Cast: Charlotte Henry, Morgan Galloway, Beryl Mercer, James Kirkwood, John St Polis, Betty Blythe, Joyce Compton, Russell Simpson, Clarence Muse, The Kentucky Singers
67 min
Lena Rivers, aka The Sin of Lena Rivers, is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by Phil Rosen based on the 1856 novel by Mary Jane Holmes. Filmed on several occasions throughout the silent era.[1]
Plot
Lena Rivers’ mother dies in childbirth, and the child is left to be reared by her grandparents. Years later, her grandfather is reported lost at sea, and Lena and her grandmother go to live in Canterville, Kentucky with John Nichols, Lena’s uncle, despite the objections of John’s wife Mathilda and his daughter Caroline, who think that Lena is illegitimate.
Henry R. Graham, the owner of the plantation next to the Nichols’, seems bothered when he meets Lena. One day, Lena plays with a bunny on the Graham property, and she is horrified when Graham’s ward, Durrie Belmont, shoots it. Although she calls him a murderer, Durrie, who is courting Caroline, becomes attracted to Lena.
Graham takes a personal interest in Lena because she reminds him of a woman with whom he was in love, but who died while he was away, believing he had deserted her. When Lena shows a gift for calming the excitable horse Brimstone, Graham gives her the horse. After Graham introduces her to Durrie, the boy promises never to shoot another bunny and walks her home. Graham throws a party at his manor, but Lena does not come because she does not have a fancy dress, so Durrie goes to her house.
They take a walk, and he kisses her before she goes in. Caroline sees them together and calls Lena an “ungrateful sneak,” then says she takes after her mother, who never married. Lana slaps her and runs crying to her grandmother, who assures her that her mother was married, but that her father left her to die. Graham enters Brimstone in the races for Lena because she has made astonishing progress with the previously unmanageable horse.
When Lena’s grandmother has an attack, Graham, worried about the effect her possible death might have on Lena, mentions to Durrie that he would like to adopt her. Durrie’s jealousy is aroused, as Caroline had earlier implied that Graham and Lena were having an illicit affair. In reality, Graham is Lena’s father. He had married her mother in secret because of his tyrant father, using his middle name “Rivers” as their surname.
His father “shanghaied” Graham to Europe, and when he returned, he learned that his wife had died. Until Lena recently appeared, he had been unaware that he had a daughter. Brimstone wins the race, and Lena is awarded $5,000, but Durrie discovers that Graham told the jockey of his competing horse to let Brimstone win.
Still unaware of Graham’s real relationship to Lena, Durrie, jealous, angry and drunk, proposes to Caroline, who agrees to marry him. Lena’s grandmother dies after realizing that Lena now has enough money to support herself. Shaken by the death, Lena learns about Durrie and Caroline’s elopement and leaves town to make a new life for herself elsewhere after forgiving Graham, who has revealed his secret to her.
Meanwhile, Durrie drives recklessly and his car goes over an embankment. When Graham finds out that Durrie and Caroline are in the hospital, he sends for Lena. While Caroline flirts with a doctor, Durrie learns that Graham is Lena’s father and leaves the hospital to find her and marry her. He gets into a car to find Lena inside, and they hug and kiss.
Cast: Helen Morgan, Joan Peers, Fuller Mellish Jr., Jack Cameron, Henry Wadsworth, Billie Bernard, Phyllis Bolce, Lotta Burnell, Alice Clayton, Florence Dickinson
80 min
Applause is a 1929 black-and-whitebackstage musical talkie, shot at Paramount’s Astoria Studios in Astoria, New York, during the early years of sound films. The film is notable as one of the few films of its time to break free from the restrictions of bulky sound technology equipment in order to shoot on location around Manhattan.
Based on a novel by Beth Brown, the film was staged and directed by Rouben Mamoulian,[1] and stars Helen Morgan, Joan Peers, Henry Wadsworth, and Fuller Mellish, Jr. Mae West was originally considered for the part of Kitty Darling, but Paramount decided West’s glamorous stage presence would undercut the tackier aspects of the storyline.
This was Morgan’s first all-talking film. She had previously appeared in the sound prologue to the part-talkie version of Show Boat, released by Universal Studios. In the same year, Morgan appeared in Applause, and Glorifying the American Girl.
In 2006, Applause was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.[2]
The film tells of Kitty Darling (Helen Morgan), a burlesque star, who sends her young daughter to a convent to get her away from the sleazy burlesque environment she is involved in.
Many years later, Kitty is not doing so well and her best days are behind her. She’s now an alcoholic who lives in the past. She lives with a burlesque comic named Hitch (Fuller Mellish Jr.). Hitch cheats on her and only cares about spending what little money she has. When he finds out she has been paying for her daughter’s convent education for over a decade, he pushes her into bringing April back home.
Her grown, but naive daughter April (Joan Peers) returns. Kitty is embarrassed by her condition and marries Hitch so that April will not be ashamed of her.
When April arrives, she is disgusted with her mother and her sad life. Hitch tries to force her into show business and repeatedly gropes her, at one point forcing a kiss on her.
April roams the city and meets a lonely young sailor named Tony (Henry Wadsworth). They fall in love and agree to marry and April will move to his home in Wisconsin. When April goes to tell her mother about their plans she overhears Hitch belittling Kitty, calling her a “has-been.”
April is upset and calls off her wedding. She decides to join the chorus line of a burlesque show. She says a reluctant goodbye to Tony at the subway. Meanwhile, Kitty takes an overdose of sleeping pills. The bottle clearly says “For insomnia one tablet only”. She goes downstairs to the show and collapses on a couch.
