GOD’S GIFT TO WOMEN (Michael Curtiz, 1931)

 

Is Frank Fey god’s gift to women? I’m sure he thought so! This god also gave the world Bubonic Plague and mass extinctions so, what’s one more lagniappe for the human race? Sometimes it’s difficult to look beyond the piece of shit performer and focus upon the fiction, but thanks to Michael Curtiz’s deft direction and a beautiful and competent cast of supporting actresses, this lightweight comedy hits its mark and doesn’t overstay its welcome. Unfortunately, the musical numbers have been excised upon American release, so we don’t get to witness the drop-dead gorgeous Sisters-G do their thing (which is dance); they remain background props in nightclub and dinner party scenes yet draw your eyes to their mesmerizing presence. This is a feat in a film that features a trio of temptresses in Joan Blondel, Louise Brooks and Laura LaPlante!

The inane plot considers Toto (Frank Fey), a wealthy French playboy who falls head-over-heels in love with Diane Churchill (Laura LaPlante), the daughter of an American businessman. He tries to convince her and her father that he has changed his polyamorous habits, yet he is continually stalked by his mistresses Fifi (Joan Blondell), Florine (Louise Brooks) and Dagmar (Yola d’Avril). Toto begins the film as a creeper, the kind of guy that deserves a Restraining Order as he continually stalks and hounds Diane until she surrenders her dignity and independence. But Toto is tricked into changing his ways as he declares that he loves her more than life itself, and Diane’s father holds him to that maxim. With his own broken heart (an enlarged aorta), his humor becomes self-deprecating and delirious as he plays against his straight man, his butler Auguste (Alan Mowbray). Frank Fey is just too old and hackneyed to play a Don Juan braggadocio, and with better casting such as Carey Grant in the role of Toto, this film could have been much better. However, it’s worth the price of admission alone to see Joan Blondell prostrate on the bed on top of her paramour while she, Louise Brooks and Yola d’Avril punch each other out! We’re just left bewildered that this triumvirate would throw down over such an invertebrate.

The direction is solid though the pacing becomes a bit slack with too much static talking, and DP Robert Kurlle moves his camera around the set in deep focus which adds frisson to the affair. It’s handsomely photographed and he lights three distinct closeups of our brawling beauties which are sublime. Frank Fey is the weakest link in the chain of events, though he somehow lands the final act and we feel disheartened (pun intended) that his character becomes kinda likable.

Final Grade: C+

THE BARBARIAN (Sam Wood, 1933)

 

Diana Standing is forced prone while returning to Cairo so her fiancé can excavate a canal: unfortunately, her canal is dredged too. Sam Wood’s direction is workmanlike and DP Harold Rosson makes good use of some grand set designs, but the film’s fault is with its misogyny. This film hates its strong female protagonist and makes her succumb to her abuser because, well, isn’t that every woman’s fantasy? And the story also must clearly explain that Diana Standing has an Egyptian mother, so there is no fear of miscegenation.

The plot is fairly simple: Diana (Myrna Loy) and her fiancée Gerald Hume (Reginald Denny) travel to Cairo and are stalked by Jamal (Ramon Navarro), a seemingly indigent Egyptian porter whose self-effacing subterfuge seems like good intentions. But he’s secretly a Prince who takes pride in seducing foreign women and once he sets eyes upon Diana, it’s game on. So, the story involves Jamal luring Diana to the desert, playing George’s boss as potential pervert so he can swoop in and save her. When she continues to spurn Jamal’s advances, he makes her walk behind his horse through the desert, drink from the oasis after both he and the horse had their fill, then rapes her. When she later “agrees” to marry him (she’s isolated in his family’s desert abode), she throws a chalice of wine in his face! Good for her! She escapes back to her family as the entire Cairo police force is looking for Jamal, who then returns and steals her away to live happily ever after. WTF?

