Neglected Post Theatre: The Monroe Owsley Film Festival

Welcome to Neglected Post Theatre, where we re-post posts with negligible views post-posting, aka not many people saw them. Were they neglected due to weird timing, bad karma, or were they just stinkerooos? YOU be the judge!

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful."

Today's entry is a little something we like to call The Monroe Owsley Film Festival: "Ten Cents a Dance" and "The Keyhole."

"Trouble in Paradise," or The Snatch Game

"Trouble in Paradise" bugs me, man.

Writing about it bugs me, that is. It's such a flipping perfect little movie that I can't make affectionate fun of it the way I do with awkward early talkies, or Joan Crawford's bug eyes, or Marie Dressler's mugging. It forces me to resort to phrases that aren't part of my vocabulary as a cynical middle-aged guy in the early 21st century but that nevertheless are accurate, like "beautifully constructed," "sublimely witty" or "delightfully acted." Or descriptors that you usually use when talking about desserts, like "exquisite" and "fluffy" and "delectable."

Worst of all, I lack even an iota, a scintilla, a microscopic speck of the skill of the people behind the movie, particularly director Ernst Lubitsch, from whom all blessings flow, so how can someone so humble report adequately on something so special? Who do I think I am, Self Styled Siren? It falls to me to try and write about a movie I love while knowing that my pitiful efforts at describing why it's so special will never, ever, ever do it justice.

Having now built your expectations to a fever pitch, let us hie to Venice, where a night of magical romance is just about to go through cupid's checkout counter (12 items or less). We are in a hotel where the Baron (Herbert Marshall), a smooth customer with half-lidded eyes and a perpetual half smile, is ordering dinner from a willing waiter:

Baron: It must be the most marvelous supper. We may not eat it, but it must be marvelous.

Waiter: Yes, Baron.

Baron: And waiter --

Waiter: Yes, Baron?

Baron: Do you see that moon?

Waiter: Yes, Baron.

Baron: I want to see that moon in the champagne.

Waiter: Yes, Baron. (writes) Moon ... in ... champagne.

Baron: And as for you --

Waiter: Yes, Baron?

Baron: I don't want to see you .. at all.

Waiter: No, Baron.

The dinner guest arrives. It is the Countess (Miriam Hopkins), looking beautiful and breathless because she just succeeded at barely avoiding someone she wanted to avoid. Someone with a title and an estate, no doubt, but uninteresting -- the kind of ne plus ultra people who attend so many of the ne plus ultra parties she is forced to attend, in case you were wondering.

The Countess and the Baron circle each other, taking turns with mutual compliments and pleased smiles. Then comes moon-infused champagne, and dinner, and some straight talk:

Countess: I have a confession to make to you: Baron, you are a crook. You robbed the gentleman in 253, 5, 7 and 9. May I have the salt?

Baron: Please!

Countess: Thank you.

Baron: The pepper, too?

Countess: Oh, no, thank you.

Baron: You're very welcome. Countess, believe me, before you left this room, I would have told you everything. And let me say this, with love in my heart: Countess, you are a thief. The wallet of the gentleman in 253, 5, 7 and 9 is in your possession. I knew it very well when you took it out of my pocket. In fact, you tickled me. But your embrace was so sweet.

The Baron is actually Master Thief Gaston Monescu, and the Countess is actually Lily the Very Good Pickpocket. They are con artists, and each thrilled to be in the company of a master, so they become a couple.

Fast forward to Paris, specifically Colet and Company, makers of cosmetics. This is the business owned by the third side of our triangle, Madame Colet (Kay Francis). Her husband started the business, but now he's dead, and Madame isn't that interested in it. Neither is she interested in her two persistent suitors, the Major (Charlie Ruggles) and Francois (Edward Everett Horton). She gets joy mainly by buying beautiful things, and when her very expensive evening bag goes missing at the opera, she offers a large reward. The rewardee is Gaston, but when he meets Madame he senses the potential for more than just a reward:

Gaston: Madame Colet, if I were your father, which fortunately I am not, and you made any attempt to handle your own business affairs, I would give you a good spanking - in a business way, of course.

Madame: What would you do if you were my secretary?

Gaston: The same thing.

Madame: You're hired.

Gaston becomes Madame's live-in financial secretary. And Lily is hired as a stenographer. But when Madame confides her feelings about Gaston to Lily, the Very Good Pickpocket starts getting a little antsy.

Meanwhile, there are signs the jig, she is up. You see, on the night Gaston and Lily first met, in Venice, Gaston had just come from robbing a silly rich man in the same hotel, and it was Francois -- the man in room 235, 7 and 9. And since Francois is always hanging around Madame Colet, he meets Gaston and starts putting two and two together, but not without great difficulty.

At any rate, Gaston and Lily sense that it's time to go. But to Gaston, known to his mistress as Monsieur Laval, Madame Colet has become more than just an attractive target, and he takes appropriate action:  

Gaston: Is this the Petite Flower Shop? I want you to take five dozen roses -- deep, red roses. And I want you to put them in a basket, and send this basket tomorrow morning to Madame Colet. And attach a card: "In memory of the late Monsieur Laval." Tomorrow morning. Ten o'clock. Yes. Huh? Oh -- charge it to Madame Colet.

