Pre-Code vs Post-Code: "The Criminal Code" and "Convicted"

The title of the 1931 film"The Criminal Code," based on Martin Flavin's 1929 play, refers to two different codes -- the one in the law books, cut and dried and in black and white, administered by men like district attorney Martin Brady (Walter Huston). The other is the unofficial code among prison inmates to protect each other, even if it leads to physical abuse or solitary confinement.

Bob Graham (Phillips Holmes) is one of those inmates. He was sent up the river by Brady, and when Brady is named warden of the prison where Graham is serving his time, their paths cross again, as do the paths of Graham and Brady's daughter, Mary (Constance Cummings).

The 1931 film, directed by Howard Hawks, has an Oscar-nominated screenplay by Seton I. Miller and Fred Niblo, Jr. And it's a much bleaker view of prison life, with morally dicey characters to match, than its 1950 remake, "Convicted." (Miller and Niblo are also credited with the screenplay of "Convicted," along with William Bowers.)

In "Convicted," Broderick Crawford is the D.A.-turned-warden, here named George Knowland. And Glenn Ford is the inmate, here named Joe Hufford. Dorothy Malone plays Knowland's daughter, Kay, even though in real life Crawford was only 14 years older than Malone.

The characters of Brady and Knowland are similar on the surface -- assured, self-made men who believe in the system and in the sanctity of the law. But Brady has rougher edges -- he smokes stogies as opposed to Knowland, who prefers a more professorial pipe. And Brady is a bit of a politician -- he is given the warden's job as consolation for a losing race for governor, and he's always worried how things will look to his enemies. By contrast, Knowland is more able to see life's gray areas, if just barely.

The movie begins with a death -- the son of a prominent political figure has been killed by accident in a nightclub fight. The character played by Holmes and Ford -- we'll call him Bob/Joe -- is the "killer," although both prosecutors know that the act was accidental and in self-defense.

"Tough luck, Bob," Brady tells Bob in the 1931 film, "but that's the way things go ... you gotta take 'em the way they fall."

But Bob doesn't have to take 'em that way, and Brady knows it -- but he doesn't tell Bob.

"If that kid belonged to me," Brady tells his assistant (and no one else), "I'd make a plea of self-defense and fight it out. I'd get him out ... he'd never serve a day. A thing like this is liable to happen to anyone."

Brady is content to "let things fall" and let Bob face the music. Bob's counsel is just this side of incompetent -- he's a corporate attorney, hired by the brokerage house Bob works for, who knows nothing about criminal law. And Brady offers no guidance whatsoever.

In the 1950 film, Knowland at least advises Joe's attorney to hire a criminal lawyer. But it's for naught.

As expected, Bob/Joe is convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in prison. In the 1931 film, Brady stands stoically by as the sentence is passed and a bailiff picks his teeth. Bob's useless attorney blows off the whole thing with a simple "the best man won, I'm afraid" as Bob is taken away to the big house. In the 1950 film, Knowland at least shows some pangs of conscience -- he tells off Joe's lousy lawyer -- and his humanity is further emphasized by having daughter Kay with him, noting his sadness:

In prison, Bob/Joe makes friends with his two cellmates. One plans to escape; the other (Boris Karloff in the 1931 film, Millard Mitchell in the 1950 film) wants to off the yard master. Seems the head bull caught the prisoner, just after he was paroled, having a beer. Thanks to that parole violation, the prisoner is back in stir -- for 12 years. (That's one heck of a beer.)

Despite all that, Bob/Joe's best friends are his cellmates, and between them they illustrate that other criminal code -- the one that isn't in the law books.

Bob has been in prison, wasting away, for six years before Brady becomes warden; in the 1950 film, Joe has only been in for three years before Knowland's arrival. Because Brady/Knowland is responsible for putting so many of the inmates behind bars, they greet his arrival with "yammering" -- a long, loud series of growls. Both men decide that the only way to deal with the uprising in the prison yard is to confront the yammerers:

Meanwhile, Bob has been falling apart in prison. He works every day in the prison's dirty, dusty jute mill, spinning fiber into burlap. Then he receives word that his only contact with the outside world -- his mother -- has died. This leads to a breakdown in the jute mill and, after a doctor's intervention, Brady appoints Bob as his chauffeur.

In "Convicted," Joe is close to his father. and while he's in stir, Kay visits the old guy, creating a bond between she and Joe even before they meet. As opposed to Bob's stint in the jute mill, Joe works in the prison laundry -- not a perfect setting, but at least it's cleaner. Joe's breakdown occurs when he learns of his father's death, and as a result he's put into solitary -- it isn't until he's released from there that he joins Knowland's staff as chauffeur.

Still, Joe's time in solitary doesn't seem to affect him as much as Bob's. In general, in fact, Holmes looks like hell for a good part of this movie, while Ford looks like ... Ford.

As the prison chauffeur, Bob/Joe spends more time driving around the warden's daughter than he does the warden himself. And things start improving as prisoner and daughter are drawn to each other.

Then comes a crisis, one involving both of Bob/Joe's cellmates. One attempts to escape, only to be shot and killed because one of his co-conspirators was a stool pigeon. The other cellmate -- the one determined to kill the yard warden -- also sets his sights on the stoolie.

Warden Brady/Knowland is hiding the stoolie in his office.

"I gotta get him off my hands," Brady says to the head of the parole board. "Pardoned, paroled transferred -- anything!" So he has no hesitation about letting the guy go. Knowland is more principled -- he wants the guy transferred, but not set free.

This guy doesn't need Frankenstein makeup.

But it ends up being a moot point very quickly, because Bob/Joe's cellmate, who works as the warden's cook, sneaks into the warden's office and knifes the pigeon. (Karloff is supremely scary as the cellmate in the 1931 film; in the 1950 film, Millard Mitchell seems a lot more comfortable as a convict than he does as a studio head in "Singin' in the Rain.") The only witness to the murder is Bob/Joe, who won't talk, and he ends up in solitary, as much to save the warden's pride as anything.

