Man to Man

Michael Bolton (Phillips Holmes) is a star college athlete with adoring fans and fellow students' respect. Some of the students discover his criminal father John Martin Bolton (Grant Mitchell). He loses the class president election and his girl. He feels burdened by his father's crime. He gets hired by bank president Jim McCord who insists that his father was righteous in vengance. The governor pardons John Bolton and he returns to town.

This is a family drama or more specifically, a father son drama. It's an interesting start with the son struggling to deal with his father's scandal. I can see the back and forth in his feelings. It does need more father and son interactions. Jim McCord has a more compelling exposition of the past crime. I don't always like Holmes' acting skills. The premise is a little clunky. The sound quality is pretty good and print quality is excellent.

Kidboots has given a fine précis of this movie's story. While I was pleased to see it tonight at New York's Museum of Modern Art and note some technical innovations and story-telling techniques, it also should be noted that the actors seem uncomfortable with the requirements of talking pictures. Everyone seems nervous and jittery, probably because they were afraid that director Allan Dwan was going to run them over with a moving camera/boom crane combination. The effects yielded are terrific and subtle.

At this point microphones had a very limited range, so a series of mikes had to be planted. Dwan simply mounted one on the camera for the moving shots and the result was an increased sense of space.... as people walk along the street, not only do people and sights come in and move out of camera range, they move out of microphone range and the effect is startling and incredibly natural. It has not, alas, been repeated frequently. If you ever have a chance to see this rare film, listen for the effect.

Michael Bolton (not THAT Michael Bolton) is a young man with a secret....his father (Grant Mitchell) is in prison for murder. While it makes no sense at all, once Michael's fellow college buddies find out, he quits school and goes to work.

Soon after this, the father is released from prison and returns to his home town...and is able to see his son for the first time in 18 years. But the son is embarrassed by his father and wants little to do with him...which is odd, as everyone in town who knew the father seem happy to see him. Apparently, they really sympathized with the man and felt his killing the other fellow must have been justified....but such is NOT the case with his son. What's next? Well, some money disappears and the son assumes his father is responsible.

While the story is quite interesting and unusual, this B-movie is impaired at the outset because Phillips Holmes is rather poor in his role as the son. He comes off as rather whiny and weak. I've seen him do better work in later films...but here he seems only fair at best. It also isn't helped by making the 'mystery' near the end not so difficult to figure out.... I found myself guessing the truth almost immediately.

In 1930 many films were very static and stilted, but not "Man to Man". Allan Dwan was a great and inventive director. There are many scenes with camera movements of people walking down the streets. It's a beautifully photographed film. There are interesting psychological images : The bank teller of Mike is a giant cage, a prison, to convey that Mike is emotionally imprisoned. Mike or other people ascend the stairs when a revelation or something difficult is about to happen. It's an intense drama of powerful human interest. The action takes place in Hardinsville, a small southern town, where Barber John (Grant Mitchell), after 18 years in prison, returns to start life again. His son Mike (Phillips Holmes) is suffering and ashamed of his father's past. The manner in which both learn to love each other provides a story of compelling interest. This was Grant Mitchell's first appearance in a talking picture. He gives a performance of moving sincerity. The younger leads played by Phillips Holmes and Lucille Powers are also extremely well done. Phillips Holmes (good-looking as always) was at his best in a dramatic role, not in comedy. He was a quiet actor whose characters often came forth deeper than the role asked for. With a good director and a dramatic role he was a great actor. He could be very bland (in "Confessions of a Co-Ed"or "Caravan") and he could be brilliant (in "The Devil's Holiday", "American Tragedy" or "Broken Lullaby"). In this film he is perfect, totally convincing and intense in his repressed feelings, emotionally imprisoned and hiding his feeling away. He does not act but he IS his character. Only in the initial scenes in the fraternity house the actors are a bit awkward. Some of the opening scenes of the sport competition look like stock footage while in other takes it is really Phillips Holmes jumping over the hurdles.

Michael Bolton (Philips Holmes) is a popular college student and athlete, about to be elected student president. Then it comes out that his father is a convicted murderer. As a result he loses the election in a landslide and his girlfriend dumps him for someone else. He drops out of college and goes back to his hometown and gets a job in a bank. Apparently, most of the older residents of the town approve of what Mike's father did - it was some kind of "honor killing". But he feels like everybody is always watching him, waiting for him to become a criminal himself. The other teller at the bank (Dwight Frye) tries to rub Mike's nose in his father's past deeds because they are sweet on the same girl.

And then Mike's father, John Bolton (Grant Mitchell) gets out of prison and wants to resume his relationship with his son, whom he hasn't seen in 18 years. But Michael is ashamed of his father and treats him cooly. So both men are trying to feel out what the other is about at a distance. And in the midst of all of this two thousand dollars comes up missing from Mike's accounts at the bank. Complications ensue.

This was a pretty well done early talkie. It looked like it was going to be some kind of banal maudlin melodrama when it segued into a rather compelling mystery as to what happened to that money. The idea of so many people holding it against Mike that his dad committed a serious crime when Mike was still a toddler may seem odd by today's standards, but then until the middle of the 20th century many people had a strong belief in eugenics - that what your parents did or were is destiny versus just history or at most a possibility. Supposedly the Boltons' hometown is in Kentucky, which was never part of the Confederacy, yet everybody sports a distinct southern drawl for the first half of the film, anyways. Once the mystery part of the film arises, the accents mysteriously disappear.

The honor killing story explanation for the murder conviction doesn't make me feel like dad is a great guy, because according to his close friends he shot down in cold blood somebody who killed his brother in a fight. This hardly sounds sporting. The performances and the dialogue are natural, which is an accomplishment for a 1930 film, and is probably due to the skill of veteran director Alan Dwan. Also, here is an opportunity to see Dwight Frye act like a normal though unlikeable person in contrast to his roles over at Universal. I'd recommend this one to the fan of early sound films.