Truth be told, Gaston does not leave Madame Colet that abruptly. He does it with the kind of wit and style that marks "Trouble in Paradise" beginning to end. I've tried to recount some of it, but compared to the finished film my efforts are like those of the first fellow we see in the movie, an opera-singing Venetian piloting a gondola overflowing with garbage through a moonlit canal.

Oh, and one more thing -- Kay Francis has the cutest little speech impediment. You really notice it toward the end of the movie, when she turns to Gaston and says:

"Why talk of wobbewy on a night like this?"

Why indeed.

Here are complete credits for "Trouble in Paradise."

"Chance at Heaven," or Miss Rogers' Neighborhood

The year 1933 was a good one for Ginger Rogers. She starred in two huge musical hits, "Gold Diggers of 1933" and "Flying Down to Rio," and at the same time came into her own as a dramatic actress with vehicles like "Chance at Heaven." 

"Chance at Heaven" is a pleasant but minor movie, and Rogers is its heart and soul. She plays Margie, called "Mug" by her longtime boyfriend, Blackie (Joel McCrea). They've grown up together in a small Massachusetts coastal town (actually the San Fernando Valley masquerading as Massachusetts) and Mug has been waiting patiently for Blackie to propose. In the meantime, she meets him at his charming little bungalow after work and cooks his favorite chicken pot pie, and then goes home to her parents.

Blackie loves Mug, but he's wrapped up in running a thriving little filling station ($1.85 would fill you up in those days) and marriage is not a high priority.

Then one day, rich Glory (Marian Nixon) arrives on the scene and works her way into Blackie's heart while slamming her Packard into his service station, and that is not a euphemism:



Glory is engaged to Sid (George Meeker), a whiny rich guy with bad posture. She goes for Blackie because he's everything Sid isn't -- tall, strong, handsome, hardworking, decent. The couples meet at a nightclub, and when she's alone with Glory, Margie starts to realize she has some competition:



Then Glory pays a visit to Blackie's gas station, and they steal a kiss just before Margie enters and realizes that the jig, she is up:  



One night Glory invites Blackie to a party at the family mansion, and as they sit outside Glory sees the lights of an amusement park in the distance. Blackie explains that it's a place called Pleasure Park, where all the regular folks go. Glory tells him she wants to go to Pleasure Park, too. Every night, if you get me.

Then, before you can say "pre-nup," Glory and Blackie have eloped. They move into Blackie's house, followed by newspaper photographers who want to see who the heiress eloped with. Then comes Glory's snobbish mother, who disapproves of the match. Finally, there is Margie, who still wants to be friends with Blackie -- and Glory, who's feeling a little out of her element.

Margie and Glory become such good friends, in fact, that when Glory learns she is pregnant, she tells Margie before she tells Blackie. And since this is 1933, they celebrate by drinking gin -- pregnancy, schmegnancy.

Blackie is thrilled, and Margie is resigned. Once the news is out, Glory's mother insists that her daughter join her in New York City for the pregnancy. After a few months, Blackie insists that Glory come home, but she isn't coming back. He rushes to New York to get the news -- Glory is ready to move on with her life and wants a divorce. The regular life is not for her. And what about the baby, Blackie asks. Glory's mother looks at him stonily: "The doctor was mistaken." Hmm -- interesting pre-code allusion to abortion there.

Blackie is crushed, and returns home. You can guess who's waiting for him with a smile on her face and chicken pot pie in the oven.

"Chance at Heaven" is an interesting glimpse at Rogers in a warmer, more domestic role; she gives the movie its emotional core. She's so winning, in fact, that you can't really figure out why Blackie goes for Glory -- compared to Margie she's silly, superficial and not as attractive. On the other hand, if he didn't go for her, there wouldn't have been a movie.

Here are the complete credits for "Chance at Heaven."

"Min and Bill," or Punch Drunk Love

By the time she appeared in the 1930 film "Min and Bill," Marie Dressler was in her early 60s and had been performing for 38 years. Along the way she had befriended a powerful ally in screenwriter Frances Marion, who had adapted "Min and Bill" from a book written by her friend, Lorna Moon. The final screenplay bore little resemblance to Moon's work; Marion told MGM to buy the book rights mainly to help Moon financially. And she created the role of Min specifically for Dressler, to give her a starring role and more bargaining power with the studio. It worked -- "Min and Bill" was a huge hit, and Dressler won a Best Actress Oscar. (Marion would also be a kind of good-luck charm for Dressler's co-star, Wallace Beery. She would be the guiding force behind three of his best-known films -- this one, "The Big House" and "The Champ," which would result in Beery winning a Best Actor Oscar the year after Dressler's win.)

When she played roles in lesser pictures -- see "The Girl Said No" and "Chasing Rainbows" for just two examples -- Dressler would mug her way through scenes like a bulldozer tearing through topsoil. "Min and Bill" gives her a little more to chew on -- the film is an expert mix of comedy, drama and sentiment, compact and well paced.

