Showing posts with label Pat O'Brien. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pat O'Brien. Show all posts
James Cagney's Final Act(ing)
After a thirty-year Hollywood career, James Cagney made what he thought would be his final film in 1961 -- a comedy directed by Billy Wilder called "One Two Three." Cagney then retired, spending his time between two farms he owned -- one on Martha's Vineyard and one in upstate New York. But Cagney got tired of being retired, and in 1980 his friend, director Milos Forman, talked Cagney into taking a small but significant role in Forman's film adaptation of the bestselling novel "Ragtime." Further encouraged by his family and lifelong friend Pat O'Brien, Cagney went on to play the lead role in a 1984 TV movie called "Terrible Joe Moran." By that point Cagney had been weakened by several strokes and was in a wheelchair, but he powered through, inspired by O'Brien's words of encouragement: "Do it, Cagney. It's medicine."
Sources:
"Cagney, 82, Is Embarrassed Anew at Being a 'Star'," Chris Chase, The New York Times, November 17, 1981
"Peter Gallagher," theavclub.com, June 14, 2011
"Ragtime," milosforman.com
"Ragtime," TCM.com
"TV Review: 'Terrible Joe Moran' Starring James Cagney," John J. O'Connor, The New York Times, March 27, 1984
"Faraway Fella: 'Cagney,' a Biography by John McCabe," David Thomson, The Los Angeles Times, January 4, 1998
Art Carney: A Biography, by Michael Seth Starr
Cagney, by John McCabe
"Cagney Felt at Home in Dutchess," Larry Hughes, Poughkeepsie Journal, June 18, 2015
"James Cagney: Looking Backward," Timothy White, Rolling Stone, February 18, 1982
"James Cagney's Condition Provokes Controversy," Sylvia Lawler, The Morning Call, March 25, 1984
Director Joseph Sargent on James Cagney, emmytvlegends.org
"Profile in Courage: Nobody Ever Said Cagney Wasn't a Fighter," Rod Townley, TV Guide, March 24, 1984
Pre-Code vs Post-Code: "The Crowd Roars" and "Indianapolis Speedway"
Pre-code versus post-code is the difference between a Duesenberg and a Hummer, between cafe au lait and chocolate milk, between a camisole and a union suit.
Take the differences, for instance, between the 1932 film "The Crowd Roars" and the 1939 film "Indianapolis Speedway." Same story (by Howard Hawks, who also directed the first film), same setting, same characters (with different names, in some cases), even much of the same racetrack footage. By the way, want to know how to switch up your stock footage of a crowd? Just flip the image, like this:
And, since these are Warner Bros. films made in the 1930s, naturally both of them feature Frank McHugh -- playing the same character, and even with the same name. Spud. (Frank McHugh was born to play guys named Spud.)
But there's a distinct difference in the way the film's romantic relationships are portrayed, and, by extension, in the relationship between the brothers at the center of the story.
The brothers are Joe and Eddie Greer, played by James Cagney and Eric Linden in "The Crowd Roars" and Pat O'Brien and John Payne in "Indianapolis Speedway." Joe is a world-famous racing driver who drinks and carouses a little too much, tilting slightly but not totally into arrogance. Eddie is his hero-worshiping brother, who also wants to race.
In the 1939 version, Joe's reluctance to work with Eddie has a noble basis -- he wants Eddie to finish college, at Joe's expense. But after Joe leaves his hometown and his visit with Eddie to return to Los Angeles, he finds an unexpected stowaway.
In the 1932 version, Joe's reluctant to work with Eddie for two reasons -- one is because of Eddie's inexperience, but the other is that Joe doesn't want Eddie to know that he's shacking up with longtime frail Lee (Ann Dvorak). Once Eddie enters Joe's life, Joe starts giving the cold shoulder to the bewildered Lee. In "Indianapolis Speedway," by contrast, Joe and Lee (Gale Page) are already engaged, which makes their coupling a little more legitimate. When Joe gives Lee the brushoff in "Indianapolis," he makes it clear it's because he wants to tutor Eddie. In "The Crowd Roars," Lee grins and bears it, but in "Indianapolis Speedway" she gets rightfully honked off. Here are the two scenes:
But the real woman trouble in both movies comes from Lee's friend. In "The Crowd Roars," her name is Ann (Joan Blondell) and in "Indianapolis Speedway" her name is Frankie (Ann Sheridan). In both movies, she's first portrayed as bad news, and Joe doesn't want her "corrupting" his pure younger brother. In "The Crowd Roars," when Ann meets Eddie and starts showing some leg, Joe sneers, "Why don't you stand on your head while you're at it?" -- a line that's as likely to show up in "Indianapolis Speedway" as I am to grow a tail. In "Indianapolis Speedway," Frankie -- who's the roommate of Ann -- is known for feminine wiles that have driven at least one racer track wacky. (Sheridan, at the peak of her reign as Warner's "Oomph Girl," is top billed here -- and like Blondell, she is shown in the skimpiest post-code outfits possible.)