Myrna Loy is absolutely ravishing, and we get some nice Pre-Code shots of her barely dressed and, in one scene, immersed naked in a bath which reminds one of Claudette Colbert’s milk escapade in DeMille's classic THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. She has little chemistry with her beau played by Reginald Denny, but this is mostly the script and not their acting. Ramon Navarro balances his character’s abusive nature with self-deprecating humor, which masks this toxic masculinity. But the signs are there in his extremely narcissistic pursuit of Diana; it’s to Navarro’s credit that he doesn’t totally despoil the film. If the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) had existed in 1933, they’d probably have named the condition in which a victim forms a bond with a captor The Cairo Syndrome!

Final Grade: (C-)

THE CHEAT (George Abbott, 1931)

 

Elsa may dread Yama, the God of Destruction but learns that her fear is a matter of perspective: for Yama also dispenses Justice. Director George Abbott and DP George Folsey block and photograph the film in motion with fluid camerawork, and allow Tallulah Bankhead to cavort and emote physically, mostly in medium shot, her husky voice dripping with sensuality. And of course, it’s Pre-Code as an anal sex joke is dropped (twice) in the first five minutes!

The title is a quadruple entendre as all three major characters cheat. Elsa (Tallulah Bankhead) appears to cheat twice, being unfaithful to her husband (she isn’t) and reneging on her indecent proposal with the cosmopolitan millionaire Hardy Livingston (she doesn’t). Elsa’s husband Jeffrey (Harvey Stephens) lies to the police in the film’s third act, and Livingston (Irving Pichel) cheats in claiming to be the victim while testifying in court. Seems Elsa lives and gambles above her means and when she loses $10,000 while playing a “hunch” and, with another “hunch” from Jeffrey's stockbroker cohort, places a Milk Fund charity bankroll of another $10,000 on a “can’t miss” stock so she can pay her debt and principal, which of course sinks into oblivion overnight, she must now must find a way to pay it all back without her husband knowing!

Enter Hardy Livingston, world traveler whose lifestyle is embedded in Asian Culture (a concoction of Chinese, Japanese, Thailand, India) who sees his opportunity to possess (as in fuck) Elsa by giving her the money; he’s such a creep that his intentions are known to both Elsa and the audience upon their first meeting! However, he leverages her situation to his advantage. Never trust a dude that collects dolls made to look like his ex-girlfriends! When she actually pays the money back to Livingston (scandal averted, Jeffrey's big stock deal came through just in time), Livingston smashes the doll he made of her and fucking brands her with a hot iron directly over her left breast! Holy shit. And we see it in noir-like shadow with her piercing scream. She threatens suicide so when Livingston gives her a gun, she smartly shoots him! Jeffrey stumbles upon the scene and takes the rap for the shooting in order to retain her honor, I suppose. 

Courtroom antics ensue and Elsa can’t keep the truth suppressed any longer and bursts forth and tells the sordid details, ripping down her blouse to show Livingston’s wicked brand! The courtroom goes crazy and attacks Livingston! Complete chaos. Our heroine and her husband are acquitted, and all seems a happy ending. Now that Jeffrey’s finances are secure, maybe they can afford Elsa’s plastic surgery.

Final Grade: (B+)

THE DEVIL IS DRIVING Benjamin Stoloff, 1932)

 

Gabby, a wisecracking penniless bachelor with a flair for fast talking, fast horses and faster women (not necessarily in that order), finds another kind of work with his idle hands: auto mechanic. This Pre-Code melodrama/crime thriller races along like a speeding car, rattling off risqué jokes with piston pumping verve, thanks to the deft direction from Benjamin Stoloff and nice POV compositions and tracking shots from DP Henry Sharp.

Gabby (Edmund Lowe) finds work in a high-rise garage and quickly discovers it’s a Chop Shop, as his Brother-in-Law “Beef” (James Gleason) chooses to look the other way: this is Depression Era, after all! Of course, it’s not Melodrama without a Femme Fatale and the Boss’ girl Silver (Wynne Gibson) soon falls for Gabby. But the story isn’t about their secret romance (hell, the Boss doesn’t seem to care much), it’s about criminal racketeering and revenge. When Beef’s little boy Buddy (Dickie Moore) is struck by one of the stolen cars and crippled (temporarily), Beef seeks to assuage his own participatory guilt and ends up dead by CO. Gabby, knowing Beef was murdered, confronts the Boss and his mute henchmen, which leads to a thrilling climax of poetic justice by automobile.