Knowing that Kitty cannot perform in the show, the producer berates her, mistaking her reaction to the overdose for delirium tremens. April, also not realizing what is happening, and over Kitty’s objections, says she will take Kitty’s place. She tells Kitty she will take care of her now, like Kitty always did for April. As April goes onstage, Kitty passes away, her head hanging over the edge of the couch.
April is disgusted at herself and cannot complete the show. As she runs off the stage, none other than Tony is there to greet her. He says he had a feeling she did not mean what she was saying. She hugs him close and says she wants to go far away. Not realizing Kitty is dead, she says they will need to take care of her mother too, and Tony agrees.
The final shot is a close-up of the Kitty Darling poster on the wall, behind Tony and April.
The censor boards approved of the message and production values of the film, but were concerned about a scene in which Kitty told April that two of the chorus girls in the show were Catholic, “as good Catholics as anybody even if they do shake for a living.” The line was changed to “Christians”.
The film opened to mixed reviews from film critics.
Critic Mordaunt Hall, writing for the New York Times, liked the acting but was troubled by some of Rouben Mamoulian’s direction. He said, “The opening chapters are none too interesting and subsequently one anticipates pretty much what’s going to happen…however, Mr. Mamoulian commits the unpardonable sin of being far too extravagant. He becomes tedious in his scenes of the convent and there is nothing but viciousness in his stage passages.”[3]
Photoplay described the film as “a curious one,” however recommendable for the performances by Morgan and Joan Peers. The anonymous reviewer, however, thought the two leads, “and some nice camera work, help save a confusing job.”[4]
Many have compared Mamoulian’s debut to that of Orson Welles‘ Citizen Kane because of his flamboyant use of cinematic innovation to test technical boundaries. The tear-jerking plot boasts top performances from Morgan as the fading burlesque queen, Fuller Mellish Jr. as her slimy paramour and Joan Peers as her cultured daughter. However, the film is remembered today chiefly for Mamoulian’s audacious style. While most films of the era were static and stage-bound, Mamoulian’s camera reinvigorated the melodramatic plot by prowling relentlessly through sordid backstage life.[2]
A recent[when?] review by Manuel Cintra Ferreira highlights the innovative direction and influence on the productions to come:
It is well-known that the arrival of sound brought a revolution in film-making. But (…) the early times were marked by disorientation on how to master the new technique. The cinematographic idiom, having reached a splendorous high by those years, was made to regress almost to its early stages by the demands of the complicated sound machinery, still cameras restricted to the recording of long dialogue declamations in tedious closeups, such that some commentators did not anticipate a sustained future for the “talkies”. Mamoulian’s role in inverting the slippage was profound, eventually making sound and talk an essential element of the narrative in cinema. Applause, his first work in Hollywood, is from the outset an inescapable witness of this process of change, exploring voice off and sound overlay, which, at the time, technicians considered impossible. (…) Applause became (…) the true “first great sound picture in the world”.[citation needed]
Premiere and box office reception
The film opened strongly on October 7, 1929 at New York City’s Criterion Theatre, which was celebrating its 35th anniversary. Also on hand was a short film in which Charles K. Harris sang his classic song “After the Ball“.
A combination of mixed reviews, misleading advertising (the publicity focused on glamour shots of Helen Morgan, not what she looked like in the film), downbeat subject matter, and the Stock Market Crash caused the movie to taper off significantly as soon as it left the Criterion.
Revival, restoration, and home video release
In 1939, Henry Hathaway nearly remade the film with Marlene Dietrich. Applause was rediscovered in the early 1960s, and there was talk of a stage musical with Judy Garland as Kitty and Liza Minnelli as April. (The musical Applause, based on the 1950 movie All About Eve, and having absolutely no relation to the 1929 film, opened on March 30, 1970 starring Lauren Bacall.)[5]
The film was released on DVD in 2003 through Kino Video (under license from current rightsholders Universal Studios). Special features included comments Rouben Mamoulian made for the 1986 50th anniversary of the Directors Guild of America, censorship notes, a 1929 interview with Mamoulian, rare photos and promotional materials, 1933 newsreel footage of Helen Morgan and her second husband, a clip of Morgan singing What Wouldn’t I Do For That Man? in the 1929 musical Glorifying the American Girl, excerpts from the Beth Brown novel, and essays on Morgan and the film, written by Christopher S. Connelly.
Prof. Auguste A. Topaze (John Barrymore), an honest, naive chemist and schoolteacher at the – Stegg Academy in Paris, loses his job when he refuses to accede to a demand by the Baroness de La Tour-La Tour to alter the grades of her bratty son, Charlemagne.
On the same day, Friday the 13th, Topaze calls on the Baron de La Tour-La Tour’s mistress, Coco (Myrna Loy), who is looking for a tutor for her sister’s son, Alphonse, and had gotten Topaze’s name from La Tour. Upon meeting and listening to the sincere remarks of Topaze, the baron, head of the La Tour Chemical Works, decides to employ him as a scientific front for his phony curative water.
After an encounter at a cafe, where the Baron narrowly avoids a scene with his wife by calling Coco “Madame Topaze”, Coco reveals the true nature of her relation to the Baron to the naive Professor. When they arrive late back to Coco’s apartment, the Baron is jealous, but soon realizes Topaze is entirely innocent.
Unaware that the water, “Sparkling Topaze,” which is being sold all over Paris, does not contain the medicinal formula he invented for it, Topaze is shocked when Dr. Bomb (who had turned down the “honor” of having the fradulent water named for him) shows up, demanding 100,000 francs from the Baron or he will expose the fradulent product. But the Baron blackmails him in return with information about his previous identity, and Bomb is dragged out.
