Verhängnis eines Tages

Clive Brooks and Kay Francis have a marriage that's falling apart. She is having an affair. He drinks heavily and is also having an affair with nightclub singer Miriam Hopkins. Hopkins in turn has a failing marriage to small time hood Regis Toomey. Toomey murders Hopkins while Brooks is asleep in the next room. Brooks is blamed. This pre-code crime melodrama fits a labyrinthine plot into just over an hour and still has time for Hopkins to sing two songs. They seriously do not make them like this anymore. This one's a load of fun with a batch of colorful characters all doing nasty stuff to each other. Lucille La Verne stands out as a rugged old battleaxe who does in Toomey. The film's title comes from the fact that the entire plot unfolds in only 24 hours.

Superb precoder that floored me. Very adult and unrelenting story about an adulterous couple (Clive Brook, Kay Francis), a nightclub singer (Miriam Hopkins) and her murderous husband (Regis Toomey).

Set during a 24-hour period and starting during a snowy night in New York City, this film is a wonder. We see the snowy skyline as we enter a posh living room where Brook and stunning Francis are basically calling it quits. He's drunk but proper and she's feeling guilty. He walks out into the night and witnesses a sidewalk murder. He stops off for more drinks before going to see Hopkins--an amazing performance as Rosie the singer (and 2 terrific songs)--and having more drinks. After stalling her bum husband (Toomey) she takes Brook home and puts him to bed. But Toomey breaks in and accidentally kills her in a fit of jealousy.

Next morning Brook wakes up to a dead Hopkins and is arrested for murder. Francis reads about it in the morning papers (fast journalism!) and rushes to him just as the police are finishing grilling him. The film ends as the clock ticks off the 24th hour.....

Brook is subtle and effective (as always); Francis is effective and never looked better in her furs and jewels; Hopkins gives one of her very best performances as hapless Rosie, and Toomey is actually good as well. Co-stars include George Barbier, Adrienne Ames, Charlotte Granville, Wade Boteler, and a great turn by Lucille LaVerne.

What a gem this one is. No Hollywood apologies, no big changes for the better. They are who they are. The camera shots are excellent and the pacing is brisk. This one is a "must see."

The other reviewers were on the mark on this one. It is an excellent Pre-Code drama. It catches you from the opening credits, superimposed over theatrical-looking models of the New York City skyline. You see the time on a big clock tower, and the 24 hours of the title starts there. All the action fits into that time frame, and the film ends with a shot of the same tower, with the same time as at the beginning. They sure fit a lot of excitement into that one-day period.

Brook and Francis are the stars of the film, but Hopkins really steals the show as the nightclub singer. You often read of Hopkins' difficult side- that she wasn't easy to work with, etc. And she and Bette Davis seem to have had a real hate-fest going (but, of course, Davis was reputed to be difficult, too). Whatever the truth of all that, I have always liked Hopkins a lot. She gave some wonderful performances, especially in that Pre-Code era. Her Ivy in "Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is probably her best, but she was good in everything. "The Story of Temple Drake," this film, and many others. And she was great in comedy films, too. See "The Smiling Lieutenant" and "Trouble in Paradise," for example. The fact that such a master as Ernst Lubitsch put her in a number of his films says something.

Kay Francis was always good in these weepie kinds of roles. She really patented the part of the woman who is unhappy in her marriage, and looks for love elsewhere. This part is along the lines of the many films she made for Paramount and Warners, and she's very effective and believable here. I have mixed feelings about Clive Brook as an actor (as a man, he was reportedly a great guy). In many of his parts, he is the stiffest of stiff-upper lip gentlemen. As in "Shanghai Express." You kind of want to shake him, to get some kind of reaction out of him. But he was very popular at that time, and people seemed to like him. He could be very good, when he broke that frozen mask, and showed some emotion. He has a touching scene here, when he finds Hopkins the morning after his drunken adventures.

Lucille La Verne, one of the all-time great character actresses, is wonderful here, as always. She had such a distinctive face and voice. You can see why Disney used her as the model and voice of the witch in "Snow White." She was good in everything, from the woman who hides, and cheats, the down-and-out Rico in "Little Caesar," to her iconic part as the pal of Madame De Farge in "A Tale of Two Cities." You know, one of the ladies who sits knitting at the base of the guillotine, cackling and jeering as the aristocrats have their heads cut off. That part is probably the one everyone remembers her for. Her bio on IMDb.com is very interesting- a longtime legitimate stage actress, etc.

Director Gering's bio is interesting, too. A member of a Soviet delegation to the States, who stayed, and made a career for himself. He made some interesting films, too. "The Devil and the Deep," "Thirty Day Princess," and some other excellent films.

