1932 - ***
Lily Damita is a pretty earthy fox in some righteous satin black gowns in this early Lubitsch-esque Paramount gem. Charlie Ruggles is the travel agent pal of rich Roland Young who's been courting married Thelma Todd; javelin throwing Cary Grant (in his feature debut) is the husband, begging an obvious question, since Young can't possibly top Grant in nearly any department (it should probably be the other way around). He comes home early and sees her in a compromising position, a lie is borne and they all head down to Venice from Paris and porters sniff the girl's luggage as they load it, all to the title tune, ala "Isn't it Romantic" in Love Me Tonight (made the same year). Nothing goes according to plan but the Hollywood Venice recreations are lovely, the night outdoor scenes tinted deep blue are too dark but beautiful. Damita's hair is thick and shaggy; her accent endearing; her spirit fiery; TCM's restoration rich and lovely, in short, this is quintessential pre-code Paramount and though it never rises to greatness, it's still adorable.
PS - This same boilerplate plot would be used again with most of the same actors in another Paramount production, KISS AND MAKE UP and again by Billy Wilder in KISS ME, STUPID. Kiss kiss and make me up, Stupid! I can't stand watching dweebs like Ray Walston and Roland Young get jealous of the women they hire to pretend to be their wife. It's sleazy and uncouth!
1934 - ***
"Don't you know that ugliness is a disease?!"
The title is witty because Cary Grant is a Parisian plastic surgeon / 'cosmetician' / beauty spa impresario who gets a steady stream of high wallet women through his palatial parlor (Warren Beatty in SHAMPOO is a eunuch by comparison). Devoted and 'decent' secretary Helen Mack fumes in the background. Long tracking shots with direct-to-camera staring / POV action as hotties in various stages of undress and exercise greet our good doctor on his strolls through the girls in progress. The farce angles heat up once the action moves to the Riviera, where Grant's wealthiest patient, Eve (Genevieve Tobin) threatens to get fat "in all the wrong places" unless he sleeps with her, or at least attempts to. In order to preserve his masterful handiwork, Grant makes a tremendous sacrifice: he marries her and then finds her cockblocking him with all his own beauty tips, even sabotaging his career while she debates which outfit to wear.
Horton as the cuckolded husband has a great monologue about the hell of dating a too-beautiful woman, and he's right, it is hell. Helen Mack might change all that though with her modest Maureen O'Sullivan-style straight shooterhood. She and Horton sing a duet: "Corned Beef and Cabbage, I Love You." Man, Horton sure got a lot of hot young girls nearly to the altar before guys like Grant, Cooper or March woke up. Meanwhile Grant also gets a chance to sing--"Love Divided by Two," twice! These songs stick out like sore thumbs... and I like that. Meanwhile, a sheik brings his harem in to see Grant --they go in as old depressed old Muslim women and come out as El Morocco flappers. It's wrong on every level there can possibly be and just more reasons why Paramount is the pre-code studio of choice for the discerning acidemic (Find it in the Cary Grant - Screen Legends Collection DVD).
1933 - ****
Continuing our early Cary Grant Paramounts, this was Mae West's big breakthrough and she's amazing. Even if you're not a fan of turn-of-the-century clothes and manners, this film is so mega rich in robust, beery good cheer and accumulated details you're apt to become one. The big saloon where Mae works, singing "I Wonder Where my Easy Rider's Gone," and "A Man That Takes his Time," is etched so well you can smell the beer-soaked sawdust and cigars. As a missionary next door trying to rehabilitate Mae, Grant lingers in the corners as saloon owner Big Dan rocks West, 24 karat-style, and maybe works a white slavery racket. Meanwhile Chick--a lifer up river at Rikers--is serving time for a crime he committed for Mae's benefit. The big lug bouncer is her pal and encourages Mae to take the train up the river and vist Chick, cuz "bein' up there without the woman what makes you feel that way? It ain't no picnic."
This one has passed the Erich acid test: the black and white air is thick and breathable, the death hangs in the air -- vice and despair are never more than a stone's throw away, and Mae's sense of humor is a warm beacon in the galaxy.
1933 - ****
The kind of cinema I love can be boiled down to a few images: Kim Novak hypnotizing Jimmy Stewart with her cat in BELL BOOK AND CANDLE; Marion Crane driving with a twisted look on her face in PSYCHO; and now Gregory Ratoff as a Lugosi-as-Svengali-esque White Russian in SECRETS OF THE FRENCH POLICE, standing behind a hypnotic wheel while he programs a young Parisian flower girl into thinking she's Princess Anastasia. True sensationalist pulp, the film's awash in mystical pre-code gimcracks, some reminiscent of expressionist greats like TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE--with the criminal helping the cops, but this time robbing everyone blind in the process. At least he's patriotic: "I never rob a Frenchman." Frank Morgan is the very cool police chief, always acting a little behind the eightball when he's actually three yards in front of it--a good, rare strategy! This is the second awesome 'discovery' I made on TCM starring Gwili Andre, whom I never heard of before ROAR OF THE DRAGON. For just these two films alone, TCM has proved the worth of my entire cable package.
1932 - **1/2
MGM pulled out the Eisensteinian stops for this exercise. The FAIL SAFE to the Von Sternberg's Scarlet Empress STRANGELOVE, it's a fascinating and detailed look at a huge chunk of Russian history relatively unrepresented in Hollywood - the years preceding the WWI-revolution, with Rasputin caught trying to make it with the sexy young sister of the hypnotized czar. MGM goes all out with moody lighting schemes and Lionel Barrymore knows how to work a lantern in the dark to really amp up the evil lechery (see vid below). But man, how much better it would be if Lionel had switched roles with brother John, who's more or less wasted as the straight man? Was Rasputin too much like Svengali, who John played so ham-finitively the year before at Warners? Meanwhile sister Ethel Barrymore is pretty underused, looking the most hungover, which is saying a lot. And what an awesome and underrated movie SVENGALI was, much better than this, which is a little too talky, too many scenes of the royal court looking with unease at the million-strong peasant protests, And Anastasia is even in it, pre-revolution and before getting lost in the chaos and then turning up dazed in White Russian ex-pat circles all over Paris, as we saw in SECRETS OF THE FRENCH POLICE.
PS - The real life version of John Barrymore's character was still alive in 1932 and successfully sued MGM for defamation, and that's why that "resemblance to living or dead" blurb would pop up even on historical biopics from then on, thanks for teaching me that, Robert Osborne! I like to imagine granddaughter Drew Barrymore as the czsar's little sister, thus completing the family portrait. But for all that, a much better film about the Barrymores, if you can find it, even though no Barrymores are in it, is THE ROYAL FAMILY OF BROADWAY.
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