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.
Sutton Vane's 1923 play "Outward Bound" takes place on a ship sailing to the hereafter, a kind of celestial branch of Carnival Cruise Lines where the passengers find out if their luggage is going to heaven or hell, and them with it. It was an unlikely stage success in London, and the 1924 Broadway production featured Leslie Howard, Dudley Digges and Beryl Mercer.
All three of them show up in the 1930 film version of "Outward Bound," though Howard's not in his original role; in the film, he plays the character played by Alfred Lunt onstage, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. plays the role Howard played onstage.
To say the least, "Outward Bound" is a bit of an odd duck, and the 1930 film opens with three screens full of introductory text begging the indulgence of the popcorn chompers in the audience who might wonder why they're watching a movie about people who don't seem to know much about where they are or where they're going. We're told it's "an entirely new and different imaginative conception of life, death and the hereafter," involving "strange psychology and glorious sentiment interwoven between the lines," told with "deep sincerity."
There's no such introduction in the 1944 post-code remake, "Between Two Worlds." Maybe that's because audiences were a little more sophisticated by then; also, the sad fact is that by 1944, almost everyone in the audience had lost, or knew someone who had lost, a loved one in World War II. The world was in flames -- it was easier to accept a movie about dead people. As a result, "Between Two Worlds" has a extra layer of poignance.
There are three main characters at the center of both films -- Tom Prior, a rather dissolute young man who, it's implied, drank his life away (Howard in the 1930 film, John Garfield in 1944); and a young couple who decide to commit suicide. The couple, named Henry and Ann in both films, is played by Fairbanks and Helen Chandler in the 1930 film, and Paul Henreid and Eleanor Parker in the 1944 film.
We open in London.
In the 1930 film, Henry and Ann are offing themselves because they're having an illicit affair and can't stand being without each other.
In the 1944 film, Henry is a concert pianist and a former member of the Free French -- he's like Victor Lazlo crossed with Liberace! Henreid-as-Henry can't get out of London because he can't get a visa and decides to end it all. When he opens the gas pipe, wife Ann -- You betcha they're married! No affairs allowed! -- stands staunchly by his side.
Then, before you can say "What do you want on your tombstone?," they find themselves sailing through a foggy night aboard a ship where the only crew member is a white-coated steward serving cocktails to the dead. Henry and Ann quickly figure out what's up -- in the 1944 film it's even more obvious because Ann had seen the other passengers earlier. They were all in a car driving to a ship when they were killed by an aerial bomb. In the 1930 film, we don't know how the other passengers met their deaths and came to be on board, but in "Between Two Worlds" the explanation, unfortunately, is all too obvious.
The passengers include rather unpleasant representatives of the British upper classes -- a stuffy matron (Alison Skipworth in 1930, Isobel Elsom in 1944) and a blustery, Trumpish tycoon (Montagu Love in 1930, George Coulouris in 1944). Then there's Mrs. Midget, a plainspoken member of the working class (Beryl Mercer in 1930, Sara Allgood in 1944) and the Reverend Duke, a timid priest (Lyonel Watts in 1930, Dennis King in 1944). They're all served by the steward, Scrubby (Alec Francis in 1930, Edmund Gwenn (at left) in 1944), an agreeable fellow who spills the beans about the passengers' final destination with the same line in both films: "We're going to heaven, sir. And hell, too. It's the same place, you see."
In the 1944 film, the ship looks as though it's floating through the clouds rather than fog. And it has a couple of extra passengers: George Tobias as a merchant seaman -- there's a war on, you know -- and Faye Emerson as a showgirl who's accompanying Garfield. There's also Gilbert Emery as the matron's put-upon husband -- he seems to be around mostly to emphasize how beastly his wife is.
In just about every way, the 1944 film unspools the plot with more clarity, and with more effective visual touches, than the 1930 film. It isn't that Robert Milton, the director of the 1930 film, doesn't try -- there are several striking expressionistic scenes impressively photographed by Hal Mohr. But in the 1944 film, with an adapted screenplay by Daniel Fuchs, the story is much more orchestrated and, in some cases, over-explained. (To really hammer the point home, Erich Korngold's score is full of "oooo-eee oooo-eee" moments of eeriness.)