Some interesting things. The boss uses a 1930’s type of text message to communicate with his henchmen and give them orders or to warn them of impending danger. The Boss’ henchman, an almost hunchbacked and leering man, mute and evilly expressive, may be the Big Boss pretending to be the apparatchik! Also, the garage hides a Speakeasy behind a chauffeured limousine on its upper floor, accessible only by entering the vehicle and exiting through the passenger side door! When Buddy is struck by the stolen vehicle, the event is created by some wonderful cross-cutting and quick tempo editing, then we see the child get run over! Damn, Pre-Code films were fucking harsh. 

Finally, in the denouement as the Boss races down the multi-story ramp in his limousine, and his henchmen race upwards with police in hot pursuit, we get a bombastic dose of gravity (and gravitas) as the head-on collision sends the Boss’ car plummeting to a fiery death! And once again, we get to see the death with some neat miniature work. And my favorite part is the call-back in the finale: Gabby interrupted a wedding ceremony between some sideshow performers (Tod Browning, anyone?) in the very first reel and Stoloff give the little person Groom the final word: a blustery raspberry!

Final Grade: (B)

THE HALF-NAKED TRUTH (Gregory La Cava, 1932)

 

Jimmy Bates is a master orator, a fast-talking Carnival Barker and con-man whose vows are as honest as his slogans. Director Gregory La Cava and great DP Bert Glennon do their best to make Lee Tracy’s speechifying visually engaging, but the story is as flat and uninteresting as the two leads, as Tracy and the spitfire Lupe Velez have no chemistry together. Their relationship verges on domestic violence as he bullies, threatens, screams and slaps her into submission and when one considers the power imbalance in the relationship (she the product and he the seller) we see their marriage as nothing more than indentured servitude.

Jimmy (Lee Tracy) sells his product Teresita (Lupe Velez) as a novelty, from a half-naked burlesque queen, then posing her as the illegitimate lovechild of a small-town stranger, to a mystic Princess from the Far East (hilariously, with her eunuch Butler!). They flee rural Appleton to the Big Apple with the sheriff hot on their tails, and Jimmy soon manipulates a Broadway producer Merle Farrell (Frank Morgan) into signing an exclusive contract. Love and chaos ensue. As Teresita begins her romance with Farrell (he’s married, she isn’t) it should be no surprise as he is kind and soft-spoken, the polar opposite of her current beau Jimmy. It’s a bemusing performance from Frank Morgan and just a bit endearing too. But the story is meant to reunite the two top-billed stars, and all is fair in love and war. And blackmail. Which isn’t very funny as Lee Tracy fails to imbue his character with, well, character. He’s just a loudmouth asshole who fails to learn from his mistakes as long as he can finagle a profit.

There are a few nice compositions from Glennon such as the carnival brawl which he shoots in medium long shot chaos, dirt and fists flying, or the opening scene of an extreme high angle shot of a circus performer diving into a smallish tank of water. In one take without edit. Cool. Or the nudist parade down a busy NYC street with literally thousands of people within the composition in long shot (not rear-projection or a composite shot. I wonder how Glennon and La Cava coordinated it!). But the major flaw is in the screenplay and story arc, which collapses under the weight of verbosity.

Final Grade: (C-)

THE GORILLA SHIP (Frank Strayer, 1932)

 

Sadly, no Gorillas appear in this film, yet we are introduced to some other violent hominids, men who seem lower on the evolutionary scale than their common ancestors! You’ve heard of a shotgun wedding but here, we get a six-shooter divorce! Poverty Row Director Frank Strayer bludgeons the audience with this tawdry and sordid tale of a jealous husband and a misogynist ship’s Captain with uninspired compositions and editing, as this 66-minute film plods along like a drunken sailor.

Philip Wells (Wheeler Oakman) is jealous of his best friend Dave Burton (Reed Howes) whom he believes is having an affair with his wife Helen (Vera Reynolds). Though Dave teaches her to play golf (in high heels, no less!) it’s apparent that the seduction is a fantasy concocted by the impotent husband. Philip harbors his jealousy secretly and the three of them take a vacation on his yacht, where he plans to lay them to an eternal rest in Davy Jones’ Locker...in pieces. But fate intervenes and a cargo ship helmed by the nefarious Capt. Gorilla Larson (Ralph Ince) rescues the triumvirate. Violence ensues.