It falls to the warden's daughter to set her father straight:

Bob/Joe is released from solitary and paroled, and the "happy" ending fits each film's tone -- Brady looks a little uneasy at the idea of his daughter marrying a convict, even a noble one; and Knowland and Joe joke about his picking up the daughter as nonchalantly as if it was a Saturday night date.

The Elliott Nugent Film Festival: "Wise Girls" and "The Last Flight"

Of all the actors and actresses who appeared in 1930s movies, Elliott Nugent (1896-1980) was certainly one of them.

Actually, if Nugent's known at all today, it's probably more for his abilities as a director and writer than as an actor. He collaborated with longtime friend James Thurber (they were both from Ohio and attended OSU together) on "The Male Animal," a Broadway hit in 1940 that was turned into a 1942 film with Henry Fonda and Olivia de Havilland. (On Broadway, Nugent also starred, opposite a young Gene Tierney, and he directed the film version.)

Nugent also directed several above-average pre-code pictures, including "The Mouthpiece," "Life Begins" and "Three-Cornered Moon." And later in the 1930s and into the '40s he directed comedies with Harold Lloyd, Danny Kaye, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.

As an actor, Nugent was mostly at MGM. He played Marion Davies's fiancee in 1930's "Not So Dumb" and he played straight man opposite Lon Chaney and a gorilla in Chaney's only talkie, "The Unholy Three."

But Nugent's best performances onscreen tended to be in dryly comic roles, and the 1929 film "Wise Girls" offers a nice example. This is pretty much an all-Nugent show -- it's based on a play by Nugent and his father, actor J.C. Nugent, and it stars both of them. The staging is also attributed to them -- like a lot of early talkies it takes place largely on one set, with a static camera and lots of entrances and exits. Screen direction is by one E. Mason Hopper, who brings things to a deadly halt more than a few times.

"Wise Girls" starts with this title card:

  
In other words, this is low-key humor in the style of The New Yorker, designed to elicit smiles more than belly laughs.

"Wise Girls" is a domestic comedy set in the Bence household. Dad Bence (J.C. Nugent) is irascibly, Fred Mertzian, comic. He's driven to distraction by the escapades of his grown daughters, particularly the highly strung Kate (Norma Lee), who's determined to be an artiste in the worst way, and is succeeding.  

Kate's dalliances with the muse have included a book called "Angie's Temptation," and based on her pretentious manner we can easily imagine how good it is. Nevertheless, a local attorney named Duke (Roland Young) loves Kate so much that he has published the book for her, but she doesn't know he's involved -- she thinks it was bought solely on its own merit. The book was less than a best seller -- in fact, a bunch of copies were dumped at the local YMCA, where one resident, Kempy (Elliott Nugent), read the book and fell in love with the author.

In the course of about ten minutes, Duke and Kate have a falling out over her ambitions and Kempy, a plumber, shows up at the Bence house to fix a leaky pipe. Younger sister Ruth (Marion Shilling) discovers Kempy's love for the book and all parties involved, and she makes sure to introduce Kempy and Kate. Kate is still smarting from Duke's rejection, so she's more than ready for a new admirer:

The sudden marriage of Kempy and Ruth gives dad lots of reasons to sputter, and the elder Nugent has the character type down to a T. He's put out that his daughter isn't marrying the wealthy Duke, and he's convinced that Kempy is out for his money:

It takes, frankly, much more time than it should to establish that Kate and Duke belong together and that sister Ruth loves Kempy, and vice versa. "Wise Girls" is one of those early talkies that can be a real slog, but every so often you stumble across a scene with some bright dialogue. Here's another nice example, between Kempy and Ruth, who, admittedly, says her lines as if she learned them phonetically:

All's well that ends well in "Wise Girls," but 1931's "The Last Flight" is decidedly more downbeat. It was one of Nugent's last acting assignments for a while, and truthfully he's a bit shoved off to the side, fourth-billed under Richard Barthelmess, David Manners and Johnny Mack Brown. The four of them are shell-shocked pilots trying to drink away their trauma in post-World War I Paris.

"The Last Flight" is written by John Monk Saunders, who knew this territory -- he also wrote "Wings" and "The Dawn Patrol." In real life he was a flight instructor, although during the war he never got out of Florida. "The Last Flight" is a slightly weird but interesting mix of "The Dawn Patrol" and ersatz Hemingway. The four fliers speak in somewhat self-conscious declarative sentences in between cocktails. But this a pre-code movie through and through, unapologetic about its viewpoint -- you can't even imagine a studio remaking something like this until the 1950s.

We first meet the men after Cary (Barthelmess) and Shep (Manners) have survived a serious plane crash. Cary's hands have been badly burned and Shep has a nervous tic in his eye that requires the wearing of really cool-looking smoked glasses.

The war is over, and they're being released from the hospital. Cary can't hold anything, but hey, no problem -- the doctor just tucks Cary's discharge papers into his armpit.

Then he watches philosophically as they walk away.

Doctor: Now they're out to face life -- and their whole training was in preparation for death. It's like dropping a fine Swiss watch on the pavement. ... They're spent bullets -- like projectiles, shaped for war and aimed at the enemy. Now they've fallen back to earth spent, cooled off, useless. ... What good are they?

OK, doc, I think we get it.

Brown and Nugent round out the quartet as, respectively, Bill, an ex-football star whose laces have loosened a bit and Francis, a skilled marksman with narcolepsy. The plot thickens when the men meet Nikki (Helen Chandler) in a Paris bar. She wasn't in the war, but she can still match them quirk for quirk -- she keeps turtles in her bathtub and often says her lines while staring into space.