The 1930 film is probably more faithful to the play and has a kind of pre-code take-it-or-leave-it simplicity. It doesn't feel the need to lay everything out so neatly. But it also takes its own sweet time in revealing the big twist that we've long since figured out. In the 1944 film, the twist is revealed in a more striking way -- Garfield-as-Prior knows the group is dead, and to get the point across to everyone else he stages a magic show that involves the tycoon:
Once everyone on board realizes that the limbo contest really IS a limbo contest, it's time for the ship to sail into its heavenly port and for the "examiner," Thompson (Dudley Digges in the 1930 film, Sydney Greenstreet in 1944), to start processing the passengers. Thompson is gruff but kindly for the most part, and he doles out what might be called afterlife lifestyle packages the way the Wizard of Oz gives out hearts, brains and courage.
The tycoon tries, of course, to buy his way into heaven, and Thompson treats him with the contempt you'd expect: "You'll suffer ... as you've made others suffer. That's all." Same goes for the matron, but the 1944 version offers a nice twist -- Thompson gives her a luxurious home, but she can never have visitors. And her husband decides to ditch her and live with his lifelong friends instead.
Then comes Prior and Mrs. Midget. Prior is offered a place in a not-so-hot part of heaven, but it beats the alternative of a very hot part of hell. Mrs. Midget is given her lifelong dream -- a seaside cottage with a garden. But for some reason, she's more interested in staying with Prior as a kind of -- mom. Even if it means giving up her cottage. Thompson knows her secret, and in the 1944 version this leads to a beautifully played scene with Sara Allgood, who also played the family matriarch in "How Green Was My Valley":
The different ways that Howard and Garfield play the same character are direct reflections of their acting styles -- Howard is introverted and haunted, while Garfield is cocky and confrontational. Garfield's character also has more dimension -- he's a newspaper reporter (as was the film's producer, Mark Hellinger) who was fired for being too good at his job, namely in the exposes he wrote about our friend the unpleasant tycoon, a war profiteer.
The minister's realization is handled with a striking difference in the two films. In the 1930 film, we see him praying silently and solitarily. But in the 1944 film -- again, perhaps because there's a war going on -- religion is much more on display as he leads the other passengers in a prayer:
The 1944 film then comes to Musick, the seaman played by Tobias. In many ways his is the movie's most tragic story -- like many servicemen, he has died without being able to see his newborn daughter. He pleads his case to Thompson the examiner, and he seems pleased with Thompson's explanation that everybody has to die sometime, but the underlying sadness makes the scene ring hollow.
Finally, we come to the couples. In both films, they're the only ones on board who have attempted suicide. Because of that, we're told, they will remain on the ship as "half-way" passengers. But Henry keeps hearing something, and as the ship pulls away it's clear that he's being pulled back to life. Will Ann make the leap back as well?
"Outward Bound" has had a life on stage beyond the film versions. In addition to the 1924 Broadway production, there was a 1938 revival with Vincent Price, Laurette Taylor and Helen Chandler, reprising her role from the 1930 movie and undoubtedly giving it the same tremulous treatment. There was also a 2012 revival in London.
Usually when we compare pre-code and post-code versions of the same movie, the big differences are in the tone or in dialogue of the films, with the pre-code example a more sophisticated -- and yet more earthy -- version of each.
In the case of the 1933 and 1941 versions of "Whistling in the Dark," however, the difference is more than that, and it comes down to the leads in both films -- the subtle, Broadway-inflected performance of Ernest Truex in the 1933 version and the more exaggerated performance of Red Skelton in the 1941 film, informed by his work on the radio and in vaudeville.
Opening on Broadway in 1932, "Whistling in the Dark" by Laurence Gross and Edward Childs Carpenter came to the screen in 1933 with two of its main leads intact -- Edward Arnold as gangster Dillon and Truex as Wallace Porter, a best-selling author of mysteries who is forced into planning a real-life murder by Dillon and his associates. The author of the screenplay and the film's director is our old friend Elliott Nugent.
Dillon works for crime boss Lombardo (C. Henry Gordon) and is trying to extort protection money from stubborn brewer Otto Barfuss (our old friend Joseph Cawthorn). When Wally and his fiancee Toby (Una Merkel), on their way to get married, encounter car trouble just outside of Lombardo's estate, Wally meets Dillon and brags about his crime-solving expertise. Dillon holds Wally and Toby captive at the estate until Wally formulates a perfect murder plan that the gangsters can use on Barfuss.