Min is a crusty-but-lovable battle axe who runs a waterfront hotel-saloon. Her star boarder is Bill (Beery), a fisherman who's also her drinking buddy and confidant. The two of them bicker with an easy rapport, as illustrated here as Min gives Bill a shave:



The working girl Min is barking at in that scene is Nancy (Dorothy Jordan), who has been raised by Min after she was abandoned by her hard-drinking mother Bella (Marjorie Rambeau). Min loves her, but you'd never know it from the way she barks at her. Funny thing is, Nancy does know it and works willingly in the hotel.

Then two things happen -- one is that one of the other fishermen (Russell Hopton) is making advances to Nancy.  The other is that, after more than a decade, Nancy's mother is back on the scene. Min tells her that Nancy is dead, and then sends Nancy off to live with the local schoolmaster without any explanation. Then Min takes even more extreme steps to protect Nancy from her mooching mother:



Meanwhile, back at the hotel, Bill and Bella are making time with each other.

Bella (to Bill): You ain't so bad -- I've seen worse.

Bill: I've been told that before.

This provokes Min's wrath. She throws Bella out and then deals with Bill:



Nancy goes to boarding school for two years, and returns for a reunion with Min. She has news -- she's engaged to the son of a wealthy cannery owner. But as bad luck would have it, Bella also reappears, and she has discovered that Nancy is her daughter. But before she can ruin Nancy's life, Min stops her -- with a bullet, but not before Bella burns Min with a curling iron.

It's Nancy's wedding day, and Min is determined to protect her to the end. Bill wants Min to escape with him to Mexico, but Min can't resist taking one last look at Nancy:




"Min and Bill" shows the softer side of Dressler -- and as a result, she won an Oscar and became, you should excuse the expression, the biggest actress on the MGM lot in the early 1930s. 

Here are the complete credits for "Min and Bill." 

"The Fortune": Post Modern Meets Pre-Code

"The Fortune" isn't commonly considered a highlight in the careers of Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson or director Mike Nichols.  In fact, when it was released in 1975 it was largely ignored by critics and moviegoers. But there was at least one person who thought it was great -- some geeky 18-year-old kid living in the Midwest who loved movies of the 1930s.

That would be me.

All these years later, I am still a cheerleader for "The Fortune," and the more pre-code movies I see the more I appreciate this film's pre-code flavor, even though it was released in an age where everything that was alluded to in the pre-code period could be explicitly shown on screen. (Did that sentence mention "pre-code" enough?)

"The Fortune" was written by Carol Eastman, under the pseudonym of Adrien Joyce. She also wrote "Five Easy Pieces," a big hit for Jack Nicholson in the late 1960s. Nicholson supposedly brought the script of "The Fortune" to the attention of Nichols. Beatty signed on as part of a two-picture deal with Columbia -- the other movie he would make for the studio is the great "Shampoo."

Each man brings his own special qualities to the movie.

For Nicholson, it's a chance for a rare straight comedy role. At this point he'd made his mark in dramas or comedy-dramas -- "Chinatown," "The Last Detail," "Easy Rider," "Five Easy Pieces" -- and he would soon win an Oscar for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." As our Oscar, he has a rubber face, a frizzy hairstyle and the befuddled yet rascally manner of someone who thinks he's a lot smarter than he is.

For Beatty, it's a chance to spoof his own image as a suave ladies' man -- the first time we see him in this movie, he's looking at himself in a rearview mirror and adjusting his hat brim for maximum pimpness. Nicky looks good but he isn't very bright, either -- the fact that he hangs around with a dim bulb like Oscar is evidence of that.

And for Nichols, it's a chance to inject his trademark wit into a script that veers from the hilarious to the silly. "The Fortune" also features a Nichols specialty -- musical montages that help set the scene and even advance the plot. (See for instance "Silkwood," "Working Girl," "Postcards From the Edge" and, of course, "The Graduate.")

Based on a true story, "The Fortune" takes place in the late 1920s or early '30s -- a time when, we are told, the Mann Act forbade unmarried women to cross state lines in the company of married men. This causes a problem for Nicky (Beatty) and Freddie (Stockard Channing in one of her first feature roles). They want to be married and move to California, but Nicky's divorce isn't final. So Nicky talks his pal Oscar (Nicholson) into marrying Freddie and the three of them set off for the coast. Once Nicky gets his divorce, he figures, Oscar can split and he and Freddie can be married.

And the film's terrific opening sequence, scored by David Shire and with a vocal by Channing, lays out the setup very nicely:



There is more to the story -- Freddie is an heiress (to an empire built on sanitary napkins), which is why Nicky is so eager to get his clutches into her. And Oscar, who is legally married to Freddie, starts trying to worm his way into her heart -- and her inheritance. Romantic friction begins to develop -- Oscar grows a mustache like Nicky's. The threesome moves into an apartment, but Freddie can't have a dog or cat. So Oscar buys her a smaller pet:



But eventually, Freddie realizes that both men want her money, and announces that she's going to give it to charity. And Nicky and Oscar start planning her demise. But first comes Freddie's birthday, where Nichols nicely illustrates the triangle with a tango montage. This is followed by a scene where Nicky and Oscar, in very bad disguises, buy a poisonous snake as a possible murder weapon:



"The Fortune" is spiced with a memorable sense of time and place, courtesy of production designer Richard Sylbert and director of photography John A. Alonzo. The Los Angeles of this period is still in many ways a small desert town, and the apartment complex where they settle down is straight out of "Day of the Locust" -- a nondescript stucco village of bungalows surrounding a courtyard. Plant life is scarce, but that doesn't keep the nosy landlady (Florence Stanley -- Mrs. Fish on "Fish," for all you fans of late 1970s sitcoms) from hosing down everything constantly.  