The first act of the film is a boorish slog of uncomfortable dialogue delivered like speech class (6th grade, mind you). The second act seems like a completely different film as the three main characters are excised and we focus upon the crew of a cargo ship as men are shanghaied, threatened, and pummeled into submission by the beefy neanderthal known as Gorilla. Director Frank Strayer could have designed some interesting cross-cutting to create suspense, but this low budget is definitely low-brow. Things become more interesting when Philip is rescued thinking his plan was successful, then discovers that both Dave and Helen have survived intact as they’re hauled aboard unconscious. But Gorilla wants the girl for himself and eventually attempts to rape her (this isn’t implied) and Dave races to her rescue while Philip incites a mutiny. Dave busts into the captain’s cabin as Gorilla has his stinking paws all over Helen, and fucking Hell, they’re best buddies! Seems Dave saved Gorilla’s hide years ago, so Helen is safe without the need for pugilism. Philip promises divorce but schemes mutiny and he and the crew fight it out while the couple escapes in the only lifeboat. As Philip lays dying from gunshot wounds and Gorilla and his reformed crew fight the cabin fire, Dave hugs Helen and pronounces “There goes a great guy”. Yes, the guy who would have raped Helen under slightly different circumstances. Damn, what does Dave consider a bad guy?

Final Grade: (D)

THE PHANTOM PRESIDENT (Norman Taurog, 1932)

 

Tale of two Presidents or THE WHICH BLAIR PROJECT (I can’t take credit for that one, I read it on IMDB and it’s brilliant). Norman Taurog’s direction plays like a 78-minute vaudeville sketch, as the musical patter is embedded within the narrative with George M. Cohan’s dancing and Jimmy Durante’s verbal gymnastics keeping things lively. This is no pointed political parody or satire involving real issues concerning the 1932 presidential election, it’s a lightweight comedy about a lively doppelganger versus his parallel Presidential prospect (both to his paramour and public) who wins their affections. Its superficial contempt of politics goes no further than its Medicine Show theatrics, and the hopeful conclusion seems more critical of the voters than of its duplicitous candidates!

George Cohan plays twin parts, Presidential hopeful Theodore Blair and the 13-herb medicine salesman, Doc Varney. Blair’s staff recognizes that the only attribute keeping him from winning the oncoming election is his dull personality (he just needs some sex appeal!) and they soon discover an exact duplicate in Varney, a vaudeville performer with lots of character. Their plan is to deceive the public: let Varney do all the speaking and Blair make all the decisions. After the election, they connive to pack Varney to Antarctica to live with the seals to keep their secret, well, secret! Interesting observations: Blair’s staff includes a mature woman who dresses in men’s clothing and a bespectacled effeminate male advisor, both of whom hold equal standing with the older white men in his entourage, and their appearance is never questioned or parodied. The woman keeps lecturing about Blair’s lack of sex appeal! This inclusiveness almost makes up for the blackface performance by Cohan (as Varney) during the Medicine Show routine. Jimmy Durante and his schnozzola dominate every scene, lending physicality to his most unfunny lines!

The music is rather mundane and forgettable though interestingly photographed: in the opening scene, presidential portraits come to life and sing about the upcoming election, as the camera begins at a high angle then moves towards a medium shot of the four portraits. Cool. I haven’t seen much of DP David Abel’s work, but he brings a few flourishes to an otherwise static narrative that captures singing and dancing in mostly long take and medium shot. Compositions are tight and the split-screen effect is wonderfully realized, as timing of dialogue and framing is nearly perfect. Claudette Colbert is adorable as the daughter of an ex-president and love interest, who can’t be easily fooled and catches on rather quickly. I like this fact because it would have been easy to write a “dumb woman” part and play the confusion for laughs…at her expense. Overall, a silly affair that trades political caustics for chortles.

Final Grade: (C)