After confirming for himself, in the lab and in a local restaurant, that “Sparkling Topaze” is in fact phony, a dazed Topaze returns to Coco’s apartment the next morning, where Coco fusses over him. At first, he is ready to be arrested, but the men who are shown in are instead a delegation from the Bureau of Awards and Merits, who award him the Academic Palms. All are friends and business associates of the Baron, and the scales begin to fall from Professor Topaze’s eyes.
His naivete thoroughly destroyed, declaring “Topaze lies dead in an alley”, Topaze decides to fight back by becoming more corrupt than his mentors. He remakes his image and, with Bomb as his assistant, he opens his own office, where he makes dignitaries wait to see him. One is Dr. Stegg, who now wants Topaze to preside at the graduation at the school. Topaze succeeds in blackmailing the Baron into a partnership in his company with a complete account of his relationship with Coco, which he threatens to show to the Baroness, whose name the shares in the company are in.
At the Stegg Academy graduation, Topaze, who has also garnered the romantic attention of Coco, is to distribute the prize, which he is told is to go to his former nemesis, Charlemagne de La Tour-La Tour. He gives a little speech about his experiences in the great world, that honesty isn’t always rewarded and that villainy often receives more applause than virtue. Declaring that he will not reward wrongdoers, he shows up Charlemagne’s ignorance relative to all his classmates, then awards the prize to them instead.
Mordaunt Hall said “[I]t is an agreeable and effective film, and Mr. Barrymore lends no little artistry to the rôle of the benign Professor Auguste Topaze, a part played with rare skill on the stage by Frank Morgan.”[1]
In 1935, a planned reissue was rejected by Joseph Breen as the Production Code was now being strictly enforced and the relationship between Coco and Philippe lacked compensating moral values.[2]
A beautiful streetwise taxi dancer named Barbara O’Neill (Barbara Stanwyck) works at a New York City dance hall called Palais de Dance. One of the dance hall’s wealthy patrons, Bradley Carlton (Ricardo Cortez), comes to the hall and gives Barbara $100.
Concerned about her unemployed friend and neighbor Eddie Miller (Monroe Owsley), Barbara asks Bradley to give him a job, and he agrees. That night they have dinner together.
When Barbara gets home, Eddie is in the process of packing his bags; he can no longer afford to pay his rent. Barbara gives him the $100 she received from Bradley and tells him about his new job. Later, Eddie and Barbara meet in the park and realize that they are in love.
The next night at the dance hall, Barbara receives a gift of a new dress, but is disappointed when she sees that it was sent by Bradley. Eddie arrives at the dance hall and asks Barbara to marry him. Barbara accepts his proposal and soon quits her job.
Five months later, Eddie meets an old friend Ralph Sheridan and his sister Nancy, and does not reveal that he is now married. They play cards together and Eddie loses $240, something he does not tell his wife.
He claims to be at a convention, but in fact he meets a woman named Nancy. Later, Eddie returns to find the rent and utilities past due because he has spent his pay gambling. Meanwhile, Barbara returns to work at the dance hall, where she sees Bradley occasionally.
Later, Barbara returns home and discovers Eddie packing his bags. Admitting that he stole $5,000 from Bradley’s office safe, he tells her that he lost that money playing the stock market. Barbara is able to talk him into staying, and she visits Bradley and asks him for a $5,000 loan. Bradley agrees because he is in love with her.
The next morning, Barbara presents the money to Eddie who accepts it immediately. When Eddie returns from work, he and Barbara engage in a jealous fight. Soon after, she packs her belongings and returns to the dance hall, where she is met by Bradley who has two tickets for the Ile de France, where Barbara can obtain a divorce and marry him.
Cast: Ralph Forbes, Vivienne Osborne, Arnold Gray, Gail Patrick, Paul Page, Pauline Garon, Guinn Big Boy Williams, Rockliffe Fellowes
72 minutes
Plot
As a delivery boy bestows flowers to girls about town, singer Grant Murdock states on his radio show that “Tonight I’m singing to you!” Joe Masetro, a gangster type, has set his sights on signing Grant to a big contract at the end of the week. Grant signs a new contract, however, with his old manager and conductor, Norman Wilder, a hunchback. Joe is upset with siren Elsa Evans, who was supposed to seduce Grant into signing with him. When Joe threatens to cut her out of the action, Elsa tells him she plans to marry Grant.
After the broadcast, Grant makes dates with a number of the girls and heads for Elsa, telling Wilder’s driver, Sandy Higgins, that he will not be rehearsing tonight. Lefty, Joe’s chief henchman and Elsa’s ex-lover, arrives with his gang to kill Norman. Norman meets Laura Hamilton, a young singer, and offers to test her the next day. Getting into his car, Sandy warns Norman about Lefty’s presence and the danger from Joe. Norman laughs off Sandy’s concern, but agrees to take a taxi, after which his car is shot up by Lefty and company. Joe calls Elsa at Grant’s apartment and tells her that Norman was “killed in a gang fight.” Norman, using his key, enters Grant’s apartment, frightening Elsa.
Told of the attack, Grant assumes the murderers were after him, and after refusing to rehearse, he and Elsa leave. While Laura washes dishes with her fiancée, Dr. Robert Brooks, Norman calls and offers to test her in his studio that night. After the tryout, Norman tells Laura that she has real talent, but insists that a singing career and marriage do not mix. After she leaves, Norman looks in the mirror and imagines what he might have been like if he had not been born a hunchback. The next day, Grant and Norman rehearse. It turns out that Norman is the real singer and that Grant is no more than a ventriloquist’s dummy, mouthing the words and accepting the praise and glory.