The garages behind the bungalows where Freddie, Nicky and Oscar live are reminiscent of the garage where James Allen (Paul Muni) hides out in order to see his love Helen (Helen Vinson) for one last time in the haunting final sequence of "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang."

And in another sequence, Nichols has Nicky and Oscar meeting their contemporary equivalents -- two Laurel and Hardy-looking fellows in a Model T.

Eastman's script also has a nice pre-code spirit. She loves the slang of the period -- a mustache is a "cream catcher," a fight is a row (pronounced raow). One character points out that another character's fly is unzipped by saying "your fiddle case is open."

Once Nicky and Oscar decide to murder Freddie, "The Fortune" starts to sputter. First they buy the snake, but when they put it in into a cage with Freddie's pet -- now a full-grown chicken -- the chicken kills it. Then they try to drown Freddie by putting her into a birdbath. Finally they pack the unconscious Freddie into a trunk and drive to the ocean, where they intend to throw her in, but through their ineptitude the entire trunk ends up in the drink and Freddie ends up floating down to Long Beach, where she ends up hitching a ride (and getting involved) with another man.

Meanwhile, Oscar and Nicky are putting together a story for the cops and falling apart in the process. Freddie comes home to get her clothes and her chicken, and the story is wrapped up in a final musical montage:



Finally, attention must be paid to Stockard Channing. She more than holds her own against Beatty and Nicholson, which is high praise. Her character isn't allowed to mug as much as either of them, but she nails Freddie's upper class mannerisms, making them authentic and funny at the same time.

Here are full credits for "The Fortune," which by the way will air March 30 on Turner Classic Movies.   

The Henry Kolker Film Festival: "I Like Your Nerve" and "The Crash"

"I wonder what she meant by that?"

Of all the actors and actresses who appeared in 1930s films, Henry Kolker (1870-1947) was certainly one of them.

He had a long stage career and directed several silent films, including a 1921 production of "Disraeli" with George Arliss, who repeated the role in an early sound film. In talkies, Kolker most often played older, pasty white men of power and/or wealth, often with younger wives and/or girlfriends who run rings around them -- the kind of guy who says, "Something wrong, my dear?" a lot because he doesn't know that his significant other is making whoopie with another guy.

In the course of a very prolific career -- including a mind-boggling 28 films in 1934 -- Kolker played judges, doctors and attorneys. He played the president of the bank that Barbara Stanwyck sleeps her way to the top of in "Baby Face," and he was the stodgy father of Katharine Hepburn in the 1938 film "Holiday." He also played the cuckolded husband of Kay Francis not once, but twice -- in the 1933 film "The Keyhole" and in the 1932 film "Jewel Robbery." In this scene from "Jewel Robbery," Kolker is the guy in the straw hat who watches impotently as William Powell slickly robs a jewelry store and enthralls Kay Francis in the process:

In the 1932 film "The Crash," Kolker plays a character who's more in control. He is John Fair, a successful Wall Street trader who kicks off the movie by calling it quits with his selfish mistress, Linda Gault (Ruth Chatterton):



But Linda's husband, Geoffrey (George Brent), is taking a beating on Wall Street. And he knows that Linda and John have had an af-Fair (Get it?) so he tries to blackmail Fair with Linda's letters, which receives a chilly response:

In the odd little 1931 film "I Like Your Nerve," Kolker slicks his hair with what looks like black shoe polish and adds Rudolph Valentino-style sideburns as Areal Pacheco, the minister of fiance in the small Central American country of Sao Pedro. Pacheco has embezzled funds, but to repay the debt he has engineered a marriage between his stepdaughter Diane (Loretta Young) and a piggish, priggish Englishman Clive Latimer (Edmund Breon) who happens to be very rich.

Diane has reconciled herself to the loveless match, but then she meets brash American Larry O'Brien (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), who sweeps her off her feet by giving her a ride home -- after spreading broken glass across the road where her limousine will travel and causing four punctured tires. Pacheco regards the American coolly:



O'Brien's devotion to Diane includes engineering a kidnapping so that Latimer will pay a ransom, which O'Brien then passes on to Pacheco, thus earning the affection of his future stepfather in law:



Kolker stayed active in movies right up to his death at age 77 -- his last film was 1947's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty."

Here are complete credits for "I Like Your Nerve," and a trailer:



Here are complete credits for "The Crash," and a trailer:

"The Public Defender," or All's Fairbanks in Love and War

Travel with me, if you will, through my mind's eye to a backyard in small town America, circa 1931, filled with squealing kids.

Dad (yelling out the screen door): Montague! Time for dinner! We're having Wheatena and tapioca for dessert!

Montague: Cripes! Not now, dad! We're playing "The Public Defender"!

