Ladies' Man

"I'm with you, and yet it seems as though you are alone." "I'm always alone."

William Powell plays a guy who is having an affair with both a married woman (Olive Tell) and her daughter at the same time (Carole Lombard), and yet he's given the appearance of being gentlemanly rather than lecherous, even after he meets and falls for yet another woman (Kay Francis). With the former two women he seems to have a resigned sense of calm, but with Francis's character, he truly lights up, excitedly telling her "I'm the little man who can show you this big city," and that they can spend the night together on the town:

"Dance a little. Drop in a musical piece. Catch an act at the opera. And then a midnight flight above the city. We could turn the plane over and over. The town would go round like a wheel with you sitting on the hub. You'll never know New York until you see it as the moon sees it. Then a nightclub or two and out in time to catch the sunrise somewhere along the Hudson. Ah, the sun does some of its very nicest rising around here."

He's nonplussed when with this potential new love interest he runs into the mother in one restaurant, and then the daughter, who is intoxicated, at another. Lombard is hilarious playing a miserable drunk, and it's probably the highlight of the film. As she goes on and on, embarrassing him, he asks "Rachel, will you do me a big favor?" to which she slurs "Do you any flavor, honey." I also loved how she delivered her last line at the restaurant, "Never mind, I'll handle it," which seemed so modern. She then shows up at Powell's apartment, and in a very nice bit of acting, threatens to kill herself if he doesn't marry her. To her brother who turns up and wants to get out of there she says "Home? Let you make you make an entrance with the erring sister and a couple hallelujahs? Ha ha, and ha," emphasizing the ha's. It was in all of these moments where the film had the most life.

That's not to say that Francis and Powell didn't have chemistry; just look at the way she looks at him when they plan to get married. The trouble is it doesn't go very far before everything crashes down around him when the husband finds out he's been cuckolded. The pacing in the film doesn't help either, as most of it seems to be moving slowly, dampening any sense of passion.

The film takes its most unfortunate turn when it spends energy justifying Powell's character. First we have Lombard's character saying that any woman who gets used by him only has herself to blame, which is soon followed by Powell defending himself to Francis, saying he's a moral as anyone else because he's honest about what he does, and that ever since he was young, he simply discovered he could make money through the attention of women. He's lonely despite all the attention he gets and knows he's "low and unspeakable" for his actions, and is thus portrayed as a reluctant, honorable gigolo of sorts.

It's remarkable how much he's allowed to be the good guy here, to appear like a dignified gentleman for being a "kept man," when we know how women would be portrayed in the reverse case, and certainly not allowed to eloquently justify themselves. On the other hand, in a similar way to the fate of many such women in film, Powell's character does pay a price for his "sinful" life. The film would have been better had he had at least a bit of rascal in him, but it seemed like it wanted to neutralize as many aspects of what was a sordid concept as possible. That's true all the way up to that nauseating final line from Francis, trying to put some kind of happy face on the ending.

This is precode, which I find interesting at the movies moved from silent to talkie/precode and then talkies with ratings/warnings.

I liked this movie, and would watch it once.

Powell always holds his own, and he didn't want to do this movie. Still, it is solid, and when you have these three actors, they will deliver compelling performances. It also approaches tough topics; it is almost a classy soap opera. This film features some pretty sordid choices as to what someone has decided to do with their lives.

The downside is that the love interests some times fall in love within a day, which makes it not so plausible. It weakens the viewer's investment in the characters. It's just not as believable.

I still enjoyed it and Powell commits; Lombard plays a very believable drunk at times; Kay Francis facial expressions and commitment are in depth. I enjoyed seeing these wonderful actors.

I like Francis. I especially like her in the films she made when she was a little star, before she went to Warner Bros and became a big star. And I like Powell. Their film One Way Passage is perfect and they were perfection in it. But not so in this film, primarily because their romance is unbelievable. They meet and over a period of 24 hours one seamy incident after another takes place and Francis reaction is to fall deeper in love. The problem is not in the casting of Powell as a cad, but in the story, which, it seems to me, had the makings of a sophisticated comedy with a happy ending. Unhappily, the movie sinks. Happily, Powell and Francis, and Lombard too, survived this mess and went on their merry way to become Super Stars.

Although the acting is very good in "Ladies' Man", the film has one huge strike against it....you don't care very much for the main character. In some stories, this doesn't matter but for a romance, that's a significant problem!

Jamie (William Powell) is a gigolo who is romancing BOTH a woman (Carole Lombard) AND her mother at the same time! Now that really takes nerve! But what takes even more nerve is his beginning to date a third person (Kay Francis) at the same time! The daughter (Lombard) is pretty unstable and you can't help but think bad things will come of all this.

As I already said, the acting is very good and the story isn't bad. But you can't help but not care very much about Jamie or his exploits, as this guy uses women and has no interest in working and having a real job. Enjoying the high life off of women is his only goal in life....though meeting Norma (Francis) shakes his resolve. Watchable and interesting but no more.

... because he speaks in a rather haughty fashion, much like he did when talking film first came in a couple of years before, and he seems rather bored with the whole thing. Maybe it was because he knew he was leaving Paramount and thus he knew this was his last film there before moving to Warner Brothers. Maybe it's because the tone of the film itself is inconsistent as it starts out like a precode comedy of the upper class being enthusiastically fooled by a grifter and then turns deadly serious.

Jamie Darricott (William Powell) is a high society gigilo. He gets friendly with his new neighbors, the Fendleys. I'm not sure that he even intended for anything to happen between them, but Mrs. Fendley turns to Jamie after her husband repeatedly breaks dates with her because of business to which he must attend. Jamie is giving her ego that last gasp of romance, and she is giving him her jewelry which he hocks in order to live off of. He makes a really serious mistake when he starts yet another romance with Mrs. Fendley's daughter, the rather unstable Rachel (Carole Lombard) for non financial reasons. You have to wonder what was he thinking, because he can't let either woman find out about the other.

And then he meets socialite Norma (Kay Francis), and there is a genuine romance that develops between them, and this makes him want to leave his life of being a "ladies' man". But of course, complications ensue, not the least of which is that neither Fendley woman is just going to let Jamie go without a fight, even knowing what he is.

I found Olive Tell really interesting here as Mrs. Fendley, a woman who is frantically trying to hold on to the last vestiges of her youth. She successfully made the transition to sound, but she also wasn't nearly as old as the part she was playing. It's mentioned several times that she and Jamie look ridiculous together because of the difference in their ages, yet William Powell was actually two years older than Olive Tell! And Ms. Tell is only ten years older than the actor playing her son.

This is pretty much a paint by numbers precode. I would mainly recommend it for fans of William Powell and Kay Francis who always had great chemistry together and who would both be heading over to Warner Brothers to make some of their best films. This is probably one of the hardest to find of William Powell's talking films.