When Grant leaves, he bumps into Laura and breaks her compact. Impressed by her looks, he promises to sing “My Good Bye to You” just for her, but Norman warns Laura about Grant, then refuses to sing the song on the broadcast. After the radio show, Norman tells Grant to stay away from Laura, but Grant calls her and makes a date for five o’clock to “hear him sing.” Grant strikes Norman and leaves. Norman tries to call Laura but she has already left. Back at his apartment, Elsa finds Laura’s compact and confronts Grant.
She talks about marriage, but Grant strikes her and throws her out. While Elsa takes out her gun, Norman buys one of his own. Arriving at Grant’s, Norman finds the performer dead, with Laura’s compact next to him. Thinking Laura killed Grant, Norman switches guns, calls the police and confesses to the murder. Laura arrives, and realizing his mistake, Norman orders her to leave. When the police arrive, Norman escapes through the roof, but is mortally wounded.
Elsa calls Joe seeking help, but it is Lefty, who is still in love with her, who agrees to give her money. At the radio station, word of Grant’s murder arrives. At seven o’clock, right on schedule, the “voice” of Grant Murdock is heard on the air. The studio curtain is pulled back to show Norman singing “My Good Bye to You.” As he dies in her arms, Norman tells Laura that “love and music do mix.” On a ship, Laura honeymoons with Robert, as nearby Elsa wonders aloud to Lefty why Norman took the “rap” for her.
After he wakes from a deep sleep in a strange Long Island mansion, a dazed man finds a calendar dated 1938, four years later than his last recollection, and evidence that his name is Jerome “Jerry” Peyton Werrenden. Greyson, a butler, tells Jerry that he is the mansion’s owner and that he has been ailing mentally for months.
Jerry, however, quickly deduces that he has been kidnapped and drugged and that Greyson was hired to pose as a longtime servant as part of a scheme to convince him that he is suffering from amnesia.
Curious about the scheme, Jerry pays Greyson to continue his part, while he pretends to be Werrenden with Chloe, his supposed wife, and with Colton Drain, his supposed secretary. When Chloe and Colton realize that Jerry is wise to the plot, they offer him $10,000 to impersonate Werrenden, who is living in Europe, in a meeting with Colonel Gordon Lewis, the estate trustee, who has been asked to deliver $200,000 in bonds. Jerry accepts the offer and, while waiting for the colonel, overhears Chloe and Colton discussing plans to leave for South America.
After requesting a signed receipt, Lewis, apparently fooled by the impersonation, gives Jerry the bonds, which Jerry then places in a safe, the combination to which only the real Werrenden knows. Later that night, Colton and Chloe discover two thugs, Feets and Chuck, breaking into the safe.
When the thugs see Jerry, they identify him as The Sparrow, a master “cracksman,” and as a favor to his fellow crooks, Jerry allows them to escape before the police arrive. After a confused interrogation of Chloe, Colton, Lewis and Greyson about Jerry’s identity, Sergeant Kerrigan orders Jerry and Chloe to police headquarters. To Chloe’s surprise, however, Jerry takes her to his house, explaining that Greyson had telephoned his minion, Kerrigan, with orders to impersonate a police sergeant.
After Jerry determines that Chloe was actually trying to save her ne’er-do-well husband from the financial scheming of Colton, he confronts Lewis about the bonds. Cornered, Lewis confesses that he had hired Feets and Chuck to steal the bonds because he needed the money to cover his own overdraughts.
Jerry then breaks into Colton’s private vaults and unearths several documents that reveal that Colton had covered up news of Werrenden’s death and had stolen his securities. Jerry returns to the Werrenden mansion and shows Chloe, with whom he has fallen in love, his evidence. Supported by Chloe, a repentant Lewis and Greyson, Jerry convinces the police that he is Werrenden and that Colton is suffering a nervous breakdown.
Unable to expose Colton to the police because of his own criminal activities, Jerry nonetheless satisfies Chloe by forcing Colton to agree to leave immediately for South America. Chloe then convinces a reformed Jerry not to run away, but to stay with her indefinitely.
A young man returns from Europe after several years’ estrangement from his family caused by his disapproval of his father’s remarrying after his mother’s death. At the family reunion he learns that his stepmother is the woman with whom he had a shipboard romance on the voyage home.
Cast: Betty Compson, John Darrow, Gilbert Emery, Margaret Livingston, Ivan Lebedeff, Edgar Norton, Daphne Pollard
72 min
The Lady Refuses is a 1931 American pre-Codemelodrama film, directed by George Archainbaud, from a screenplay by Wallace Smith, based on an original story by Guy Bolton and Robert Milton. It stars Betty Compson as a destitute young woman on the verge of becoming a prostitute, who is hired by a wealthy man to woo his never-do-well son away from the clutches of a gold-digger (Margaret Livingston). The plot is regarded as risqué enough to appear in at least one collection of pre-Code Hollywood films.[3]
Sir Gerald Courtney (Gilbert Emery) is an aristocrat whose son, Russell (John Darrow), prefers to spend his time partying with young women rather than focusing on the promising career he has in architecture. When Russell leaves one evening to revel with the gold-digging Berthine Waller (Margaret Livingston) rather than spending it dining with his father, Sir Gerald is a bit despondent. As he ponders what to do about his wayward son, providence takes a hand.
A beautiful destitute young woman, June (Betty Compson), on the verge of entering into the oldest of professions due to her desperation, is being pursued by the London police. Sir Gerald, who was at the window in the first floor watching his son leaving with Berthine Waller, observes how June leaves a taxi on the other side of the street, and is being cornered by the police.