Here's how Cagney and O'Brien handle the problem of the other woman:
Even by Cagney standards, the character of Joe is wound unusually tight. His obsession with keeping Eddie from sinful entanglements and what he perceives as loose women -- playing around for me, but not for thee -- goes beyond brotherly concern and makes him seem like a hypocrite.
O'Brien portrays Joe as a little wearier -- the movie is telling us that what he needs is to settle down with a good woman, but it'll take him about 65 minutes to figure that out.
All around, in fact, the Joe in "Indianapolis Speedway" seems more human and more vulnerable. The relationship between the brothers is much warmer -- in the 1932 film, Joe dominates Eddie the way that Cagney naturally dominates the more diffident Linden. Payne, by contrast, has a stronger screen presence and makes more of an impression opposite O'Brien.
In both versions, Joe's downfall comes when, out of anger at Eddie's romance, he causes a fiery crash that kills Spud (Twice!). Joe is spooked and can't bring himself to race again, but he gravitates toward Indianapolis on the day of the 500. Eddie is racing, and when he is injured, Joe jumps back behind the wheel with Eddie as his co-driver. Guess who wins?
In the 1932 film, the reunion between the brothers isn't even played out -- Joe just jumps in the car and takes off. But in the 1939 version, there's a spoken rapprochement between the brothers, capped off when Eddie gives Joe his trademark cigar to chomp on for good luck. Guess who wins?
Here are the full credits for "The Crowd Roars" (which also features several real-life drivers as themselves) and "Indianapolis Speedway."
Take the differences, for instance, between the 1932 film "The Crowd Roars" and the 1939 film "Indianapolis Speedway." Same story (by Howard Hawks, who also directed the first film), same setting, same characters (with different names, in some cases), even much of the same racetrack footage. By the way, want to know how to switch up your stock footage of a crowd? Just flip the image, like this:
And, since these are Warner Bros. films made in the 1930s, naturally both of them feature Frank McHugh -- playing the same character, and even with the same name. Spud. (Frank McHugh was born to play guys named Spud.)
But there's a distinct difference in the way the film's romantic relationships are portrayed, and, by extension, in the relationship between the brothers at the center of the story.
The brothers are Joe and Eddie Greer, played by James Cagney and Eric Linden in "The Crowd Roars" and Pat O'Brien and John Payne in "Indianapolis Speedway." Joe is a world-famous racing driver who drinks and carouses a little too much, tilting slightly but not totally into arrogance. Eddie is his hero-worshiping brother, who also wants to race.
In the 1932 version, Joe's reluctant to work with Eddie for two reasons -- one is because of Eddie's inexperience, but the other is that Joe doesn't want Eddie to know that he's shacking up with longtime frail Lee (Ann Dvorak). Once Eddie enters Joe's life, Joe starts giving the cold shoulder to the bewildered Lee. In "Indianapolis Speedway," by contrast, Joe and Lee (Gale Page) are already engaged, which makes their coupling a little more legitimate. When Joe gives Lee the brushoff in "Indianapolis," he makes it clear it's because he wants to tutor Eddie. In "The Crowd Roars," Lee grins and bears it, but in "Indianapolis Speedway" she gets rightfully honked off. Here are the two scenes:
But the real woman trouble in both movies comes from Lee's friend. In "The Crowd Roars," her name is Ann (Joan Blondell) and in "Indianapolis Speedway" her name is Frankie (Ann Sheridan). In both movies, she's first portrayed as bad news, and Joe doesn't want her "corrupting" his pure younger brother. In "The Crowd Roars," when Ann meets Eddie and starts showing some leg, Joe sneers, "Why don't you stand on your head while you're at it?" -- a line that's as likely to show up in "Indianapolis Speedway" as I am to grow a tail. In "Indianapolis Speedway," Frankie -- who's the roommate of Ann -- is known for feminine wiles that have driven at least one racer track wacky. (Sheridan, at the peak of her reign as Warner's "Oomph Girl," is top billed here -- and like Blondell, she is shown in the skimpiest post-code outfits possible.)