When Nikki sees Cary having to use both hands to hold his martini she thoughtlessly laughs, and then just as thoughtlessly pities Cary. Shep and Bill have to set her straight:

  
Nikki straddles the line between being vulnerable and annoying, but the men take her under their collective wing. She's especially attracted to Cary. Oh -- and there's a tag along, a creepy American reporter named Frink (Walter Byron) whose designs on Nikki are less than honorable.

Anyway, the group continues its bar hopping and committing assorted hi-jinks -- like when big Bill tackles a horse to prove he was an All-American. Again, Nugent doesn't get much meat in this movie. But there is one brief, good example, set in (where else?) a bar:

Following a sweet scene in which Cary and Nikki visit Pere Lachaise and the graves of Abelard and Heloise (Nikki ends up naming her turtles after them), we're off to Lisbon. Once there, much drinking ensues, along with visits to the bull fights and then a shooting gallery. What can go wrong?

BEGIN SPOILER ALERT

A lot can go wrong, actually, including a final showdown between Frink and the boys. It happens at the shooting gallery, and, for the first time in the picture, it gives Nugent's character something to do:

END SPOILER ALERT

With that exit into the darkness, Nugent also disappeared from in front of the cameras for a while. But his directoral trail leads from pre-codes to 1939's "The Cat and the Canary," the first of several pictures with Bob Hope, also including "Never Say Die" and "My Favorite Brunette." Nugent also directed Harold Lloyd in "Professor Beware," Danny Kaye in "Up in Arms" and Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald in "Welcome, Stranger." And he directed the charming 1948 sleeper "My Girl Tisa" and the 1949 version of "The Great Gatsby" with Alan Ladd. He also returned to acting now and then -- he starred onstage opposite Katharine Hepburn in "Without Love" in the role that went to Spencer Tracy in the 1945 film.

(One last point about "The Last Flight" -- just after the movie came out, Saunders turned the story into a Broadway musical, "Nikki," with his wife, Fay Wray, in the title role. It ran about a month. Playing Cary Lockwood was a young actor named Archie Leach who appropriated the character's name when he went to Hollywood shortly thereafter. But people told him Lockwood was too long a last name, so he chose Grant instead.)

Oh -- and since Nugent's "My Favorite Brunette" is in the public domain, here it is:

Pre-Code vs Post-Code: "A Free Soul" and "The Girl Who Had Everything"

Adela Rogers St. Johns's novel "A Free Soul" was filmed twice -- once in 1931, under its original title, and again in 1953 as "The Girl Who Had Everything." In both cases the female leads were played by MGM royalty -- Norma Shearer and Elizabeth Taylor, respectively.

The character they play is the impulsive, independent-minded daughter of a well-known defense attorney (Lionel Barrymore in the 1931 version and William Powell in 1953) who has an ill-considered affair with one of dad's clients, an underworld character (Clark Gable in 1931 and Fernando Lamas in 1953) whose outer hunkiness hides an inner ugliness.    

As we've come to expect in these comparisons, the 1931 pre-code telling of this story has a bite, an edge and a blatant sexuality that the later version doesn't. For instance, Shearer's Jan Ashe gets so wrapped up in life with Gable's Ace Wilfong that she ends up keeping half her wardrobe at his place.

And Ace's criminal lifestyle is pretty clear for all to see -- on his first outing with Jan, they're serenaded by a machine gun:

(Hello, Roscoe Ates!)

The 1953 film is more muted in every way. Lamas's Victor Raimondi isn't a high-profile gangster accused of murder like Ace. By comparison, he's practically an insurance salesman. He runs a horse racing news service -- it's a legitimate business, but it's also heavily subscribed to by bookies, and so he ends up as a target of a congressional crime commission, where he's represented by Steven Latimer (Powell). There are vague hints of sleazy doings behind the curtain, but Victor stays cool and immaculately groomed, even when he's climbing out of a swimming pool.


Toward the end of the movie, both men reveal their true colors to the women who love lust after them, and, again, Gable takes the cake for nastiness:

It's weird, but Taylor and Lamas as a couple don't really generate that much heat, especially compared to Shearer and Gable. Maybe it's just the difference between Andre Previn's hormonal score and that dress Shearer is wearing, but compare these two bedroom scenes:

The biggest difference between the two movies, however, is the portrayal of the father, named Steven in both films. In the 1953 film, Steven Latimer has retired to Lexington, Kentucky to raise horses and has a little bit of trouble with the bottle. In the 1931 film, Steven Ashe is a world-class drunk, ostracized by his wealthy family and judged by just about everyone except loyal daughter Jan. Barrymore won an Oscar for his role, and it's perfect awards bait -- Ashe flails, falls into the gutter and then pulls himself out with Jan's help to deliver a dramatic summation in court that literally drains him of all remaining life.

The 1931 film also much more effectively dramatizes the similarities between father and daughter. In the movie's most effective scene, they both reluctantly make a pact to swear off the dangerous things they love too much -- alcohol for Steven and Ace for Jan. It's terrifying for both of them. Father and daughter go on a three-month camping trip and they successfully escape their demons, but as soon as the decision is made to go back home, Steven falls off the wagon.

The 1953 film handles the same scene almost laughably -- Steven takes Joan to the Smoky Mountains, servants in tow, to get Victor out of her system. He has nothing at stake. She throws a fit after four days and goes back to Victor. The end. Steven might drink a little, but in this movie -- Powell's last for MGM, by the way -- it's no more a problem than Nick Charles's love of cocktails.

