Pre-Code vs. Post-Code: "Grand Hotel" and "Week-End at the Waldorf"

Vicki Baum's 1929 novel (and play) "Grand Hotel" was purchased by MGM, and in 1932 the studio released a film version featuring all the big shots on the lot -- Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Lionel Barrymore and Wallace Beery, with Lewis Stone and Jean Hersholt thrown in for good measure.

Then in 1945 came "Week-End at the Waldorf," also from MGM, also based on Baum's work, featuring all the big shots on the lot -- Walter Pidgeon, Lana Turner, Van Johnson, Edward Arnold and Keenan Wynn, with Ginger Rogers (in her first film for MGM), Robert Benchley and Xavier Cugat and his orchestra thrown in for good measure.

"Grand Hotel" takes place in Berlin just before the Nazis come to power, and that setting -- along with the fact that the world seems to be closing in on several of the characters -- gives the film an air of melancholy. In typical pre-code fashion, there are several adult relationships and a cynicism that, by contrast, is almost totally missing from "Week-End at the Waldorf." World War II informs the latter film, which is understandable because it was happening at the time, but everything is covered with that slick, impenetrable MGM sheen. While "Grand Hotel" ends with a sense of disquiet, there's never really any doubt that everyone and everything in "Week-End" exists solely to steer the film toward a multitude of happy endings.

To see how vivid the contrast can be, consider the character who acts as a kind of philosophical narrator in each film -- in "Grand Hotel" it is the doctor (Stone, seen at left), whose face was horribly disfigured by a grenade during World War I. The good doctor is morose, to say the least. He haunts the lobby and is given one of the film's most famous lines: "Grand Hotel. People coming, people going. Nothing ever happens." But he's also given lines that hint at his loneliness and emotional desolation, like "A man who is not with a woman -- is a dead man."

In "Week-End at the Waldorf," on the other hand, our narrator is Randy Morton, played by Benchley. He's a superficial, silly-ass Broadway columnist who spends the whole movie worrying when his precious pooch is going to pop out pups.

Most of the characters of "Grand Hotel" are as alienated as the doctor -- Garbo plays prima ballerina Grusinskaya, whose physical and emotional exhaustion is affecting her work and draining her of life. The Baron (John Barrymore) is all hat and no cattle -- a gentleman with an empty title who resorts to petty theft to keep up appearances. The unfortunately-named Flem (Crawford) is a plucky stenographer who isn't above selling herself to get ahead. Preysing (Beery) is a bullying, hypocritical industrialist trying to set up a shady merger to save his Teutonic tush. Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore) is a lowly clerk in one of Preysing's factories, visiting the hotel for a last fling before being felled by a terminal illness. And Senf the head porter (Hersholt) is anxious because his wife is having a difficult labor offscreen.

But the real tragedy at the heart of "Grand Hotel" lies in the doomed romance between the Baron and the ballerina. They've seen each other around the hotel -- everyone has seen the Baron -- but they've never spoken.

One night, while she is performing, he slips into her vacant room to lift a string of pearls. She enters unexpectedly and he starts a slick line of patter that soon turns sincere. They Hit It Off.

In "Week-End at the Waldorf," the ballerina has been turned into unhappy actress Irene Malvern (Rogers) and the Baron has become war correspondent Chip Collyer (Pidgeon). In one of the best touches in Bella and Sam Spewack's script, their romance parallels that of Garbo and Barrymore, but with a much lighter tone -- and with lines of dialogue that even reference "Grand Hotel," not to mention a couple other MGM movies.

Chip to Irene: "I'm the Baron, you're the ballerina and we're off to see the wizard!"

Irene to Chip: "Goodbye, Mr. Chip -- Collyer."

Ginger Rogers is starting to do that raised eyebrow thing that
would become much more common in her later movies.

Irene isn't nearly as depressed as the ballerina, and Chip is no thief, although he's mistaken for one at first. The give-and-take between the two characters is geared more to romantic comedy than high drama, but so what? Rogers is great at romantic comedy and Pidgeon more than meets her halfway. When they end up having to pretend to be married, we just go along for the ride.

In "Grand Hotel," the ballerina and the Baron spend the night together, and he tells her his simple and cynical story.

Baron: "When I was a little boy I was taught to ride and be a gentleman. Then at school, to pray and lie. And then in the war, to kill and hide. That's all."

That is not a speech you would hear in a movie released in 1945.

The Baron and ballerina share a room -- hell, they share a bed. Hell, they may even have shared more than that!

In "Week-End at the Waldorf," Chip spends the night in Irene's suite because the house dicks think he's a thief and he has to hide out. But you can bet your bottom dollar that they stay in separate rooms, mister! They even make a big deal out of piling furniture against both sides of the door. We get it, 1940s people!  

