J'aimais une femme

Young Edward G. Robinson is discovering the art and culture of Greece and finding himself, when he gets a telegram from home. Heir to a beef- packing business, he reads his father has just died. He rushes home but didn't have much plans or a business mind to take over, when he meets Genevieve Tobin, who is an heir to a competitor. In fact, there are several meat-packing companies, but they don't all use pure beef in their product/business. Edward's father did and their business was number one in the industry, in this film was takes place in 1892, just before Teddy Roosevelt becomes President. In fact, Teddy and Eddie meet and become enemies of sorts. But, I'm ahead of myself. Getting married to Genevieve Tobin, and using only prime beef, Eddie does take over, but the business does not do so well, just adequate and others become more successful. Meanwhile, a young aspiring opera singer (Kay Francis) looking for a backer comes to him, asking for capital as an investment. When he hears her sing and she knows his favorite song, "Home on the Range," he obviously falls for her. But what he didn't realize was that she was what she was. She did form a fond attachment for him, but never claimed to love only him. She was a very cavalier lover. When he is inspired by her gusto to live life fully and go for the gold, he becomes ruthless in getting contracts for his business and in cutting costs, not always using premium beef, like everyone else. But in his getting fat deals, his food affects more people, more important people. So when the fit hits the shan, he is the scapegoat. Meanwhile, Genevieve learns about Kay and she lives for the day to show Edward up. This is a very well-made film that does not overdo its dramatics. In fact, this played out very well and was very realistic. While not a very important film or that great a film in the long run, it really delivers with great performances by all. This was not a turkey by no means, as Edward felt he was being thrown into them by the movie studio all the time. They were uninspired and repetitive to him, as he was a stage actor by heart. He never understood the appeal of "Little Caesar," despite the fact it made him an overnight movie star. Playing a gangster was not all that it was hyped up to be, but this film he felt at least was "about something," as he said in his autobiography. And, he had fond memories of Kay Francis. If you see this on TCM one day, watch and enjoy Edward G. Robinson, one of Hollywood's most versatile actors, who earned an Honorary Oscar for his performances of men in all walks of life.

I love pre-code films, often even when they're less than great. They're usually so fast-paced, packing more plot and ideas into one hour than today's movies do in two and a half, that one is willing to overlook inconsistencies and implausibilities in the script, if such occur.

But when they reach an hour and a half, they sometimes bog down and become as dull as the inane films the Production Code later foisted on us.

This film is a good example. The history of Edward G. Robinson's transformation from a young idealist inheriting his father's meat-packing business to a ruthless capitalist defies credulity both for his naivete and the ease of his rise to the top when he discards his scruples. The characters are mostly one-dimensional stereotypes. The character of his opera star mistress, a somewhat miscast Kay Francis, who eggs him on with Nietzschean pep talks about dominating the world, sounds like Ayn Rand on steroids.

All this is fine for the first hour or so, when the rapid succession of events keeps you guessing what will happen next and too busy to think about the logic of it all. The last half hour or so, about his well-deserved downfall, goes by much more slowly and grinds to an undramatic ending.

Still worth a look for pre-code fans for Robinson, Francis and other fine actors, but don't put it at the top of your list.

This film is a rollicking tour-de-force that has as its primary focus the incredible acting talents of the incomparable Edward G. Robinson. Robinson takes us on a roller-coaster of a ride, as he sails back and forth from joy and elation to depression and pathos and back again. It is sometimes dizzying trying to keep up with the swinging emotions of Robinson's multi-millionaire meat-packer John Hayden. Robinson carries it off beautifully, and I think this film really proves what a fine, fine actor he was.

And how lucky we are that a film company like First National existed in the early 30's, pumping out films with stars like EG Robinson at a rate that would leave a current studio breathless. What an exciting time it must have been. We are the beneficiaries of this fascinating time, when studios had to release new films in a rapid succession, such was the hunger for new films.

"I Loved a Woman" takes place over a 40 year period, taking us from late Victorian Chicago of 1892 to industrial Chicago of just a few decades later. The fashions change subtly over the 90 minutes this film takes. While some of the romantic scenes with Kay Francis are a bit dated, and the lovers' dialogue a little stilted, Robinson never fails to captivate us when he is on screen. If anybody can carry this stuff off, it is him (Robinson even sings in this movie, though happily not too much).

The supporting cast is strong and full of First National perennials, such as Robert Barrat, playing EGR's father-in-law. A special treat is the speaking appearance of one of John Ford's silent screen favorites, J. Farrel MacDonald.

