Skyscraper Souls (1932)

Skyscraper Souls just didn't do it for me. It's a low-rent Grand Hotel, with Warren William at the top (literally) as the sordid, egotistical, predatory owner of a very tall new building. He's also out to own Maureen O'Sullivan, an innocent secretary (though he's already having an affair with O'Sullivan's boss, Verree Teasdale, and he's married to Hedda Hopper!).

Skyscraper Souls also has a few other sub-plots, including one about Jean Hersholt and Anita Page (as a prostitute) that I never could make much sense of. Mainly it's about wheeling and dealing Warren William, who gave perfomances later in his career much better than this. His nonchalant self-assuredness serves him well, for example, in his Lone Wolf series for Columbia, and he's more enjoyable to watch there. Here, he's hampered by an over-the-top script in which he justifies whatever suits his fancy for the sake of his glorious building and progress.

Skyscraper Souls is beloved by a lot of pre-code fans (it may be one of the edgiest), but the combination of characters I didn't care about with sub-plots MGM had already over-used kept this one away from my heart.

Skyscraper Souls has been released on VHS and Laserdisc. It's not currently available on DVD, but has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.

Not So Dumb (1930)

Not So Dumb, filmed in 1929 and released in 1930, is a lot of fun. Based on the 1921 play, Dulcy, written by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly, the film lost $39,000 for MGM. That's a shame because Not So Dumb was a perfect vehicle for Marion Davies' comedic talents.

Davies plays the ditzy fiancee of Elliot Nugent, who's trying to strike an important business deal with a big shot staying with them for the weekend. Will Davies inadvertently mess up Nugent's plans, or will everything turn out right in the end? Hmmm....

It's all light as air, flighty, inconsequential and entertaining, with some very witty lines. Davies looks like she was having a lot of fun here. The eccentric characters portrayed by a fine ensemble cast point the way to future plays and films also written or co-written by George S. Kaufman like You Can't Take It With You and The Marx Brothers' The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers. George Davis plays an ex-convict butler. Franklin Pangborn plays a screenwriter named Vincent Leach (great name!), who regales his trapped hosts with a scenario ripped from Cecil B. DeMille's Intolerance. DeMille's often used actress Julia Faye is hilarious as the easily-led-astray big shot's wife. Only Donald Ogden Stewart falls flat as the requisite "crazy" of the bunch, but that's due to the screenplay; crazy doesn't automatically equal funny.

Those unaccustomed to early sound films may be bothered by the bad (sometimes bordering on the bizarre) editing; the sound is also bad in the first scene. Life's short - you can get over it.

Dulcy was filmed earlier in 1923 with Constance Talmadge (it's easy to picture her playing the part; is there a print of this film still in existence?), and in 1940 with Ann Southern. Zazu Pitts and Gracie Allen also played the role in radio versions.

Not So Dumb is not available on VHS or DVD, but has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.

Divorce in the Family (1932)

I like this movie. It covers territory most '30s films stayed away from (the effects of a divorce and remarriage on two young brothers) and it holds your interest to the end.

Jackie Cooper is the attention-needing younger brother who dislikes his new, emotionally detached step-father (who can blame him?) and feels betrayed by his emotionally weak mother (again...). They don't even tell Cooper they're getting married until the deed is done, the weasels! His older brother, played just adequately by Maurice Murphy, is gone for half the picture and sidetracked by the girl next door in the other half, so he's not much help, either.

The lone parental figure Cooper can rely on (to the extent that the law will allow it) is his biological father, played by Lewis Stone. He's cool. In the very first scene he's in, he finds a skull in the ground - it doesn't get any cooler than that! Their scenes together are wonderful, two consummate professionals of very different age, playing off each other with a casual ease.

Alas, this story is determined to have Cooper embrace his new lot in life, so a melodramatic climax is contrived wherein the step-father (Conrad Nagel), a family doctor, saves the life of Cooper's brother and proves himself worthy of Cooper's acceptance.

That ending's wack. I'd rather see a movie where Lewis Stone and Jackie Cooper rage against the social order! There needed to be a high-octane sequel, directed by Quentin Tarantino or Jean-Luc Godard. I'd pay to watch that.

Divorce in the Family is not available on DVD or VHS, but has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.

Emma (1932)

Emma (no relation to the Jane Austin story) is one of the best Marie Dressler dramas - perhaps, in its gentle way, even stronger than Min and Bill.

Nominated for an Academy award for her role, Dressler plays the nanny for the four children of an inventor (well-played by Jean Hersholt). When Dressler and the inventor marry, most of the children revolt against the relationship, culminating in Dressler being dragged to court on malicious charges by the very kids she spent her life raising.

The screenplay, written by Dressler's friend and supporter, Frances Marion, is tailor-made for her, allowing Dressler a full range of emotions. The story is sentimental and endearing in the best ways; it has the ache of real emotions in it, such as the very effective scene in which Emma sees the ghost memories of the children she raised, in her vacant, lonely house.The long marriage proposal scene, beginning in her bedroom and ending in the middle of an airport, is also quite effectively sustained; the director, Clarence Brown, was perfect for sequences such as this.

One could argue that Emma's unblinking belief in her children (most of whom grew up vile and greedy) was naive. So what? Emma's not a perfect person, and it's the humanity of the characters that makes the film enjoyable eighty years later.

That Dressler's style could be utilized for dramas like this in addition to her career as a comedian is a testament to her versatility and professionalism.

Myrna Loy plays one of the bratty kids, in a role that in no way stands out.

Side note: the airport scene, featuring lingering close-up shots of a broad-range of just-released magazines, is a freeze-frame extravaganza for magazine collectors.

