The Office Wife

The Office Wife is one of those early talkies that seems to be missing something. This one runs only 59 minutes and was directed by Lloyd Bacon with Michael Curtiz hired to re-shoot some scenes. My guess is that Natalie Moorhead's affair with Brooks Benedict was mostly axed.

Anyway, ambitious secretary Dorothy Mackaill is brought in as a replacement secretary to the boss (Lewis Stone) of a publishing house after his old secretary (Dale Fuller) keels over when he says he's getting married (to Moorhead). The running gag is that a mannish cigar-smoking writer (Blanche Friderici) is writing a book abut how secretaries are really office wives and spend more times with the husband than the real wife does.

Mackaill has a dud of a boyfriend (Walter Merrill) and a peppy sister (Joan Blondell in her first film) and of course falls for old Stone but he seems oblivious. Of course he really is oblivious since Moorhead is openly carrying on with Benedict in her few scenes.

Mackaill is always easy to watch and Moorhead finally gets a scene when she tells Stone she's filing for divorce. He doesn't care. Blondell's next film, Sinner's Holiday, was released before this one was.

This one has the usual pre-Code interest in women's lingerie and legs with Mackaill and Blondell in various poses.

It's such a wonderful premise, but so incredibly dated, any feminist of today would probably vomit before the running time of The Office Wife was finished. The idea of the film is that any secretary to a powerful businessman can completely control him and become more essential to him than his wife at home. Since it's every woman's goal to bring a rich man to his knees and get him to marry her so she no longer has to work, it's no wonder every secretary in the movie is intent on seducing her boss.

Lewis Stone is the featured dapper businessman who announces to his dowdy secretary at the start of the film that he's getting married. She faints on the spot and resigns, since she's been in love with him for years. A pretty new secretary is hired, Dorothy Mackaill, and she makes it her mission to become Lew's office wife and steal him away from his beautiful, new bride. Dorothy is so calculating and insincere, but it's so much fun to watch her. She moves furniture around the office in the morning so her knees will be in the best light during dictation, memorizes his habits and orders his special lunches, and has her boyfriend pick her up from the office so Lew knows she's in demand.

"I wonder why I didn't think of this before," Lew muses as they sit down to eat together. Dorothy smiles sweetly, and the audience chuckles alongside her, knowing her elaborate plan is about to pay off. The next scene shows them "working" at the poolside. As much of a set-up as the romance is, it's actually really cute to see them falling in love. Lew didn't often get to play romantic leads, and it's really fun to see him smiling, blushing, holding hands, and acting his age-51 at the time.

This is a pre-Code romantic comedy, full of risqué jokes and dialogue that couldn't have been included four years later. You'll find two partially nude scenes, one with Lew's wife, Natalie Moorhead, and one with Joan Blondell in the bathtub; and a lesbian character who wears tuxedos and smokes cigars. In one scene, Natalie asks her husband if he has any strength left-while they're in the bedroom and she's unzipping her dress. I loved this movie, so if you think you can put on your 1930 goggles and enjoy it, give it a chance.

A somewhat interesting early talkie, more for the minor cast members than the major ones. Dale Fuller (Maria Macapa in "Greed") has a stand-out bit at the beginning as a lovestruck secretary and Blance Frederici plays an extremely mannish writer (a Gertrude Stein parody?). The best bit, stealing the limelight away from the female lead, is the movie debut of Joan Blondell as the lead's sister, spending the entire movie either getting into or out of lingerie. The lead, Dorothy Mackaill, seems wooden next to her. The direction has some odd gaffes usually associated with earlier talkies (fluffed lines, cameras failing to follow action properly) that speaks of a rushed production.

I think I have seen more subtle documentaries. This film has one message, repeated in every scene. A busy executive spends more time with, and will form a closer bond with, his personal secretary (office wife) than with his wife. What is unclear is whether this is meant as a warning or a justification. Despite the suggestive advertising to the contratry, the film goes to great lengths to emphasize that the bond is created by working closely together, and not by any seductive maneuvers from either side.

