On Blu-ray: 1933 Double Feature Mary Stevens, M.D. and Dinner at Eight

I was fascinated by the differences between a pair of films from 1933 I watched recently on new Blu-rays from Warner Archive. One is the efficient Warner Bros. melodrama Mary Stevens, M.D., starring Kay Francis and a cast full of the snappy, sharp-witted players who brought the studio success in the early thirties. The other, Dinner at Eight, is a lavish production filled with the biggest names at MGM Studios, though the young Jean Harlow stole the whole movie from her more experienced costars. 

Mary Stevens, M.D. features one of Francis’ best performances. She’s a young doctor who sets up shop with her former classmate and close friend Don (an adequate Lyle Talbot). He quickly gets tired of fighting to keep their pediatric practice afloat and marries politician’s daughter Lois (Thelma Todd, underused, but always welcome) so that he can secure the wealth and position he wants to enjoy without working to attain it. Predictably, that doesn’t go well for him. 

At first, it seems that the film is going to be all about Mary trying to find patients who aren’t horrified by the prospect of a lady doctor. It quickly dips into melodrama though, with illicit love, babies born out of wedlock, and deadly disease all complicating her life. It could be silly, but Francis is so sincere and as her nurse sidekick, Glenda Farrell keeps things zipping along when they could get maudlin. The film is particularly pre-code in the way the characters view Mary’s troubles with sympathy instead of scolding her for her sins, though it could be argued she is punished for her indiscretions.

My perspective of Dinner at Eight has changed dramatically over the years. Jean Harlow has been the one constant. As the fabulous-tacky nouveau riche Kitty Packard, she overshadows her illustrious cast mates, among them Billie Burke, Lionel Barrymore, John Barrymore, and the beloved Marie Dressler. Her crackling comic performance makes me constantly forget that this film is as much a drama as a comedy. 

Over the years, I’ve overcome the disorientation that comes from the intense busyness the film evokes and honed in on other performances, like the charming resignation of Dressler as a former stage star with financial troubles and the mix of bravado and impotence in John Barrymore’s fading matinee idol (he has a moment of brave vulnerability where he actually whimpers like a child). Burke is also a shallow, oblivious delight, devastated by the increasing disaster her dinner party is becoming while life and death struggles unfold around the bubble of self-involvement in which she exists. Her transition to a more aware, mature perspective is remarkably believable; she keeps the high pitch of her social climbing persona, while just beneath the surface a new decency emerges. MGM stars Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Edmund Lowe, Madge Evans, and Karen Morley are also on-board with their best performances.

Reportedly Harlow and Dressler became close on set and had discussed starring together in a comedy. What a shame the older comedian died in 1934 and that never came to pass.

Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing a copy of the film for review.

On DVD: Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell in Kansas City Princess (1934)

Throughout decades of movie fandom I’ve seen astonishing sights and transcendent works of art, and yet, if you asked me what I want to see at any given moment, I would probably ask to watch Glenda Farrell and Joan Blondell doing stuff. Whatever production they are in, they never let you down, whether individually or as a team. Pure charisma wins every time. I thought this as I settled down to watch Kansas City Princess (1934), which is now available on DVD from Warner Archive.

This is one of five comedies that Farrell and Blondell headlined together for Warner Bros. In it they follow the familiar plotline of two dames on the make. This time they are manicurists with gold digging ambitions. Blondell loses the diamond engagement ring thrust upon her by a volatile gangster (appropriately named “Dynamite”, played by Robert Armstrong) and so she and Farrell hop a cruise ship to Paris to escape his wrath. They hook up with a millionaire to retroactively fund their trip.

It’s not the best of the Blondell/Farrell pairings; I think that honor goes to Havanna Widows (1933), which was more solidly pre-code, but it’s fun to watch them banter as they slide in and out of trouble. You’ve never any doubt that these ladies could talk any man into anything.

Fans of 1930s Warner Bros. flicks are familiar with the amazing players the studio rotated in and out of productions like a community theater group. Aside from the leads though, the cast is not as typically fantastic here. The exception is Hugh Herbert who is game as the easily manipulated millionaire Junior Ashcroft.

The disc image is essentially clear, though with a fair number of specks. The sound has a bit of crackle and pop, but does the job. There are no special features on the disc.

Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing a copy of the film for review. This is a Manufacture on Demand (MOD) DVD. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.

On DVD: Guy Kibbee and Glenda Farrell Triple Features

I’ve appreciated Warner Archive’s strategy of packaging lesser known flicks in thematically arranged sets. It’s a great way to rediscover forgotten titles and get exposure to movies that, while worth a look, might not be of enough interest to justify individual release. With the recent release of a pair of triple features starring the beloved character actors Guy Kibbee and Glenda Farrell I got a bit of what I expected along those lines, but also some wonderful surprises.

