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.