As she comes over to his house to knock, he opens the door and welcomes her as an old friend he was expecting, reassuring the Policemen that she is a respectable citizen. After they leave, Sir Gerald invites her to dinner, after she told him her situation. Then he proposes to hire June for a 1000 Pounds to prevent his son to fall into the clutches of Berthine.
June does her job beautifully, as Russell leaves Berthine and begins to concentrate on his architectural career, much to his father’s delight. There’s a slight hitch however: June has fallen in love with Sir Gerald, rather than Russell. Devastated, Russell calls Berthine to meet him at his apartment (which is upstairs in the same building where June lives). Seeing all of her work being unwound in a single evening, June lures Russell down to her apartment, where she gets him so drunk that he passes out and spends the night.
When Berthine arrives at Russel’s apartment, she has been followed by an ex-lover, Nikolai Rabinoff (Ivan Lebedeff). In a jealous rage, Nikolai kills Berthine. The following morning Russell awakes to find June gone, having vowed to not come between the son and the father. He is also the main suspect in Berthine’s murder. Seeking shelter from his father, Russell refuses to invoke June as his alibi. In order to save him, June steps forward and admits that Russell spent the night in her apartment. Sir Gerald, thinking the worst, renounces his devotion for June, which devastates her, but confirmed what she always feared: that he would never rely on her. June leaves his house, but when Sir Gerald discovers the innocence of Russell’s night spent in her apartment short after, he understands his own mistake and vows to track her down and spend the rest of his life with her.
During production, this film was known by several titles, including Children of the Streets, Ladies for Hire, A Lady for Hire and Forgotten Women.[6] According to several sources at the time, the noted screenwriter, Jane Murfin was supposed to have done work in the adaptation of the Milton/Bolton story for the screen, however, no sources give her credit for any writing work on the film.[3]
Cast: Dorothy Mackaill, Joel McCrea, Ned Sparks, Mary Carr, Clara Kimball Young, Robert McWade, Bryant Washburn, Florence Roberts, Freeman Wood, Lita Chevret
The original story was written by the film’s associate producer, Louis Sarecky, and adapted for the screen by Forrest Halsey and Alfred Jackson. Although primarily a drama, the film has many comedic touches to it.
The film centers around the class struggles and stereotypes between the working class and the wealthy, which was particularly striking during the Depression era when this film was made. The film also points out the stereotypical gender roles which were prevalent at that time.
Arthur Parker (Robert McWade) is a wealthy steel magnate who is relating the story to his snobbish wife and spoiled daughter of one of his plant supervisors who fearlessly rushed in and saved the lives of two of his fellow co-workers.
When his wife, Henrietta (Florence Roberts), asks if he rewarded the young man, Parker shows his astonishment by saying that the hero had refused the thousand dollars he had offered.
When the daughter, Dot (Dorothy Mackaill), remarks that she would like to meet a man like that, the father tells her not to worry, she will, for he is coming to dinner that very evening. Henrietta is aghast at having to socialize with someone not of their class, but Parker, who is a better judge of character, assures her that all will be well.
During dinner, Dot is smitten with the young man, Dick Brunton (Joel McCrea). So smitten she makes a bet with her father that she can get him to marry her within four weeks, by December 20. The father takes that bet, and lo and behold she wins Dick’s heart and gets him to accept her proposal of marriage by the deadline, despite his fears of their different social circumstances.
After the wedding, Parker sends the newlyweds on an expensive honeymoon to Europe, after which they return to their lavish home, also supplied by Parker. Parker also promotes Dick, but within six months, his new lifestyle threatens to emasculate Dick, who loses interest in his career and finds himself dominated by Dot’s vapid, social whirl of bridge games, cocktail parties and passive acceptance of life as a “kept husband”.
This does not sit well with the proud husband, and when Parker offers him a chance to prove himself with a new position in St. Louis, he jumps at the chance. When told of the opportunity however, Dot is less than enthusiastic, not wanting to leave her friends and social circle. She refuses to agree to accompany Dick.
Dick decides to go to St. Louis, with or without Dot, making her incredibly upset. Not knowing what to do, he goes to ask advice from his mother (Mary Carr), who tells him that he needs to reconcile with Dot before he leaves for St. Louis. Meanwhile, Dot has agreed to meet with a former beau, Charles Bates (Bryant Washburn), who attempts to seduce her.
When she returns to their house the following morning, Dick questions her regarding her whereabouts. She lies to him, and he knows it, since he had seen her with Washburn the prior evening. Furious, he storms out, saying their marriage is over, and intending to resign from Parker’s company.
Realizing her love for him, Dot eventually finds Dick at the rail station, about to leave for St. Louis. He has decided to take Parker’s position after all. The husband and wife reconcile, with Dot agreeing to live within the means that Dick’s salary can provide.
The tag line for the film was “Every Inch a Man – Bought Body and Soul by His Wife”.[6]
This film marked the debut in sound films of Clara Kimball Young, who had been a major star during the silent film era. She came back after a six-year hiatus from making films.[7]
Cast: Sally Blane, James Murray, Edmund Breese, Bryant Washburn, Pat O’Malley, Thomas E Jackson, Mildred Golden, Douglas Scott
63 min
The Reckoning (also known as Crooked Streets) is a 1932 Pre-code talking film crime-drama directed by Harry L. Fraser and starring Sally Blane and James Murray. It was released on state rights and through a company called Peerless.[1]
Jump up^Catalog of Holdings The American Film Institute Collection and The United Artists Collection at The Library of Congress, (<-book title) p.150 c.1978 the American Film Institute
Cast: Grant Withers, Mary Astor, Regis Toomey, James Cagney, Fred Kohler, J Farrell Macdonald, Joan Blondell, Lillian Worth, Walter Long, Pat Harmon, Lucille Ward
It was first previewed, released and reviewed in 1930 under the title The Steel Highway. By the time of the film’s release in New York City the title had been changed to Other Men’s Women.[1]
In 1929, Bill White (Grant Withers), is a railroad engineer and boozing womanizer who is evicted from his boarding house for excessive drinking and late rental payments.