Sharp-witted, high energy Glenda Farrell was one of the most reliably entertaining supporting and sometimes starring performers of the studio age, finding her peak as the fast-talking bright spot in many films in the 1930s including a series in which she starred as reporter Torchy Blane. Oddly, she doesn’t quite have that magnetic presence in this trio of films. She is a welcome sight, but somehow not playing to her strengths.

The best of the three is The Law in Her Hands (1936), in which she plays wing woman to Margaret Lindsay. They are well matched as a pair of recently graduated lawyers who overcome sexism and their rookie status by hooking up with a mobster who is predictably in need of constant representation. Lindsay has a lawyer boyfriend who insists that she stop being a success at her career and settle down to cleaning his apartment and having babies. Unsurprisingly, the scenes with Lindsay and Farrell have the most zest.

Here Comes Carter (1936) is pretty much a flop due to the unpleasant presence of leading man Ross Alexander as an obnoxious radio gossip. There’s not a lot of Farrell zing in her performance as the on air star’s girlfriend. Perhaps she didn’t feel she had much to play off of. Sadly, Alexander would commit suicide less than a year later at age 29, on the anniversary of his wife’s own suicide.

Farrell fades into the ensemble as the former fan dancer wife of a stage producer in Dance Charlie Dance (1937). It stars the hapless Stuart Erwin as a man with an inheritance who decides to invest in a play so that he can raise money to buy a hotel in his hometown. Jean Muir costars as a kind secretary who helps the neophyte investor. The story, with its crummy show that becomes an accidental hit is reminiscent of The Producers (1967), though success leads to a different set of problems.

While the Farrell triple feature was a somewhat entertaining jaunt for this Glenda completist, the Guy Kibbee triple feature was full of delights. I found something to love in each of the films and enjoyed seeing a less sleazy side of this most valuable Warner Bros player (which is not to say his sleazier roles lack enjoyment).

Mary Jane’s Pa (1935) is an odd little flick about a newspaper editor (Kibbee) who gets the wanderlust and abandons his much younger wife (Aline MacMahon) and daughters. He thinks that he is leaving them financially healthy, but an investment goes sour and MacMahon must struggle to make the newspaper a success. As the years pass, she does just that and even begins to fall in love with a local politician.

Then Kibbee reappears, and though he deserves nothing more than a kick out the door, he bonds with his daughters, becomes a housemaid for his skeptical wife and finds out where the bodies are buried before it’s too late. It’s a pleasantly busy little flick, with an somewhat unsettling, precocious performance by Betty Jean Hainey as the titular Mary Jane. While it’s impossible to believe that Kibbee and MacMahon could have ever had the hots for each other, they are well matched and make an essentially ridiculous situation seem almost plausible.

In The Big Noise (1936) Kibbee is a textile factory owner who gets shoved out of his own company. He moves to California for his health, but ends up buying into a dry cleaner and taking on the mob protection racket. It was so fun to watch Kibbee play this determined, clever and lovable character. He perfectly embodies the optimism and can do spirit of a successful businessman. Marie Wilson of the My Friend Irma series is also charming playing a similar dim bulb character as a laundry employee.

My favorite of the trio is Going Highbrow (1935), in which Kibbee and Zasu Pitts pair up as a newly rich couple who become social climbers. Kibbee is reassuringly avuncular as a game guy who will cheerfully do anything to please his wife and Pitts is pleasingly high strung as a woman who may be a bit pretentious, but never cruel or disloyal.

The supporting cast here is especially delightful, with Edward Everett Horton reliably fluttering around the edges of the action. This was the first time I’d seen a film with June Martel, who was so down-to-earth and yet intriguing as a waitress Kibbee helps that I was thoroughly depressed to find she didn’t make many films. Judy Canova pops with charisma as Martel’s supportive waitress friend; she makes a lot of a role that isn’t written as fascinating as she plays it.

Overall this is such an interesting set, with unusual stories, great performances and a chance to see Kibbee center stage and at his best.

Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing copies of the films for review. These are Manufacture on Demand (MOD) DVDs. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.

New From Warner Archive: Forbidden Hollywood, Volume 8

I'm always thrilled when a new edition of Forbidden Hollywood is released. The sets of pre-code treasures never disappoint. There's always at least a couple of titles that thrill me, and the films are all alive with that exciting honesty about life that died away when the production code was finally enforced. This latest set is especially diverse, mixing comedy and drama and settings from swanky hotels and European villas to raucous newsrooms and racetracks.

