Anybody's Woman

"Anybody's Woman" is the sort of woman that should have been better. It took an interesting idea and didn't do enough with it.

The story begins with Neil (Clive Brook) moping after his wife has divorced him for a guy who is even richer than he is. Feeling very sorry for himself, he goes on a bender and marries a woman with a very colorful past! Pansy (Ruth Chatterton) is a stripper who Neil defended in court several years before and he insists that she is an honest woman...unlike his ex-wife! But when he sobers up, Neil is shocked to see what he's done. He wants to do the honorable thing and either pay her off or keep her...but there is no love or tenderness. As for Pansy, she's a tough woman but also one with a lot of good in her down deep. What's to come of them?

The notion of a man marrying beneath him and later discovering that she is actually a great gal could have worked. But too many dull moments and an odd drunk scene that confused everything just prevented the film from gaining much momentum. Not terrible...but also not all that good either.

Neil Dunlap (Clive Brook) marries burlesque performer Pansy (Ruth Chatterton) after a drunken night which he does not recall. His sister tries to convince him to dissolve the marriage as Pansy is not in the same social class as her lawyer brother. We are also introduced to Gustave (Paul Lukas) who is a friend of Neil's and who falls in love with Pansy. The film follows the story of her fight for acceptance from Neil while Gustave simultaneously plays his cards up front and asks for her love in return for his. She must choose between the two men.....

The film is OK. Ruth Chatterton plays her role well and it is good to see that she can give as good as she gets - she is also self-sacrificing and funny. Clive Brook is annoying in his drunk scenes but good when sober and Paul Lukas gives a determined performance as Gustave, who is a wealthy client of Neil's. There are some good scenes, eg, when Neil confronts Gustave about making love to Pansy and both men are brutally honest with each other......However, I felt that more could have happened during the course of the film. Still, it's OK.

Although the only copy seems to be a horribly degraded print on YouTube, it's still worth watching. It's an intelligent and mature, well acted study of the sexism and snobbery which pervaded society in the late twenties. Ruth Chatterton gives an outstanding and inspiring performance which is unusually natural for such an early film.

Clive Brook plays a member of the social elite, he finds himself unexpectedly married to Chatterton's character who might now be called a cheap tart. He thinks he's helping her out of the gutter, she's not too sure. Her suspicions are correct - the social inequality of this impossible mismatch is subtly and skilfully conveyed in Dorothy Arzner's fifth talkie.

Like most of her pictures, this shines a vivid arc light on the unfair attitudes towards women but also on the snobbery of the time. Dozens of films from this period tackled the subject of social injustice but most resorted to sensationalist melodrama, usually with a 'tart with a heart of gold' type being used and abused by an evil moustache twirling villain. Here the rich man in his castle is just as damaged and vulnerable as the poor girl at his gate. Clive Brook's character may seem absurdly pompous by today's standards but he reflected what the upper echelons of society were really like. Since people like that don't exist anymore it's difficult to relate to him but even so, we do develop some emotional empathy for him.

On several occasions, some of Brook's friends try to grope and kiss his new wife but Brook is completely unable to understand that a "woman like that" could possibly be insulted by such behaviour, They were gentlemen after all. Although she's his wife, she's still just a cheap 'showgirl', that's how you treat such people. "What on earth is wrong with the woman?" His typical for the time attitude that "women like that" cannot have the same sensitivity or respect that "decent women" have is cleverly challenged in this. Although directed by proto-feminist Dorothy Arzner and written by one of her favourite female writers, the great Zoe Akins (who was responsible for many fabulous pictures in the thirties - not just HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE) and even edited by a woman, the film does not present the gentleman as monsters - they're just the way people were and in this film they're actually treated quite sympathetically. Very refreshing.

But it's not all feminist and working class indignation. It's actually an enjoyable story about love blossoming in the most unlikely of circumstances. It's quite unique in that aspect so well worth worth watching - despite to poor YouTube quality.

"Anybody's woman" as a term means a woman that could be had for whatever it is she was looking for: a kiss, money, jewels, a good time. Should a man give her what she desired and she was his, this would make her anybody's woman. That wasn't Pansy Gray (Ruth Chatterton).

I realize that I love movies with strong female characters. I'm not talking physically strong and can beat up everyone because I generally dislike those movies. I'm talking mentally and emotionally strong, and having strong character. Ruth Chatterton has played a strong woman several times: "Charming Sinners," "Sarah and Son," and "Frisco Jenny" all come to mind, but I think her character Pansy Gray in "Anybody's Woman" was the strongest.

One night a very drunk Neil Dunlap (Clive Brook) pestered Pansy into marrying him. I know what you're thinking, "What kind of "strong woman" would be pestered into marrying a guy she doesn't even know?" I was thinking the same thing at first, but Pansy had her reasons.

When Neil woke up the next morning he had no idea that he'd gotten married the night before. He asked the most obvious question of Pansy which was did she want money.

Pansy didn't want money and she didn't want a divorce. She wanted the opportunity to make a good name for herself. She was a working girl who'd been arrested for indecent exposure on stage, and marrying a well-to-do man like Neil would afford her the opportunity to fix her image. She consented to any arrangement Neil wanted so long as he allowed her to remain married and repair her reputation.

Pansy proved to be a stand up woman and wife. When Neil's rich, entitled, grubby clients got handsy with her she didn't hold back. Her behavior was out of bounds for a society crowd, but it was exactly what most men would want: a woman who can thwart unwelcomed advances.

She would have to get most assertive with Gustave Saxon (Paul Lukas), Neil's best and wealthiest client. He made wild and unsubstantiated assumptions about her sexuality and pressed up on her a little too much. I don't know a husband that would not have respected her actions, but her husband,Nei,l was from a different social sphere. He gave benefits of any doubts to his client and not his unsophisticated wife.

Pansy was the best mistake Neil ever made. He was a sloppy drunk because his wife left him for a richer man, and Pansy dried him out. She forced him to sober up and get his business affairs in order. And what was just as good was that she never assumed that proper, pompous, pretentious manner of speaking or behaving. She was a girl from the street, but that didn't mean she was easy or that she'd go for any dude with dough. In fact, she had more self-respect, decency, and faithfulness than MOST of the cultured women depicted on screen in the 30's. She was more than Neil could've asked for. She could've parlayed her new status into a relationship with more affluent men such as Neil's client Gustave Saxon (Paul Lukas), but that wasn't the type of woman she was.

You had to love Pansy. She was down to earth and a good person without being angelic. She was a woman the ordinary Joe can relate to without being foul or loose and if Neil couldn't realize what he had he was the loser, not her. Pansy was great and she wasn't just anybody's woman.

Doubtless one of the reasons it was felt that there was a pressing need for a production code in 1930 was that Hollywood was still habitually depicting respectable Americans nonchalantly consuming alcohol a full ten years after it had been criminalised; the perils of drink in this particular case being hammered home by the fate of Lawyer Neil Dunlap who wakes up one morning with a massive hangover and a hefty new wife.

As Dunlap's new spouse Ruth Chatterton seems to have been accidentally sent a script meant for Mae West, since first seen she's strumming a ukelele and next thing she's doing an Apache dance. As the film progresses Miss Chatterton's dress sense improves considerably (would that the same could said for her common sense since every time she raises a glass to her lips she returns straight to zero).

For those seeking subversive content the fact that the seductive Other Woman is actually Dunlap's first wife should keep them busy.