In other remake news, Lana Turner takes Crawford's role as the stenographer and Lionel Barrymore's character is played by -- Van Johnson? Yep. Turner is Bunny -- that's her name -- and Johnson is Hollis, an Air Force Captain who will soon undergo a dicey operation to remove a piece of shrapnel that's dangerously near his heart (!). Bunny dreams of a nice place on Park Avenue, while Hollis just wants to get well and go home to small-town California. Oh -- and he also is carrying a song, written by a dead war buddy, that he wants Xavier Cugat's orchestra to play. You can pretty much guess what happens there.

Bunny, meanwhile, is torn between Hollis and the shiny things dangled in front of her by Edley (Arnold), an unscrupulous entrepreneur. And Wynn is a cub reporter snooping on Edley's shady doings.

Nice interacting there. Baron.

In the 1932 film, the plot threads are much more intermingled than in the 1945 film. The Baron, in fact, pretty much interacts with every character in the movie, and he is the real heart of "Grand Hotel." His death at the end of the film is genuinely affecting, devastating the ballerina, who loved him, and Kringelein, the odd duck whom the Baron befriended while everyone else dismissed him. The last indication of the Baron is his beloved dachshund, left behind to be cared for by the staff.

There's also a dog in "Week-End at the Waldorf," as we mentioned, but it's just a symbol of silly rich people. That's just one of the many reasons why "Grand Hotel" seems to have more of a heart -- even if it's a sad heart -- than its remake, which is entertaining enough, even if it has a whole lot less on its mind.

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.

"Bannerline" and the Keefe Brasselle Story

"Bannerline" isn't much of a movie and Keefe Brasselle isn't much of an actor.

So why am I writing this?

Because Brasselle had a minor acting career, and, considering what came later, which we will detail below, it's kind of interesting to see him in action.

Also, to watch "Bannerline" is to watch a great movie studio -- MGM -- slowly dying, along with two of its acting stalwarts, Lewis Stone and Lionel Barrymore.

One of the last films produced under the watch of Louis B. Mayer, "Bannerline" takes place in the small town of Backlotsville, on the same streets which the late Mickey Rooney probably trod as Andy Hardy.
 
Brasselle plays Mike Perrivale, a cub reporter for the town paper, the Clarion. The paper's owner keeps assigning fluff pieces to Mike, and he's never allowed to write anything about the town's crime lord, Scarbine (J. Carrol Naish). Mike's fiancee (Sally Forrest) tips him to a story -- the town's beloved high school history teacher, Trimble (Barrymore), is on his death bed. Encouraged by the paper's wizened layout editor, Josh (Stone), Mike interviews Trimble, who expresses anger that the citizens (and the newspaper) are reluctant to take on Scarbine:



Mike gets an idea -- since Trimble is expected to die the next day, why not make up a fake edition of the Tribune that reports the end of Scarbine's corrupt reign so he can go happily? Josh helps out, and even the paper's editor chips in, with the understanding that they will produce only a few copies as souvenirs and one for Trimble.

Lewis Stone, twilight edition.

Then, after everyone has gone home, Mike and Josh get another idea -- to print and distribute the fake newspaper to everyone in town. Since this is an MGM movie made in 1951 under Mayer, the unthinkable comes true without a lot of fuss or bother, and your lowest expectations are met -- Scarbine is incarcerated, Trimble dies a fulfilled man and everyone else lives happily ever after.

"Bannerline" is MGM at its smarmiest -- full of fake sentiment (with Spring Byington as Mike's plucky mother-in-law to be), noble speeches (Barrymore is largely immobile but still bites off his lines with vigor) and cute romantic situations between Brasselle and Forrest. Both Barrymore and Stone were just a few years from death (two years hence, in 1953, Stone would collapse and die from a heart attack after -- seriously -- chasing some kids off his lawn) and they class up the joint a bit, but there's just nothing to get excited about here. There were a lot of interesting innovations happening in Hollywood movies in 1951, but "Bannerline" doesn't reflect any of them. It might just as well have been made ten years earlier.  

So much for "Bannerline." Now for a little more about Brasselle.

Born in Ohio as John Brasselli, he came west and made his movie debut in 1944, playing small parts in films like "The Babe Ruth Story" and "T Men." In 1951, the same year he made "Bannerline," he also appeared in a small part in "A Place in the Sun." In 1953, he was cast in what could have been a star-making role -- as the lead in "The Eddie Cantor Story," lip synching to songs while Cantor supplied the singing. He appeared on "The Colgate Comedy Hour" to promote the film in a swaggering, charisma-free performance:

Really?

Brasselle's work in the film was widely panned and it was a failure at the box office. He made only a handful of movies over the rest of the decade.

Then in 1961, Brasselle appeared in the news when the New Jersey nightclub he owned caught on fire -- with six gasoline cans found nearby. He was also dogged with rumored mob connections -- he was the godson of mobster Joe Profaci.

In the summer of 1963, Brasselle popped up, seemingly out of nowhere, on CBS as the host of a summer replacement variety show. When producer Greg Garrison yelled at Brasselle for missing an entrance, Brasselle put a hit on him. Garrison hid out at the apartment of a show regular, former prizefighter Rocky Graziano, who straightened things out. 

