Platinum Blonde (1931)

Though Platinum Blonde is primarily remembered today as a Jean Harlow vehicle, it may surprise many people to learn that Harlow was actually given third billing behind Loretta Young and Robert Williams in the movie. The latter is especially shocking given that the leading man is all but forgotten today, with the exception of his appearance in this film. This is too bad because the comic talent Williams displays in the movie is a revelation. He died of complications from a burst appendix a few days after this film's release. The early reviews were very positive and it's certain that he would have become a major leading man. Williams had an archly comic style of a William Powell or Lee Tracy and the looks and romantic moves of a young Frederic March.

The story follows a reporter, Stew Smith (Williams) who helps an heiress' family with a paternity suit and wins her hand in marriage as a reward. Harlow isn't terribly believable as a society dame and her usual quirky comic personality is subdued in order to play a somewhat shrill chic who has looks and money but little else to offer (as if that ain't enough!) She and Williams have some nice love scenes together, though which adds at least a touch of humanity to her character. After a few months of trying to live in the family mansion, dress for dinner and stay away from his cronies back at the office, including his gal pal, Gallagher (Loretta Young), and Stew has a meltdown. He invites all his reporter friends over and they trash the mansion. If that's not enough, he and Gallagher are caught collaborating on a sofa in a rather unprofessional pose. I've never seen Young play this sort of role before, and I think she does fine. Although, she is insanely pretty and its a bit of stretch to believe that Stew never notices her until the end of the movie. The movie is definitely pre-Code in that it ends with Stew and Gallagher living together in his old apartment, while he's waiting for his divorce from the heiress to come through! Try that after 1934!

Frank Capra directed Platinum Blonde and it has the comic energy and passion of his later films minus the crusading bent. That isn't meant as a criticism. I actually enjoy taking a break from the crusading Capra every once in a while. Loretta Young plays the first in a long line of Capra female newspaper reporters in movies like Meet John Doe, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. What's missing from the formula here is the fatherly editorial figure whose special relationship sees the female reporter through difficult times. That's because the emphasis is on Stew and maintaining his integrity in the face of his wife's money.

I love newspaper movies and this is a good one. It's more about the culture of being a reporter than about any one big story, which is another refreshing break. No major corruption scandal is broken; no Tammany Hall is toppled. In fact the leads leave the reporting game altogether to write a novel together, a perhaps laughable plan, but one that's inconceivable from Capra later in the decade.

Capra and Stanwyck

Barbara Stanwyck was to Frank Capra in the early thirties almost what Marlene Dierich was to Eric Von Stroheim in that same era. She was a muse. You can see this in their earliest pictures Forbidden (reviewed here), Ladies of Leisure and The Miracle Woman. In Ladies of Leisure, Stanwyck plays a "party girl" the sort of borderline prostitute without the sex that Holly GoLighly worked in Breakfast at Tiffany's. She meets a nice rich boy, Jerry Strong (Ralph Graves) while escaping an attempted date rape on a yacht and though she lifts his wallet, he hires her to be his artist's model. The plot give Capra the excuse to have dozens of loving close-ups of his star. His camera captures the mixture of worldliness and other worldly beauty that Stanwyck had. She resembles those romanticized Art Noveau Indian maidens that graced beer advertisements at the turn of the Twentieth century.

Ladies of Leisure has a breezy, morality all its own that was typical of the pre-code period. It's not a great film, but Stanwyck is always watchable, and no less so in a film that's all about a man watching a woman while the audience waits for him to realize that he's in love with her.

I don't think Capra was terribly interested in the type of film making where he spent hours on elaborate lighting set ups to present his starlet like a beautiful bug in amber, as the afore-mentioned von Stroheim. Those kind of movies were getting stale even in 1930. He was much more interested in the blend of social commentary and comedy which he managed to pull off in The Miracle Woman. And because his star was playing a tent revival evangelist, she got to wear flowing white robes, one night and a hoochy mama gold lame band uniform the next. Bonus!

The Miracle Woman is one of the best early Stanwyck films with a good script and nice chemistry between Stanwyck and co-star David Manners. Manners plays a blind man whose life is saved by one of Stanwyck's sermons. After he comes onstage and takes the part of one of her usually pre-paid patsies, he helps her get her life back on track. One of the more memorable aspects of the movie is the fact that Manners' character relates most of his emotions to Stanwyck via a ventriloquist dummy. He somehow manages to make this less creepy than it sounds.

The denouement of The Miracle Woman was audacious even for Frank Capra who never had any trouble putting spirituality on film. When Stanwyck's revival tent complex burns down Manners fumbles through the smoke to rescue her in a heavily-implied miracle. For a movie that spends most of its time mercilessly satirizing both conventional organized religion and evangelism, this is a pretty strong statement about true faith. Stanwyck, with her dual quality of worldliness and inner beauty was the perfect actress to help him make that statement.