Dad: Come inside now, or no "Amos n Andy" tonight!

Montague: Geemanently!

(The children exuent and Montague goes inside.)

The 1931 film "The Public Defender" invites reveries like that because it's a fun little secret-identity movie in the tradition of Douglas Fairbanks and "The Scarlet Pimpernel" -- the kind of combination of spookiness and derring-do that you can picture little Montague and his buddies watching at a Saturday matinee and then acting out for the next week or two, or at least until they go to the movies again.

These men certainly seem trustworthy.

The movie opens in the conference room of a troubled bank, where innocent treasurer Eugene Gerry (Emmett King) is being railroaded into the pokey by his shifty board of directors (at left). Will no one come to his rescue?

We then move to an exclusive country club, where Gerry's daughter Barbara (Shirley Grey) is awaiting the arrival of her rich, silly-ass boyfriend Pike Winslow (Richard Dix), who's living a life of indolent frivolity (or a life of frivolous indolence, if you prefer) on his father's money.

In the back room of the club, meanwhile, are the bank's board of directors -- three of them, that is, because the fourth has been visited earlier in the evening by a mysterious figure who calls himself The Reckoner. And The Reckoner has another visit planned before the evening is out:



In other words: Dun-duh-duhhhhhhhh.

Who is this mysterious Reckoner, this cupholder -- excuse me -- upholder of the right? This champion of the accused? This unsmircher of the unjustly besmirched? This leaver of scary, scary business cards?

As played by the square-jawed Dix, Pike outlines split-second capers that are carried out with the help of two assistants -- a burly fellow known as the Doctor (Paul Hurst) and a skinny fellow known as the Professor (Boris Karloff). Their aim is to collect inside information from the board of directors that will clear Barbara's father, the bank's treasurer.

But Pike and his merry men do even more than that. When Barbara and her family are forced to sell their heirlooms, Pike sends the Professor to the auction to buy all the furniture. Then Pike rents a new apartment for the family and fills it with all their old stuff.

Then before you can say "J. Edgar Hoover's negligee" it's back to fighting crime, as the crew breaks into another bank director's home and makes off with the booty, which in this case means incriminating papers:



The investigation then narrows to just one bank director -- Kirk (Purnell Pratt), the ringleader. And he believes he knows who the Reckoner is. So there's a high-speed chase back to the Gerrys' apartment, where Pike has lured his quarry to his certain dooooooom:



Next comes a happy ending for all, especially Pike, who has proven his bad ass credentials once and for all and has left his last threatening business card -- or HAS he?!

As much fun as "The Reckoner" is, there are several missed opportunities for genuine atmospheric creepiness, especially when it comes to introducing the guy. Our first glimpse of him should be memorable and noirish. But instead of showing him skulking around dark alleys and the like, all we get is a long-winded explanation by a minor character. Don't TELL us, SHOW us! One wonders how they would have handled this material at a studio more experienced with the fast-paced and the lurid, like Warner Bros. or Universal.

Here are the complete credits for "The Public Defender."

Awkward Early Talkie Theatre: "The Squall"

There's an old story in the theatre about a production of "The Diary of Anne Frank" where the actress in the title role gives such a bad performance that at the end of the play, when the Nazis enter, audience members yell out, "She's in the attic!"

At the end of the 1929 film "The Squall," you may feel the same way.

The Lajos family has been sheltering a runaway Gypsy girl, the nubile Nubi (Myrna Loy), and she has repaid their kindness with lying, deceit and never-ending attempts to seduce every guy in the joint.

The Gypsies have now returned -- we have seen their tiny covered wagons come over the hill (a miniature shot). They are led by their whip-wielding master, who wants Nubi back, and you can't wait to see her get kicked to the curb.

Nubi is another one of Loy's turns as an exotic temptress -- for other examples, see "Thirteen Women" and "The Mask of Fu Manchu." And she is indeed a little Hungarian hottie, with her flaming eyes and cheekbones as sharp as razor blades.  

But the movie she's stuck in is a lot like a bad opera, filled with cheering peasants, singing gypsies and characters with names like Josef and Uncle Dani.

"The Squall" takes place on the Lajos family farm, where, an intertitle tells us, "the labor of years has been crowned with prosperity and content (sic)." (I'm still wondering where "-ment" went.)

In the Lajos household, prosperity takes the form of nice wardrobes, plentiful food and lots of expository dialogue. We witness romantic hi-jinks between the cook, Lena (Zasu Pitts), and farm hand Peter (Harry Cording). Father Josef (Richard Tucker) and mother Maria (Alice Joyce) are plump and prosperous, doting on son Paul (Carroll Nye), who is engaged to the lovely Irma (Loretta Young).

But there are storm clouds on the horizon, foreshadowed by dialogue that is as subtle as a pile driver. Such as when Maria says, "Our lives have been like a summer day -- without a cloud. If only it could be that way until the end." Fat chance, Maria.

Or take this exchange, between Irma and her grandfather (Knute Erickson).

Irma: Oh, I just hate squalls. They only make everyone so unhappy. I'd like someone to tell me why we have them.