Blonde Crazy (1931)

I don't know if it is possible for me to approach this movie with a critical eye. It was the first title I saw in the Forbidden Hollywood series, back when it came in single films on VHS, and each had an introduction with Leonard Maltin, and I'll always associate it with the excitement of discovering the whole idea of pre-code films.

It's a lot of fun though. James Cagney and Joan Blondell were a great screen pair, both of them down-to-earth, but infinitely more witty and attractive than your average Joe. Here they are grifters who think themselves pretty good at the con, until they realize the real criminals are in the upper levels of society.

There's lots of mugging and goofy antics, sometimes amusing, occasionally irksome. Cagney is especially reliant on quirks. You want to cut the cast some slack though, because all the criminals, hotel bellhops and sleazy traveling salesmen are taking the talkies into new territory, something livelier than those first, creaky attempts at sound, and they're doing a fine job working out just how that should go.

Strangers May Kiss (1931)

I love a racy Norma Shearer pre-code, but I can rarely sit through the end of one more than once. They're a cinematic tease, getting you excited about Ms. Norma's feminist zeal and then giving her a quick slap on the wrist and thrusting her back into convention before the closing titles. For that reason they are all fabulous and awful at the same time; ahead of their time and too afraid to push very hard at the status quo. Still, not one is to be missed, because they all make a great early cry for female independence that still rings after their cop-out codas.

In this one Shearer tries her best to have a modern, no strings attached relationship, but she can't manage that when she falls in love. Neil Hamilton is her self-centered, world-traveling beaux, while longtime friend Robert Montgomery makes goony faces and waits for her to give him a try.

While it is difficult to stomach the star's final "Quick! Get me a husband! Take me away from all this freedom, horrible freedom!" plea, there's no forgetting the fun she's had, and the way she spoke, before she finally caves. She is at her glamorous, giggling best in astonishingly sheer, slinky evening gowns, trotting around Europe, getting herself into trouble.

When she is chastised for her behavior, she lets her lover boy know a thing or two about double standards, and that he is not free to toy with her as he pleases. Those words are strong, and you have to wonder if maybe in the end she goes the subversive route, still believing what she says. Whatever the case, no one could speak her mind about relationships like Shearer.

Hi, Nellie (1934)

I had my qualms about this newsroom comedy/drama as the first scenes unrolled. It has a slow build, relying at first on limp jokes and Paul Muni (in a rare comedy role) being heavy-handed in his attempted at a Lee Tracy-type part. While the latter would be at least amusingly obnoxious as a reporter who gets in hot water with his boss and torments a love advice columnist (Glenda Farrell), Muni is just annoying.

This all changes when the messing around develops into a good, twisty mystery plot. Muni is demoted to Farrell's position, which seems to be the punishment for all reporters that screw up at their newpaper, and he attempts to dig himself out by investigating the disappearance of a lawyer who has been accused of stealing from a bank.

Once Muni begins his detective work, he seems to forget about trying to be funny, which oddly enough makes him much funnier. He's at his best when he's so determined to get the details he needs for a blockbuster story that he forgets to be afraid. The always snappy Glenda Farrell and familiar Warner faces like Ned Sparks and Donald Meek are more at home in the comedy and also do much to improve the appeal of their star.

This is also a great flick for fashionistas, with some of the most immaculately buttoned and bowed designs I've seen in 1930s cinema.

Dark Hazard (1934)

It can be difficult to watch an Edward G. Robinson movie. So often he is a victim of fate, a beautiful woman, or both. This time he is his own worst enemy though, a gambler who, for good or ill, is living a life suited to his temperament. He is pressured to change when he marries a so-called decent woman (Genevieve Tobin). They're really both decent in their own way; she's just not eager to raise their child among her husband's wise cracking friends, never sure if he will gamble away the grocery money.

So often in these movies it is the housewife who is clearly best for the hero, who is tempted away by a shallow, but glamorous woman. Here that is not so obvious, most likely because as Robinson's old flame, Glenda Farrell is an understanding and loyal counterpoint to the sympathetic, but disapproving Tobin.

While movies about gambling generally paint a disapproving portrait of the pastime, Robinson is portrayed as being at home rolling dice and betting on horses and greyhounds. It isn't that he doesn't adore his wife, he shows himself to be very charmingly in love, but the excitement of the racetrack feeds him like nothing else. Dark Hazard handles that conflict in an unusual and deeply satisfying way.

Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing copies of the films for review. These are Manufacture on Demand (MOD) DVDs. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.

Quote of the Week

Warners never made you feel you were just a member of the cast. They might star you in one movie . . . and give you a bit part in the next. I can remember thinking, "Oh, God, I hope it’s a small part this time so I can get some rest."

-Glenda Farrell


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