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Posing as a wealthy Australian widow, con woman Norma Shearer (as Fay Cheyney) encroaches herself in Monte Carlo society. Her nefarious plans are complicated by an attraction for Lord Basil Rathbone (as Arthur Dilling). This version of Frederick Lonsdale's hit play is in good hands with director Sidney Franklin, who had a lack of flash that was perfect for early talking films; he manages the new technology competently. Ms. Shearer is charming and theatrical. In his sound debut, Mr. Rathbone makes a good impression despite raccoon eye make-up. Handsome rival George Barraud (as Charles) is impressively natural and Herbert Bunston (as Elton) chews into the script. MGM tried a re-make in 1937 with Joan Crawford , but it failed to move "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" off the stage. The plot has appeared in dozens of other stories.

****** The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (7/6/29) Sidney Franklin ~ Norma Shearer, Basil Rathbone, George Barraud, Herbert Bunston

I realize that this is a minority view, but I find the later version from the late Thirties of The Last Of Mrs. Cheyney superior to this one. I'm sure brickbats will follow.

This is not choosing Joan Crawford over Norma Shearer's performance here. It's a question of the technical advancements made over a decade to a film that was one of MGM's first all talkie productions. This version quite frankly is a photographed stage play.

The Last Of Mrs. Cheyney is a play not often revived I'm sure as it belongs to an era of fluff. Shearer is a con woman with a small entourage who pretends to be a wealthy widow from Australia. Actually she gets herself invited to the best homes in London, the better to scope them out for robberies which butler George Barraud does.

However when at one party Shearer arouses the interest of Lord Basil Rathbone it's on several levels. He's smitten with her, but he knows something's afoot since he recognizes Barraud as a thief previously arrested. After that it's a game of cat and mouse.

For reasons I can't explain The Last Of Mrs. Cheyney got a nomination for 'writing achievement' as it was phrased then. As this was just a photographed version of Frederick Lonsdale's play, then what was the achievement?

The film is the second sound film for Norma Shearer and it was Basil Rathbone's debut in talkies. It has some witty dialog, but in the end it's entertaining fluff.

Talky, uncinematic and slow-as-molasses, "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" (1929) is really for film historians only (the second half is SLIGHTLY more tolerable than the first). Norma Shearer is OK but not yet in full bloom, Basil Rathbone comes off best, while Herbert Bunston is particularly awful. Gotta love the "good woman" = "virgin" coded speak, though. ** out of 4.

A comedy of manners, requiring close concentration to catch the liveliness of the dialogue. Basil Rathbone is magnificent as a dapper wolf; his performance is perhaps the best I've seen in a role like this, of course aided by the snappy discourse between himself and the slower-but-sweeter Norma Shearer. No classic but very entertaining. Anyone amused by witty pick-up lines from the 30's should find this quite funny.

This 1929 version has all the tight pacing and wit that the 1937 film lacks. It also doesn't have the tacked-on moralizing ending that so blights the 1937 version. Basil Rathbone (so young!) is charming and funny with that hint of edge that he could do so well. The two-part scene in which he invites Norma Shearer for a little supper at his apartment and is then verbally rebuffed by the "butler," only to return to kiss the hem of Norma's garment is priceless. I watched it four times. Basil Rathbone is believable as an English lord in ways that Robert Montgomery in the 1937 version is so painfully not believable. George Barraud as Charles effaces himself effectively in the beginning scenes as the butler, and his scenes with Rathbone are not marred by the hint of effeminacy Montgomery brings to his fraternization scenes with the butler when that is not called for in the script. As much as I love William Powell, and I think he's the only reason to see the 1937 version, he can't manage to efface himself effectively in the beginning scenes as the butler. He's always William Powell. As enjoyable as Powell is, when you see George Barraud move from effacement to boldness, you really see how it should be done.

I found this early talkie difficult to watch and I'm a Norma Shearer fan! It's not her fault, but the primitive production values of this film would cause any viewer to become bored. 90% of the movie is filmed with "medium shots," and it's very similar to watching a dull play.