The executive in question is a publisher played by Lewis Stone. HIs character is upright, well-behaved and a complete workaholic. Despite working long hours every day including his holidays, two secretaries and a socialite all fall desperately in love with him. Stone is one-note as the obsessed exec., oblivious to the feelings of any of the women around him. How and when he wooed the fun-loving socialite he marries near the beginning of the film is a mystery. Lewis Stone would have been about 50 when the film was made, but he looks older, more father figure than Romeo.

The film opens with a prologue of a sort, to make sure the message of the film is understood from the start. Publisher Stone hires a writer to write a series of articles on the same subject as the movie: A busy executive spends more time with, and will form a closer bond with, his personal secretary (office wife) than with his wife. This scene is entirely unnecessary to the plot of this very short film, but it may be the most entertaining part. The female writer is dressed as a man and smokes a cigar. There may be a cultural reference or gag that I am missing, but my first thought was that the filmmakers felt the need to explain why the writer was not also desperately in love with Stone. Blanche Friderici is fun to watch but sadly plays no active part in the rest of the film. Her only other appearance has her alone, typing up her article in order to remind us once again what the film is about.

The 'office wife' of the title is played by Dorothy Mackaill. I enjoyed her performance. Her wide-eyed silent film roots show, which is not a problem for me, but some other viewers might be put off. The film also features one of the first film appearances of Joan Blondell, as Mackaill's sister. While Mackaill does show off her legs at every opportunity, her character needs to be seen as fairly pure. It is Blondell's function to provide the sex, by performing every scene she is in in various states of undress.

The Office Wife was based on a story by Faith Baldwin, originally published in Cosmopolitan. It is interesting to note that she is also credited with publishing in the same magazine the story that Seine Sekretärin (1936) was based on. In many ways it is a re-telling of the same story, although in 1936 the Hays Office had a lot more control over how the characters could behave, and how the story ended. Still, Wife vs. Secretary managed to do a lot more with the same premise.

It feels like every other film made in the early 30s are about a sweet innocent young woman falling in love with the wrong man. This is one of those - it's utterly predictable but nevertheless this is one of the better ones. It stands out from the crowd by virtue of it having a good believable and likeable cast and competent, professional direction from Lloyd Bacon. Unlike a lot of films from 1930, this one is made well and feels and sounds like a proper motion picture, not a weirdly acted stage play. It's not however something which will make you go 'wow' or even something you'll be able to remember a few weeks' time but it's entertaining enough. It does however have a proper time-machine effect on you and once you've started watching it, although you'll know how it's going to end, you'll still be hooked.

Pretty Yorkshire lass, Dorothy Mackaill (yes her from the "over-arty" SAFE IN HELL) is the star and she's so lovely that you will be desperate to find out whether everything works out for her. She engages with you straight away by making her character not just a character in a film but a real living, breathing person. This is a wonderful example of how you can get drawn into the world how it was ninety ago - even though the story itself is a bit bland! Her character, Ann is exactly as you'd expect an ordinary girl to be. She's not a gold digger, she's not loud and sassy she's not a timid wallflower - she's just normal with all the vulnerabilities and insecurities any young woman would have. As the story unfolds we see her fall for her boss - for a change, he's neither a cad, a rotter nor a gangster in fact he's extremely nice.......he is however married and also old enough to be her great- grandfather. It's strange that at the time nobody was too concerned about the massive age gap. Wealthy elderly men with young wives was nothing to be judgemental about then like we would now. The girl got security and the man got a sexy young companion - the definition of love was different then!

The other reason to watch this is because it's Joan Blondell's first film. Portentously the world's introduction to the sexiest woman this world has ever seen is in a bath tub and then in all of her subsequent scenes she's there just in her underwear. She's not however there just for decoration, indeed she looks a bit unkempt, hair is over the place and she's wearing no makeup. She literally looks like she's just got out of bed. It would have been so easy for Lloyd Bacon to have her play the sexy young sister but he does the opposite. He might not have been one of the superstar directors of Hollywood but he knew what he was doing here. Like Dorothy Mackaill, he also makes Joan Blondell comes across as a real person which is of course also down to Joan's really good acting - considering this is her first talking part, she's quite impressive.