This movie also features a speaking role for Theodore Roosevelt, who personally threatens to destroy the meat packer Hayden for selling rotten meat to the soldiers of the Spanish-American War.

Perhaps the only annoyance is having to put up with Kay Francis repeatedly singing Home on the Range in an opera voice while playing an upright piano. Once, maybe, but three times?....

One funny thing to look for early in the film: Robinson returns home from abroad after hearing of his father's death. A painting of dad hangs on the office wall - looking exactly like EG Robinson with full whiskers! A very nice touch.

This is a strong entry from First National Films, and a great way to get know the many sides of Edward G. Robinson. I highly recommend this one.

During the so-called 'Pre-Code Era', Hollywood was essentially in charge of policing themselves. Considering that there was no rating system AND Hollywood was really pushing the boundaries of morality in many of their films, there was an uproar and in July, 1934, a new, tougher Production Code was adopted...thus heavily sanitizing films for the next three decades. Gone were the old Pre-Code plots and occasional nudity...in now it was a squeaky clean era. "I Loved a Woman" was a Pre-Code film that certainly could NOT have been made just a year later, as its plot glamorizes and seems to excuse adultery...something specifically outlawed in the new Code, as adultery was either NOT to be in films or was to be heavily condemned.

John Hayden (Edward G. Robinson) is the heir to a meatpacking fortune and has just learned that his father has died. Despite claiming to being the champion of improved working conditions, wages and cleanliness, he spends the next few years leaving the company to essentially run itself while he devotes his energy towards raising a family. However, he slowly realizes that his company is going bankrupt AND his wife couldn't care less, as her father is the head of a group of meatpackers who are opposed to Hayden's STATED ideals. I say stated because during his absence from the company, he pretty much ignored his fine talk of running a progressive company.

Now with a company in trouble and a marriage a bit rocky, Hayden decides to run the company like the rest....or worse. Cleanliness and safe hygience mean nothing to him. In addition, he's got a new sweetie (Kay Francis) and his energies are focused on her and making millions...his wife, well, she's expendable. When war breaks out, he's more than happy to sell the government tainted meat for the soldiers! Nice guy, huh? If you haven't guessed, he's essentially a jerk!

So what did I like and not like about this film? What I didn't like was that Hayden changed so dramatically...too dramatically to make any sense. One minute he's a champion of the little people and a good husband, the next he's the opposite. His change was just too abrupt to be believable. On the positive side, the acting is very nice and the film has all the polish you'd expect from a Warner Brothers epic...though I could have done without all the times the film used "Home on the Range". Overall, decent but hardly among Robinson's best...and much of it is because no one in this film is likable and so you lose interest along the way. Plus, it never seems to know when to quit...so it's overlong to boot.

... because at first blush this forgotten Warner Brothers film looks an awful lot like 1941's Citizen Kane, except without the polish. The film was based on David Karsner's book about a determined businessman, loosely based on the life of Samuel Insull. However, it also bears some resemblance to the life of William Randolph Hearst, and specifically how that life was interpreted in Citizen Kane.

Edward G. Robinson stars as John Hayden. The film opens in 1892 with him as a young man buying up all the art he can find in Europe, when he is called home at his father's death to take over the family packing business in which he really has no interest. He falls in love with and marries the daughter of a rival packer (Genevieve Tobin) and finds her exciting and thinks she is a reformer, but she soon transforms into just another social climber and their romance cools. When that happens he falls in love with an ambitious opera singer (Kay Francis), and offers to build her an opera house??? Now tell me that Orson Welles the teenager was not in the front row of the theater, chowing down on popcorn, and thinking how he might spruce up this tale when he got his big chance?

The similarities between the tales end there, and it turns out Kay Francis' character is no Susan Alexander Kane, and also the ignored wife turns out to be more persistent and vindictive than Kane's wife. The film is ultimately a variation on a common Warner Brothers' Depression era theme - a cautionary tale against greed for greed's sake.

Kay Francis may be second billed, but ultimately Edward G. Robinson is the whole show. Since Robinson was two inches shorter than Francis, it looks like the director came up with all kinds of inventive ways for them to embrace and it not look like she was picking him up off the ground to kiss him. Finally, why would anybody think "Home on the Range" would be a good tune to be "our song" for any couple? It's all part of the wonderful weirdness that was early 30s Warner Brothers. Recommended for the novelty of it all.