Since prohibition and its related opportunities for crime were a moot point in 1941, the later version of "Whistling in the Dark" changes the gangster's estate to a "sanitarium" run by cult leader Jones (Conrad Veidt), whose racket is charming wealthy old ladies into joining his group and then leaving their earthly belongings to him when they pass.
Wally tries his sponsor's product.
The 1941 film also changes Wally's character to someone much more suited to Skelton's style of broad, visual comedy. Wally is still a crime expert, but here he is "The Fox," the hero of a radio show who, every night, foils the bad guys and saves Carol (Ann Rutherford), an actress who is also Wally's real-life girlfriend. The scene introducing Skelton's character nicely establishes that premise and shows us some fun footage of a radio show being produced:
The opening also establishes that the 1941 version of Wally has not one but three women in his life -- Carol; Fran, the sponsor's daughter (Virginia Grey); and his business manager, Buzz (Eve Arden, not utilized enough). The evil Jones visits Wally and poses as a prospective sponsor for his show -- then when he gets Wally out to his estate, Jones forces him to plan the murder of an heir who is standing between Jones and a cult member's fortune. Carol and Fran end up at the mansion too, held captive with Wally.
In both films, Wally tries unsuccessfully to call for help, with Truex's underplaying taking the honors here -- he tries to make the call as quietly as possible and ends up mumbling into the mouthpiece:
The 1933 version of "Whistling in the Dark" contains several pre-code allusions, including cracks about bank failures and the stock market crash. Wally also drinks quite a bit. And there's an interesting scene that isn't in the 1941 version at all -- convinced that the gangsters will kill them, Wally and Toby lock themselves into a bedroom and exchange their wedding rings in their own ceremony. Toby then strips down to her camisole and hops into bed, ready to consummate the marriage while Wally flutters about, not knowing what to do.
On the other hand, there's a scene in the 1941 version that isn't in the 1933 film, and it's likely
inspired by the success of "The Ghost Breakers" of the year before, a haunted house movie with Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard. It involves Skelton, Rutherford and Grey trying to escape by following a secret passageway and running across assorted skeletons and mummies designed to supply a quick fright/laugh to the audience.
Wally does end up concocting a plan for murder that involves slipping poison into the victim's toothpaste tube. Once the gang leaves to implement the plan, Wally starts trying to contact the authorities by rigging up a radio to use as a transmitter. One of the denser gangsters finds out (played by Nat Pendleton in the 1933 film and Rags Ragland in the 1941 film), and Wally pretends he's doing a radio broadcast to throw the guy off. Here's how the scene plays out in both films:
When it comes to pacing, the 1941 version of "Whistling in the Dark" has it all over the 1933 version. The older version is too stagebound - it pretty much takes place in the one room where Wally and Toby are being held. And as good as Truex might have been on stage, his small stature and diffident comic manner don't translate very well to film. By contrast, for better or worse, Skelton pitches his performance to the back row, but it works. I'm not much of a Skelton fan, especially when it comes to his later sloppy TV performances, which can display a breathtaking contempt for the audience, but here he's fresh and funny.
The 1941 version of "Whistling in the Dark" was much more popular than the 1933 one -- so popular that Skelton appeared in two sequels. As for Truex, he alternated between Broadway and Hollywood, appearing in the films "Bachelor Mother" and "Christmas in July," among others, and the play "George Washington Slept Here," which was made into a 1942 film with Jack Benny. Truex also appeared in two episodes of "The Twilight Zone," including the classic "Kick the Can."
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 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:
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.
Both films are based on an original story by Danny Ahearn, but "Picture Snatcher" has that cheerful pre-code let's-see-what-we-can-get-away-with spirit, personified by our hero, Danny Keene, played by James Cagney. "Picture Snatcher" is a pretty typical pre-code Cagney picture, and to me that's not bad at all -- it has spice, irreverence and a bit of a nasty
streak, and it feels no need whatsoever to apologize for itself.