The president of CBS at the time was James Aubrey, a mercurial fellow who was known as "the smiling cobra." Aubrey had built CBS into a ratings powerhouse by scheduling light fare that emphasized, as he stated in a memo, "broads, bosoms and fun" -- hits like "The Beverly Hillbillies," "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "The Andy Griffith Show," "Gunsmoke," "The Red Skelton Hour," "The Lucy Show" and "Candid Camera."

For whatever reason -- the mob connections or just plain greed -- Aubrey threw his lot in with Brasselle for the 1964-65 season. On CBS's fall schedule were three new shows from Brasselle's Richelieu Productions. The company had never produced a TV series, and the shows didn't even shoot pilot episodes. What's more, they all had artificially high production costs that screamed "kickback." None of the three -- "The Baileys of Balboa," "The Cara Williams Show" and "The Reporter" -- lasted more than a season, and in early 1965 a CBS shareholder charged Aubrey and Brasselle with conspiracy to defraud the network.

Aubrey resigned shortly thereafter, and Brasselle became bitter. He wrote a work of fiction, "The CanniBalS," based on the experience. In interviews he blamed everyone in Hollywood for his failure, and Hollywood reciprocated by leaving him totally alone.

Brasselle's last film, which he co-directed, was "If You Don't Stop It ... You'll Go Blind!," a R-rated drive-in quickie that was released in 1975. He died of liver cancer in 1981, at age 58.

Just one more thing -- Brasselle's "Colgate Comedy Hour" appearance reminds me of the episode of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" where Rob, Buddy and Sally are forced into writing a nightclub act for the no-talent nephew of a mobster (played by executive producer Sheldon Leonard):

"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:



 

"A Free Soul," or Shearer Madness

The headline refers to previous Shearer pictures
 "The Divorcee" and "Strangers May Kiss"

The climax of the 1931 film "A Free Soul" is a fourteen-minute continuous take -- a courtroom scene where Lionel Barrymore, as alcoholic attorney Stephen Ashe, back from a months-long bender, uses his last breath to argue that his daughter's fiance, accused of murder, committed the act while temporarily insane and should therefore be found not guilty. Barrymore won the Oscar largely as a result of this scene, but what makes "A Free Soul" even more interesting is the contrast in acting between the stage-trained style of Barrymore and the more natural, earthy style of a young Clark Gable.

"A Free Soul" is based on a 1927 novel by journalist-screenwriter Adela Rogers St. Johns, whose father, Earl Rogers, was a well-known defense attorney in Los Angeles. The heart of the story lies in the bond between Stephen Ashe and daughter Jan (Norma Shearer). Both are proudly independent spirits -- Stephen, despite his success as an attorney, is the shame of his well-to-do family because of his seedy clientele and his drinking; Jan is a romantic, strong-willed free spirit who keeps refusing to marry polo star Dwight Winthrop (Leslie Howard), who's been chasing her for years.

When Jan accompanies her father to court, she meets his latest defendant -- it's Gable as gambler Ace Wilfong -- capital W, small i, small l, small f, small o, small n, small g. (Apologies to W.C. Fields.) Anyway, Jan is struck with the big hunk of bacon, and he with her:

Ace is accused of murder, and in court, Stephen has him try on a hat found at the murder scene with the initials A.W. inside. It sits atop his head like a cherry on a sundae, and since it doesn't fit, they must acquit.

That night, Stephen celebrates by tying one on with Ace, and the two men visit the Ashe ancestral home, where everyone but Jan gives them the cold shoulder.


So Jan and Ace go for a drive:



(The lesson here is that there is no movie scene that cannot be improved by the addition of Ruh-ruh-ruh-Roscoe Ates.)

Jan and Ace begin an affair that's little more than an addictive thrill for her, but that is downright serious to him -- so serious that he asks Stephen an important question:



That scene vividly illustrates the difference in movie acting styles between the two men -- Barrymore chews the scenery, but Gable doesn't have to. He just sits back, exuding power and sexuality while barely moving a muscle.

Desperate to help her father kick the bottle, Jan promises never to see Ace again if dad will get on the wagon. It works for a few months. Then dad's off the wagon again and Jan's on Ace. But this time Ace is determined to marry Jan, and gets nasty about it. After she receives a threatening drunken visit from Ace, Dwight pays him a visit:



This leads us to the big showdown in the courtroom, where Stephen has recovered, just barely, from months of drunkenness. He tries to exonerate Dwight while once and for all publicly incriminating himself:

An unfortunate closeup.

The bond between father and daughter, and the easy banter between Shearer and Barrymore, is what makes "A Free Soul" believable despite lapses into overacting (see right). This is Shearer before she became the dowager Queen of MGM in the later 1930s, giving nobler-than-noble performances in "Marie Antoinette" and "The Women." Here she's still a little sexpot, reminding us that she did, after all, pose nude when she was a Ziegfeld showgirl. Barrymore's performance is bombastic, but shaded with affection for his daughter, and in the scene where he and Shearer swear off their respective addictions you can see that tenderness as well as the fear in their eyes:



Here are the complete credits for "A Free Soul."