Grandfather: Perhaps there's a reason, Irma. God gives us shadows that we may know light. He gives us sorrow that we may know joy. He gives us Zasu Pitts so that we can appreciate Myrna Loy in a peasant blouse. (OK, I made up that one.) And perhaps he sends the squall that we may learn the beauty of a limpid sky.

Outside, the squall is kicking up, and then there is a scream and a frenzied banging at the door. The family hears it, but they are so busy feeding their faces with content that a servant answers. In tumbles Nubi, who is fleeing from her abusive master because "He keel me!"

Nubi immediately plays on the family's sympathy by explaining that she is a reluctant Gypsy, having been stolen as a baby. The kind-hearted Maria offers her shelter from the squall, little realizing that her act of kindness will throw her marriage, her happiness, nay, HER VERY LIFE into Jeopardy! (Used with the permission of Merv Griffin.)

Nubi looks out the window at the tiny Gypsies as they leave the farm. Then she speaks a little monologue that makes all the men hot and bothered:



Nubi's first conquest is Peter the farm hand, who lip-syncs a little song about his love for Nubi while currying the horse. No, really:



Then Nubi moves on to Paul, and as a result he starts giving Irma the cold shoulder. "Never mind, Irma. Your old granddaddy loves you, and isn't that enough?," her granddaddy asks, answering his own question. 

Finally, Nubi tries to seduce the master of the farm, Josef. "I am keesing your shadow," she purrs. Longtime wife Maria is watching from the shadows. What's a wife to do? "My husband -- half of my life," she says. "My son -- the other half." Not to get picky, but aren't they the same half? Or isn't there at least one-third of overlap?

Anyway, leave it to Maria to finally understand how dangerous Nubi is, while the men are all derp-derp-derpy about her. So when the Gypsies return, she makes the move to get rid of Nubi:



With Nubi gone, content returns to the family farm.

Here are the full credits for "The Squall."

My CMBA Blogathon Entry: "The Best Years of Our Lives"

Click here to read my entry in the Classic Movie Blog Association Blogathon on movies of the 1940s.

And to read a menu of the entries in this blogathon, click on Mrs. Miniver above.

"The Story of Temple Drake," or Oh Brothel, Where Are Thou?

Around about 1932-33, Miriam Hopkins achieved what we might call a pre-code movie hat trick by appearing in three notorious examples -- "Trouble in Paradise," "Design for Living" and "The Story of Temple Drake."

The latter film, especially, is credited with being the straw that broke the pre-code camel's back, leading to the formation of the National Legion of Decency and the enforcement of strict movie censorship that would last until the mid-1950s. And even from the vantage point of 80 years, "Temple Drake" still packs a punch. Its lurid story deals with all kinds of pre-code hot button issues -- rape, incest, prostitution, illegitimate children, murder and agriculture.

We open down south in Dixon County, where Temple Drake (Hopkins) lives. She's a rich ninny -- the silly granddaughter of a local judge (Sir Guy Standing) who uses her beauty and his status to get pretty much anything she wants. Her life is a merry social whirl -- big parties! Late night revels! Formal dances with Grady Sutton!

Judge Drake is a respected figure, but he's not above sharing a shot of sour mash in his chambers between trials. And he's concerned about Temple's wild ways, but when she tells him not to worry, that the man she's out carousing with attends the judge's alma mater, he calms down.

Temple actually does have a secret love -- local attorney Stephen Benbow (William Gargan), who's noble enough to act as a public defender for those too poor to afford representation. At a ritzy party, Temple confesses to Stephen about her feelings for him, but she also talks about her untamed wild side. It's like the original "It isn't you, it's me" speech:



And once she confesses to Stephen, Temple goes back to the wild side of her personality, leaving the party to go for a joyride with Toddy (William Collier, Jr.), the drunken college boy from the judge's old school. Then there's an accident, and Toddy and Temple end up stranded at an abandoned plantation that looks like Scarlett O'Hara's place after the Civil War.

Living in the crumbling house is a motley crew -- bootlegger Lee Goodwin (Irving Pichel), slow-witted Tommy (James Eagles), Goodwin's common-law wife Ruby (Florence Eldredge) and their baby, and, most dangerous of all, the predatory Trigger (Jack LaRue), a small-time hood.

A storm is raging outside, and Temple is totally at sea -- for the first time in her life, she's trapped in a world where "I'm Judge Drake's granddaughter" doesn't mean anything. She tries to protect herself by staying with Ruby and her baby, who's sleeping in a wood box in the kitchen.

Temple: Why do you keep the baby in a wood box?

Ruby: So the rats won't get it.

Temple finally goes out to the barn and falls asleep in the corn crib. The simpleminded Tommy watches over her. But the snakelike Trigger is persistent, and we know there's trouble brewing when we see his shiny street shoes sliding across the hay-covered floor:



 Trigger kills Tommy and attacks Temple, and then he and a shellshocked Temple drive over a county or two and take up residence at Miss Reba's House of Ill Repute, Inc. It's interesting to look at the music on the soundtrack at this point -- up until now, Temple's trials have been punctuated by a nondescript orchestral score, but once we get to Miss Reba's all we hear in the background is a honky tonk piano. And somehow, it makes things seem even more nightmarish:



Meanwhile, back in Dixon County, the official story is that Temple's away visiting relatives. And Stephen remains the sole defender of Temple's honor, going into men's rooms and wiping "Temple Drake is just a fake/She wants to eat and have her cake" off the walls.

