Honey

Creaky Broadway musical given a so-so treatment in Hollywood with Nancy Carroll starring as a woman who rents her house and masquerades as the cook. No real plot but some nice performances and one great song: Sing You Sinners.

This is typical of early Hollywood musicals that were brought from Hollywood. There's nothing cinematic about it; it's basically the stage show filmed. So it makes for a stiff production with nothing redone for film.

Jobyna Howland plays the imperious woman who rents the house; Lillian Roth is her daughter who falls for Skeets Gallagher who is posing as a butler. Stanley Smith plays the "hero," and Mitzi Green, Harry Green, and Charles Sellon co-star. But it's Howland who steals the show with her patented physical comedy and wild hair. Howland is best remembered as the "margaret Dumont" of several Wheeler and Woolsey comedies.

...but I didn't like this one at all. It's not that it is bad, it is just so mediocre that it is exceedingly dull. I am a fan to the point of obsession of the early talkies and early talkie musicals, and this is not one of the good ones folks. It's also not so bad it's good either. (Think Golden Dawn here.) The plot has possibilities but is lackluster in its execution - an antebellum planter family of the old south is short on cash so the family is getting ready to move out of their mansion for awhile and rent to another family to make some money. The needed extra servants for the rich family do not arrive, so the brother and sister that were getting ready to move out pose as the missing servants to save the lease agreement and thus the plantation. Nancy Carroll and Skeets Gallagher play the sister and brother, Olivia and Charles Dangerfield. The wealthy tenant family consists of snobby matron Mrs. Falkner (Jobyna Howland) and her free-spirit daughter Cora (Lilian Roth). Along for the visit is wealthy Burton Crane (Stanley Smith) whom Mrs. Falkner has picked for the job of future son-in-law. However, her daughter does not share her enthusiasm. With mistaken identities abounding, there is plenty of opportunity for romance that crosses class boundaries, or at least seems to do so.

The music is totally uninspired with one exception - the number "Sing You Sinners". That number alone is worth the price of admission. Zasu Pitts, who is usually quite funny, is just annoying here. The script has her crying hysterically and repeating phrases and just being a little too dim for anything fun to come of it. I fell asleep three times trying to get through this one, and thus I'd not recommend it at all.

This movie, as mentioned in one of the reviews, had good possibilities, and unlike many other movies of this duration, the pacing too wasn't bad.

To be frank, it is quite watchable. But, while watching it, I started to wonder.

All the female leads in the movie had been good or may be a bit more than plain good - especially the three major leads, Nancy, Roth and Jobyna. The other two females too - Zasu and Mitzi lived up to the characters - despite extremely irritating characters assigned to them. But it miserably failed in male leads - both Stanley Smith and Skeets Galagher. They were not only wooden, but completely 'unnatural'. Only Harry Green could save the gender blushes.

It made me wonder - about the gender gap on those ages - Not only these two, but the super-stars - e.g. Pickford, Gish, Garbo,... - I could almost say most of the women were - knowingly or unknowingly, using at least part of Stanislavski's method. But what was wrong with the men ? I don't remember any, who was using something remotely similar (may be except Keaton, sometime, probably aided by his blank-demeanor) ? Every one, including Mr Pickford (i.e. Fairbanks) continued to do exaggerated acting. It was another couple of years (after this movie that is) when it slowly followed women's foot-steps and started getting naturalised - but most of them had entered the arena in the talkie era.

Was it the type of roles which forced the two different schools across gender - the basically maudlin/ melodramatic roles for women, which needed subtlety vs the cave-man/ San and Sword type of roles of males - that needed excess limb-muscles and less face-muscle exercise ? In this movie of course they were at disadvantage - there was not much scope of limb-muscle exercise, and that could be seen by the stiffness - even while walking. And looking back, I saw that in a few major silent stars - in talkie era - e.g. Gilbert - where it wasn't dialogue delivery or even the voice spectrum, but rather the extra real acting effort required in talkies - through facial expressions, that must have failed him. Probably that's why only limited male silents succeeded in talkie, but many women did and relatively one could say thrived too for quite some time (not only Gish and Garbo, but Shearer, Crawford etc several names come to mind, who didn't become sore to senses).

"Honey" (1930) is more like molasses dipped in hydrochloric acid and covered with a Whites Only shell. It may reflect the time in which it was made, and it has some talent and some quality, but 'some' doesn't make up for what it doesn't have, or even for what it shouldn't have. Starring cute-as-can-be Nancy Carroll, with Jobyna Howland, Richard 'Skeets' Gallagher, Stanley Smith, Lillian Roth, Harry Green, Mitzi Green, ZaSu Pitts, and Charles Sellon... I'd leave this as-is for the cast, but not mentioned at all, and involved in the best musical number in the show by far: Louise Beavers, Tess Gardella, Hamtree Harrington, Clarence Muse, Carolynne Snowden, and others who've faded from history. And COULD Louise Beavers sing!

This is based on a stage play. It plays as if it were on stage. Stage-bound to the ground. Camera is fluid, but direction by Wesley Ruggles has never left the New York stage or on the stagecoach for Hollywood. Musical numbers begin appearing nearly 35-40 minutes into the show! OH! This is a musical! By the time we get to the black minstrel inspired "Sing, You Sinners!" number - the finest part of the movie by 10 to 1 - the movie is nearly over. Now, to back up for a moment: the show is about rich southerners who've come into a spot where they're between a rock and hard place, so they're going to rent out their home for $5000 (remember, this is Great Depression 1930!) for a short time to some who're willing to rent their home. Jobyna Howland and her daughter, Lillian Roth, come with Roth's intended, Stanley Smith (about as exciting as watching paint dry). Unfortunately, of those hired to come wait on them, at least two have been arrested and put in jail! What's there to do? Well, at least ZaSu and Mitzi, Ma and daughter, DO show up. Looks like Carroll and Gallagher will have to stay and play cook and butler.

The premise isn't bad. The show is socially and temporally very, very dated. Interestingly, ratings on the IMDb range from 4/10 to 10/10. Either you hate it or love it. I didn't like it. The best thing in the show is, by modern standards, racially against the wall. Still, that number IS rousing by all standards.

Skeets Gallagher and sister Nancy Carroll need money, so they rent their southern plantation to Jobyna Howland. She drags along her daughter, Lilian Roth, Stanley Smith (whom she wants Lilian to marry) and Harry Green to watch her jewelry. She also demands white servants, so in come upstairs maid Zasu Pitts and her daughter Mitzi Green. The butler and cook get tossed in jail for drunk and disorderly; Gallagher and Carroll pretend to be their replacements.

It's an erratically produced musical comedy. Miss Carroll is always beautiful and charming, particularly when she is pretending to be Irish for no particular reason; Gallagher is at his best at the very beginning, when he is angry and annoying; Miss Howland plays her role in a manner that suggest an evil May Robson and has the best lines; Miss Pitts & Mr. Green, the two surest comic performers, could have been cut out of the movie without a loss; Mitzi Green is annoying and necessary to the plot; and the best musical number is a "darkie revival" chorus led by an uncredited Louise Beavers! -- although Lilian Roth gets in a hot verse.

Usually when watching movies this old I am able to compartmentalize my reactions -- how it might appeal to a contemporary audience in one of Paramount's big-city Whites-Only movie palaces, how it might strike modern audiences, kept carefully separate. Between the actors switching registers (not only Carroll and Gallagher, but Roth, from lady to her more raucous, stagey character), I was absolutely whipsawed.

I will tell you one thing: Louise Beavers could sing!