Antiquated, early talkie curio from Frederick Lonsdale's hit play of chic American jewel thief (Shearer) residing among the gullible rich London aristocrats, and taking interest in dashing Rathbone. Like the 1937 version, it is dated now, but is quite interesting to watch thanks to the star chemistry

Director Sidney Franklin doesn't demonstrate the skill Bayard Veiller displayed in Norma Shearer's and indeed MGM's first talkie. Whereas MARY DUGAN amazingly showed none of those cringy problems associated with making a talkie, this showed all of them.

This is not terrible like a lot of 1929 pictures but neither is it one of those you watch and think: yes, they knew what they were doing. It's very slow, very stagey and NOT funny - a bit of a drawback for a comedy! The acting is definitely not 'movie acting.' Maybe because the characters are all meant to be posh affected stiff upper-lip English toffs that the acting seems very false and affected too. It's difficult to empathise with these people when they seem so unreal.

The problem with this is that it's trying to be a sophisticated comedy and humour is a very temporal thing. Audiences in 1929 might have found this amusing but if this was considered the height of comedy, I'm glad I wasn't around then. Until very recently, when serious actors found themselves in a comedy film, they saw that as a call to ham up their acting and speak ridiculously. In this it all feels very amateurish.

As much as I respect Norma Shearer, she can't do comedy but that's possibly more to do with Sidney Franklin's dire direction. He also directed the divine Nora in her worst film ever, SMILIN' THROUGH - now that was terrible. Worst performance in this film has to be that of Liverpool's finest export until Paul McCartney. I have no idea what Mr Rathbone was trying to do in this. Comedy was clearly not his forte.

Particularly in the (many) dawning room scenes, our esteemed thespians appear to be under the impression that they are on stage in a West End theatre. During Norma and Basil's first 'comedy scene' for example, they literally pause after each 'punchline' as though they're allowing for to any laughter from the audience to die down.

Frederick Lonsdale's play of a lady who was no lady and how she stood down a pack of aristos and did them one better opened in 1925. The first of nine adaptations for the big and little screens was made by MGM, with Mrs. Thalberg -- Norma Shearer -- as the title character, Basil Rathbone as the rake who would marry her, and George Barraud as her butler and mentor. Sidney Franklin directed. William H. Daniels was the director of photography.

Unfortunately, like many sound films in 1929, it suffers, not only by comparison with later movie versions, but on its own terms. The sound work, supervised by Miss Shearer's brother, is primitive, and everyone speaks slowly, carefully, and very artificially; a couple of silent sequences are offered, but most of the movement is accomplished by Conrad Nervig's editing. The first half in particular moves at a glacial pace, while the second half, which takes place at the breakfast table, moves a little better, and the dialogue moves along better, but it never attains any speed. Hedda Hopper's accent varies from mid-Atlantic to occasional cockney tones, and Rathbone speaks as if he is an adolescent, with his voice cracking. The result is a an erratically photographed stage play, and one in which the performers are still learning their parts.

Dashing Lord Arthur Dilling (Basil Rathbone) and old Lord Elton (Herbert Bunston) compete for the affections of the lovely widow Fay Cheyney (Norma Shearer), who is secretly a jewel thief.

Early sound films have a reputation for being badly made and boring, but I disagree. Some early sound films from 1929 and 1930 are exceedingly well made. However, for every film like Bulldog Drummond or The Love Parade, there's a film like The Last of Mrs. Cheyney.

The Last of Mrs. Cheyney is clunky, badly acted, badly paced, badly written and badly directed. It's a mess. It lacks all the charm of the 1937 version. It's also much more stagier than the '37 version. This version doesn't even have the opening meeting on the ship between Mrs. Cheyney and Dilling (one of my favorite parts of that version), yet it still manages to be almost the same length as the latter film.

Norma Shearer is an actress I like much more than most people, but she definitely doesn't have the charm or wit of Joan Crawford. Basil Rathbone turns in an terrible performance as Dilling, and Herbert Bunston's performance as Lord Elton is absolutely dreadful. I did like George Barraud's performance as Charles; he's easily the best actor in the film, and it's a shame he didn't have a bigger career.

