Pre-Code vs Post-Code: "State's Attorney" and "Criminal Lawyer"

The 1932 film "State's Attorney" and its 1937 remake, "Criminal Lawyer," are based on the same story by Louis Stevens.

But in the hands of different screenwriters working under different production codes -- and performed by lead actors with distinctively different styles -- you get two, well, different movies.

Stevens's story is about a flamboyant attorney who's the mouthpiece for a big-city gangster. Thanks to the gangster's influence, the attorney becomes the chief prosecutor and starts dreaming of the governorship. But then the gangster commits murder, and, thanks to the love of a good woman, the attorney risks the wrath of his biggest backer -- not to mention his life -- to see that justice is done.

Both films follow that plot. In the 1932 film, John Barrymore plays the attorney, named Tom Cardigan. In the 1937 film, Lee Tracy plays the attorney, named Barry Brandon.

The screenplay for the Barrymore film, "State's Attorney," was written by Rowland Brown and Gene Fowler. Brown was responsible for some tough, notable pre-code movies, including "Hell's Highway" and "Doorway to Hell." Fowler was a longtime Barrymore crony -- he kept vigil at Barrymore's deathbed and later wrote the Barrymore biography "Good Night, Sweet Prince."

So the character of Cardigan is very much colored by what seems like Barrymore himself -- a wisecracking blend of impishness and melancholy, with plenty of boozing thrown in. Barrymore slides from comedy to drama with great grace and style. He doesn't look like he's acting, which is the best kind of acting.

The Tracy film, "Criminal Lawyer," is likewise heavily colored by its leading man, which isn't necessarily a good thing.

Tracy's screen persona was that of a fast-talking operator who was often just this side of being a con artist. Barrymore knew how to let silence work for him; with the characters Tracy played, there aren't any moments of silence, because to stop talking meant that the rubes were more likely to catch on to your scheme.

Beyond that, the script for "Criminal Lawyer," written by G.V. Atwater and Thomas Lennon, is scrubbed clean of spice. Sure, there's crime aplenty, but very little of that sex stuff.

Both movies begin with a party thrown by the gangster -- in the 1932 film it's Valentine "Vanny" Powers, played by William Boyd, and in the 1937 film it's Larkin, played by Eduardo Ciannelli (seen with Tracy at left).

The party is raided, and we end up at night court. In both movies, the gangster orders the attorney to sweet talk the female judge into releasing the party without bail. But the attorney is feeling contrary, so instead he makes sure the judge sets bail -- at fifty bucks a person, which the gangster grudgingly pays.

Here is where things begin to diverge.

Next up on the night court docket is a woman -- in the 1932 film she's June, played by Helen Twelvetrees; in the 1937 film it's Madge, played by Margot Grahame.

Both women have been picked up for soliciting, although in the 1932 film it's much clearer. June, in fact, works for Vanny, which means he also does some pimping on the side. But as opposed to Vanny's well-heeled patrons, she really does need help, and Cardigan jumps in. First he reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out a wedding band, and slips it on June's finger. Then he stands before the judge and proceeds to pull on her heartstrings:

This is a pretty cynical scene, but Barrymore plays it completely straight and practically makes you believe him. As Brandon, Tracy isn't as conniving as Cardigan -- he doesn't carry a wedding band in his pocket. Madge is already wearing a costume jewelry ring, so he turns it so that its large setting is hidden and only the band shows. Oh, and Madge doesn't work for the gangster -- she's apparently a freelancer.

The way Cardigan cross-examines the cop who arrested June also has more of a pre-code bite. Seems the cop served a hitch in reform school, and if we don't get the point that he's a bad egg we hear that after being paroled he was sent back again for torturing a dog. In "Criminal Lawyer" we don't hear anything about that.

In both movies, the attorney ends up taking the woman back to his place. Cardigan gently removes June's coat and pours her a drink, and she asks him what he wants for breakfast in the morning. Brandon, on the other hand, wastes no time in getting Madge an apartment in his building. No impropriety (or breakfast, for that matter) here! June is pretty clearly kept by Cardigan, but not Madge -- she goes to work in Brandon's office, where she can gaze at him longingly.

Once they become chief prosecutors, both attorneys hitch their star to a headline-heavy murder case -- a housewife (named Nora Dean in the 1932 film, Nora James in 1937) is accused of killing her husband as he slept. Nora whoever contends it happened during a break-in. Both attorneys are determined to break down Nora on the stand, and the 1932 treatment is much more lurid than the 1937 one. Cardigan has the bed where the murder take place brought into the courtroom, so that the jurors can see the bloody sheets. Then he takes the murder weapon -- an iron sashweight -- and incessantly taps it on the metal bed as he questions the suspect. In the 1937 film, there are no such histrionics, and Brandon takes only about five seconds to elicit a confession from Nora:

Romantic rivals rear their ugly heads in both movies in the form of the spoiled daughter of a political kingmaker. In the 1932 film it's Jill Esmond as Lillian, who purrs lines like "to me there's something thrilling about a woman killing for love." She's hot to trot for Cardigan, who willingly (if drunkenly) marries her to ensure his political success, even if it means shafting June. Her 1937 film equivalent, Betty, played by Betty Lawford (Peter's cousin), is kind of wan, and she shanghais Brandon into marrying her.

