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.

Possessed (1931)

Possessed, with it's pre-code feminist script, swanky sets, slick direction and upper-echelon star power, is a quintessential early '30s MGM film (A Free Soul, starring Norma Shearer and Gable, from the same year, is another contender). It's escapist melodrama with just enough realism to keep from descending into absurdity.

The plot is a rubber-stamped depression-era fantasy made for its target audience: small-town factory worker Joan Crawford leaves for the big city determined to use whatever assets she has to live the high life, becomes a mistress to powerful man-about-town Clark Gable....you've seen this before, haven't you?

What's enjoyable about Possessed is seeing two of Hollywood's biggest stars in their prime, Gable in a new sort of male role for the time, an anti-hero, and Crawford, who MGM considered "the personification of youth and beauty and joy and happiness", before she mutated into something other. Those familiar with Crawford's background will realize she's practically playing herself here.

Noteworthy, too, is "Skeets" Gallagher, playing a perpetually inebriated dandy, whose ritzy living quarters and whimsical demeanor must have represented the height of freedom for audiences in 1931.

Clarence Brown's directing doesn't have the sort of dreamy look he excelled in earlier in his career, in films like The Flesh and the Devil, but it's perfectly fine, and benefits from some on-location shooting in the opening scenes.

Possessed has been released on Warner Archives DVD-R.