Barrymore, of course, squeezes every drop of melodrama out of his character (you wonder if he got any pointers about alcoholic mannerisms from brother John), and in one scene where Ace asks Steven's permission to marry Jan, Barrymore summons all the mean drunk behavior at his disposal to pile-drive Ace into the ground:

"The Girl Who Had Everything" has a similar scene, but not nearly as nasty:

If the 1931 version of "A Free Soul" is influenced by gangsterism and prohibition, the 1953 version is informed by the Kefauver Commission, whose televised hearings on organized crime introduced America to such polished gangsters as Louis Costello and Mickey Cohen -- men who had much more in common with Victor Raimondi than they did with Ace Wilfong. They aren't nearly as colorful as the old school gangsters, and "The Girl Who Had Everything" isn't nearly as colorful as  -- well, just about anything.

The "Public Enemy" Guide to Life

I think we can all agree that some movies offer great life lessons that we can tuck into our memory banks and carry with us, like loose change in our pockets or maybe lint, as we traverse through this unpredictable and awesome thing called life. I have found, for example, that the 1931 film "The Public Enemy" is stuffed like crazy with wisdom, and I can say without fear of contradiction that everything I need to know I learned from ... well, see for yourself.

Get regular exercise. 

No spanking unless its consensual.

Be open to surprises.

Be respectful.

Encourage your loved ones to make healthy food choices.

Cultivate an appreciation for music.

Again -- no spanking unless it's consensual. 

Be kind to your mother.

And finally -- always celebrate Halloween.

The Maude Eburne Film Festival: "The Vampire Bat" and "Lonely Wives"

"I beg your pardon, young man?"

Of all the actors and actresses who appeared in 1930s movies, Maude Eburne (1875-1960) was certainly one of them.

She was born in Ontario, Canada, and appeared in plays there before making her Broadway debut in 1913. The next year she made a name for herself as "Coddles" in a hit farce called "A Pair of Sixes," and appeared in plays until at least 1930.

Eburne appeared in over 100 movies, including the 1918 film version of "A Pair of Sixes." But her Hollywood career really didn't begin in earnest until 1930, when she appeared in "The Bat Whispers."

Her movie roles were usually as busybodies, kind as well as malicious. One nice little change of pace was her brief but vivid appearance in the 1933 pre-code prison film "Ladies They Talk About," wherein Barbara Stanwyck causes a stir while in stir. In this cheerfully cynical film, Eburne plays "Aunt Maggie," a former madame whose seniority in the jug is symbolized by the fact that she has a reserved rocking chair in the prison lounge. Stanwyck is introduced to her by Lillian Roth, as another inmate:

The 1933 film "The Vampire Bat" is a Grade-Z horror movie with a surprisingly big-name cast -- Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray and Melvyn Douglas. Eburne is fourth-billed, as Wray's Aunt Gussie. Her main job is to provide comic relief while everyone else runs around the village of Kleinschloss trying to figure out who's killing villagers by the dozen. All of them have puncture wounds in the neck and have been emptied of blood, sucked out through what one doctor calls the "jew-gu-lahr" vein.

Atwill is a doctor who might or might not be behind the murders; Wray is his devoted assistant and Douglas is the local flatfoot. Eburne's job is to spout medical malapropisms and scream at opportune moments -- she also faints at least twice, once when she meets demented villager Herman (Dwight Frye, who else?), who carries a bat in his pocket a la Lennie in "Of Mice and Men":



Eburne shows up again at the end. The murders have been solved, but the joke's on Gussie -- Dr. Atwill has given her a dose of Epsom salts for that get up and go feeling:




"The End"! Ha! Ha!

The 1931 film "Lonely Wives," on the other hand, is no laughing matter, even though it's supposed to be a comedy. The leading man, alas, is Edward Everett Horton -- in a dual role, yet.

Now don't get me wrong -- like cilantro, Horton is perfect in smaller doses, adding spice to everything from Lubitsch films to "Fractured Fairy Tales" on "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle." But in a lead role, much less a romantic lead, that's just simply too much Edward.

Horton plays Richard Smith, a well-known attorney and ladies' man. As his butler says, "Any pretty woman can twist him around her little finger -- and the prettier they are, the more twisted he gets."

Eburne is Richard's mother-in-law, who looks askance at his slinky new secretary (Patsy Ruth Miller):  



Having mother-in-law around makes it hard for Richard to slip out for his assignations, but help comes in the form of The Great Zero (also Horton), a Vaudeville impersonator who disguises himself as Richard. All goes well until mother-in-law surprises Richard (really Zero) with his wife, who has returned early from a trip. And she's feeling very amorous. (The wife, not Eburne.)

"Lonely Wives" starts with an agreeable amount of wit and spice, but after Richard comes home and he and Zero get mistaken for each other about 75 times, things get tiresome.

As for Eburne, she chugged on through the 1930s and into the 1940s. She had the honor of playing Frank McHugh's mother in "Here Comes the Navy" and she played a supporting role in "Ruggles of Red Gap." In the late 1930s she played Mrs. Hastings the housekeeper in a series of "Dr. Christian" movies, with Jean Hersholt in his well-known radio role. (Most of them are available, in full, on YouTube.) Her final film credit was 1951's "Belle Le Grand," a western made at Republic Studios with Vera Hruba Ralston. By then Eburne was in her mid-70s.

The Eddie Quillan Film Festival: "Sweepstakes" and "Gridiron Flash"

Of all the actors and actresses who appeared in 1930s movies, Eddie Quillan (1907-1990) was certainly one of them.

He began in vaudeville as part of a family act called "A Little Bit of Everything," which included his parents, his sister and two brothers. He made his film debut as a teenager in 1922, but didn't really appear in movies regularly until the mid-1920s, in a series of shorts shot at Keystone, playing opposite female comics such as Alice Day. He signed a contract with Pathe in the late 1920s and stuck around when the studio was absorbed by RKO.

If you remember Quillan at all, it's probably because of his open face and boyish manner that would mark his performances even into his 70s, when he was playing small roles on TV shows like "Baretta" and "Little House on the Prairie."



In the 1931 film "Sweepstakes," Quillan plays Buddy Doyle, a successful jockey known as the "Whoop-De-Doo Kid" because that's what he says into his horse's ear to drive him down the homestretch.