A Pair of Ladies

Warren William and May Robson in Lady for a Day. Thanks to Cliff at Warren William dot com for the still.

Lady for a Day (1933) is an early example of classic Frank Capra fish out of water comedy. May Robson plays a boozing old apple peddler who poses as a society dame in order to fool her daughter's fiancee and his family. Warren William plays the gambler Dave the Dude with an irrationally strong attachment to Annie's apples as good luck charms. Dave gets completely consumed by the plot, borrowing an apartment, convincing his girlfriend to give the old girl a makeover, pressing his gang into posing as dignitaries and eventually getting himself deep into a kidnapping charge. So deep, that only a last act, Frank Capra style miracle could pull him out. For a pre-code film, this was pretty tame and even Missouri Martin's (Glenda Farrell) "I need a Man" dance number probably would have made it through the censors later in the decade. Why this film got lost, I'll never understand because it would have perfect for revival. I guess the studios had enough current Frank Capra product to deal with in later years.

William and Robson are quite fun together, but he always hangs back and the movie skillfully avoids getting mushy. You know Dave's motivation is more than just needing her luck, that there is also real affection there as well, but he never lets it out of the bag for more than a moment. That's one of the things I appreciate about William as an actor. Dave is an unrepentant scoundrel who may or may not get roped into making an honest woman out of Missouri Martin, but he is still likeable. Annie for her part gives up the sauce and becomes infinitely less fun. Robson is great when she's embarrassing herself with her nails on chalkboard shriek in a posh hotel lobby or when she's penning letters to her daughter while slugging back an entire bottle of gin. She's just perfunctory and proper when she becomes a society lady and she has too few moments where you think she might slip a little. The characters are probably too numerous and those that should have center stage, get the short shrift in the second half of the movie as Capra's jauggernaut plot steams along to its conclusion despite them. I would also like the relationship between Missouri and Dave to be fleshed out a little more, or at all.

Building on the success of its first Lady, Columbia knocked off Lady by Choice, less than a year later with the same star (May Robson) and several of same supporting players including the always-excellent Walter Connolly. This time Robson plays a boozing bag lady who gets adopted by a fan dancer (Carole Lombard) as a Mother's Day publicity stunt. Despite being derivative, this rehash is actually just as entertaining as the first "Lady." Where Capra delights in heaping more characters and complications into his plot, director David Burton hangs back and concentrates on the relationship between Lombard and Robson. Robson actually gets to explore this character and really bring her to life in this second film. Robson and Lombard are very good and they work wonderfully well together, skillfully cranking out comedy and playing just enough sentiment, but not too much. There is a weak love story (we really could have used a Warren William here!) with Roger Pryor and Lombard. Of course, Lombard is luminous and charming as always and manages to carry those parts of the picture despite not being particularly well matched.

Lady for a Day is a busy picture that will probably reward repeat viewing and Lady by Choice may be a pleasant surprise, a knock-off that is every bit as good as the original.

Pre-code Stanwyck and the opening of the Media Room

Barbara Stanwyck in Frank Capra's Forbidden (1932).

In addition to talking about Barbara Stanwyck's pre-code career, I'd also like to announce the opening of the Cinema OCD Media Room. I decided to start a second blog for shorter reviews of films and books about films. It is getting to the point where I feel like my posts are too long and I don't have enough time to get into the particulars if I'm talking about more than a couple of movies. So after you finish reading about Stanwyck's pre-code career, please check out the Media Room.

I first came to love Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire. She was tough talking, funny, sexy and not afraid to make a straight forward play for the guy she wants. What I didn't realize that dance hall girl Sugar Puss O'Shea, from Ball of Fire was a comic parody of the types of roles Stanwyck was first famous for in her pre-code career. Barbara Stanwyck was one of the many stage actors recruited to act in the newly developed talking pictures. She went west with her husband a vaudeville actor who was testing at Columbia Pictures. Barbara tested as well and got a non-exclusive deal with the studio. She made her first talkie The Locked Room (1929). She played a woman who tries to take her fall for her husband on a murder charge. She played a working class girl, who marries well. This would be a pattern for Barbara over the next five years. She almost always played a character from a humble background who rises either through her own wits and talents, through marriage or by hooking up with the right men. Her characters were almost always street wise and tough-talking, a bit like Sugar Puss but perhaps not quite as funny.

Check out reviews of The Locked Door, Illicit, Night Nurse, Forbidden, Shopworn, The Bitter Tea of General Yen and Baby Face in the media room. There will be at least two more reviews in the days to come so stay tuned.