Millie

Soap Opera following the exploits of Millie Blake (Helen Twelvetrees) and her "love parade" of heels. This film spans nearly twenty years as we watch our Millie go from jittery young girl scared to face her honeymoon bed (as her new hubby presses "Are you sleepy yet?"), to rich, bored, and lonesome wife and mother, to divorcée working the counter of a cigar stand fending off "offers" from men, to mother who will stop at nothing to help save her teenage daughter's virtue. Millie soon realizes that "all men are tramps" - and it's true, at least in her world - all the men in this film are just complete womanizing cads, and one man goes even further than that when he attempts to pursue a very innocent sixteen year old girl (who calls him "Uncle"), rubbing her ankles, ladling her with "cider", and getting her to put on one of his assortment of "Mandarin Coats".

This pre-code film has it all - from a montage of a day at Coney Island to cat fights to divorce to bootleg cocktail parties to two blondes in negligees sharing a double bed all the way to the schemes of a lecher. It is really fun to watch the scenes with Millie's two blonde gal pals, childhood friend Angie and her bed friend Helen, a feisty, tough, wisecracking sort of gal - these two women run through men, booze, and outlandish fur, satin, and chiffon gowns like water. There is a nice musical number in one nightclub scene, a rendition of "Millie, the Red Head". This film actually becomes quite serious in later scenes, bringing it to a satisfying climax. Very good.

It seems there was a curse on "Millie." Its four co-stars, Helen Twelvetrees, Lylian Tashman, Robert Ames and James Hall all died before they turned 50. As for the movie itself, its pre-code message is that all men are beasts who crave only one thing. The point is made through the saga of Millie Blake whom we first meet as a bashful bride on her wedding night (though even bucket loads of make-up can't hide the fact that Helen Twelvetrees is no teen-ager.) Nor is her paunchy husband an Adonis. Three years and a child later, she catches hubby canoodling with his mistress at a night club, files for divorce and valiantly (if stupidly) relinquishes the alimony she was entitled to. Plucky lass! From there on in, Millie fends off -- or gives in, depending on how you interpret the cutaways -- to a succession of over-age lotharios. But when one of them makes a play for her 16-year-old daughter, she has no choice. She has to shoot the dastard. By today's standards, Millie's sudsy exploits would be almost laughable. But by the standards of 1930/31, as movies were just learning to talk, it qualifies as an interesting (and sometimes downright entertaining) museum piece.

"Work?!? You won't have any time for opportunity!"

This forgotten RKO drama has been rediscovered since Roan Group released their beautiful,spotless DVD of it. While not much more than a "B" programmer, it's still fascinating, especially in its depiction of the sexes.

Mille's character, as played by Helen Twelvetrees, is a neurotic and pouty plain jane, so it's hard to imagine why these three men relentlessly go after her. Maybe because the men are neurotic losers themselves (no one in this film is a glamorous beauty by any means). We barely even get to know them, so the suffering she endures from their infidelity does not convince. Still, Twelvetrees gets points for trying.

But Millie's tribulations aren't the real star of this film.

While it's easy to project gay subtexts onto older films, here it's pretty indisputable that Millie's pals Helen and Angie are more than just friends. Watch Helen gussy herself up when she sees Angie across the room in the club. And their relations with men are based solely on financial gain--they clearly turn to each other for their other needs. Both Lilyan Tashman and Joan Blondell are quite funny in the roles, the former a world-wise goldigger and the latter a young, mercenary bubblehead. In their world, men are mere objects to be used with total detachment--the opposite of Millie, who allows herself to be exploited by men and then wallows in self-pity for the next 3 reels.

While not quite the best of pre-Code, MILLIE is still an important footnote for early 30s movie-making, and worth a look for those (like me) who can't get enough of pre-Catholic League Hollywood.

Prolific director John Francis Dillon's 1931 "Millie" is a curiosity piece, a pastiche of poor editing and some sprightly acting vignettes.

Millie, Helen Twelvetrees, starts off as a swept-off-her-feet kid eloping with handsome and ambitious Jack Maitland, James Hall. Her shaking virgin-wedding night-do we have to go to bed?- scene is very funny, one of the best of its kind on old film.

Ensconced in Westchester County outside NYC, Jack makes big bucks and Millie, now three years on and with a little girl, is neglected, bored and angry at her absent husband. A reunion with two girlfriends at a cabaret brings an encounter with an errant Jack and his foul-mouthed paramour who gets a sock in the jaw from Millie.

Divorced and working in New York City, Millie leads a socially active life with fast-track friends and wild parties. Reflecting the hesitancy of many directors and script writers at the time it's never really clear if Millie goes beyond gay partying to hop into the sack with rabidly panting, pursuing men, some already married.

Millie has one true male admirer, a reporter named Tommy, played by Robert Ames. A drunken twit tells Millie he's fooling around with another woman and she believes her, ending the best relationship she's had. Tommy's a sad case.

The story turns melodramatic when an older man-about-Manhattan, long obsessed with Millie, shows an unhealthy interest in her now gorgeous teenage daughter, Connie. The denouement is predictable but there's a nice trial scene to wrap things up.

"Millie" skirts on the border of dealing openly with adultery and promiscuousness. What is unusual is that the film has a clear sapphic subtext depicting Millie's two girlfriends as sexually involved - the first scene they're in shows them in bed in nightclothes. THAT was very unusual for the times. I wonder how many 1930s moviegoers picked up on that.

Most of the cast isn't well known other than to aficionados of pre-war films. Joan Blondell, whose career was in the ascendancy, is young Angie, a flighty friend of Millie and probable lover of her other girlfriend.

Better direction and editing would have improved a basically interesting story. It's a museum piece worth seeing if you care about how Hollywood portrayed extramarital flings, lechery, boozing and partying in the grand old Pre-Code Days.

5/10.

This creaky antique reworking of Madame X is of interest mainly for its pre-code ingredients, blatant lesbianism, unpunished sex outside marriage etc., than any real value as a film. A lot of the film techniques are reminiscent of silents showing the growing pains of films continued into the early thirties. Part of the problem with the film is that all the men talk about how the heroine gets under a man's skin and they can't get over her but Helen Twelvetrees exudes none of the magnetism that makes that believable. The supporting players add more to the picture than the leads with Lilyan Tashman having the most fun as a party girl with Joan Blondell and Frank McHugh both starting out but already stealing scenes with their patented personas firmly in place. Except for the three of them the acting is extremely florid, especially towards the end. An almost unrecognizable Anita Louise, still beautiful but so young, is cast as Millie's daughter.