Buddy lives at Mother Clancy's boarding house with all the other jockeys and his lifelong friend Sleepy (James Gleason), a trainer who handles Buddy's mounts. When the film opens, Buddy has just won another race and heads home to a surprise dinner for his 21st birthday:



Buddy is now a man, and despite Sleepy's warnings, the siren call of a nearby roadhouse and its leading attraction, singer Babe Ellis (Marion Nixon), is too much to resist. He's shy around the ladies -- "I never tried to whoop-de-doo in a girl's ear," he says -- but he gets the hang of it.

Buddy's late nights with Babe lead to problems with Sleepy, so Buddy gets hired by the shifty owner of the nightclub to ride his horses instead. This means that Buddy ends up riding in a race against his old boss and buddy, Sleepy.

Will Buddy win? Or will he sidle up to Sleepy's horse in the homestretch and whisper "whoop-de-doo" into his ear, causing the horse to win and Buddy's career to go down the crapper?

Maybe this montage will answer that question:



Even the trains are booing him! That's cold.

Buddy can't get a mount anywhere, so he ends up as a singing waiter in Tijuana. When he does a song, we get some idea of what Quillan might have been like on a vaudeville stage:



Once Sleepy and Buddy reunite, it's only a matter of time before he's riding again, and Babe is waiting in the wings.

Boooooo!

The 1934 film "Gridiron Flash" was released after the production code went into effect, so don't expect any spicy humor.

In this one, Quillan is Tommy "Cherub" Burke, a small-time hood who ends up in stir, where he becomes the star of the prison football team.

A fellow named Smith (Grant Mitchell) arranges for Tommy's release and recruits him to play for Belford College. But, even though his roommate is Grady Sutton, Tommy has a hard time fitting in. He's pugnacious and hotheaded, and his playing style is considered too rough. He's ready to leave, but the coach talks a willing co-ed named Jane (Betty Furness) into faking an interest in Tommy, and he stays.

So there's a romantic subplot as well as hard-charging football action. But the most interesting aspect of "Gridiron Flash," to me at least, is the supporting cast, which includes stalwarts like Sutton, Margaret Dumont and Edgar Kennedy, who plays Jane's dad, the campus cop. When Tommy and the cop first meet, Tommy's natural antipathy to the law comes through:



When Tommy attends a party at Jane's house, Quillan's vaudeville training comes through again when he's forced to dance as part of an initiation:



Meanwhile, Smith is not what he seems -- he wants Tommy to help him rob a wealthy matron (Dumont) and throw the big game. Tommy also finds out that Jane's interest in him was a fake, at least in the beginning. So he leaves town and leaves Belford without its star quarterback. Will he return in time to save the school's football honor? Will Jane come back? Will Grady Sutton's voice change?

Personally, I'm not as interested in the plot as I am in scenes like this, between Edgar Kennedy and Arthur Housman, who specialized in playing drunks -- in this case, a drunk who keeps Kennedy from seeing the football game. This little moment is right out of a two-reeler, and that's not a bad thing at all:



From the mid-1930s on, Quillan's career consisted mostly of small roles in big movies ("Mutiny on the Bounty," "Young Mr. Lincoln," "The Grapes of Wrath") and big roles in small movies ("The Mandarin Mystery," "Sensation Hunters"). He also appeared in a series of shorts at Columbia Pictures with Wally Vernon, including 1948's "Nobody's Home," seen here in two parts. By then, Quillan was in his late 30s, but he could still take a pratfall:

 

In the 1970s and '80s, Quillan made the acquaintance of Michael Landon and Robert Blake. This led to bit roles on Landon's "Little House and the Prairie" and "Highway to Heaven," and on Blake's "Baretta" and "Hell Town." Both Landon and Blake were known for their massive egos as much as their talents, but it's kind of cool that they noticed and appreciated Quillan's history and ability.

Quillan's last acting credit was a 1987 episode of "Matlock," and he passed away a couple of years later.

"Kept Husbands," or Bride and Gloom

"Whatcha watching?"

Old movie.

"Not really."

Yes. And to anticipate your next question, it's called "Kept Husbands," and it was released in 1931.

"Starring, from the looks of things, Hunky McHunkerson."

You mean Joel McCrea.

"If you say so."

I say so. Yes, he is the male lead. He is a steel worker named Dick. He has been invited to the big boss's house for dinner because he helped rescue three workers and refused any reward for it. The boss is impressed.

"Who's the blonde?"

Dorothy Mackaill, our female lead. She is Dot, the boss's spoiled daughter. At first, Dot makes fun of Dick, but then she makes a discovery about him:



"So he's a former halfback who threw the winning pass to beat Yale? Not to take anything away from his skill, but how hard is it to beat Yale in football?"

Never mind. This helps establish his bona fides as an all-American good guy who loves honest labor and his mother, not necessarily in that order.

"And he's good looking, while Dot's current boyfriend is a pasty-looking guy with a Maybelline mustache. So of course she's going to pick Dick."

Exactly.

"Now here's a new guy who talks like a leaf blower."

That is Ned Sparks, and that voice was his trademark. He plays Hughie, a guy who boards at Dick's mom's house. When Dick comes back from his dinner, Hughie gives him a hard time:



"So I'm thinking that in most other movies he had better lines than that?"

Usually. But I like to include Ned Sparks clips.

"OK. So Dick and Dot get together."

Yes. He is worried that he can't provide for her in the manner to which she is accustomed, but she is persuasive:



"And they take a long honeymoon in Europe. It lasts for like ten minutes, which in old movie time is about three months."

Then Dick goes back to his job, but he's been promoted to Third Vice President, and he does nothing all day. Instead of building bridges, he's shuffling cards and practicing his bridge game.

"There's probably a smoother way to say that."

