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Unashamed, a family drama which spends its second half in a courtroom, is sadly dated. Its tone, theme and morals are thoroughly mixed up.
Helen Twelvetrees plays a rich girl courted by the appropriately named fortune hunter Harry Swift (Monroe Owsley). Twelvetrees' father and brother (Robert Warwick and Robert Young) protest against the relationship, to no avail. Then Swift convinces Twelvetrees to spend a night in a hotel so he can force her father to give in...
A resulting act of violence results in a courtroom battle fought by defender Lewis Stone and prosecutor John Miljan. Only, the movie asks you to root for the lying main characters. The quick, weird feel-good ending doesn't help - it's both unbelievable and celebrates injustice.
I can't recommend this odd relic to other than hardcore film fans.
Unashamed is not available on DVD, but has been broadcast on TCM.
Although Ramon Novarro first sang on film in The Pagan (1929), Devil-May-Care, made the same year, is his first all-talking picture. He passes this crucial test with ease (many other Hollywood stars were not so lucky). His accent may be out of place in a Napoleonic-era film (the same was true of his co-stars, especially blues and jazz singer Marion Harris), but his voice and singing are splendid.
Devil-May-Care is very much in the swashbuckler mode and, in fact, is somewhat similar to MGM's earlier Bardelys the Magnificent (1926). Novarro plays a Napoleon loyalist who, while escaping from Royalist forces attempting to execute him, falls for a stubborn Royalist daughter, Dorothy Jordan. Compared to other early sound films, Sidney Franklin's direction is remarkably smooth and accomplished. It doesn't seem as stagebound as most other 1929 films and only suffers from a few of the odd editing choices one sees in MGM films of this period. It even features a completely superfluous Technicolor ballet sequence.
That the film is so technically accomplished is made more remarkable when you take into account this was one of the first Hollywood musicals (the songs by Herbert Stothart and Clifford Grey range from okay to annoying). It's a missed opportunity that Marion Harris didn't sing in the film.
Ramon Novarro is fine in the film, ensuring more years of work at MGM. His mischevious pursuit (some might call it stalking) of Dorothy Jordan can seem a little creepy, though, perhaps depending on what mood you're in when you watch it. John Miljan's also in this film. But, you knew that.
Devil-May-Care has been shown on Turner Classic Movies.
In just one scene, Cliff Edwards runs away with Remote Control, as a hog caller trying to get a radio gig. He's one of several character actors vying for the job, including Benny Rubin, Polly Moran (sadly underused here) and Roscoe Ates. William Haines is the radio producer they're auditioning for and the actics keep forcing him to break character and crack up.
The same vibe carries through the movie, a crime "drama" that's not really a drama. John Miljan (twelve feature film performances on the same year, 1930!) plays a gang leader providing coded gang info through his radio monologues as a psychic. Suspicious William Haines keeps getting in his way, until he's kidnapped by the gang...
If you like Haines' improvised and childish antics, you'll like Remote Control. Even those who dislike him may find themselves having a laugh or two at this slightly stagy, but fast paced diversion.
Mary Doran plays Haines' unlikely love interest. Charles King is her brother, but doesn't have much to do.
Remote Control was directed by at least three directors, none of whom are credited: Nick Grinde, Edward Sedgwick and Malcolm St. Clair. I'd love to know the story behind that.
Remote Control has been released on Warner Archives DVD-R.
The Voice of the City is a real oddity in the MGM library and not just because it's one of those examples of early sound film awkwardly negotiating the new technology. The Voice of the City was written and directed by Willard Mack, who also starred in it. This was a setup MGM heads Thalberg and Mayer rarely allowed. Mack is an interesting figure who was born in 1873, married fellow MGM actor Marjorie Rambeau in 1913, and died five years after this film was released. He also was an acting coach for then-chorus girl Barbara Stanwyck in the mid '20s, when she starred in his play, The Noose.
The Voice of the City is a crime drama with credible atmosphere and more humor (some unintentional) than was typical in films like this. Robert Ames, who also died a few years after this film was made, plays an escaped and innocent convict who attempts to hide out from the police long enough to leave town with his gal, Sylvia Field. John Miljan plays the oily crime boss who framed Ames. The cast is filled out with a drug-addicted friend, Clark Marshall, Duane Thompson as Ames' sister and Mack, the detective charged with hunting Ames down.
One would think The Voice of the City might be a waste of time. Some of the acting is sadly dated and many scenes are too stagy, with the barely moving actors surrounding the nearby microphone. As is also typical of the time, The Voice of the City has some amateurish editing, including a bizarre kiss that's looped three times!
Mack's film, however, holds up better than many later and more prestigious films for the sheer interest the characters and plot generates; you want to know what happens next. As the film progresses, it also becomes less stagy and features an experimental interrogation scene that takes place in the dark.
The Voice of the City has been released on Warner Archives DVD-R.
Wallace Beery plays a German beer garden wrestler and waiter in the oddly-named Flesh. Beery, childlike and naive, falls for a just-out-of-jail and penniless Karen Morley, who's also pregnant, though she keeps that fact to herself. Beery takes pity on her and gives her a place to stay. Flesh then becomes a sort of slow-burn cousin to The Blue Angel, as the smitten and child-like Beery is fooled, manipulated and swindled by both Morley and her lover posing as her brother (played by Ricardo Cortez), a slimy ex-con who doesn't treat Morley with any more respect than Beery.
Though uncredited (no director is listed in the credits), the great John Ford directed Flesh while on loan to MGM. Many Ford fans don't think much of Flesh and it's far from a masterpiece. It does keep the viewer interested in these characters all the way to the tragic end, though. Beery plays the part with such pathos and innocence it's hard to be unmoved by his predicament - his uncompromising stance when he's pressured to "fix' a fight also makes him endearing. (The awkward German accent, though, is a minus.) Morley's world weary criminal is just conflicted enough about her feelings and guilt to make her character stand out from the cinematic cliche. The role could have been one-dimensional.