Needing a new place to live, he accepts the invitation from his longtime friend and fellow engineer, Jack Kulper (Regis Toomey), to move into his home, where he resides happily with his wife Lily (Mary Astor). This new living arrangement brings changes to relationships as the months pass.
Bill and Lily’s own friendship, which at first is playful and innocent, evolves into a passionate love between them. Hesitant to hurt Jack, they try to keep their feelings secret, at least for a while; but Jack begins to notice differences in his wife’s demeanor and becomes suspicious when he finds that Bill has suddenly moved out of their house. Jack initially thinks Lily and his friend have had a quarrel, but he later confronts Bill inside the cab of the coal-fired
Bill and Lily’s own friendship, which at first is playful and innocent, evolves into a passionate love between them. Hesitant to hurt Jack, they try to keep their feelings secret, at least for a while; but Jack begins to notice differences in his wife’s demeanor and becomes suspicious when he finds that Bill has suddenly moved out of their house.
Jack initially thinks Lily and his friend have had a quarrel, but he later confronts Bill inside the cab of the coal-fired steam locomotive that the two men operate together at the nearby rail yard. There Bill finally admits to Jack that Lily and he have fallen in love. In the fistfight that ensues, Jack falls during the struggle, strikes his head, and is permanently blinded by the injury.
During his convalescence at home, Lily tries to rededicate herself to her marriage; however, Jack resents his dependency on his wife. Increasingly frustrated by his situation, he insists that Lily leave town for a few weeks to visit her parents, explaining that he needs emotional space and that he also wants her away from the dangers of expected floods due to rainstorms in the area.
Shortly after Lily’s departure, Jack learns from rail workers that Bill plans to drive a train of flatcars stacked with bags of cement onto a vital river bridge, the desperate hope being that the combined weight of the train and its load will bolster the bridge and prevent it from being swept away by the rising floodwaters. Stumbling that night through a heavy downpour and literally feeling his way to the rail line, sightless Jack manages to locate Bill and knock him unconscious before he begins what everyone deems a suicidal mission.
Jack then takes charge of the engine’s controls, but before moving onto the wavering bridge, he pushes Bill off the locomotive to safety. Once on the bridge, the entire train plummets into the river as the structure collapses, and Jack drowns in the raging river.
Months after the tragedy, Bill, still as an engineer, goes into the depot’s diner for some quick food before returning to his train. Nearby, Lily arrives on another train and enters the same restaurant carrying her luggage. The two see one another and engage in some awkward small talk before Lily remarks that she intends to remain in the community, fix up her house and yard, and plant a new spring garden.
Then, with a warm smile, she invites Bill to drop by to help her with the work. Bill runs out of the diner to re-board his moving train. Lily stands in the restaurant’s doorway watching Bill climb to the top of a long line of freight cars and then running forward toward the engine. As he jumps from one car’s roof to the next he raises his arms skyward.
Then, with a warm smile, she invites Bill to drop by to help her with the work. Bill runs out of the diner to re-board his moving train. Lily stands in the restaurant’s doorway watching Bill climb to the top of a long line of freight cars and then running forward toward the engine. As he jumps from one car’s roof to the next he raises his arms skyward.
Other Men’s Women was James Cagney’s third film, although Cagney does not mention it in his autobiography, Cagney by Cagney. He and Joan Blondell went on to sign long-term contracts with Warners.[2]
Mary Astor dismissed the film as “a piece of cheese”, although praising Cagney and Blondell.[2]
Songs
“Leave A Little Smile” – sung by Grant Withers, J. Farrell MacDonald and Mary Astor (from the Warner Bros. musical Oh Sailor Behave)
“The Kiss Waltz” – played on the phonograph (from the Warner Bros. musical Dancing Sweeties)
“Tomorrow Is Another Day” – played at the restaurant/dance hall (from the Warner Bros. musical Big Boy)
Release and reception
According to Film Daily, the film’s original title was “The Steel Highway”, under which title it was reviewed by Motion Picture Herald, but by the time of its New York City premiere, the current title had been adopted.[1]
The name change was announced around December 1930.[3] According to an article in The New York Times published in 1936, film studio employees were routinely asked to submit the best possible name for each of the studio’s releases, and one employee had submitted “Other Men’s Women”, along with nine others, for every film, until it was finally chosen as the new name for The Steel Highway. The employees whose titles were chosen generally received $25 or $50 as a reward.
The employees whose titles were chosen generally received $25 or $50 as a reward.[4]
Variety called it “a good program picture,” but The New York Times described the film on its release as “an unimportant little drama of the railroad yards”.[2] Years later, in a review of a DVD of Wellman’s films, Dave Kehr wrote in the Times that “freed from the constraints of studio-bound early-sound technology, Wellman seems almost giddy with the possibilities of location shooting, moving his camera with abandon, staging dialogue scenes atop moving trains, constructing at least one live sound set … in the middle of a busy switchyard, where freight trains rumble past,” although he did comment that Wellman’s major flaw of “a simplistic, often inconsistent sense of character” was present in the film.[5]
In 1937, a remake of the film under the title “The Steel Highway” was announced, to be directed by Reeves Eason, but there is no indication that the film was made.[6]
Home media
Other Men’s Women was released on DVD by the Warner Archive in 2010.