Here's how Cagney and O'Brien handle the problem of the other woman:
Even by Cagney standards, the character of Joe is wound unusually tight. His obsession with keeping Eddie from sinful entanglements and what he perceives as loose women -- playing around for me, but not for thee -- goes beyond brotherly concern and makes him seem like a hypocrite.
O'Brien portrays Joe as a little wearier -- the movie is telling us that what he needs is to settle down with a good woman, but it'll take him about 65 minutes to figure that out.
All around, in fact, the Joe in "Indianapolis Speedway" seems more human and more vulnerable. The relationship between the brothers is much warmer -- in the 1932 film, Joe dominates Eddie the way that Cagney naturally dominates the more diffident Linden. Payne, by contrast, has a stronger screen presence and makes more of an impression opposite O'Brien.
In both versions, Joe's downfall comes when, out of anger at Eddie's romance, he causes a fiery crash that kills Spud (Twice!). Joe is spooked and can't bring himself to race again, but he gravitates toward Indianapolis on the day of the 500. Eddie is racing, and when he is injured, Joe jumps back behind the wheel with Eddie as his co-driver. Guess who wins?
Here are the full credits for "The Crowd Roars" (which also features several real-life drivers as themselves) and "Indianapolis Speedway."
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":
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.
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":
The Joseph Cawthorn Film Festival: "White Zombie" and "Twenty Million Sweethearts"
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| "Vot are you looking at?" |
To get an idea of the wide range of roles he played, just look at the character names: Dourfuss, Kleber, Selzer, Schlemmer, Krausemeyer, Schmidt, Kruger, Uppmann, Brokman, Speigal, Schneider, Barfuss, Schultz, Schultz and Schultz.
All right, so he's not Daniel Day-Lewis.
Nonetheless, Cawthorn had one particular character type down cold -- the cranky-but-harmless, usually wealthy, Dutch-German businessman who said things like "You vill pay me der seventy dollahs or I vill know der reason vy!"
He vas good at it.
Cawthorn started on the stage as a child, and in a 1908 Broadway show he supposedly created an animal called the whiffenpoof while ad libbing. Some fellows from Yale were in the audience and created a song to go with the name. Thus Cawthorn is only a few degrees separated from Cary Grant, who sang "The Whiffenpoof Song" in the film "Monkey Business"!
He didn't always play to type -- Cawthorn appeared in the 1929 version of "Taming of the Shrew" with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, and he was the doctor who can't understand Jeannette MacDonald's need for male, um, companionship in the 1932 film "Love Me Tonight."
"Murder" has two distinguishing characteristics -- he is always followed around by a vulture and he has a bad hairpiece. The evil plantation owner gives the bride some zombie formula, and on her wedding night she puts a serious crimp in the honeymoon by turning cold and stiff, although to some grooms that might be the perfect aphrodisiac.
Neil thinks that Madeline is dead, and he goes to Dr. Bruner for help. Bruner says, "You vill pay me der seventy dollahs" -- no, sorry, wrong movie. Instead, in a very long take, Bruner laboriously explains to Neil that Madeline has become zombified:
The grieving groom teams with Dr. Bruner and they set out for the castle of "Murder" and his army of obedient zombies. Cawthorn is third-billed in this movie, and in the big showdown he saves Neil and Madeline by telling the zombies to take a long walk on a short cliff:
"White Zombie" is visually striking, but the script is routine and humorless. There's only one joke in the movie, and Cawthorn gets it -- he's always asking someone for a match to light his pipe. While you collapse with hilarity, we move on to Cawthorn movie #2, in which he plays a more Joseph Cawthorn-ish role.
Conflict rears its ugly head when Buddy falls in love with radio actress Peggy (Ginger Rogers) and Brokman and the network want to keep the romance a secret so as not to alienate Buddy's female fans. Buddy ends up quitting the show and the network, and Rush orchestrates an event to bring Buddy, Brokman and the network together again:
As for Cawthorn, his last film was "The Postman Didn't Ring," released in 1942.
Here are credits for "White Zombie," and a trailer:
Here are credits for "Twenty Million Sweethearts," and a trailer:
The Mae Clarke Film Festival: "The Good Bad Girl" and "The Final Edition"
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| "Don't tell anyone, but my real name is Mary Klotz." |
Of all the actresses who appeared in 1930s movies, Mae Clarke (1910-1992) was certainly one of them.
