Faithless

A chance to see Tallulah Bankhead at the prime of her career is never to be passed up. Faithless provides her with a better vehicle than The Devil And The Deep which she did over at Paramount the same year.

MGM provided her with Robert Montgomery as a leading man and she and he just can't get together and their backgrounds make them unsuitable for poverty. Which in 1929 both enter. She loses her millions and of course she blames mismanagement. Many people who got out of the market before the Stock Market Crash kept their fortunes, many more who thought the market would stay bullish regretted that choice. Up to a point Tallulah is right in blaming her financial advisers, but up to then she also never cared just as long as she had it to spend.

Montgomery too is affected. His advertising firm goes under and he loses his job. With both starting equal you think that they can be married now. But neither wants to live modestly, her far more than him. Like former nobility in Europe she trades in on her society name and becomes a permanent house guest for hire for a while. It's there she meets up with Hugh Herbert.

Now he's the biggest revelation in the film. Herbert was capable of so many things more than what you see in those Warner Brothers musicals and that incessant 'woo woo'. Here he's a deadly serious rake who after his wife throws Tallulah out as a party guest because she's tired of her leeching, Herbert's quite willing to make her a mistress.

White collar Montgomery also sees a more earthy side of life. MGM brings up some working class issues that you would normally find Warner Brothers doing.

Both Tallulah and Montgomery acquit themselves well in a film that should be better known and seen more.

FAITHLESS is neither a great classic nor an artistic masterpiece nor even a very original story. In simple, straightforward fashion it tracks the downfall of a spoiled heiress (Tallulah Bankhead) ruined by the Depression who struggles between love for an ad executive (Robert Montgomery) and addiction to the high life which she can no longer afford. For a while she manages to sponge off old friends from her social circle but is rejected when it becomes clear to them that she is hopelessly broke. And down and down she goes. Her personal fate parallels that of the economy – from the hedonistic roaring 20's to the sober, desperate 30's. The movie even opens with a series of newspaper headlines tracking the progress of the economic downturn from late '29 until '32 when this plot goes into action.

The chief attraction is Bankhead, who made few films, most of them abysmal. This was one of the good ones. She is coiffed and made up to look like Garbo in GRAND HOTEL. The result is certainly striking from the neck up, though she looks a bit dumpy and ill-at-ease in some of Adrian's more extravagant gowns. No matter. With her distinctive voice, vivid personality, physical agility and polished theatrical diction, she never fails to delight or at least intrigue the viewer and this scenario gives her opportunities to explore a wide range of emotional states. There is nothing original about the fallen woman story, but Tallulah is a true original. She is in particularly fine form delivering witty banter, as in a scene in which she converses with Montgomery's brother (Maurice Murphy), who introduces himself as a metallurgist ("What kind of metal do you urge?") Lines like that roll off Bankhead's tongue with effortless aplomb. Montgomery is his usual spiffy self, delivering a competent, honest performance.

The strains of "St. Louis Blues" rise from the soundtrack as Bankhead contemplates prostitution as a way to get money. That melody was so often used as cinematic code for "prostitute" that someone should take a count.

Faithless is a film about a rich society girl (Tallulah Bankhead) and an average, middle class citizen (Bob Montgomery) who fall in love. The two are at each other's throats though, because each wants to live off the money he or she has. The two do not marry because of this quarrel, and although she loses her money, she lives by borrowing from her wealthy friends and he loses his job and scrounges for jobs during the Depression. Finally, the two meet again, poor and hungry, and decide to marry since they have nothing else to lose. But the Depression gets them down, and an accident forces her to make some tough decisions.

Bankhead is beautiful at first and becomes appropriately harsh as her character loses her money. She is not exotic the way Marlene Dietrich was, but her accent is detectable.

Montgomery is excellent in this movie. His character is consistent and good and perhaps because of this and his five o-clock shadow, he is absolutely gorgeous.

Overall, this is an entertaining pre-code film with a great cast and a few surprises up it's sleeve.

For most of the 1930s MGM scarcely noticed there was a Depression going on, suffocating its films in production values and stars. But this fairly ludicrous soap opera starts Tallulah Bankhead out in Art Deco trappings and flouncy evening gowns and sends her down, down, down the social ladder, from high-priced mistress to woman of the streets. It's all for the love of Robert Montgomery, on a less precipitous but still steep downward path (he starts out as a $20,000-a-year ad man, a fortune in 1932, and becomes an unfortunate scab truck driver). Tallulah gets to laugh her throaty laugh and break mirrors and throw tantrums, but you see why she didn't become a movie star: It's not an expressive movie face, and the voice, fascinating as it is, hasn't much variety. Plus, this sort of part was so familiar -- think Ruth Chatterton, Kay Francis, Constance Bennett -- that one suspects audiences tired of it. Despite the ridiculous plot conveniences and unconvincing happy ending, it's a frank film coming from this studio, and the dialog has moments of sharpness. Hugh Herbert is good in an Edward Arnold kind of role, and Tallulah's something to see and hear, even if another throaty laugh or "dahling" is always just around the corner.

Whatever words one may choose to describe the acting attributes of Tallulah Bankhead, versatile is not likely to be one of them. This is clearly illustrated in "Faithless," where her specialized abilities unsuccessfully attempt to make convincing a complete character transformation: spoiled rich girl without an appreciation of either the value of money or strength of character, to a steadfast, realistic woman who knows what matters in life, even if she has been soiled in the process of learning. Tallulah does well enough with the "before" - as one might expect - but less well with the "after." Despite having fallen a long way into poverty and prostitution, the character retains her drawing-room manner of expressing emotion, her hair and makeup remain meticulous at all times, and her suffering is barely noticeable. This was not an ideal part for Tallulah, and she does not generate much sympathy (try Constance Bennett or Barbara Stanwyck).

Robert Montgomery is similarly miscast: playing a character chronically unemployed during the Depression, the actor maintains his gentlemanly bearing and patrician manner even as a truck driver. There are settings in which his acting style doesn't work (see also his role as a convict in "The Big House"), and this is one of them.

Hugh Herbert's complete departure from his usual screen character of the dithering boob succeeds where the stars fail - here as a no-nonsense businessman investing, without illusions, in Tallulah as his mistress.

The characters are manipulated by the sudsy plot, meeting when convenient, estranged if the story calls for it, unemployed when dramatically necessary, but reunited, forgiven and suddenly provided with gainful employment when it is time for "The End." And not a moment too soon.