The bare bones of Ahearn's story -- paroled convict gets a job as a rough-and-tumble newspaper photographer -- is the same in both films, but "Escape From Crime" removes all the tasty vices on display in "Picture Snatcher," and the result is flavorless and forgettable.
Here Danny is played, glum and guilt-ridden, by Richard Travis. In fact, Danny, also known as Red, is so surly that Jackie Gleason, in a brief bit as the world's most hilarious convict, can't even get him to crack a smile:
(You have just seen Gleason's entire performance. He doesn't show up again.)
Post-code Danny is cranky because he hasn't heard from his wife Molly (Julie Bishop) in a long while. Yes, this Danny is married, unlike pre-code Danny. And he has a baby daughter. So when post-code Danny gets a parole from Stock Footage Penitentiary, he's on the street with not one, but three, mouths to feed. When Danny gets sprung he heads right to see Molly, and whatever disagreement they were having instantly disappears. So why give Danny an attitude at the beginning? It's not the last time that this movie won't make a lot of sense.
In "Picture Snatcher," things also begin with Danny's release from prison, but it's a much jollier affair. Danny's old gang comes to pick him up, and they brought along a couple of women to make Danny welcome. Then Danny indulges himself with a perfumed bath and coolly announces to his buddies that he's dropping out of the crime game. He ends his speech by taking the money that was owed him as part of the job he went up the river for and then strolls out. In other words, Boom.
Post-code Danny, meanwhile, is a painfully straight arrow, and he's broke. But he spent his time in stir taking mugshots, so he's learned about photography, and he appeals to newspaper editor Cornell (Frank Wilcox) for a job. Cornell is as much of a stick-in-the-mud as Danny -- Cornell's pre-code equivalent, editor "Mac" MacLean (Ralph Bellamy), is shacking up with one of the reporters (Alice White) and drinks bourbon on the job. Cornell just sits at his desk and gives the impression that his suspenders are too tight.
Anyway, post-code Danny gets turned away jobless, and as he leaves the office two things happen -- one is that he meets his old nemesis, flatfoot Biff "Biff" Malone, who sent him up; and the other is that he witnesses and photographs a bank robbery.
Compare that to the other Danny's first job, a pre-code situation if ever there was one -- a firefighter is holed up in his own burned-out apartment. His crew was called to a fire there, and the firefighter discovered his dead wife in bed with another man. Danny's job is to get an old photo of the firefighter and his wife, so he poses as an insurance man sent to survey the damage.
That incident illustrates some of the nastiness in "Picture Snatcher" -- we actually root for Cagney to take the poor guy's wedding picture.
Just as post-code Danny has Biff the cop on his tail, pre-code Danny has Det. Lt. Nolan (Robert Emmett O'Connor, who else?). To complicate matters, Danny has fallen for Nolan's daughter (Patricia Ellis), a pretty journalism student. To further complicate matters, editor Mac's squeeze has also fallen for Danny. Post-code Danny doesn't have time for the ladies -- he's got a wife and kid to take care of!
But the story's one big plot element makes it into both movies -- to save his job, Danny is forced to take an illegal photo of someone in the electric chair. When the rival reporters find out, they (and the cops) chase Danny back to the paper. Just watch how Cagney and Travis each handle the scene:
Something else to watch in those clips -- the sets. "Picture Snatcher" actually looks like it was shot in New York City, while "Escape From Crime" is pretty clearly stuck on the Warner back lot. We're supposed to be in Manhattan, but the bank holdup that Danny witnesses is at the "Doreville State Bank." Doesn't sound very cosmopolitan to me. And he and his wife are supposed to live on East 65th Street, but their house looks a bungalow, and you're about as likely to see a bungalow on the Upper East Side of New York City as you are a taxi-driving octopus.
The performances are also miles apart -- at one point, Travis walks into the family home with a "Sure and it's your husband, Mrs. O'Hara!" No. Do not attempt an Irish brogue, Richard Travis. Just don't. You are no James Cagney. You're no Jeanne Cagney, for that matter.
"Escape From Crime" does give us plenty of gunplay, and why not? Violence is fine in a post-code movie; sex, not so much. But the movie's real failing is that, unlike "Picture Snatcher," the makers forget a simple fact -- a great journalist can, and maybe even should, have a slightly larcenous side.
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