Cast: Marceline Day, John David Horsley, Noah Beery, Henry B Walthall, Carmelita Geraghty, Mischa Auer, Francisco Alonso, Anya Gramina
64 min
A pilot and his dog crash-land on an island run by a psycho who owns a motel–and most of the locals. With Marceline Day and John David Horsley.
Plot
While aviator Lieutenant James Robbins signs his autograph on the leg of an attractive, admiring French girl at a crowded airfield as he prepares to fly from Los Angeles to Hawaii, Flash, his German shepherd, grabs a parachute and sneaks into the plane.
Thirty hours later, Jim survives a fierce lightning storm, but afterward his engine catches fire. Flash parachutes to Tabu Island, just south of Hawaii, and Jim crashes in the ocean. The dog finds Jim unconscious hanging onto a broken wing and pushes him to shore.
After Flash finds Sally James, daughter of a missionary, swimming nude in a lake, she and her father take Jim and Flash to the trading post and bar run by drunken Otto Von Krantz, who exploits the natives and, with his blonde barmaid Molly, encourages them to drink and spend the money that he pays them for the pearls they find. Jim and Flash wait for the weekly boat to come, and three days later, while Sally and Jim hold hands and watch the natives dance, Von Krantz rapes chief Manu’s daughter Rari.
When Manu orders Von Krantz to leave the island, Von Krantz shoots him. The natives hold a ritual to bring Manu back to life and keep the white people captive in Von Krantz’s bar, but Flash sneaks out with a torch and lights a pyre to signal search planes. Manu rises and Reverend James goes to speak with him, but Von Krantz shoots Manu and a native knifes the reverend.
After Jim knocks out Von Krantz and escapes from the bar with Sally, Flash bites Von Krantz to death as Molly watches. After Jim and Sally bury her father, Flash attacks a native about to spear them from above and falls with the native over a cliff. A plane lands in the water, and as natives approach, Jim, Sally and a limping Flash escape to the plane.
Cast: Bessie Love, Conway Tearle, John Holland, Natalie Moorhead, Emma Dunn, June Clyde, Edmund Breese, David Rollins, Lina Basquette, Virginia Lee Corbin, Otis Harlan
65 min
Plot
Helen Hutson, the secretary and mistress of New York businessman Van Dyne, is initially upset when her childhood sweetheart, Paul Cooper, comes to her office to visit. However, she agrees to have dinner with him after he says he is leaving town that night and, feigning a headache, breaks a date with Van.
They go dancing, and Paul, whom Helen once told not to come back into her life until he made good, proposes by the end of the evening. Helen avoids giving an answer, and at the train
They go dancing, and Paul, whom Helen once told not to come back into her life until he made good, proposes by the end of the evening. Helen avoids giving an answer, and at the train station before he leaves, she tries but fails to confess her involvement with Van.
Despite advice from her friend Katherine, Helen, now in love with Paul, plans to return to her hometown of Greenfield, New York and tell him everything before they marry. In Greenfield, Helen finds that her younger sister Lorraine is infatuated with a wealthy boy from the southern school she is attending.
Her father, who has lost his job as a newspaperman, comes in drunk with friends, one of whom asks Helen to repay $200 that her father borrowed. When a boy in town makes insulting innuendos about Helen, her brother Bud defends her reputation, breaking a bottle over the boy’s head. After the sheriff tells Helen that the injured boy’s father will not press charges if he is paid for the hospital expenses, Helen reveals to Bud that the rumors are true.
He embraces her nonetheless, and Helen returns to New York where she placates Van by saying that Paul means nothing to her, and gets the money to bail Bud out of jail. Sometime later, on the night of a party Van demands she hold for some drunken business associates, Helen’s mother and father visit her apartment. That same day, Paul, who has come back from his trip, looks for her at the office, and meets Van instead.
When Paul announces their impending marriage, Van maliciously brings Paul to the party. Meanwhile, Helen’s mother has made lemonade for the surprised guests, while her father gets drunk with two of Van’s associates. When Van, in front of Paul, orders Helen to get him handkerchiefs from his drawer, Paul leaves in disgust. Helen leaves town the next day with her parents. They receive a telegram from Lorraine announcing her marriage, and Helen is happy that her sister is “safe.” Paul comes to the house, and as Bud and his mother watch from the window, Helen and Paul embrace and reconcile.
Cast: Marian Marsh, Owen Moore, Christian Rub, William Bakewell, Emma Dunn, Edmund Breese, Geneve Mitchell, Pat O’Malley, Syd Saylor
62 min
Plot
Herman Heupelkossel, a kindhearted orderly at a New York hospital, is teased by his fellow workers for the sympathy he gives patients. An unconscious, badly bleeding girl under twenty, the victim of a speeding, drunk driver, is brought in by the driver, twenty-four-year-old John Russell, who wants to be punished for his offense.
Herman sees that the girl, Julia Wilkins, will be alright in a few days and convinces John to hide his drunkenness so that he will be able to help Julia, rather than go to jail. With the aid of Limburger cheese, black coffee and Herman’s old pipe, John reluctantly covers up his alcoholic breath.
As Julia gets better, she and John fall in love, and when he brings her home to her roominghouse, he proposes. When the accident occurred, Julia had been on her way to meet her former suitor Stanley Colton, a wealthy playboy, and accept his offer to become his mistress in exchange for luxurious rooms, a piano, musical instruction and eventually a trip to Europe to study.
