Flesh (1932)

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.

Whistling in the Dark (1933)

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.