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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.
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.
Hell Divers, while routine in many aspects, impressed me as being much more ambitious than I'd expected - it was the Top Gun of its day. The movie sports some amazing aerial footage, Navy-lent filming of the huge carrier USS Saratoga, bombings galore and even dirigibles, beautifully photographed drifting through the clouds. Naval and aeronautics fans will go nuts with this film.
Wallace Beery plays the sort of character he usually did: a "lovable" (depending on your perspective), incorrigible (until the end) big kid in a cartoonishly gruff, middle-aged man's body. Clark Gable, in the twelfth of twelve films he made in his first year in Hollywood (!) is his in-the-air and on-the-ground competitor. The antagonism between the two, which reportedly carried off-screen, propels the plot forward until the sentimental end, when Beery becomes a hero through his unexpected maturity.
Hell Divers also features silent star Marie Prevost, Marjorie Rambeau as Beery's girlfriend, and Cliff Edwards (no ukulele in this one, alas, though Beery does sing and play the piano).
Hell Divers hasn't been released on VHS or DVD, but is shown occasionally by Turner Classic Movies.
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