Then Lee Goodwin is charged in the murder of Tommy, and Stephen becomes his attorney. He sets out to find eyewitnesses. His trail leads to Trigger, and he's shocked to see Temple shacking up with him. Temple places herself between Trigger and Stephen to keep Trigger from shooting him, and tells Stephen she loves Trigger. Stephen leaves and Temple decides she's had enough. She puts on her hat to leave, but Trigger blocks her and starts pushing her around, and she shoots him. Then she tries to leave, but she realizes he's holding her hat:

  


Temple makes her way back to Dixon County, where Stephen calls her as a witness in Lee Goodwin's trial. But they both know that if she tells the truth, her reputation will be ruined. "Give me a chance to live it down," she pleads to Stephen -- and he has to decide whether he will serve justice or spare the woman he still loves.   

"The Story of Temple Drake" is based on William Faulkner's novel "Sanctuary," and considering what it couldn't include from the book, it very effectively retains the Southern Gothic flavor of Faulkner. Hopkins must have drawn from her experience as a native of Savannah, Georgia in conveying Temple's lethal charm.

And props, please, to Jack LaRue, who was given the part of Trigger when George Raft refused it. In a career of thankless roles, always as the bad guy, he actually seems half-human -- flattered and even slightly vulnerable -- in the scene where Temple pretends to be in love with him in order to save Stephen.

Here are complete credits for "The Story of Temple Drake," which by the way almost disappeared after its initial release. A restored version, courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, premiered at the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival in 2011.    

Pre-Code vs. Post-Code: "The Maltese Falcon"

If you're looking for differences between the 1931 and 1941 versions of "The Maltese Falcon," you can start with the hero's hands.

The hero, of course, is private dick Sam Spade, as played in the 1931 version by Ricardo Cortez and in the 1941 version by Humphrey Bogart.

Cortez has perfectly manicured nails, and in one scene he even files them. Bogart, on the other hand, keeps his hands busy by rolling his own cigarettes. We never see Bogart's nails, but it's a pretty good bet they'd be stained with nicotine, and he wouldn't be particularly concerned about it.

Their appearances fit their portrayals. Cortez plays Spade as a cock-of-the-walk -- a fun-loving, unabashed ladies man with a plush apartment and well-tailored suits. Bogart's Spade has rougher edges and a quiet assurance -- his wardrobe and his digs aren't as opulent. He doesn't feel the need to be as showy. 

There are other differences between the two films, of course, as you'd expect when comparing a pre-code movie with a post-code movie. The 1931 version of Dashiell Hammett's novel is filled with attractive women and driven by sex; by 1941, sex was being kept on the down low. Violence, on the other hand, was much more acceptable, and the later version of the film has more fighting and gun play.

The story begins at the San Francisco office of Spade and Archer, private eyes. Here's how we first see Spade in the 1931 version:



No sooner does he get rid of one conquest than he starts flirting with gal Friday Effie (Una Merkel). Then comes a call from Iva Archer (Thelma Todd), the wife of Spade's partner. Spade and Iva do a little canoodling over the phone, and Spade doesn't know it, but Archer (Walter Long) is eavesdropping. The 1941 version opens with Spade in his office, alone, with no phone conversation. Enter a client (Bebe Daniels as Ruth in the 1931 version and Mary Astor as Brigid in the 1941 version), who says she wants her sister followed that night. Archer enters. When Brigid/Ruth flashes her gams and a wad of cash, Archer volunteers for the job. And he gets plugged -- it happens off screen in the 1931 version, but in the 1941 version we see Archer get it right in the gut.

Miles Archer's death leads to a funny little moment in the 1941 version -- as Bogart looks over the crime scene we see a movie poster on the wall behind him. It's for a 1937 film called "Swing Your Lady," a hillbilly musical that Bogart was forced to appear in as a Warner Bros. contractee and supposedly hated. Makes you wonder if director John Huston put it there as a joke or if it's an allusion to a murderess being hung.

In addition to Archer's death, the man Archer was supposed to follow is found shot. The cops start quizzing Spade. Cortez taunts the officers and laughs at his own witticisms. Bogart, on the other hand, delivers Sam's wisecracks with a straight face, and they're funnier that way. For instance, when Sam becomes a suspect, he jousts with the police. "How'd I shoot him?" he asks them. "I forget." Bogart says this as a throwaway line, while Cortez makes it too obvious -- he builds it up like the punch line of a joke. Bogart does much more with less -- when the cops start pressing him, he stops it with a hand on one cop's shoulder and a simple line -- "Don't crowd me, Tom."

Then comes a scene between Spade and Brigid/Ruth. The client's not telling the whole truth to Sam, and he knows it, so he has a little fun with her, in what I like to call the "you're good" scene. Here are the two versions -- judge for yourself which one plays more effectively:




Brigid/Ruth, of course, is wrapped up in the pursuit of a priceless jeweled statue of a falcon that dates to the 1500s. And there are others after the falcon as well -- seedy adventurer Joel Cairo (Otto Matieson in the 1931 version, and Peter Lorre in the 1941 version) and fat man Caspar Gutman (Dudley Digges in the 1931 version and Sydney Greenstreet in the 1941 version).