Overall, go watch the Joan Crawford version instead. You'll enjoy it a lot more.

This is the inferior original version of the wonderful 1937 film starring Joan Crawford.

Norma Shearer is Fay Cheney, jewel thief. She has ingratiated herself into the upper crust of British society by posing as a wealthy Australian widow. Her butler, chauffeur, and miscellaneous male servant are all part of the gang of thieves helping her pull off this ruse.

We meet everyone at a big charity concert at Mrs. Cheney's estate. She's very popular and gets invited to spend a weekend at Mrs. Webley's estate along with some other guests, including Lord Dilling (Basil Rathbone) and Lord Elton ... both of whom are romantically interested in her.

Lord Dilling is young, attractive, wealthy, and frustrated that Fay doesn't return his feelings for her. Lord Elton is much older, wealthy, and comes across as a closet case. He admits he knows very little about women. Fay even tells him "I heard that you don't like women."

She's happy to get the invitation because she plans to steal Mrs. Webley's very expensive pearl necklace. And then it all goes wrong.

I didn't care for this version. There's lots of frou-frou wordplay, big chunks of the plot aren't explained (like they are in the remake), and Norma Shearer simply doesn't have the presence that Joan Crawford does.

I say Skip It and watch the remake instead.

Last of Mrs. Cheyney, The (1929)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The rich British society welcomes Mrs. Cheyney (Norma Shearer) as one of their own but what they don't realize is that she's actually connected to a group of jewels thieves. THE LAST OF MRS. CHEYNEY was a hit on the stage so it's easy to see why MGM would want to produce it for the screen. It must have done well as the studio would go on and remake it twice including once in 1937 with Joan Crawford. Early film buffs will be interested to know that this was MGM's first talking picture that had the sound actually recorded onto the film instead of the Warner method of recording the sound on a separate disc. That is certainly a historically important thing but it's doubtful very few outside of major film buffs are going to care about that. The finished product is what's going to really make one interested and sadly this is a pretty poor movie all around. You can start with the fact that this is obviously an early-talkie and we get non-stop dialogue scenes that just go on and on and on to the point where you really do forget what they're talking about. It's as if you're watching the start of the scene and listening to what the characters are saying but within a minute or two you're completely zoned out and this happens quite often. There are some plot points that pop up ever so often but not a single thing is believable and more often than not you just sit there wishing everything would be over with. The performances are all rather bad and that includes Shearer. I haven't seen too many of her pictures but it's clear she had talent but it's also clear that this is perhaps the worst I've seen from her. Her line delivery is extremely bad but I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt that she was just working with a new system and doing what she could. Often times it seems as if her and the other actors are leaning towards where the mic is just so that the dialogue can get picked up. Basil Rathbone is fair in his part but at the same time his line delivery is quite poor. The supporting players include Hedda Hopper, Herbert Bunston and George Barraud but none of them add much. The sound quality isn't the worst that I've heard but at the same time it's easy to tell that this was very early in the game. For the most part the voices are heard just fine but the added sound effects really come off poor and the constant hiss in the track becomes annoying after a while. All of this is just a part of its time but sadly the film itself is just hard to sit through.

This version is very painful to watch. All of the acting is very stilted but especially that of Norma Shearer who is still acting as though she were in a silent movie instead of a talkie. Check out the 1937 version with Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery and William Powell which is much more entertaining.

I happened to read about "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney", knowing nothing about it, so I decided to rent it. I guess that the movie works well as a piece of film history since it was MGM's first movie with sound recorded directly onto the film. Aside from that, there's nothing really significant about it unless you want to see Basil Rathbone in a pre-Sherlock Holmes role. Otherwise, it seems like star Norma Shearer doesn't have much to do in the role of a guest plotting against her hosts. Basically, it's one of those drawing room movies, the kind that "Gosford Park" tore apart. I don't recommend it.

The screenplay received an Academy Award nomination.