Emma has been recently released on Warner Bros. Archive DVD: http://www.wbshop.com/Emma-+EST-MOD/1000087958,default,pd.html?cgid=ARCHIVEDECADE30S

Strangers May Kiss (1931)

What a crazy, mixed-up movie! Rich man Robert Montgomery is a kindly dipsomaniac in love with rich girl Norma Shearer (I assume they're independently wealthy - are they ever shown working a job?), but Shearer is instead lollygagging about with a handsome but caddish, globe traveling news correspondent (played by future Commissioner Gordon Neil Hamilton).

Hamilton leads her on, lies to her, then leaves her to travel her own way back from Mexico! Spurned Shearer then does what nearly every spurned woman did in MGM films of this period: she sleeps her way across Europe with one aristocrat after another, natch!

To add to the confusion of the viewer (if not the characters), Shearer goes back to the untrustworthy worm in the last scene (all he does is glare at her and she's his) while Montgomery feebly and complacently looks forward to his next drink. The end.

Mick LaSalle, in his fine book on women in pre-code movies, Complicated Women, extols Strangers May Kiss as an adventurous "pop-feminist document", far ahead of its time.This is probably true, though it is noteworthy that none of the characters in the film seem particularly happy about their situations or choices; if the film is a feminist document, it's perhaps prescient in that regard, too.

The usual MGM slickness is in the house with stunning art deco sets and gorgeous gowns (though the movie is hampered by some very poor editing). The greatest actors and sets in the world won't help, though, if you find the characters absurd, unlikable, or nuts. Complexly amoral characters were frequent in pre-code movies, but what worked in Norma Shearer films like The Divorcee and A Free Soul just ain't working here.

Strangers May Kiss isn't available on DVD or VHS, but has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.

The Squaw Man (1931)

The Squaw Man...where does one start?

Based on a 1905 play which had four Broadway revivals, the Squaw Man plot now seems archaic: an English aristocrat, Capt. James Wynnegate (Warner Baxter) flees England, honorably taking the blame for stealing funds he did not steal to save the reputation of the woman he loves (Eleanor Boardman) and her husband (right!).

He then does what any English aristocrat would do in that situation: becomes a cowboy in Montana, where he marries an Indian maiden, Naturich (Lupe Velez), he'd rescued from a local thug (Charles Bickford) - they have a son. Seven years later, the law shows up to arrest Naturich for the murder of the thug (she had shot him, to rescue Wynnegate). The very same day, Roland Young as a family friend and Eleanor Boardman show up to take Wynnegate home (her husband's now dead) and Wynnegate is convinced to send the son back back to England and, heartbroken, Naturich kills herself. The (abrupt) end.

Cecil B. DeMille's movies are often best enjoyed as surrealistic alternate versions of D. W. Griffith's movies. Griffith traded almost solely in Victorian-era melodrama. DeMille did, too, but with a sensational, bizarre bent that is best exemplified here by a cut from British high society to a hilarious desolate shot of the forlorn, wild west "Buzzard's Pass".

(Yep, I'm aware the transition is there in the 1905 source material, but DeMille finds a way to make it seem crazier. He was a master at creating absurd, only-in-Hollywood, leaps in logic. In Fool's Paradise (1921), he deliciously lets his hero pursue his dream girl from a Mexican border town to Siam, where she dances for a prince in front of a pit of alligators. Yes!! I wouldn't at all be surprised if David Lynch wasn't thinking of DeMille when he incongruously had his film director, Adam, meeting The Cowboy at a stereotypical ranch in Beechwood Canyon in Mulholland Drive - itself a critique of Hollywood's absurdities.)

The Squaw Man is certainly watchable for those who just want an involving story. DeMille knows how to tell a story that people want to see, even creaky, predictable stories, and he must have loved this one - this is the third time he filmed it. Even when the ending is telegraphed, you want to see what happens next. Lupe Velez gives a genuinely sympathetic performance here, and the ending is sad no matter how you look at it.

All the actors have given better, more expressive performances in other films and the reason is the dialogue is stilted here, old-fashioned for 1931, requiring stilted mannerisms, especially in the beginning scenes in England. The scenes with Velez and Baxter fare better, and Dickie Moore as their son acts with an ease the others aren't allowed. He doesn't care about the lofty source material - he's just havin' a good time!

The Squaw Man is not available on DVD or VHS, but has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.

Sporting Blood (1931)

As horse racing movies go, Sporting Blood is an interesting and even unique one.

Through several opening title cards, the movie sets about with the intention of just telling the story of a horse, Tommy Boy, as he's transferred from owner to owner. The first half hour of the film is the best: Ernest Torrence plays the horse's first and most sentimental owner in an atmospheric, powerfully directed extended sequence. The sequence is also noteworthy (for 1931) for a portrayal of African Americans which isn't condescending or farcical. The Uncle Ben character (John Larkin) proves more instrumental to Tommy Boy's fate than any other.

Tommy Boy is shown sold to a succession of owners, each with diminishing respect or care for the horse. Then Clark Gable and Madge Evans enter the picture and it deflates. What had previously been a single-minded film about the fate of a horse becomes a late-in-the-game, conventional MGM love story about the redemption of sordid characters and the story of a horse.

One can imagine the producers' concerns that the story of just a horse wouldn't have the sex appeal needed for box office draw, but the Gable/Evans plot seems forced into a movie that was doing fine by itself.

Still, Sporting Blood is worth watching for some other good qualities: the direction, the Kentucky racing cinematography and the appearances of longtime silent film stars like Lew Cody and Marie Prevost.