The Helen Vinson Film Festival: "Two Against the World" and "Grand Slam"

"How veddy good of you to cahm!"

Of all the actors and actresses who appeared in 1930s movies, Helen Vinson (1907-99) was certainly one of them.

Born Helen Rulfs in Beaumont, Texas, Vinson was the daughter of an oil company executive and grew up on a country estate. She attended the University of Texas, where she performed in shows, and ended up doing little theatre in Houston. This led to Broadway, a name change, and then Hollywood, where in 1932 Vinson went to work at Warner Bros.

Given her upper-class upbringing, playing the high society type came easily to Vinson. She was the opposite of streetwise Warner leading ladies like Glenda Farrell or Joan Blondell -- she was attractive in a demure way and spoke in an achingly proper manner.

One of Vinson's first films at Warner's is the majestic "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang." Vinson plays Helen, who meets James Allen (Paul Muni) after his first escape from the chain gang. He has changed his identity and built himself a successful engineering career in Chicago, but he is unhappily married to the blackmailing Marie (Glenda Farrell). For once, Vinson is the attractive alternative, but when Allen tries to leave his wife, Marie turns him in to the authorities. This leads to Allen escaping from the gang yet again and returning for a brief visit with Helen in the film's powerful final scene.

"I Am a Fugitive" shows us a warmer, more attractive side of Vinson -- she actually gets to act like a human being as opposed to someone being rude to servants at a cocktail party.

But from then on, Vinson's Hollywood career largely came down to playing one of two types -- the wealthy heroine's best friend or the wealthy heroine's worst friend, the one who was always trying to steal her husband/lover.

For an example, consider 1932's "Two Against the World," set in a world of thoughtless rich people, the Hamilton clan. Here Vinson is Corinne Hamilton Walton, a sociopathic socialite who's preoccupied with important things like gahden pahties. She's married to a rich stiff named George (Alan Mowbray at his stuffiest). But Corinne is not hap-peh; she's been having an aff-aih until her lover breaks up with her because he loves her sister Adell (Constance Bennett).

Adell Hamilton, on the other hand, has set her cap for dashing young man-of-the-people attorney David Norton (Neil Hamilton), and they bond over a lunch of baked beans at Norton's favorite greasy spoon.

Things take a dramatic turn when Adell and Corinne's brother finds a compact on the lover's bed that just happens to have the old Hamilton family crest on it. The brother thinks it belongs to Adell, but he is mistaken, and this leads to an outbreak of frantic eye contact between the two sisters.

The lover ends up getting seriously killed by Corinne and Adell's brother and, in order to save the reputation of her unfaithful sister and her guilty brother, Corinne takes the fall. But the prosecuting attorney is -- David Norton, Mr. Baked Bean of 1932!

This is most of Helen Vinson's performance in
"Two Against the World."

Considering that it's her infidelity that drives the plot, there isn't much of Vinson in "Two Against the World" -- she doesn't even get the satisfaction of shooting her ex-lover! Instead the movie centers around the love story between Adell and Norton (Hamilton was also Bennett's romantic interest in "What Price Hollywood?"). Vinson might as well wear a shirt saying, "I had an affair but all I ended up with is Alan Mowbray." It's not even clear which "two" the title is referring to -- Adell and Norton? The two sisters? The Warner brothers?

How you feel about the 1933 film "Grand Slam" will depend on how funny you find jokes about playing bridge. The film is a product of a time when the card game was the national craze.

Paul Lukas plays Peter, a mild-mannered man of Russian heritage who, everyone tells us, is a genius. He lives happily and simply as a waiter in a Russian restaurant, but one night his fiancee Marcia (Loretta Young) drags him to a bridge game. He masters the moves immediately, because he's a genius, remember? Then he ends up working at Park Avenue party, where a ritzy group including Lola (Vinson) needs a fourth for bridge. Peter steps in and his expertise makes him the life of the pah-ty:

Lola's attention leads to the breakup of Peter and Marcia, and the climax of the movie comes in a bridge match between Peter and the stuffy, self-appointed bridge expert Van Dorn (Ferdinand Gottschalk). Worldwide interest is so intense that once they start playing, time stands still!

