Are You Listening? (1932)

William Haines is a murderer on the run from a nationwide, radio-reported police manhunt!

This isn't your typical William Haines flick. In fact, it's the last film he made for MGM and the last feature film he made for a major studio. When he's carried away on a train at the end of the film, he's also, in effect, leaving Hollywood.

Are You Listening? plays like a mashup of MGM's first musical, The Broadway Melody (1929) and Haines' previous radio-centric film, Remote Control (1930). As in The Broadway Melody, half of the film tells the story of how young girls who come to New York
to make a living are used and abused. In the no-less-depressing other half of the film, Haines plays a radio writer married to horrendous shrew Karen Morley who plays evil like you've never seen her play it before. Meanwhile, Haines has fallen in love with one of the aforementioned women, the appealing Madge Evans (also Haines' love interest in Fast Life).

The first half of the movie is an uneasy mixture of light comedy (primarily poking fun at radio's primitive production methods) and drama. Are You Listening? gradually sheds all humor and becomes an outright melodrama, with an almost noir atmosphere unlike any other Haines movie. The technology with which Haines made his living becomes the technology that hunts him down and entraps him.

Those who love character actors will have a field day with Are You Listening?. Neil Hamilton, Wallace Ford, Hattie McDaniel,Jean Hersholt, John Miljan, Joan Marsh, Charley Grapewin and more appear.

Old Time Radio fans will be especially interested in Are You Listening?. I'd direct those just discovering Willam Haines to The Girl Said No, The Smart Set or Navy Blues.

Are You Listening? has been released on Warner Archives DVD-R.

Remote Control (1930)

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.

Fast Life (1932)

Fast Life was, in several ways, the end of an era at MGM. It was the last film for stars William Haines, Conrad Nagel and Cliff Edwards as MGM contract actors. It's hard to believe Haines' films were no longer successful at the box office; Fast Life is indeed funny, exciting and fast.

Funny is in the ear and eye of the beholder. Haines is obnoxious as usual here, but Cliff Edwards as his pal Bumpy has some amusing lines and double-takes and a priceless sight gag with a mind reader. Though he didn't bring his ukelele, Edwards does do a little singing, one a soulful little number and also some scat joking; the guy had so much talent that anything he does is good and it's a shame MGM didn't star him in his own movies. The story of MGM is the story of many vastly wasted talents.

The story here is slight but servicable: Haines has invented a revolutionary new motor (right!) and meets cute with Madge Evans (a thankless role), whose father happens to be in the boat business and eager to win a Catalina speedboat race. The absurdity of early '30s MGM film scenario writers knew no bounds.

Conrad Nagel untypically plays the baddie here, a stiff, humorless jerk so unlikeable that Haines looks appealing in comparison. All ends well.

Fast Life has been released on Warner Archives DVD-R.

Navy Blues (1929)

William Haines' Navy Blues was his first talking role and every rambunctious/obnoxious, sly and crazy characteristic suppressed in his earlier films due to lack of sound is here let loose in all its anarchic glory. Haines-haters beware! 

Navy Blues was directed, uncharacteristically, by Clarence Brown. The plot is simple: while on shore leave, Haines falls for innocent Anita Page and courts her (stalks might be the more appropriate word), much to the consternation of Page's mother, Edythe Chapman, though not her father, J.C. Nugent, a beat-upon, forlorn fellow who also used to be a Navy man. 

Page soon leaves home with Haines and wants to marry, but Haines isn't ready for that sort of commitment. In typical fashion for MGM films at the time, the next time Haines returns to town, Page has, out of some sort of twisted sorrow and pride, become a near-prostitute. This plot twist rings totally false in the film; it isn't true to Page's character or to the tone of the rest of the film. This is a William Haines comedy, after all, not Eugene O'Neill! There's, at least, a somewhat happy ending to the film.

Cliff Edwards and his ukelele are missed (by me) in this movie. The void is occupied by fellow seaman Karl Dane, playing the kind of one-note character that ruined his career; so much talent was suppressed, wasted and undiscovered at MGM at the time.

If you like Haines' brand of comedy or want to see the uninhibited spirit of an Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey or Jonathan Winters in full bloom in an early talkie, watch Navy Blues. Movies like this one and Haines' next film, the mini-masterpiece The Girl Said No, are practically urtexts for comedy styles practiced at the end of the century.

Navy Blues is available in a good print on Warner Archives DVD-R and has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.

The Smart Set (1928)

By the late '20s, William Haines' screen persona had settled into a formula, giving his films the same sort of predictable inevitability other MGM formula stars of the day excelled in (like Lon Chaney and Greta Garbo).

In Haines' films, he played an obnoxious cut-up who pursued women dubious of him and squandered his talents and duties until he fell from grace - at which point he wised up, matured, won the day and the woman. The settings changed, but the story was always the same.

You either like William Haines or you don't. Some find him funny, others obnoxious (some, like myself, find him funny and obnoxious). Even Haines naysayers would have to admit that, in his infantile, improvisational antics and edgy, out-on-a-limb rambunctiousness, he was willing to go where no other comedian had gone before (save, perhaps, Harry Langdon). In Haines' work one can find the seeds of Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Jonathan Winters, and even Andy Kaufmann. And like most of those comics, Haines was also adept at playing serious scenes when required.

The Smart Set takes place in the world of polo. Read the formulaic plot described above, imagine stock polo footage, and you have most of this movie.

