Faithless

MGM wasn't a studio known for films probing into grittier subjects like the Depression, but this film is an exception. Its riches to rags tale is a little melodramatic, but so telling of the era. We see quite a bit of its struggles: being hungry, wanting to work but being turned away again and again, getting a job but having the company go under, standing in relief lines but having the food run out, and having to make a tradeoff between getting healthcare for a serious injury or saving the money. We also see the dilemma of crossing a picket line for a job.

The men on strike have a point, they have kids to feed and have no other recourse against bosses who've halved their pay such that they no longer have a living wage (and they use this term). So does the man looking for a job who is desperately broke and figures "any pay is better than zero pay." Maybe the owners have a viewpoint too (though it's not shown), that this is the only way the company can remain solvent, but it feels instead a depiction of how capitalism can crush the working class when it's not organized, and people are pitted against one another.

The cast to this one is quite good, and features Tallulah Bankhead before she took a lengthy absence from the screen to return to Broadway (her next film was Hitchcock's Lifeboat in 1944). The banter rolls off her tongue and she looks gorgeous in the gowns by Adrian. Robert Montgomery plays his part very well too, particularly when the couple finally do connect when poor. They figure there is nothing left to do but love one another and laugh at their pathos, and they're quite charming together. I've also never seen Hugh Herbert any better, and it's because he's not so goofy; he plays the part of a rich married man who takes advantage of Bankhead's dire financial straits for a quid pro quo relationship that clearly makes her queasy.

As a fallen socialite, Bankhead becomes the kept woman of this married man; as a poor woman, she eventually resorts to walking the streets. It's a sad commentary on the one thing of value she perceives she has left. Had the film been made when the Production Code was being enforced a couple of years later, she would have had to suffer a terrible fate, but the film is delightfully pre-Code. Montgomery's character may display a little old-fashioned male ego early on, insisting that he be the breadwinner, but it's wonderful that he accepts her through everything that happens, and in a true display of love, simply says it's all forgotten and they'll start together from that moment on, not once but twice. It's a lovely sentiment of sticking together, and it extends to the goodwill of the landlady of the small room they've rented. For a melodrama this is a great window into the Depression, and it has a great message.

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.

Faithless is a 1932 weepie that casts Tallulah Bankhead as a carefree rich girl in love with hard-working advertising man, Robert Montgomery. It's her last Hollywood starring role for more than a decade.

Bankhead is great as she goes from playgirl to kept girl to street walker. Montgomery also goes bust and gets sick. There is a happy ending.

Hugh Herbert plays a nasty, noncomic part, Louise Closser Hale plays the landlady, Anna Appel is another landlady, Virginia Howell plays Herbert's jealous wife, Maurice Murphy (just dreadful) plays the younger brother,Henry Kolker is a banker, and Sterling Holloway is a photographer.

This is probably Bankhead's best 30s performance on film.... She is glamorous, slinky, funny, and pathetic all at once. Her drunk scene with Hugh Herbert is excellent as she laughs her throaty laugh even though she is lost and knows it. Montgomery us looser than usual. Herbert is surprisingly effective as the cad. And Hale is hilarious as the cheap landlady. This was the seventh of Bankhead's early talkies and her last til Lifeboat; she had also made 5 silent films.

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.

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.