She played a variety of roles, including rather wooden reporter, rather wooden gangster's moll, rather wooden movie star, rather wooden bride carried away by Frankenstein and rather wooden prostitute. And she will go down in film history for this scene:
Clarke's kisser was a pretty one, and deserved -- and got -- better than a grapefruit half in most of her movies. She had the good fortune to appear in several true film classics, including "The Public Enemy," "Frankenstein," the first version of "Waterloo Bridge" and the original version of "The Front Page." She was capable of convincing work, but in average movies headed by average directors she tends to deliver her lines as if she was thinking about something else.
In the 1931 film "The Good Bad Girl" she gets to dip her toe into soap opera -- a territory dominated at the time by the likes of Kay Francis and Norma Shearer. She is Marcia, a reluctant gangster's moll. As the movie opens, she is trying to leave the big lug, but as Neil Sedaka so memorably said, breaking up is hard to do. Or, as the gangster (Robert Ellis) says, "There's only one way for either of us -- feet first," which does not have much of a danceable beat. Then the gangster leaves to settle a score with an old rival, which he does in kind of a memorable way:
The gangster wants Marcia to give him a fake alibi, but she refuses. She has fallen in love with another man (James Hall). The gangster is imprisoned and swears vengeance, and Marcia marries the other man even though he doesn't know about her past. When he and his high-society family find out, she is shunned, even though she's with child. Marcia has the baby, and the gangster escapes from prison, intent on tracking down and killing her. He makes it as far as the baby's nursery, where the police shoot him down like a dog. At the same time, rich husband has come to his senses and sets out to reconcile with Marcia.
"The Good Bad Girl" gives Clarke several opportunities to do some heavy-duty emoting, and she is convincing as the young mother set adrift. As Marcia's boozy pal, silent-film beauty Marie Prevost is aces with comedy relief, and things chug along until the inevitable happy ending:
In 1932's "The Final Edition," Clarke is reporter Ann Woodman, and the first part of her last name describes her performance. When she acts sassy or makes with a wisecrack, it's almost as if she doesn't understand it's a joke. Someone like Glenda Farrell would be knocking these lines out of the park, you get me?
Anyway, Ann wants to be a reporter but boyfriend Bradshaw (Pat O'Brien), who's also the city editor, doesn't think she's up to the job. Ann gets her chance when the new police commissioner is murdered and she jumps in to console the man's wife:
She scoops the competition with details about the murder and then she follows the killer to a resort hotel where he's hiding out. The bad guys catch on and she and Bradshaw end up in hot water, at least temporarily:
The newspaper picture was a stock-in-trade at Warner Bros., where O'Brien was under contract, so he fits right in, talking a mile a minute. For instance, try to decipher what he's saying here:
As for Clarke, her career continued into the 1960s, but with smaller and smaller roles. Her other credits include "Singin' in the Rain" (as a hairdresser), "The Catered Affair" (as a saleswoman) and "Pat and Mike" (as a golfer).
Here are full credits for "The Good Bad Girl" and "The Final Edition."
I Love Lombard: "Virtue"
"Altogether she was turbulent, sensible and friendly, and as such she became so agreeable that a number of indifferent or downright poor films couldn't hurt her. She was lightly symbolic of an American type, unspoiled and sporty." -- Ethan Mordden on Carole Lombard
Lil: Danbury. That's where they make hats, isn't it?
Mae: Yeah. I'd go there but I got a hat.
On her way back to Lil's, Mae hailed a cab driven by Jimmy (Pat O'Brien) and stiffed him on the fare. But to show him (and us) that she's on the square, she finds him and pays him back:
Mae gets a job in a restaurant, and she and Jimmy become an item, but she's hesitant to tell him of her past. He finds out the hard way -- on their wedding night, when the cop who escorted Mae out of town shows up on her doorstep. He leaves in a fury, then cools down and they start life together.
The plot complication could be solved with two minutes of conversation, but then you wouldn't have a movie. And to further complicate things, Mae is wrongly accused of a murder committed by Lil's no-good boyfriend (Jack LaRue).
How much you like "Virtue" depends a lot on how much you like Lombard. Unlike contemporaries such as Claudette Colbert or Joan Crawford, Lombard doesn't fall back on prim mannerisms, and unlike Jean Harlow, she doesn't push her sex appeal right into your face. She's refreshingly goofy when she needs to be, and downright sexy in everyday clothes -- check out her dress in the scene above. Robert Riskin's script is full of funny wisecracks and a nicely done dramatic moment where Lil's boyfriend gets his comeuppance, and there are nice supporting turns by Ward Bond as O'Brien's pal and by Methot as Lil (at the time, she was married to Humphrey Bogart, and Hollywood legend says they fought -- sometimes physically -- all the time).
The final scene offers a nice chance to see a goofy Lombard:
For full cast and credits, click here.
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