In both movies, however, the woman's character is quickly disposed of because the attorneys quickly have second thoughts, and because the women have eager suitors waiting in the wings. And as luck would have it, both suitors are played by actors with tangential relationships to Astaire-Rogers musicals.

In the 1932 version, Lillian is wooed by Alvarez, played by Raul Roulien, who would also play Gene Raymond's rival for Dolores Del Rio's affections in "Flying Down to Rio." In the 1937 film, Brandon's romantic rival is Bandini, played by Erik Rhodes (left), the comic actor best known as the Italian gigolo in "The Gay Divorcee" and "Top Hat."

There's a scene in both movies where the attorney meets with the suitor and lets him know that he's cutting the daughter loose. In the 1937 film, it's done with lots of mugging from Rhodes, and in the 1932 version it's done over a glass of saline laxative -- see for yourself:

The dramatic climax of both movies comes when the gangster goes on trial for murdering a rival ("Bird Legs" Duffy in the 1932 film and "Bird Dog" Duffy in the 1937 film, if you must know). The murder was witnessed by June/Madge, but she won't talk for fear the gangster will harm Cardigan/Brandon. In the 1932 version, there's an even stronger reason for Cardigan to back off from prosecution -- he himself was a burglar and served time in reform school.

And the ending, the same in both movies, is what you'd expect for that time -- the attorney walks out of the courtroom with his self-respect intact, along with the woman who stood with him through thick and thin.

We'll close with one more moment from the Barrymore movie -- a drunken conversation between Cardigan and a carriage driver where Cardigan is plinking out the wedding march on a series of half-full glasses of beer:

Lee Tracy Bigmouth Theatre: "Clear All Wires" and "Washington Merry-Go-Round"

Between 1929-35, Lee Tracy appeared in more than twenty films as a reporter, shyster lawyer, press agent, publicity man, promoter, politician and puppeteer.

And in all of them he. Talked. All. The. Time.

Fast, and with authority, punctuating his words with jabs into the air. Or, when he is "contrite," spreading his fingers over his heart. Sometimes he uses this gesture so often that it looks like he's pledging allegiance to his co-star.

Tracy first found fame as Hildy Johnson in the stage production of "The Front Page," and although he didn't play Hildy in the 1930 film version -- Pat O'Brien did -- Tracy found himself typecast as the quick-thinking, ever-scheming, fast-talking operator who was just this side of a con artist.

In the 1933 film "Clear All Wires," for instance, Tracy is Buckley Joyce Thomas, foreign correspondent for the Chicago Globe. He's a freewheeling scoop machine given to dressing in military garb, and when the movie opens he's been missing for days, captured by enemy insurgents in Morocco. In reality, he's been treated like a king -- his unflappable style has charmed the leader of the group, who has given him an exclusive interview.

When Buckley is released, he is greeted with joy by his right-hand man, Lefty (James Gleason). Buckley's disappearance "shoved beer right off the front page," Lefty tells him. Buckley starts dictating his big story, even as his rival, Pettingwaite of The New York Times, pooh-poohs Buckley's methods. So Buckley takes a break from his story and lets him have it, in a standard Lee Tracy diatribe:



We then move to Russia, where Buckley has swiped Pettingwaite's hotel suite. He's there to cover the 15th anniversary of the Soviet Revolution, and he meets an old flame, Kate (Benita Hume), but it's hard to romance her because he has another old girlfriend, Dolly (Una Merkel) along. This makes for crowded quarters:



(Notice that the aria Dolly is practicing, badly, is the same one that Susan Alexander practices, badly, in "Citizen Kane.")

"Clear All Wires" is based on a play by Bella and Sam Spewack, and it has funny moments, but it's largely stagebound -- most of the action takes place in Buckley's suite. And the actual plot -- something about Buckley's battle with the Soviet secret police -- isn't really that interesting. Tracy keeps things hopping largely because Tracy himself keeps hopping. And talking.

The 1932 film "Washington Merry-Go-Round," on the other hand, has a stronger script that gives Tracy an actual character to play. He's Button Gwinnett Brown, a newly elected congressman who is a namesake and descendant of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. "His blood is bluer than one of Sophie Tucker's songs," we're told.

