SCANDAL FOR SALE (Russel Mack, 1932)

 

Jerry Strong has one weak spot: paying attention to his family. He’s married to Claire, a wonderful wife who fully supports him though his buddy Waddell has a not-so-secret crush on her. This triangle comes full circle in the third act. Swift direction from Russel Mack allows the fast talking Strong (Charles Bickford) to assert his Walter Huston-ish persona while wonderful camerawork by legendary DP Karl Freund frames the film and allows the camera to feel alive with movement. The only source I could find was a low-resolution VHS rip that smothered his deep focus compositions in a blur of pixels: I hope someday to discover a decent print to really enjoy the photography! 

The story involves Jerry Strong, a big newspaper editor on a small-town rag, whose yellow journalism leads to an increase in sales but a decrease in salary...as in zero. He’s fired and moves his family to NYC looking for stories of real life and death, splashing the headlines with guts and gore. He rises like a Daily Comet with an icy core just a hard, but as his need for sordid headlines subsumes him and his family suffers, the more this nucleus disintegrates. His best friend and reporter pal Waddy (Pat O’Brien) joins in this celestial orbit but he’s the one who crashes to Earth...or more precisely, the Atlantic. Strong’s wife Clair (Rose Hobart) stands by Jerry and even spurns the slight advance from Waddy and is fully supportive of her husband even though she’s against the move to the Big Apple. Their two children are precious, so the tragedy of the little boy comes like the hammer blow in the first scene. Soon, Strong is caught up in a scandal himself as he attempts to break a Beauty Contest fraud ring, and his deaf attorney resorts to bribing a jury member to ensure an acquittal. But it’s OK, in Pre-Code it’s immorality for the sake of Justice! After all, we know Strong was setup by the gang and that he’s innocent of Rape and Assault. We also get to see Strong’s little boy fucking die on camera as Strong holds a puppy, hoping to cheer up his dying son. Now, Pre-Code films can be tragic but even so, most children who perish are not shown on screen, it’s either elided or the DP focuses upon reaction shots of parents or doctors. Not here, Freund gets his close-up in the boy's face as he expires. Fucking Hell, this film has guts. 

But we should have expected this, as the film begins with domestic violence and a brutal hammer murder by none other than an uncredited Glenda Farrell! And it’s as gruesome as it sounds: we see her knock on a hotel door and swing the hammer and hear cries of anguish. Then a man comes running out with blood streaming from his head and down his face. Waddy shows up before the police and we get an awesome reveal: the camera tracks a POV shot from Waddy’s perspective, looking around the room. We see blood and a pair of splayed stocking legs on the bed so the murderer must have committed suicide, right? Nope. The camera tracks up in this slow continuous shot until we see a woman reflected in the mirror, seated with her head down. Holy shit, she murdered her husband and his mistress!! When we next see her husband, a white sheet covers his body which is prone on the lobby couch and blood seeps through the shroud, like a period that ends a sentence. Then, as the final act draws to a close, we get Waddy on a transatlantic flight with a German aviator, engines screaming through a bad storm until a fuel line breaks. Strong and his newspaper cohorts are communicating with him and publishing Extras every hour, scooping the other papers. Of course, Waddy was talked into this by Strong, another sacrifice for circulation. We get another great composition by Freund as the two realize they cannot survive the crash into the ocean, framed in a medium close-up with both men in focus side-by-side, their eyes already peering into the great beyond. The pilot tips the nose of the plane downward and we get to see the miniature plummet into the roiling waters. 

Strong has lost everything: his child, his wife and his best friend all because of his narcissism. I don’t believe he ever did this for the bonus (he ends up giving one check to his wife and declining the other) but to prove to himself he’s tougher than everyone else. This is his moral downfall. It’s just that everyone else suffers too. 

Final Grade: (B)

CRIME WITHOUT PASSION (Ben Hecht, Charles Mac Arthur, Lee Garmes [uncredited], 1934)

 

The Three Furies rise from the blood of the innocent to mercilessly torment wicked men. And criminal defense attorney Lee Gentry (Claude Rains) is one wicked fucker. The film is directed by its own terrific triptych with legendary DP Lee Garmes doing much of the work, handling Director’s duties and photographing this strange and beautiful film. The look of this film precedes the film Noir genre and may have birthed it like the Furies themselves from the violent urban blood of modernity. The opening sequence is fantastic in both editing and composition: we stare down the barrel of a handgun and see a montage of murders in extreme close-up and shadows, with blood dripping upon the floor. From each blood spatter rises an avenging Fury, their naked fitness wrapped in silken shrouds, demons descending upon the Earth to punish dark desires. Their beautiful feminine bodies (barely concealed by the see-through shrouds) belie their intentions, soon revealed in close-ups of their ghostly faces shrieking with anger and accusation while men commit adultery and murder upon their virgin prey. The three sisters hunt through the NYC skyline, shattering the skyscraper horizon as shards of broken glass rain down upon the streets to form the film’s title. Holy shit is this the greatest opening sequence I’ve ever seen! Though this was released in August of 1934, shortly after the enactment of stricter censorship, it seems this one slipped through the cracks. Since this was filmed on Long Island and not Hollywood, I suspect it may have done just that! 

Though the acting is superb, it’s the lighting and compositions that make this film stand out. Lee Garmes often films Gentry from low angle with key lighting to create a looming darkness upon Gentry’s handsome demeanor. His close-ups also develop an internal complicity between physical action and the intellect: the Actus Reus and Mens Rea, so to speak. It’s no surprise that Garmes would eventually photograph some of the great Noir films such as NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947).

The story itself is a love triangle of the obtuse kind, as one point believes itself to be the sharpest but is actually quite dull in its passionless intellectualism. That point is our protagonist Lee Gentry, a criminal defense attorney who only saves accused murderers from the chair to bolster his own ego. This is a man who isn’t above creating his own evidence to ensure acquittal, which is suggested by the threat of Grand Jury indictment from the DA. Gentry considers himself the Übermensch, morally and ethically superior to the insect-like masses teaming below him on the streets. This speech foreshadows Harry Lime’s Ferris Wheel confessional 15 years later! Soon, Gentry wishes to end a sultry relationship with cabaret singer Carmen Brown (Margo) while proposing to the more upscale Katy Costello (Whitney Bourne). But he can’t just end it and lose face, so he engineers a plot that will catch Carmen in a seemingly deceitful web with her ex, so he can play the righteous role. Of course, this ends up with her shot and Gentry literally holding the smoking gun! 

As his intellect walks him through every nuance of evidence to conceal the crime (shown as a ghostly double exposure) he fails to account for the human element. As his anxiety spirals out of control towards self-imposed madness, he commits another crime that won’t be so easily defended in court! I suppose one man’s evil is another man’s poetic justice. 

Final Grade: (B+)

FAST WORKERS (Tod Browning [uncredited], 1933)

 

When your best pal fucks your girlfriend in order to “test’ her fidelity, maybe you should make new friends. Tod Browning is not credited with directing, as the title card says a Tod Browning Production, then lists the other creative constituents of this misogynistic melodrama. Was this the result of his previous disaster FREAKS which, in my opinion, is one of the great Pre-Code films and whose reputation has been deservedly resurrected? In 1933, his name may have been anathema, so here we get a dynamic duo of John Gilbert (Gunner) and Robert Armstrong (Bucker) in a dour and pessimistic relationship with Mae Clarke (Mary), all fast workers of a sort: Gunner with amoral women, Bucker with rivets, and Mary digging gold. We get a nice supporting role from Sterling Holloway (Pinky), who at least gives the story a modicum of compassion and humor. 

When Gunner does a stretch in county jail for being $29 short of his fine for assault, Bucker meets Mary at a local speakeasy and is hooked. Unknown to both of them, they share a bond with Gunner: he’s Mary’s boy-toy and Bucker’s confidant! Once Bucker’s two cohorts discover the truth, Bucker is the one kept in the dark even after he and Mary tie the knot (more like a noose). Soon hearts and bones are broken. The acting is generally decent but it’s the characterizations that vex, as Armstrong plays his role “full-idiot” and Gilbert is an asshole, while Mary fails to reveal any redeeming quality and becomes the punchline to their malicious masculinity. Unlike Browning’s film IRON MAN, where the homosexual relationship is buried in the subtext of two men who share friendship, hardship and compassion for one another, here one wonders why the two guys are even friends! It seems more like Gunner is the one taking advantage of Bucker and his kindhearted naivete, using the excuse of “looking after him” to get laid. The film also makes a point that every woman is after a man’s cash and should be treated accordingly. Gunner’s casual misogyny unfortunately isn’t just typical of the era, it transcends it. 

DP Peveral Marley does a wonderful job of utilizing back projection and high/low angle shots as the men work on the narrow beams while building a skyscraper, forty stories above the rush hour traffic but just the right height to peek into adjoining buildings to ogle women through binoculars. A nice interlude occurs when Bucker and Mary go to the movies, watching Harry Beaumont’s LAUGHING SINNERS (untitled in the film): Mary sees romance and Bucker sees “corn”. It’s a neat “meta” resolution because it exposes Mary’s moral fault, her narcissism obscured by fantasy. Browning’s macabre touch is exposed in the final act as he films Armstrong in sweaty, murdery close-ups as Mary discloses her unholy betrayal. He stalks off to work and causes Gunner to fall nearly to his death, but Gunner catches the sleeve of Bucker’s sweater and dangle precariously while the fabric tears, bit by bit.  Gunner falls onto a landing many floors below thanks to his cohort swinging him toward relative safety. Mary knows this truth too and vows to tell Gunner and the cops about the attempted murder. But when they visit him in the hospital, Gunner forgives his pal and they both drop Mary! Yet there is time for one last patriarchal and puerile gesture towards the adorable nurse. Bones may be shattered, hearts may be torn asunder, but dirty minds remain fully intact. 

Final Grade: (C) 

PAID (Sam Wood, 1930)

 

Who are the bad guys in the story? The crooks or the constables? What is Fruit of the Poisonous Tree? Mary Turner vows to pay back her three years of incarceration to her corrupt boss and the District Attorney with interest, discovering that revenge is a balm best served cold(blooded). Whip-smart and devious, Mary studies the Crimes Code while in stir and learns to twist the statutes into supporting her Breach-of-Promise scam, all perfectly legal and binding, upon release. 

The film begins with Mary (Joan Crawford) being sentenced for a crime she swears she didn’t commit, shoplifting. She’s mocked by her boss and the DA as she continues to stridently pleads her innocence, condemning both. The Court sentences her to 3-5 years (holy fuck!) for the crime of theft, not embezzlement of thousands of dollars, mind you, but items from the department store where she clerked (for $16 a week) that were found in her locker. Though I’m unfamiliar with the contemporary era crimes code, I find it difficult to believe that it’s anywhere near the Felony threshold. The battle lines drawn, it becomes obvious that her wealthy boss, living off the hard work of his poorly paid employees, and the police that support him, are the bad guys of this tempestuous tale. Once paroled, Mary’s cohorts soon include the vibrant and sexually charged Agnes (Marie Prevost) and the loyal Joe Garson (Robert Armstrong), who wears his own heart on his sleeve for Mary, but she has eyes for another. Not only does her scam net her gang some healthy profit from rich old men who can’t keep their hands (or other appendages) off the vivacious Agnes, but Mary has her own profitable racket on the side: she seduces the naive son of her former boss! 

With over 20 years' experience in a District Attorney’s Office, let me say a few words about the police in this film: their authoritarian entitlement is disgusting. They enter without warrants, ignore a Common Pleas Judge’s restraining order, continue to berate, belittle and intimidate our protagonists after they ask for an attorney, threaten the electric chair to elicit a response, and even point a fucking gun at Garson while demanding he confess! I know this was decades before Miranda and Hamilton v Alabama, but it’s discouraging to see how our Constitution courted Fascist ideals, framed (or hidden) within the illusion of a Democracy. But the worst act is the final one, as an undercover cop (or informant, it was unclear) entraps our gang by implanting the idea of a crime that is an elaborate ambush by the police to capture and punish Mary and her partners, for no other reason than to ensure she doesn’t corrupt her ex-boss’s son! 

So, Garson and his crew are told that the Mona Lisa is hanging in the boss’s house and a local museum curator will pay $200,00 cash upon receipt. Obviously, they’re not very sophisticated (who would believe this?) but Garson gives way to the temptation of one last score (sans Mary). When Mary and her boyish husband intervene and the informer revealed, this nark pulls a gun and is shot dead by Garson. Chaos ensues. Garson escapes over the rooftops and one of the crew falls to his death (which we get to see from a high angle shot, plummet and impact!) but Mary and her husband are discovered at the scene. Bullying and emotional torture (without charge, BTW) become police procedure upon the two, as they try every trick to get them to give up Garson. But here’s the catch: there is some damn poisonous fruit being eaten here! Since the police entrapped Garson by creating the very idea of the crime itself, everything that happens during the burglary (including the murder) should be suppressed! If the police discovered a plan and laid in wait, or even infiltrated the group with an informant, then this isn’t a legal issue. However, this is textbook entrapment and Garson should be freed upon a suppression hearing. Instead, the police lead Garson to certain death, while Mary cries for her friend. It’s only a happy ending for the Fascists. 

Final Grade: (B+)

DOUBLE DOOR (Charles Vidor, 1934)

 

Rip Van Brett must wake from his moral slumber, a man whose family jewels are locked away in a vault, which is analogous to his own “family jewels” being sadistically kept by his evil stepsister Victoria. Rip must make a choice between the family (mis)fortune and his lovely new bride Anne. Wonderfully directed by Charles Vidor and photographed by Harry Fishbeck (who shot one of the best Pre-Code films The Eagle and the Hawk), this stagey melodrama opens with Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor as an elderly woman, her expression one of hatred and contempt, stares in extreme close-up directly at the audience and shatters the fourth wall that separates us! 

The plot involves the matriarch of a wealthy 5th Avenue family Victoria Van Brett (Marry Morris) and her machinations to control her stepbrother Rip (Kent Taylor) and younger sister Caroline (Anne Revere) by dismissing blue-collar bride Anne Darrow (Evelyn Venable) using any means necessary. This would enable the jewels, a pearl necklace worth $500,000 (in 1934 dollars!) to stay in her possession instead of being gifted to the adorable new bride. But the necklace is really the MacGuffin, as the story is really about the clash of Victorian Age principles versus Jazz Age morality: Hell, the despicable woman’s name is even Victoria, so it’s not really subtext. After the terrifying opening credits, Vidor shows us a close-up of a car’s license plate as the camera pulls back focus and tracks right, as the car pulls away from the curb to be replaced by a horse-and-carriage. Commoners (as Victoria no doubt would refer to them) crowd the street to see who’s attending the famous Van Brett wedding which is being held right here in their 5th Avenue home. In the first few scenes Vidor subtly reveals the conflict without yet taking sides, but as the story progresses our sympathies fall squarely upon one couple. 

I’ve advocated for many years that the most evil and amoral woman in a fiction film was Mrs. Eleanor Shaw Iselin (from the original The Manchurian Candidate) played wonderfully (and despicably) by Angela Lansbury, who sacrifices her own son upon the alter of Authoritarian power, but now I’m not so sure. Victoria Van Brett is the Wicked Witch of the West-side, an aging widow whose black heart seeks complete domination over her staff and family, and any others she can manipulate for her own purposes. There is not one fucking redeeming quality to this wretch, and as she destroys Anne Darrow bit-by-bit and subjugates Rip, we cheer for the thought of her violent demise. Rip is portrayed as a good man who dearly loves his new wife but he’s sleepwalking through the tempest, impotent to roust himself to action. The story takes pains to portray Anne as genuine and affectionate, a loving soul and not a gold-digger. As Victoria punishes her own sister Caroline, a meek spinsterish woman whose willpower has been whittled away until she’s barely an individual anymore, Victoria grows in power but diminishes in humanity. But she grasps too tightly and it’s not just her moral code that is her undoing, it’s a “combination” of factors, if you get my drift! 

Vidor and his cinematographer light the set and characters like a Gothic horror film. Though it’s a stagey housebound film, the low angles of our domineering matriarch as she towers above her victims and the low-key lighting are visually exciting. One shot in particular that foreshadows the vault’s revelation is a high angle shot from behind the wall, with a funeral urn in the center of the composition: on one side is the maid and the other Victoria, warning her that the ashes of the family scions haunt this shelf! Mary Morris in her only film, reprises her stage role as Victoria and plays it to excess, which allows us to commiserate appropriately with the newlyweds and cheer at her self-owned demise. How many times have you cheered a young man twisting and old lady’s arm until he nearly rips it from her shoulder? You will here. Sometimes poetic justice is a dish best served cold. 

Final Grade: (B)

IRON MAN (Tod Browning, 1931)

 

Kid Mason has to lose it all to find his true companion, the one who will make sure he doesn’t catch pneumonia, the one who has always had his best interests in mind...his manager George Regan. Tod Browning’s entire filmography depicts outsiders, strange and curious people at first blush but who, sometimes, prove to be more human than expected, embodying compassion and a strong moral willpower and rise above their banishment to the fringes of contemporary society. Here, Browning subverts his own trope and finds pugilist Kid Mason (Lew Ayres), an effeminate young man (hence his sobriquet) who looks nothing like a boxer, a naive boy who looks perfectly “normal” on the outside but hides something within, a dark secret of confused sexuality. Browning gives us hints throughout the film and elides any romantic interludes to focus upon two men and the love they feel for one another. Is it mere friendship or is it a deep physical affection? To Jazz Age audiences, if they looked hard enough, Kid Mason is a Freak who hides behind the mask of heterosexuality. 

The plot seems to be fairly straightforward. Kid Mason is subjugated to his gold-digging wife Rose (Jean Harlow) and she’s the beauty that kills the beast, so to speak. When he’s winning, she’s head-over-heels for him but once he loses the title, she finds another man that can afford the new fur coat! Rose remains superficially defined throughout the film because the story is really about Kid Mason and his manager George Regan (Robert Armstrong). Browning has no “love interest” for either man, no compassionate woman to mend our titular hero when he is matrimonially knocked out. There is only one other woman briefly depicted but she threatens to sue Kid for breach of promise, hardly a romantic interlude. But George deftly deflects her advances, and she disappears from the narrative quickly. Even the scenes between Rose and Kid are shallow and devoid of eroticism, like a motherly kiss and embrace. Once cuckolded, Browning makes sure to frame Rose in a sexually charged dance with her partner Paul (John Miljan) and even gives us a bedroom scene between the two, when George finally has enough of her scheming. The other bedroom scenes in the film are between George and Kid! Browning also takes pains to show us George lives the life of a bachelor, gambling with his cohorts and living alone. He never makes a pass or talks about dames once in this seemingly macho film. He and Kid both look uncomfortable around the few women who haunt the story like ghosts, who are one dimensional extortionists. Also, Browning makes sure to often frame Kid sans shirt, showing off his somewhat muscular physique. Like his nickname, this is a young man not yet fully defined which includes his sexual identity. When he and George reminisce about the time George gave him his first beer while fishing, and they laugh kindly about the lie they told to cover up this tale, maybe it wasn’t a beer after all. I suggest this story is told purposely in the film to forge the bond between the two, so the final betrayal is all the more tragic, yet upon reflection it becomes even more important in their relationship. 

One key scene seems to be missing from extant prints, though it’s mentioned in contemporary reviews. In the final fight, after Kid reads the divorce decree from Paul’s wife (thus cementing his suspicion of her infidelity), as he gets knocked out in the ring, Browning crosscuts with Rose getting cold-cocked by Paul and also knocked out! Kid loses his facade as both husband and Champion, and the final tender scene is between him and George! As Kid sits in a chair and holds his head in despair, George hovers over him in a dominant composition but speaks softly, like a lover, admonishing him to put on his robe lest he catch pneumonia. Kid doesn’t stand to meet him, only looks upward in a striking composition that ends the film. So, Kid grows up, he loses his Title and his wife, but not himself. It’s truly beautiful. 

Final Grade: (B)

PAYMENT DEFERRED (Lothar Mendes, 1932)

 

It’s funny, how one thing leads to another. Excellent film with solid directing from Lothar Mendes and photography from Merritt Gerstad, relegated mostly to one room but with the fluid camera movements, low key lighting and compositions, combined with a great cast which reminds one of later Hitchcock films. I would go as far to aver that this film surpasses Hitchcock’s British films of this period!

Charles Laughton is William Marble who loses his marbles when the opportunity to get out of debt presents itself in the guise of a forgotten nephew with a billfold full of cash. Laughton is a force of nature, a big man playing a small role, a meager bank teller whose debt isn’t incurred by extravagance or luxury overspending, but by Depression. Laughton possesses this character like a tormented spirit, retaining the humanity while committing an inhumane act. The suffering and guilt are not only etched into his face but in every bodily mannerism. Mendes allows Laughton to act in medium shot with long takes, so we see the shadows pass over his face like storm clouds slowly building towards tempest. This is one of the best performances I’ve seen in the Pre-Code era. Dorothy Peterson as his loyal wife Annie and a waifish Maureen O’Sullivan as his daughter Winnie are also excellent, though their parts are often eclipsed by Laughton. I love the Barrymores, but Laughton would be the one actor I’d fear to share a scene with: you better be on your game! Fortunately, both actresses are up to the task.

I’ll note some highlights. When Laughton poisons his nephew, the camera moves to close-up on him. But instead of focusing only upon the shocked expression on Laughton’s face, the camera pans down and keeps his shaking hands in frame, as the whiskey spills onto his sleeve and his hands shake uncontrollably. And he doesn’t even drop the glass! That Mendes allows Laughton to act with his hands and body makes the scene even more dreadful. And the death itself is elided and out of frame; Mendes doesn’t even include the sound of the body dropping to the floor. Another nice visual happens when Annie suspects her husband has gained the funds (which he invested to create his immediate wealth) through subterfuge, the camera does a quick zoom close-up of the bottle of cyanide in the cabinet. This reflects her husband’s immediate fear, not hers: she thinks he embezzled the money! Since lenses didn’t exist yet for rack-zoom, this sped-up shot must have been dramatic and unsettling to contemporary audiences. Also, watching Laughton be consumed and seduced by a local French woman is splendid, as he reveals both suffering and lust at the same time. And the way that Mends edits and focuses upon the mound in the garden like an infected tooth, a constant sore that won’t heal for William is excellent. We even get to see Laughton body slam a kid who plays too near the secret grave. 

Finally, the end of the third act depicts Laughton’s maniacal laughter, from dark humor to dread, as he is accused of his wife’s death (for which he is innocent) yet accepts his fate, his deferred payment now due. The scene lasts for a minute, as the camera pulls back and the lights are slowly dimmed until we only see his face highlighted, until it all fades to black. That would have been the best ending, but we get a momentary tearful coda as Winnie visits her father in prison just before his execution, and she believes his innocence in her mother’s death. But she never learns that Justice is sometimes poetic.

Final Grade: (A)