibbee) who is a bodyguard to bootleggers.  She is in love with “The Kid” (Gary Cooper), who runs the shooting gallery at Coney Island and is a sharpshooter in real life.  Nan would like him to get a job with the racketeers to earn money so they can get married.  He refuses.

Loyal Nan is called on to help her stepdad by hiding the gun he has used to bump off his boss.  She is caught with the gun and refuses to cooperate with the police by naming its owner.  Though Pop promises she won’t spend a day in the pen he essentially forgets about her once she is in jail.  That is, until he runs in to The Kid and persuades him to carry a rod for the mob in order to get money to spring her.

The Kid finds he loves the high life in the beer racket.  But he’s still madly in love with Nan. When she gets out, evil Big Fellow Maskel (Paul Lukas) develops a yen for her and simply will not leave her alone.  The confrontation between the Kid and the Big Fellow takes up the remainder of the movie.

I really enjoyed this movie.  Sidney and Cooper are two of my favorite early stars and do splendidly.  Mamoulian is at his most experimental trying out every angle and gimmick he can think of.  It doesn’t hang together as well as in some of his other films but does keep up the audience’s interest throughout.  Recommended and available on YouTube.

Clip – I actually gasped when the gorgeous young Gary Cooper turned around and smiled!

The Man Who Played God
Directed by John G. Adolfi
Written by Julian Josephson and John T. Hawley from a play by Jules Eckert Goodman and a story by Governeur Morris
1932/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Grace Blair: You’re my ideal!

Montgomery Royle: I shall always be… your friend. [/box]

George Arliss may be an acquired taste that I may never acquire.

Montgomery Royle (Arliss) is an eccentric virtuouso concert pianist with hordes of admirers.  One of his most ardent is protegee Grace Blair (Bette Davis).  Despite their 40 year age difference, she idolizes him to the point of asking him to marry her.  He gives her six months to think it over.

Royle is concluding a successful tour in Paris with a command performance for the king of an unnamed country.  When an assassin bombs Royle’s dressing room to get at the king, Royle loses his hearing.  Deafness has been a family curse.

Grace takes off for a vacation in Santa Barbara.  While she’s gone, Royle loses his love of music and his faith in God on top of his hearing.  He becomes an expert lip reader as well as a bitter cynic and attempts suicide.  He is saved at the last minute and finds meaning in his life by reading the lips of folks on a Central Park bench through binoculars and trying to change their lives for the better.  With Ray Milland in a tiny role as one of the sad souls Arliss sees in Central Park.

I know Arliss is considered a great stage actor.  Viewed up close on screen, he appeared positively cadaverous with his heavy white make-up and silent screen poses – making the romance with Davis pretty darned creepy.  The material hasn’t aged well either.  It is pure grand melodrama of the most incredible variety.  Still it’s a quality production with a high user rating on IMDb so your mileage may vary.

This was Bette Davis’s first film under her Warner Bros. contract.  It’s one of those blonde ingenue roles she would have to fight like hell to break free of.

Emma
Directed by Clarence Brown
Written by Leonard Praskins and Zelda Sears; story by Frances Marion
1932/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Emma: You’ll get your feet wet, and forget to change your socks.[/box]

This would be just another treacly melodrama without the amazing, warm performance by Marie Dressler at its heart.

Emma (Dressler) is housekeeper to inventor Frederick Smith (Jean Herscholt) and his brood of three children.  When his wife dies in childbirth of the youngest, Emma becomes a surrogate mother to all of them.  One of Frederick’s inventions makes him rich and the oldest children grow up to be spoiled, selfish, snobs.  The eldest Isabelle (Myrna Loy) marries a count and is the worst of them.  The youngest, Ronnie (Richard Cromwell) truly loves Emma as well as flying planes.

After all the children are grown, Emma decides she can afford to take a vacation in Niagara Falls.  One thing leads to another and Frederick decides to turn the vacation into a honeymoon.  But their happiness is short-lived when he succumbs to the heart trouble that has plagued him for years.  The eldest children are appalled to find that dad left all the money to be distributed by Emma and cook up a murder case against her.

This movie pulls at the old heart strings over and over.  It never goes over the top though because Dressler keeps the central performance anchored in warm, real, humanity.  She knows how to makes us love her without feeling manipulated.  Recommended.

Marie Dressler was Oscar-nominated as Best Actress.

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