I don't know -- it's a tricky little simile.

"In other words, Dick has become a -- dun DUNNN -- kept husband."

Yes. Dot is rich but worthless, and Dick is worthless but rich.

"There is truth in what you say."

There is but one hope for Dick -- he must stand up to his wife and go to St. Louis for that big bridge job that will help him regain his self respect.  

"Bridge as in real bridge and not as in a card game."

Yes. I told you it was tricky.  

"So I'm guessing that somebody's going to learn a lesson here, and it isn't Dick."

Dot goes to visit Dick's patient, loving mother, who explains to her that husbands actually WANT to be kept -- not by money, but by love and understanding:



"And only husbands deserve that? Seems to me that's kind of a two-way bridge."

Real bridge or card game bridge?

"Strictly Dishonorable," or The Fox and the Hound

Preston Sturges's "Strictly Dishonorable" is a story about love, honor, happiness and the relative merits of living in West Orange, New Jersey.

The play had been a hit on Broadway, and Universal bought the rights for a then-unprecedented $125,000 -- not bad for something that Sturges wrote in six days.

The 1931 film version of "Strictly Dishonorable" is basically a filmed play, and as a pre-code film it has an adult tone that the 1951 remake would lack, although it isn't nearly as spicy as the poster at left (boiinnnnng!) would imply.

True, the story is stage-bound in many ways -- the plot is very linear and director John M. Stahl shoots the scenes in long takes; characters are disposed of and re-introduced the old-fashioned way, through old-school entrances and exits. But there are plenty of examples of Sturges's trademark wit, and a bit of cheerful cynicism that blends well with the sweet, romantic story.

We open in a speakeasy in a New York City apartment hotel. The place is run by the genial Tomasso (William Ricciardi, repeating his Broadway role), who treats his long-term guests like family. One of them is Judge Dempsey (Lewis Stone), a philosophical type who provides free legal advice to Tomasso in exchange for an old-fashioned or three. Dempsey was the maiden name of Sturges's mother, and the judge is very lovable and sympathetic.

Into the speak walks Henry Greene (George Meeker) and his fiancee, Isabella Parry (Sidney Fox). They've driven from their home with Henry's folks in West Orange, NJ for a night on the town, and Henry can't wait to have a nightcap and then escape from the "dirty" city. On the other hand, Isabella, a Southern belle from Mississippi, loves it. Henry's a bond broker, and as humorless and as pompous as a contemporary Wall Streeter.  

We learn Isabella's story -- she grew up on a plantation where things were flush, but tough times came "when cotton got high [and] women stopped wearing underwear." Henry came along as her knight in shining armor, and he never lets her forget it. "You just leave your happiness to me," he tells her, "and you won't have a thing to worry about." She, on the other hand, seems frighteningly ready to be subservient to him.  

The Judge can't help but notice this -- and when Henry starts pontificating about life in West Orange, the Judge becomes one of the first in a long line of Sturges characters to give the raspberry to small-town life:


The Judge's joshing brings Henry to a boil, and it gets worse when Gus Di Ruvo (Paul Lukas) enters. Gus is another resident of the hotel. He's a bit of a hound where the ladies are concerned, and he's also -- although he doesn't make a big deal about it -- a famous opera singer.

Isabella loves opera. Gus likes Isabella. Henry no like. He explodes and starts throwing the word "dago" around, which is a bad idea in a room where seven-eighths of the occupants speak Italian.

And, at last, Isabella reaches her limit. She gives him back her engagement ring and he leaves in a huff. (A two-door huff, to paraphrase Groucho Marx.)

Isabella: There's been something the matter with me for months and I didn't know what it was.

Judge: What was it?

Isabella: It was Henry. Entirely too much Henry.

The Judge agrees, adding that Henry threw "honor" around as if it was a weapon. "Honor should be tempered with the milk of human kindness," he says, "if you can temper anything with milk. And I'm afraid too much honor is apt to curdle the milk."

At any rate, Isabella is stranded at the hotel, but she doesn't mind. She'd like to spend the night with Gus, and at first he's open to the idea, until he realizes how young and inexperienced she is. Then HIS honor comes into play, even as he wishes it wouldn't:


The Judge hovers like an overprotective parent to make sure Isabella stays out of harm's way, but he doesn't need to -- Gus ends up sleeping in the Judge's apartment. The next morning, Isabella awakens as chaste (and as chased) as ever, but Henry returns and immediately starts assuming the worst.

Henry: Are you pure?

Isabella: Are YOU pure?

Henry: That's entirely different!

Despite the threat -- I mean appeal -- of life with Henry, Isabella can't resist the charms of Gus:


"Strictly Dishonorable" doesn't exactly move at a fast pace, but there are pleasures to be had in Sturges's dialogue and the performances of Lukas and Stone. Most impressive of all, however, is the petite Fox, whose career flagged in the mid-1930s. She gives Isabella a quiet charm and warmth -- you understand exactly what Gus sees in her and why he's ready to give up his playboy days. Unlike her placid, centered character, Fox was plagued by depression, and she died of a sleeping pill overdose in 1942. Here is a tribute to her career:

"West of Broadway," or Haunted Honeymoon

"Whatcha watching?"

Old movie.

"THERE'S a shocker. What's it called?"

"West of Broadway," 1931. With John Gilbert and Lois Moran.

"John Gilbert? The guy with the good-looking girlfriend?"

Greta Garbo, you mean? Yes.

"Tell me his story in five short sentences."

Heavy drinker. Hated Louis B. Mayer. Died young. Left at the altar by Garbo. And talkies killed his career. At least that was the conventional wisdom for years.

"That was six sentences."

Whatever.

"He looks sad."

He does indeed. I'm trying to figure out if it's acting or not. He plays a guy back from World War I whose fiancee has jilted him. So that's sad. And his sidekick is played by El Brendel. Maybe that's why he's sad.