She now tells Colton, who is waiting at her room, that she only kidded herself into believing that she was a musical genius. Colton still extends an offer to help her, which John rebuffs. John, who has hidden from Julia the fact that he is the black sheep son of wealthy parents, takes her to his home, where his family, especially his snooty sister Doris, make the meeting unpleasant because they think she is after his money. As a result, Julia breaks off the engagement, which leads John to go on a drinking binge. When Herman learns of this, he calls Julia, who brings John to her room.
They plan to marry without financial help from his family, and this time, Julia, anxious to leave before anything else goes wrong, calls Colton to ask him for money. She goes to have dinner at his apartment, and after she refuses his entreaties that she break with John, he has her wait in his bedroom while he answers the door. John, whom Colton craftily had called and asked to visit after he heard from Julia, enters and accuses Julia of selling herself to Colton.
Their engagement broken again, Julia soon is kicked out of her room for non-payment of rent. After two weeks, she is taken to the hospital, suffering from pneumonia. Herman, thinking that John’s presence when she regains consciousness could determine whether she lives or dies, leaves the hospital to find him, at the risk of losing his job, but arrives at John’s house just after John has left to take a steamer to Europe.
Herman convinces John’s father of the urgency of the situation and they find John. As Mr. Russell is the hospital’s heaviest donor, Herman is not fired. Julia recovers and the couple are reconciled.
Cast: Conrad Nagel, Leila Hyams, Tommy Conlon, Claire Windsor, Stanley Fields, Fred Kohler, Alexander Carr, Robert Ellis, Lionel Belmore, Ruth Clifford, Mickey Daniels
76 min
The Constant Woman (1933), also known as Auction in Souls and Hell in a Circus, is an American Pre-Code film directed by Victor Schertzinger. It is based on an early Eugene O’Neill play called Recklessness.
Plot
Marlene Underwood is a star circus performer, whose husband Walt buys the circus while their son Jimmie worships everything his mother does. Marlene leaves them both to go join a larger show, then is killed in a fire, resulting in Walt going into a downward spiral of alcohol and sorrow.
A woman called Lou helps restore Walt’s faith in human nature, but she is resented by young Jimmie, who feels she is trying to take his mother’s place. Walt gets back on his feet, but now must try to stop Jimmie from joining the circus himself.
Cast: Jeanette Loff, Ben Alexander, Arthur Tracy, Emma Dunn, Franklin Pangborn, Al K Hall, Cissy Fitzgerald, Helen McKellar, William Pawley, Corky
58 min
Plot
When Dudley, a young man from the country, comes to the city with his dog “Corky,” he falls in love with an actress named Nancy.
Dudley loses Corky, but when the dog shows up and causes a disruption while Nancy is singing onstage, she is fired. A short time later, Nancy discovers that her mother, who has been led to believe that Nancy is happily married with a baby, is coming to town. To maintain the deception, Nancy convinces Dudley to pretend to be her husband and “borrows” a baby.
The ruse is soon discovered, but by then Nancy and Dudley have fallen in love. Nancy then marries Dudley and they move to his home in the country.
Director: Lothar Mendes (silent version), Roy Pomeroy ( sound version)
Cast: Evelyn Brent, Clive Brook, William Powell, Doris Kenyon, Brandon Hurst, Tom Ricketts, Louis Payne, Wilfred Noy, Donald Stuart, Raymond Lawrence, Clyde Cook
The film was based on the play Interference, a Play in Three Acts by Roland Pertwee and Howard Dearden. When a first husband turns out not to be dead, blackmail leads to murder.[1]
Cast: William Powell, Marion Shilling, Natalie Moorhead, Regis Toomey, Paul Hurst, George Irving, Frederick Burt, James Durkin, Richard Tucker, Walter James, Broderick O Farrell
A woman being pursued by an intoxicated man breaks into John Nelson’s apartment, imploring his help. Nelson, a young engineer, confronts the man, who accidentally topples through a window to his death.
Unable to prove the circumstances, Nelson is convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. With the aid of his cellmate, he escapes and under an assumed name becomes manager of a textile mill in North Carolina.
Later, his former cellmate, Pete, is commissioned to find Ethel Barry, the woman who can clear him so that he may marry Edith, the mill owner’s daughter; but Ethel forces his hand through blackmail.
Detective Mike Kearney tracks him down, but when Montgomery (Nelson) mutilates his hands in a machine to erase his fingerprint identity, Kearney decides to force Ethel to clear him.
Joyce and Cliffe Wheater, a much-divorced American couple, leave their seven children to fend for themselves as they tour the smart resorts of Europe. Judith, the eldest, takes care of the group. Martin Boyne, an American tourist, meets Judith and the children at the Lido and remembers that he knew their father in America; attracted to Judith, he is quick to sympathize with the problems of the children.
Although he is the way to Switzerland to meet Rose Sellers, his fiancée, Martin delays the trip to help the children through a crisis that threatens to separate them. When he leaves, Judith despairs, feeling that he regards her as only a child, and she decides to take the children to Switzerland; there Martin realizes he loves her, and when Wheater, repenting of his neglect, telephones him to bring the children back, Martin declares that he is marrying Judith and will himself care for the children.
Cast: Walter Huston, Kay Francis, Charles Ruggles, Betty Lawford, Norman Foster, Duncan Penwarden, Lawrence Leslie, Harry Lee, Brian Donlevy, Victor Killian
80 min
Gentlemen of the Press is a 1929 all-talking film starring Walter Huston in his first feature film role and Kay Francis in her first film role. The film still survives. This film’s copyright has expired and it is now in the public domain. It survives in a copy sold to MCA for television distribution.[1]
The film is based on Ward Morehouse’s 1928 Broadway play Gentlemen of the Press.[2]
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