Flesh also features character actors like Jean Hersholt, Ward Bond, Nat Pendleton and, for better or worse, the ubiquitous John Miljan.
Flesh is available on Warner Brothers DVD-R.
Ramon Novarro plays another exotic lover in Jacques Feyder's Son of India. Through an arresting series of events, he becomes a ragged pauper, then a rich prince in Bombay. American tourist Madge Evans soon enters the picture and the movie becomes a tragic tale of love fighting against racial boundaries and prejudices. (Would the love story be transpiring if Novarro wasn't rich? I doubt it.)
Son of India features some impressive sets and action scenes; how often do you get to see Novarro buried alive in the same film as a rampaging elephant? The entire film held my interest, even when the romance became increasingly saccharine. Unlike many of her films, Madge Evans gets a more demanding role in this one.
Son of India is packed with the usual MGM character actors, including Marjorie Rambeau as a snobbish aunt, Conrad Nagel as Madge's sister, and C. Aubrey Smith and John Miljan in smaller roles. Ann Dvorak's even on the screen for a minute or two as a seductive dancer.
The movie ends far too quickly (not helped, when watching on Turner Classic Movies, by their loud and abrasive promo following). I'm surprised they didn't cut Novarro off in mid-sentence!
This was Feyder's last American film. Later in the '30s, in France, his movies laid the groundwork for the Poetic Realism film movement. His artistry was vivid, though, even in his American films.
Son of India isn't available on DVD.
Blanche Sweet had an extraordinary career in Hollywood. Largely known as one of D.W. Griffith's acting troupe, Sweet first appeared in a 1909 Edison short and last appeared in an episode of Dobie Gillis.
Here she appears in one of the three films she made in 1930 before she left the film industry for decades. Based on her acting in this film, she could easily have had a career had she stayed. She has an assured voice and manner.
In The Woman Racket she's a singer in a prohibition-era nightclub. During a raid, a kindly policeman (Tom Moore) allows her to escape, begins dating her and eventually marries her. She's soon bored with domestic chores, though and the excitement of the nightclub life begins calling to her... Sweet is sweet in this role and her singing is nice, too.
Tom Moore (whose career began at roughly the same time as Sweet's, 1908) gets a drubbing on IMDB for his acting, but I thought he was fine, likable and believable in the role of a patient, loving and abandoned husband. Bringing more life to the melodrama are Robert Agnew and Sally Starr, two innocent singers in the nightclub caught up in the villain's machinations. The uncredited songs used in the film, while not great, have that wonderful early '30s vibrancy and joy, this being the sweet spot of MGM musical accompaniment. It was only the villain, John Miljan, that I found less than believable. Miljan never played roles of great depth (that I've seen), but this dastardly role seemed particularly one-note, stiff and stereotypical.
Give The Woman Racket a try if you're in the mood for an average, pleasant, tuneful 1930 melodrama.
Whistling in the Dark is a dated little trifle. Don't let me scare you off from it, though; it can be fun if you're in the mood.
Based on a play which ran 265 performances between 1932 and 1933, the comedy/drama about two elopers who end up trapped in a mansion and forced to think up the perfect murder for a group of mobsters can be tedious. It's stage-bound and director Elliot Nugent's directing is static and blah.
The cast is good, though, headed by Una Merkel (playing her typical ditzy role) and Ernest Treux, who also played the lead onstage. His under-played, self-effacing humor reminded me of the comedic performances of Roland Young (especially in Topper). (Claire Trever played the Una Merkel role onstage)
The lead mobster is played by Edward Arnold, reprising his stage role. Also in the cast is John Miljan, who seemed to be in every other MGM film of the time and Nat Pendleton, who excelled in playing goofy, dense gangsters.
The film does have some racy, pre-code humor. Other than the pleasure you'll have in watching some talented performers, though, there's not a lot to recommend in Whistling in the Dark.
The story was remade in 1941 with Red Skelton, in a movie so successful that two sequels were made.
A bit of trivia: Ernest Truex was the lifeless body of Harry in Hitchcock's the Trouble With Harry. If you have to be dead onscreen, that's the way to do it.
Whistling in the Dark isn't available on DVD, but has been shown on Turner Classic Movies.
For hard-hitting, even harrowing pre-code crime drama, look no further than MGM's Night Court. If the film had been made in the '70s, it would have been directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. (In the aughts, it could have been written by Neil Labute and directed by James Foley).
Walter Huston plays a relentlessly corrupt judge, so contemptuous of justice that he attempts to obliterate an innocent family just to suppress the mother's (Anita Page) inadvertent knowledge of his bank accounting!
I'll refrain from giving the details of the plot of a film that goes in some surprising directions. This severely overlooked film deserves the same company as Beast of the City and other early '30s crime dramas which have stood the test of time.
Night Court really has an all-star cast. It also features Lewis Stone, John Miljan and Jean Hersholt.
The now forgotten Phillips Holmes (he died in a mid-air plane collision in WWII) gives an interesting performance as Anita Page's husband. It's not a subtle one, but has a raw, emotional tinge that must have struck audiences at the time. In fact, some of the scenes in the film have such a spontaneity that it makes me, perhaps, rethink the work of the director, W.S. ("One-take-Woodie") Van Dyke, whose quick directing here has a freshness that a more fussy director may not have achieved.
Night Court also benefits from co-writer Mark Hellinger who, as a journalist at the New York Daily News and Hearst's New York Daily Mirror, had a better view of the New York criminal underworld than most Hollywood writers and was friends with Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel.
Night Court isn't available on DVD, but has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.
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