"El Brendel? That's a person? Sounds like the Spanish name for blender."

Hm. Anyway, Gilbert's home from World War I and when his ship comes in he hangs around the dock while the band plays "Smiles" about fifty times and his girl still hasn't shown up. So he goes to her apartment and she greets him with a handshake.

"After being in the war and everything? Not even a pity kiss?"

Not even a pity kiss. Now he's really sad.

"But he doesn't just look sad. He looks -- haunted?"

Yep. Again, I'm trying to figure out if he's acting or not. Anyway, he meets a new girl, Dot, who's come to a party at his house.

"I ain't sayin' she's a gold digger, but she ain't going with no broke --"

You're right, but don't finish that sentence.

"She's kind of a little hottie."

Her name is Lois Moran. She had an affair with F. Scott Fitzgerald, made a few more movies, married a Washington big shot and then retired.

"Well, isn't SHE the only Coke in the Coke machine!"

What?

"That's an expression where I come from. Means she's special. So what's happening now?"

So they go out together, and Gilbert sees his old flame -- the one who jilted him. And he introduces his new date, Dot, to the jilter, Ann. He says "Dot, this is Ann. Ann, this is Dot. Dot the I and cross the Ann." Then he looks at Ann and says, "Or is it the double cross? I forget."

"Burn!"

Yes. So he's nursing his broken heart, and he gets drunk and marries Dot. The next morning, while extremely hungover, he tries to tell her it was a mistake:



"That guy has a really convincing case of the shakes."

Yeah. I'm trying to figure out if he's acting or not. So, anyway, he tries to dump Dot by offering her money, but it turns out she's in love with him. And in return he's kind of a jerk to her.

"I miss El Blender."

Brendel.

"Whatever."

So back to the story. Gilbert is a millionaire and he has gone out west to his really cool ranch to recover from his war injuries and to ditch Dot. El Brendel is there too.

"Thank God."

And that's Ralph Bellamy as the ranch foreman. And whattya know -- Dot has followed Gilbert out west because she wants to help him overcome his melancholy.

"She looks cute in her little cowgirl outfit."

Yes. She keeps trying to melt Gilbert's cold heart, and he keeps being mean to her. But it's handled in sort of a good-natured bickery way. Meanwhile Bellamy has become attracted to the little filly himself.

"Never mind that -- why is the Chinese cook wearing a sombrero?"

Because we are about to have a festival of ethnic humor with Willie Fung, who plays the cook, and El Brendel. Hold on to your shorts:



"Wow. Thanks for sharing that."

You're welcome.

"I was kidding."

By now, Gilbert is starting to warm up a little to Dot, who has helped him stop drinking. He decides to go to her room for a visit:



"And they share a cigarette. Ooooh. Do they live happily ever after?"

Well, there are a few more rough spots first. And with Gilbert, who can tell from happy? There's something melancholy -- haunted -- about him all through this movie.

"I'm trying to figure out if he's acting or not."

That's my line.

"Whatever."

A Tale of Two Johnsons: "The Front Page" and "His Girl Friday"

This post is part of the Journalism in Classic Film Blogathon, co-sponsored by Comet Over Hollywood and Lindsay's Movie Musings.

The difference between "The Front Page" and "His Girl Friday" is pre-code versus post-code, scene chewers versus scene stealers and, above all, Hildebrand Johnson versus Hildegarde Johnson.

Both films are love stories embedded in hard-boiled comedies about the newspaper business. But by turning ace reporter Hildy Johnson from a man in "The Front Page" to a woman in "His Girl Friday" -- and not just any woman, but the ex-wife of her boss, editor Walter Burns -- director Howard Hawks adds an extra dimension to the Johnson-Burns relationship while keeping the cynical tone of the original story.

Based on the play by Chicago-based reporters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, "The Front Page" takes place in a city of big shoulders, a toddlin' town, a windy city that, on the advice of studio lawyers, isn't specifically named.

We are in press room of the Criminal Courts Building, on the eve of an execution. A cop killer named Earl Williams will be hung at dawn. There is lots of evidence that he is mentally ill, but there is also an election coming up, and the sheriff and mayor are determined to sacrifice Williams to win the law-and-order vote.

The press room is filled with reporters representing every newspaper in town -- a relic of the days when you could use the phrase "every newspaper in town" and mean more than one.

The 1931 film "The Front Page" goes right from opening credits to black humor on the gallows:



The 1940 film "His Girl Friday," on the other hand, begins with a reunion. Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) is back in the newsroom of The Morning Post after a long vacation, which has included a divorce from the paper's editor, Walter Burns (Cary Grant). There are greetings all around -- Hildy is clearly a pro and has an easy camaraderie with her fellow ink-stained wretches.

Hildy, in a tailored suit and mannish hat, has returned for one last meeting with Walter:



Hildy has another surprise for Walter -- she's gotten engaged on her vacation, to a nice insurance salesman named Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy), and she's leaving the newspaper. For the first time in the movie, the fast-talking editor is speechless. But Walter gets the wind back in his sails after a few seconds, and then he insists on meeting Bruce:



In "The Front Page," we first see Hildy (Pat O'Brien) when he enters the press room, letting Walter (Adolphe Menjou) know via phone that he's leaving the paper to get married and to go into advertising in New York City.

The funny thing is, the relationship between Menjou and O'Brien's characters seems more romantic than the one between Russell and Grant. Menjou says things like, "so you're leaving me for marriage" and "I love you, you crazy mug." Even Peggy, Hildy's fiance, knows it: "You adore each other!," she says. On the other hand, "His Girl Friday" is, in the tradition of Howard Hawks's films, free of practically all spoken terms of endearment. Affection and attraction might be demonstrated in other, more visual, ways -- and in a Hawks movie, often dialogue that has nothing to do with love ends up having something very much to do with love.