As you can see by the stills, there's no contest about which duo looks more threatening -- and more visually memorable. In terms of casting, first-time director Huston knocks the ball out of the park in the 1941 version. After years of playing two-bit bad guys, Bogart is entering his hero-matinee idol phase here. Astor is a perfect picture of prim sexuality. Lorre is appropriately creepy, and Greenstreet -- making his film debut -- is a memorable, charming villain.

Spade ends up in fights with Lorre's character and with Elisha Cook, Jr. as Gutman's gunsel Wilmer Cook. When Spade overpowers Lorre, who's come to search his office, Bogart sports a nasty smile while he's rabbit punching the guy. Here's a comparison of the Spade-Cairo fights in both films:




Later in the 1941 film, Spade overpowers Wilmer by pulling his overcoat down off his shoulders, and Wilmer gets back at Spade by kicking him when he's down -- after he's been drugged by Gutman. In the 1931 version, there's no kicking -- Wilmer just watches as Spade passes out.

Finally, everyone ends up at Spade's apartment, waiting for the delivery of the black bird. Brigid/Ruth is holding an envelope with ten thousand-dollar bills for payment, which Spade gives back to Gutman. Gutman counts the money and one bill is missing. In the 1931 version, Spade confronts Ruth in his kitchen and has her strip to prove she hasn't got the missing bill. In the 1941 version, the incident is a symbol of a rare moment of trust between Spade and Brigid -- she tells him she doesn't have it, and he believes her. Gutman admits pocketing the bill.

Once the bird is delivered and determined to be a fake, Gutman and Cairo resume their search. Spade puts the cops on their trail, but he also has to deal with the fact that the woman he loves has killed his partner. In the 1931 version, the confrontation is filmed as the same leisurely pace as the rest of the film, and in the same wide shots. Huston, on the other hand, knows that this is the emotional heart of the picture and films it in tight, intense closeups:




The 1931 version ends with a sympathetic Sam visiting Ruth in jail with "good news" -- he's been made chief investigator of the District Attorney's office. Huh?

The 1941 version, on the other hand, builds to an unforgettable climax -- Sam describing the bird as "the stuff that dreams are made of" and Brigid behind the bars of an elevator door, foreshadowing the bars she'll soon be behind, with a possible death sentence. Swing your lady, indeed.    

The Polly Walters Film Festival: "Young Bride" and "American Madness"

Polly Walters and Joan Blondell in "Bleaches"

Of all the actors and actresses who appeared in 1930s movies, Polly Walters (1913-1994) was certainly one of them.

Although she appeared in small roles in only a handful of movies between 1931-32, Walters made an impression with her blonde hair, deadpan style and Betty Boop-ish, singsong voice. She was usually a working-class girl -- a waitress, a hotel maid, a manicurist, a switchboard operator -- with a working-class name like Mabel, Ethel, Daisy or Gladys.

Born Maude Walters in Zanesville, Ohio, our heroine trained as a dancer and made her way to Broadway, appearing in several productions during the late 1920s. Then came a stage stint as Eddie Cantor's straightwoman before Warner Bros. signed her to a contract in 1931.

At Warner's, Walters appeared in three James Cagney films -- "Taxi," "Smart Money" and "Blonde Crazy." In "Blonde Crazy," she plays a hotel maid who warns another maid -- the film's female lead, Joan Blondell -- to stay away from Cagney, as a bellhop who knows all the angles:



Walters also appeared in Warner films with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. ("Union Depot"), Loretta Young ("Play-Girl"), Edward G. Robinson ("Five Star Final") and Warren William ("The Mouthpiece" and "Beauty and the Boss").

For the most part, her Warner roles were bits. It wasn't until she was lent out to other studios that Walters played roles that were actually important to the plot.

In the 1932 RKO film "Young Bride," for instance, she is Daisy, the streetwise best friend of innocent heroine Allie (Helen Twelvetrees). They work together as librarians, and Daisy introduces Allie to nogoodnik Charlie (Eric Linden). Allie ends up marrying Charlie while Daisy ends up with Pete (Cliff "Ukelele Ike" Edwards), and doing lots of heavy partying:



Then in one of her last films, Frank Capra's "American Madness," released by Columbia the same year, Walters's switchboard operator character starts the gossip that threatens to bring down a bank headed by honest Thomas Dickson (Walter Huston):



After appearances in only 17 films, Walters left Hollywood in 1933 and went back to Broadway, appearing in a production called "She Loves Me Not" with Burgess Meredith. After that, there was talk of returning to Hollywood, but nothing materialized. From 1936-37 Walters was on stage in "Red, Hot and Blue" with Jimmy Durante, Ethel Merman and a young Bob Hope. Then came roles in plays that ran only a few performances -- her last work was in a 1942 production called "The Life of Reilly" that closed quickly.

For the next 50-odd years, Walters lived a quiet life in New York City -- she had no other film, play or TV credits. Maybe she found a job as a switchboard operator.