Die nackte Wahrheit

Norma Shearer's emotional range and charm is always a delight. Her costumes in shiny silk charmeuse and deep dark velvet translate so well in vintage black and white, and the topic of a woman's "decency" in the 30's and small minds is dramatic and poignant. I love this decade of movies for the history and social culture they often evoke.

The first scene, with Norma Shearer and Herbert Marshall dressed as insects, is hilarious. The plot is old fashioned, but Norma looks so beautiful that you tend to forget it.

This film brings up an interesting dilemma...and oddly I haven't seen any movies like it even though it came out in the 1930s. When the film begins, Phillip (Herbert Marshall) meets Mary (Norma Shearer) and they fall in love. Soon they have been married for four years and have a cute kid. Phillip goes abroad on a business trip and during this time, Mary accepts a fateful invitation to travel to Cannes. There she meets up with an old beau, Tommy (Robert Montgomery). Tommy gets drunk and misbehaves and EVERYONE notices. Soon Phillip has heard about it and he starts doubting his wife's fidelity. Even though he says he still loves her, it's obvious he's not sure and this is destroying the marriage. What's next? See the film.

This film is worth seeing for the interesting script and fine acting. But the biggest reason is to see Herbert Marshall dressed up as an Insectman for a costume party. Bizarre is a HUGE understatement! See this film!

Norma Shearer teams up with Robert Montgomery again in "Riptide" which also stars Herbert Marshall as part of a love triangle. There isn't too much special about this, but the beginning scene, with Marshall dressed as an huge insect and Shearer as a spider is very funny. Having just finished Shearer's bio by Gavin Lambert, it speaks of figure problems she had, particularly with her legs, and how hard she worked at being in shape. It paid off. She is absolutely beautiful in this film.

It's always difficult to realize that evidently, Herbert Marshall was once considered a romantic leading man, but given this movie and "Girls Dormitory," which I saw recently, I guess he was. In this, he sweeps playgirl Shearer off of her feet; they marry and have a daughter. After five years of wedded bliss, he goes on a business trip. While he's away, Norma meets old friend Montgomery at a party. He's always been crazy about her. They get drunk, kiss, and she runs for it. The next thing she knows, he's fooling around outside her window and throws himself off of her balcony. Scandal. Hubby comes home to headlines. Doesn't know if he can believe that nothing went on since the scripts hints that she was a slut while she was single. Marriage strained. Etc.

This kind of story is a little hard to take these days, but Shearer and Montgomery are very good. In comparison to their lively performances, Marshall is rather dull - which is the point, so it's appropriate.

The amazing thing about "Riptide" is an appearance by Mrs. Patrick Campbell, a theater icon. She's excellent as Marshall's aunt. I've often wondered if some of the early stage luminaries were as good as everyone claimed, but after seeing Campbell and the Barrymores in film, they sure were. For this reason and because it's pre-code, "Riptide" is worth seeing.

Norma Shearer is a delight in this film, which was the last of her pre-Code appearances. She gives a very natural, charming performance in scenes that call for tenderness, temptation, flirtation, and playfulness, including those with the two leading men (Robert Montgomery and Herbert Marshall), her aunt-in-law (theater legend Mrs. Patrick Campbell), and her adorable daughter (Marilyn Spinner). She's helped considerably by the script which has a lot of life to it, something evident from the beginning, when we see Marshall in a giant 'Insect Man' costume and Shearer in a revealing 'Lady Sky bug' number, get ups designed by Adrian for a "World of the Future" ball. The story degenerates into a bit of a soap opera in its second half, but it had scored enough points with me early on that I didn't mind too much.

One thing that's great about it is its frankness with the sexuality of Shearer's character. From the dialogue, it's clear she's had premarital sex with men before meeting Marshall's character, and has sex with him too. She's content to leave it at a fling, but he wants marriage, a role reversal from what we'd traditionally see. At the same time, she's not portrayed as a tramp, on the contrary, she's sweet, funny, honest, and full of life. When they marry, though, the expectation is that she'll "settle down," which she jokingly agrees to ("From now on, a ring in the nose and a beating every Saturday night, please"). Fast forward five years, and tension comes in the form of Montgomery's character, a friend from her single days who meets her while her husband is travelling, and over drinks makes a pass at her. She rebukes him, but the story makes the newspapers, and between that, Montgomery's persistence, and Marshall judging her, she's torn between the two men from then on.

As I mentioned, it spirals a bit, but watching Shearer deal with the emotions of the character made the film for me. In one fine scene, Marshall throws her past up into her face while suspecting her of adultery, thinking of how she "didn't stop with a kiss" back in the day, calling to mind the double standard of the period. That's a little irritating, but this was the reality in 1934, and Shearer is given the power of choice, without being condemned. Eyebrows are raised by the other characters, but if she goes off with Montgomery's character they and the audience will know it's due to the thrill having faded from her marriage, and that she will survive. As she puts it, "No man is gonna let me or not let me do anything ever again."

The film drew the ire of the Father Daniel Lord, one of the authors of the Production Code, who condemned Shearer for taking the role of a "loose and immoral woman" and her husband Irving Thalberg for casting her in films like these, which in turn enraged Thalberg. Lord (and Joseph Breen's) position were more about keeping women in their place, since the behavior of Marshall's character is the same but there were no comments about a "loose and immoral man." They would soon put the shackles of the Production Code on Hollywood, which makes seeing this last Shearer film before that happened, at a time when she was quite good as an actor, special for me.