"Grand Slam" is a stew -- a tasty one, with bits sprinkled in by Roscoe Karns (also in "Two Against the World") as a wisecracking radio announcer and our old friend Joseph Cawthorn doing his patented grouchy ethnic schtick, but still a stew.

To Vinson, who stood five feet seven inches tall, Hollywood was "an absolute sea of short men," she later told one interviewer. "Robinson, Muni, James Cagney and George Raft all had to stand on boxes when they acted with me."

The sea of short men started drying up in the late 1930s. In 1938 Vinson was in the headlines for divorcing husband Fred Perry, a British tennis champion who'd begun an affair with Marlene Dietrich. Shortly afterward she married socialite-businessman Donald Hardenbrook. Her last film role was in 1944's "The Thin Man Goes Home" and she returned to the East Coast with her husband, where she studied interior design and preferred not to look back at her film career.

"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:

"City Streets," or Gang Man Style

The 1931 film "City Streets" is blessed visually in several ways. One is by the smooth, innovative direction of Rouben Mamoulian, who in this film introduces one storytelling technique that today's movies are still using. Another is the atmospheric photography by Lee Garmes, who also shot "Scarface," "Gone with the Wind" and "Nightmare Alley." And then there's the presence of a tall, handsome drink of water named Gary Cooper.

Cooper plays a character called simply "the Kid" -- a straight shooter who also happens to be a crack shot. At this point, Cooper was also a legendary ladies man, with a line of conquests that included Clara Bow and Lupe Velez, and it's easy to see why -- aside from his physical attractiveness, he radiates strength and confidence.

Born Frank Cooper in Montana, our hero took up horseback riding as a kind of physical therapy to recuperate from a hip injury he suffered in a car accident. This made him a natural for western roles, such as in "The Virginian" and "The Man From Wyoming," but his cowboy's nonchalance wasn't restricted to the range -- for instance, as a Foreign Legionnaire taken by Marlene Dietrich in "Morocco," he might as well be wearing chaps.

"City Streets" begins with the Kid working at a carnival, where he runs the shooting gallery and amazes the spectators with his trick gun work. His best girl is Nan (Sylvia Sidney). She's a good kid with just one fault -- she's loyal to her nogoodnik stepfather (Guy Kibbee), who works as a "bodyguard" for bootlegger Big Fella (Paul Lukas).

Big Fella's catchphrase is "no hard feelings," which is gangster-speak for "very hard feelings indeed, and you will be riddled with bullets as soon as I can step out of the way." We first get a look at Big Fella as he's collecting protection money from a reluctant client:




I think we all know the moral to this story: never get your hat personalized.

Nan and the Kid want to get married, but they can't on his gallery salary. She tries to talk him into joining Big Fella's gang, but he's reluctant. Then when Big Fella's main rival is killed with stepfather's gun, Nan's loyalty is put to the test. She's found guilty of withholding evidence and is sent to prison. While there, she sours on the mob and is grateful that the Kid isn't mixed up in it. But he is. He tells her the news during a prison visit, and later that night it's still rattling around in her head:


(The voiceover in Nan's head is making its first movie appearance. Nicely done, Mamoulian.)

Once Nan is released from stir, she wants to pry the Kid loose from Big Fella's clutches. But Big Fella is more interested in getting his clutches around Nan. The Kid and Big Fella have a showdown over Nan, and Big Fella decides its time to rub out the Kid. But Nan pretends to be interested in Big Fella in order to save the Kid's life. Then one of Big Fella's old girlfriends (Wynne Gibson) shoots him and frames Nan. Everybody wants to nab Nan, but the Kid takes control of the mob in this skillfully edited scene:


"City Streets" is based on a Dashiell Hammett story and adapted by Max Marcin, the man behind the "Crime Doctor" radio and film series of the 1930s and '40s. It has the narrative drive you'd expect from a Warner Bros. gangster movie with the European visual flair of a Paramount film. That style flows all the way through to the final scene -- the Kid and Nan have escaped from the mob and crank up Wagner on the car radio as the camera pans up to birds circling in the sky.

Here are full cast and credits for "City Streets."