These early-Talkie films are so interesting, for a myriad of reasons. Aside from having great actors, production values, good directors, etc., they are also interesting for their historical and sociological insights into those times. It really is like peering through a kind of time- machine window, as if you're looking in on people from another era, or almost from another dimension. It really is fascinating. I also think these early sound movies, with their short running times, are like filmed short stories. Most of them run a little over an hour, and they manage to fit so much into that brief time. New movie makers could learn a lot on how to cut to the chase in such a short time, and still make a good film.

Anyway, check it out. This is a fascinating Pre-Code film, almost a blueprint for the late 40s Film Noirs. And it has some great performances.

Where else but the precodes could a husband and wife reconcile over a murder rap?

The film starts out showing a big city as the camera pans over the skyscrapers during a snowy night as the clock strikes 11PM. Unhappily married Jim Towner (Clive Brook) and Fanny Towner (Kay Francis) are leaving a small quiet party held by one of their society swells. They talk of why they are so unhappy and...explain nothing. It seems like gibberish. But whatever the reason, Fanny is carrying on with a fellow rich person who looks rather sickly and sits under a blanket. He is hardly sexy. Fanny decides to break it off and try to work it out with Jim. I don't think she is sacrificing that much.

Meanwhile Jim leaves the apartment house, talks a bit to the doorman, heads over on foot to a speakeasy to have a drink, and then over to "Rosie's" named after his girlfriend, Rosie Duggan (Miriam Hopkins). He has some more drinks. Rosie takes him back to her place and puts him to bed on the couch. The next morning Jim awakens and finds Rosie lying across her bed. obviously murdered. He realizes that everyone will think he murdered her - obviously. He tries to sneak out, but he is seen, recognized, and arrested for Rosie's murder.

Why is this a small world? Well, the doorman Jim was talking to was Rosie's brother. He saw Jim leave Rosie's building when he came over to tell her about his new baby. The speakeasy Jim stopped at? There had just been a gangland killing before Jim got there, and the killer was Rosie's estranged husband, brilliantly played by Regis Toomey who is at his whiny sniveling best. He is apparently some kind of small town hood, and the murder now has the big time hoods on his case.

The great little touches in this film? A hungry woman digs through some trash cans as Jim trudges in the snow during the blizzard towards the speakeasy. He almost does nothing, but even through the fog of alcohol that he is in he gives the woman some money, remembering "noblesse oblige" just a little. Miriam Hopkins is a revelation as Rosie, a torch singer who sexily belts out a song trying to make portly 50ish men feel desirable as she runs her fingers through her own wild hair. Finally there is Lucille La Verne as Toomey's character's landlady. Note to Toomey's character- maybe if you desperately need help from someone you shouldn't call that person an old hag. She has a small part - smaller than Toomey's, but she makes quite an impression.

This is 66 minutes of precode heaven. I highly recommend it.

What a remarkably good film! Considering the general dross that was around then, it is hard to believe that 1931 gave us something so intelligent and mature whilst still being fun to watch.

I have never yet seen an early 30s film from director Marion Gering that wasn't a cut above what most of his contemporaries were making. This early entry in his canon is no exception. Whilst his films do lack any particular identifying characteristic he constantly demonstrated sublime skill melding art with entertainment, turning imagery into storytelling and imagination into gritty realism.

This film, which all happens within a 24 hour period has everything: gangsters, adultery, snobbery, murder, alcoholism and greed all weaved moodily together as a set of intertwined love stories. Ostensibly the trials and tribulations of the four protagonists who are all from different strata of society seem very different but as this film reveals, they are all love stories. It might be love of another person, love of power, love of self of love of money but each of our four main characters discover for themselves what love is to them.

Credit must also go to cinematographer supremo Ernest Haller (who did everything in the 30s that Lee Garmes didn't! ...including GONE WITH THE WIND). With Gering he creates a wonderfully moody proto-Noir feel which changes subtly depending on which of the main protagonists' story is being told at the time to reflect the mood of that particular character - very clever.

Haller and Gering also use the camera to literally move the action forward by pushing it into the next empty set anticipating the action. This technique pioneered by Marion Gering, which was commonly used in Film Noir a decade later, gives this film a lovely fluidity which is fairly rare from the days of the early talkies

The star of this beautifully made action-romance-thriller-drama is really the sound and vision Gering and Haller give us. There are however actors! If there is one criticism it is that they are not the most charismatic bunch. They do however play their parts perfectly with complete credibility - even Kay Francis, who admittedly didn't have to do much, plays the usual Kay Francis character which is an ideal fit for this picture. Mr Gering knew the limitations of his cast so made sure none of them were out of their comfort zones.