Smarty

At one point in this movie, Joan Blondell's character confides to a friend thoughts about her husband striking her, "That's just it. If he really loved me, he'd a hit me long ago." Very much a product of its time, this pre-Hays code tale reflects a morality that seems cruel and sexist now. But the main character revels in her time; cracking double entendres and frank admissions of how she likes to be physically abused yet control the men who love her.

Joan Blondell, infamous for her proclivity for shedding her clothes at parties, seems right at home in this role. Her risqué comments and coy delivery fit neatly within the framework of her character.

You could not make this movie today. Even the thought of a woman inviting physical abuse upon herself is taboo. But not in "Smarty". This brisk, if somewhat slight, film bathes in its taboo-breaking with a kind of so what bravado. The characters are friendly, even affectionate, with each other despite the blows, both physical and emotional. The breezy repartee ignores the reality of the situations, instead playing light thanks to a humorous script and crisp performances.

Yes, "Smarty" is a look back at a time before PC was de riguer and people like Will H. Hays, for better or worse, ruled cinema. If you can get past the glossing over of physical violence, you may just be lured into the lead character's web. Joan Blondell brings it. Watching her performance in this movie, I don't know why she wasn't a bigger star.

Perhaps too many folks are getting their things in an uproar about this zippy, fast-paced little comedy about the battle of the sexes. Yes, there are slaps in the film, but Blondell's character seems intent on getting them-- which to modern eyes seems bizarre indeed, and offensive in too many ways. But there is no indication that wife-beating is really the focus of this film, but instead the games people play when they discover relationship kinks that are not mainstream.

In many ways, this is a deeply cynical film (witness the running commentary from the two constant house guests) about public and private lives, the last gasp of pre-code comedy before the censors came down hard on creative expression of and shuttered them into the kitchen with their aprons for the next thirty years or so, when Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton exposed a more modern version of the S/M games that can develop when love is stunted by circumstance. This is not a great film by any measure, but viewed in an unusual context can be great fun.

Interesting if bizarre dark comedy. This has been well reviewed by others. Two comments. The first is Warren Williams vacillating character, one minute dismissive of his ex-wife, then next expressing his undying love. This is not his most forceful or consistent role. The next is Joan Blondell and her motivation. She divorces her husband one minute and marries another shortly thereafter. Was she trying to make her husband more romantic, or was she living out her masochistic fantasies?

The dimpled Claire Dodd does a good job as the divorced friend of the couple. It was also nice to note Edward Everett Horton toning down his usual effete, fuss-budget persona.

This pretty amusing Pre-Code Hollywood divorce farce features an excellent cast and several very funny lines. It treats divorce as simply a part of the mating game, and treats the mating game as just that; it's one cynical movie. The script is certainly nowhere as witty as the first few Thin Man movies, and is actually disturbing if you put it at all within the real context of violence against women - the way the script treats hitting your wife as an element of comedy is downright shocking.

... that being that a husband slapping his wife is actually a turn on for her. Tony Wallace (Warren William) slaps his wife Vicki (Joan Blondell) during a small gathering at their apartment for saying the phrase "diced carrots", which is some kind of marital in joke. Kind of like "Niagara falls" in the old Three Stooges routine. The phrase makes Tony go crazy. Attorney Vernon Thorpe (Edward Everett Horton), who has always loved Vicki, is present at the time and tells her that he can get her a divorce on the grounds of extreme cruelty.

He does, and fast forward and Vicki has married Vernon. But the grass is not greener. Vicki finds herself bored with Vernon's kind and giving ways and decides she wants her first husband back. Complications ensue.

It really pains me to give a movie with the best WB had to offer in comedy in front of the camera in 1934 only a mediocre grade. But the characters are cardboard and the very thin humor wore on me after a very short while. And Blondell is playing one of the most annoying nagging characters in the history of film, although she is playing it tongue in cheek. How I felt about this film was very similar to how I felt about the very first production code comedies because they often substituted shouting and motion for that great precode bite and energy.