Having not seen an MGM film in awhile when I wrote this review, I had forgotten what a smooth machine Thalberg and Mayer had running at MGM during this time period; even this average, non-blockbuster film has a smooth, professional finish. Thalberg or his assistants make sure the scenario plows straight and true to its foregone conclusion. The unpredictably of Haines' wild actions, though, keep your interest (one scene seems particularly to presage Jonathan Winters). An on location car chase is imaginatively shot. One night scene of Haines alone on the polo field is especially moody. And a scene with Haines crying for his lost horse is as bizarre as it is effective.

The Smart Set also stars Alice Day as the love interest, and Jack Holt and Hobart Bosworth as poloing rivals.

The Smart Set has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies with an okay film score by Marcus Sjowall.

The same print has been released on DVD-R by Time Warner Archives.

But the Flesh is Weak (1932)

What bizarre catalyst propelled Irving Thalberg and company to churn out one MGM romantic "comedy" after another starring leads whose defining characteristics were boorish, brutish, insufferable infantilism? I would argue that in the hands of William Haines, this sort of material could border on comic genius, in a surreal Jonathon Winters-ish way. Usually, though, it just thuds and offends, and But the Flesh Is Weak is a prime example.

In this film, written by Ivor Novello, deadbeat Robert Montgomery and his philandering father, C. Aubrey Smith, do their best to mooch from, seduce, and wed (or not) rich women. That's practically the entire story. Montgomery at first latches onto the interesting Heather Thatcher, but then quickly dumps her for a widow, Nora Gregor (better known for her role in Renoir 's Rules of the Game).

There may be a fine line between romantic persistence and cloddish, creepy annoyance, but this screenplay asks Robert Montgomery to dash over it and never look back. Gregor 's ending line "I knew I loved you when you hit me" was the straw that broke the camel's back for Mary. Bleahhh.

Thatcher's role is sympathetically written, for all the good that does the film; Edward Everett Horton plays Gregor's rival suitor in a part that doesn't play to his strengths.

There might have been an amusing line scattered here or there; if so, I can't remember them.

Remade by MGM in 1941 as Free and Easy.

But the Flesh Is Weak is available on Warner Archives DVD-R and has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.

Daybreak (1931)

Daybreak lost $100,000 for MGM, and it’s not hard to see why. The film unsuccessfully straddles the line between Stroheim-ish decadence and slick, feel-good, romantic MGM gloss. Attempting to appeal to both sensibilities, it’s successful in neither.

Based on a book by Austrian novelist Arthur Schnitzler (whose work was also the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut), Daybreak features a cad as the protagonist, Ramon Novarro (playing a William Haines-type character, only not funny), an Austrian lieutenant who pursues shy, sweet Helen Chandler, then insults her when he makes clear he wants her only as a mistress. The most logical thing happens next (logical if you’re in tune with the vibes of early ‘30s movies): within seconds, the insulted sweet music teacher casts Ramon out of her life, flees to the arms of the sneering, sweating, debaucherous Jean Hersholt, who earlier tried to rape her (Jean Hersholt!), and becomes, overnight, an angry, cynical, gambling, seen-it-all woman of the world.

Of course.

What bizarre aspect of the American psyche made this theme so popular in the early ‘30s? Even sweet Norma Shearer went this route (in The Divorcee), but the queen of spurned-and-fornicating ex-lovers was Greta Garbo. Her surreal turn as Susan Lenox (in Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise) has to be the quintessential portrayal of this sort of archetype, as she literally sleeps her way around the world in revenge, Clark Gable spurning her at every far-fetched meeting (of course, they really love only each other).

Anyway, MGM filmed two endings to Daybreak, one faithful to the novel (Ramon commits honorable suicide, being unable to pay back money lost trying to win Helen back in a game of Baccarat!), and the other a happy reuniting of the two lovers. They used the latter.

Novarro reportedly attempted to buy this film off MGM and shelve it. To make matters worse, the director Jacques Feyder, who didn’t speak English well, was sick during much of the shooting. The end result is a film of inconsistent tone, unable to please either the women’s audience, who wanted to see Ramon in a likeable role, or those fans of Lubitsch and von Stroheim who like their decadence unprettified.

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

The Cuban Love Song (1931)

The Cuban Love Song (not to be confused with the late-'20s MGM tune "The Pagan Love Song"), stars opera baritone Lawrence Tibbett as a WWI-era marine falling for Cuban Lupe Velez, while Karen Morley (unadvisably, if you ask me) waits for him to return to the states.

Imagine William Haines as an unfunny opera singer and you'll get the gist of this movie starring yet another annoying jerk we're supposed to cheer for (an early MGM specialty). At least with Haines you had laughs; here, you have "The Peanut Song" sung so many times you wonder if you'll ever eat peanuts again.

Tibbett's voice is a real force; he was one of the all-time great opera singers. I'm sure someone can tell me why he was wasting his time in Hollywood and recording popular tunes on 78s when he could have been onstage singing Verdi and Puccini. At any rate, MGM let Tibbett go after The Cuban Love Song flopped.

Lupe Velez is fine in a role more restrained than her later comedies, and Tibbett is backed up by the bizarre comic relief team of Ernest Torrence and Jimmy Durante (!).Torrence is wasted, and Durante is...Durante.

Warning: Mary found this film quite offensive, exploiting women in general and Cubans in particular; she thinks it may be the worst MGM we've seen. Recommended only for fans of the actors involved, or opera-singing sailors getting tattoos.

Not currently available on DVD. Has been shown on Turner Classic Movies.