Brown takes his heritage -- and his responsibility -- seriously. He's heading for Washington in 1932, at the peak of the battle between the government and the "bonus army," World War I veterans who want an early payment of the bonus they're scheduled to receive in 1945. The bonus army has set up a camp across the river from D.C. in Virginia, and one of Brown's old Army buddies is a leader. He invites Brown to speak to the men, and what he tells them isn't exactly music to their ears:



Voted into office by the local political machine, Brown turns on his benefactors and lets them know he will be his own man in Congress. He's helped by Alice (Constance Cummings), who becomes his political mentor; she's also the daughter of his state's Senator (Walter Connolly). In the typical Tracy tradition, Brown makes speeches in the darndest places, including the Library of Congress:



"Washington Merry-Go-Round" offers odd little foreshadows of Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." The screenwriter, Jo Swerling, was a frequent Capra collaborator, but he didn't work on "Mr. Smith." Still, as in "Mr. Smith," Brown gets inspiration from a late-night visit to the Lincoln Memorial, and, as was the case with Claude Rains's character in "Mr. Smith," Alice's distinguished Senator father is revealed to be an unwitting partner of the movie's bad guy, power broker Norton (Alan Dinehart). Brown's friend killed himself over his involvement with Norton, so he becomes Brown's sworn enemy:



Like "Mr. Smith," "Washington Merry-Go-Round" tries to make nice with the powers that be before decking them with a sucker punch. The movie is "dedicated to those public servants in Washington who, despite the malignant force which operates to defeat the principles of representative government, are serving their country sincerely and well." But most of film is cheerfully cynical about how Washington really works, and how bosses like Norton worm their way into the system.

As for Tracy, he kept playing roles like this up until 1934, when he was scheduled to play a reporter in MGM's "Viva Villa," opposite Wallace Beery. The company was on location in Mexico when Tracy created a "scandal." One story is that he urinated off a balcony onto a military parade; another is that he returned an obscene gesture from someone watching the parade and thereby "insulted" Mexico. Whatever the reason, he was replaced in the film by Stuart Erwin.

But it's too simple to say that incident alone ruined Tracy's career. Like James Cagney's gangster, Barbara Stanwyck's tough dame and Joan Blondell's golddigger, Tracy's fast talker with loose morals was very much a pre-code character -- one that was phased out with the rise of the Production Code, Mexican balcony or no Mexican balcony.

"Bombshell," or Harlow Can You Go?

We know what -- and who -- "Bombshell" (1933) is about from the get-go:

Burns is the name, Lola Burns, and any resemblance to Jean Harlow is purely intentional. She's platinum blonde, she's an international sex symbol and she's the star of "Red Dust." She lives in a gorgeous Hollywood mansion along with her sponging father and brother (Frank Morgan and Ted Healy), a wisecracking maid (Louise Beavers) and faithful assistant (Una Merkel).

At the studio, Burns is hounded by a persistent stalker and by fast-talking, fast-thinking studio publicity man "Space" Hanlon, played by Lee "Aw, sugar, you got me all wrong" Tracy:


"Bombshell" moves as fast as Tracy talks. At any given moment in any given frame of this movie, someone is leaving, coming in or passing by. The dialogue is just as fast and funny, as when Space is justifying what he's done for Lola:

"I've seen to it that Lola Burns is a family slogan from Kokomo, Indiana to the Khyber Pass! Strong man take one look at your picture and go home and kiss their wives for the first time in ten years! You're an international tonic! You're a boon to re-population in a world thinned out by war and famine!"

There's also great dialogue involving Beavers as Harlow's maid. In one scene she tells Harlow that the negligee Harlow gave her was "torn." "Your day off is sure brutal on your lingerie," Harlow says. And when Merkel, as Harlow's assistant, tries to bully Beavers, she responds, "Don't scald me with your steam, woman. I know where the bodies are buried!"       

"Bombshell" also has great footage of the real-life MGM lot and surrounding buildings -- how many liaisons, you wonder, began at Ryan's Cafe just outside the studio gate? And it has a healthy sense of humor about Hollywood, spoofing fan magazines, gigolos with phony royal titles and stars adopting babies because it makes good copy. When Burns expresses an interest in adopting, Space stops her short -- "You think I want my bombshell turned into a rubber nipple?"

The movie ends with a "His Girl Friday"-style twist -- Burns runs away from the studio to a dude ranch and starts to worry if the studio really misses her. She also falls for a rich young man (Franchot Tone) who seems perfect -- too perfect.  

As much as "Bombshell" lampoons the studio system, however, it's interesting that two of the male leads -- Tracy and Healy -- would go on to violate system rules and end up in big trouble. In 1934, MGM suspended Tracy for his drunken hi-jinks on the Mexican set of "Viva Villa," and his career was never the same. And Healy died in 1937 under suspicious circumstances -- at least one book contends that he was beaten to death by a group including MGM star Wallace Beery, and that MGM sent Beery out of the country until the hubbub died down.

You can find complete credits for "Bombshell" here.