After the interlude with Walter, Hildy and Bruce, "His Girl Friday" also moves to the Criminal Courts Building. In both films, Hildy is surrounded by a wisecracking pack of character actors playing wisecracking reporters. In the 1931 version, the group includes Edward Everett Horton, Walter Catlett and Frank McHugh (as "McCue"). In the 1940 version, we have Roscoe Karns, Cliff "Ukelele Ike" Edwards and Regis Toomey.

We also have a more humanized look at the condemned man, Earl Williams, in "His Girl Friday."

With the promise of a nice commission for Bruce, Walter agrees to buy an insurance policy, so Hildy agrees to cover the Williams story. Hildy greases the palm of a prison guard to get a one-on-one interview with Williams (John Qualen) and we see two things -- that Hildy is a crackerjack reporter and that Williams is just plain crackers.

But before Hildy can write up her interview, Williams escapes. The reporters scramble to cover the story and Burns heads down to the press room to keep Hildy focused on the story and off of leaving with Bruce. To keep Bruce on the sidelines, Walter constantly sends trouble Bruce's way. (When he pays a woman to accuse Bruce of mashing so he'll get arrested, Walter describes him thusly: "He looks like that guy in the movies -- Ralph Bellamy.")

Maybe just to see if he can get away with it in an early talkie, director Lewis Milestone moves his camera whenever possible in the 1931 film. This circularly-staged scene, consisting of just a conversation between Hildy and Walter, makes you kind of dizzy:



Hawks's direction, of course, is completely the opposite. It never draws attention to itself -- he directs the cast instead of the camera. And in "His Girl Friday," especially, the cast does the heavy lifting, including overlapping dialogue that plays almost as if it's being ad-libbed. Watch this wondrous scene between Grant, Russell, Clarence Kolb as the crooked mayor, Gene Lockhart as the crooked sheriff, and the great Billy Gilbert as the guy delivering a reprieve for Williams -- someone the mayor and sheriff shooed away earlier:



(Another inside joke in that scene, as Grant's character refers to Grant's real name, Archie Leach. The 1931 film has plenty of names dropped as well, including "Judge Mankiewicz" and a guy in a speakeasy named Benchley.)

As faithful as the 1931 film is to the play, and as filled as it is with pre-code craziness, including one character giving the finger to another, I have to say I prefer "His Girl Friday." It represents smooth, expert Hollywood movie making in the best sense -- everyone involved, especially Grant and Russell, are hitting on all cylinders. It is the work of supremely assured craftsmen and performers, all moving at top speed. By comparison, Menjou and O'Brien -- especially O'Brien -- pitch their performances to the back row of the theatre.

You can see for yourself, since both films are in the public domain. Here's "The Front Page":


And here's "His Girl Friday":

"Mata Hari," or A Kiss Before Spying

Toward the end of the 1931 film "Mata Hari," our titular heroine (Greta Garbo) has come to a military hospital to see her lover, Alexi (Ramon Novarro), who has been blinded. She is carrying flowers, and when she encounters another blind soldier who is embittered and helpless, she is touched by his vulnerability and leaves them with him. Then she walks past yet another blinded vet who is sitting in the hallway playing "Ave Maria" on the violin before entering Alexi's room, where she takes the place of a nun who is nursing him.

And at this point, you start to think, if it hasn't occurred to you already, that "Mata Hari" lays it on a bit thick.

The movie is, after all, the story of a German spy, not Mother Teresa. True, even in this highly fictionalized form, Mata has her mean moments. But most of the movie is devoted to building a pedestal for Garbo to radiate from -- the character's exploits take a back seat to costuming, bejeweling, set decoration and lighting designed to make Mata Hari look like a cross between a Madonna and a courtesan.

See?

We open on a firing squad, where men who have given secrets to Mata (even Mischa Auer!) are now facing their doom. The French investigator DuBois (C. Henry Gordon, aka Evil Fred Astaire) is unable to get anything out of the men, so shots ring out and down they go. DuBois decides he must see this Mata Hari for himself and decides to attend her performance that evening.

"Such is war," a man says to DuBois. "Some dance and some die."

"And some," says DuBois, "will do both."

That night, there's a packed house to see Mata do the hoochi-coo. Also in the audience, along with DuBois, is the Russian General Shubin (Lionel Barrymore) and Lt. Alexis Rosanoff (Novarro). Once Mata comes out the men snap to attention, even though they're sitting down:



In case you haven't figured out by now, and I'm not sure how you haven't, Mata Hari's beauty and smooth dance moves drive men mad, mad I tell you! And by using her feminine wiles, she picks up military secrets for the Germans all over the place. Sometimes she takes the secrets and slips them inside a vaginal-shaped orchid she carries around with her.

Lewis Stone and his toupee play Mata's boss, the inscrutable Andriani. Barrymore is one of her many conquests. And Mata is blase about men until she meets Alexi. He comes to her chambers. She pays no attention to him and starts playing the piano, but when he kisses her right on the glissando, she changes her tune.

Then Mata realizes that she has to steal secrets from Alexi, too. So the next night she visits him and allows him to seduce her:   



Alas, Mata has begun to fall in love with her target. And this displeases Andriani. "A spy in love," he says, "is a tool that has outlived its usefulness." He sends an assassin to dispense with her -- a guy with a clubfoot who follows her everywhere. And she doesn't even notice him. Some spy.

"Mata Hari" ends where it began, in the shadow of the firing squad. Mata is in prison, but she has tricked Alexi, who can't see, into thinking that it's a sanitarium where she has gone for minor surgery, and the guards all play along:



If anyone could sell the absurd romanticism of a movie like "Mata Hari," it's Garbo, but even for her this is heavy sledding. Still, even when she didn't play exotic characters, she was still capable of driving men mad, mad I tell you!

Here are the full credits for "Mata Hari," and a trailer: