The Lady Refuses

If romantic triangles or quadrangles are your thing, you might enjoy this drawing-room flick. Out of the goodness of his heart, upper class Sir Gerald rescues winsome June from life as a streetwalker. Thus she gains entry into his ritzy mansion. Trouble is he then hires her to win his wastrel son Russell from clutches of gold-digger Berthine. This results in a tangle of conflicting relationships that have no obvious solution.

In days past, this would have been called a woman's picture. Certainly the flick's dominated by talk-talk, interior decor, and thwarted desires. The plot, however, picks up in the last ten-minutes, with a rather surprise ending. Note too how the script shies away from using any synonym for "prostitute", rather surprising for a pre-Code production.

Anyway, as the spunky young June, Compson carries the show, though pairing her with the aging and zombified Sir Gerald remains a stretch. And get a load of Edgar Norton as the officious man-servant Dobbs; he's enough to re-think the whole idea of household help. Except for the memorable last shot, there's nothing special here, especially for impatient guys waiting for Tom Mix and his six-guns.

I agree with the other reviewers: This isn't a great movie because it is too stage bound, the plot is far-fetched, the London setting unconvincing (why not New York?), and some of the acting is wooden or uneven. However, John Darrow is convincing as a talented young man a little too enslaved by his passions, and he is sexually alive and compelling. Betty Compson is great - hers is the performance that make this and so many other pre-Production Code movies worthwhile. She has no shame about who she is (nor has Margaret Livingston, who appears to have stepped out of Valley of the Dolls), and her last speech earns the movie a 7 in my book. She is completely liberated, though she knows how to and does pay lip-service to conventional morality. It is this combination, the lip-service combined with the complete independence, that makes this pre-Production Code movie (among many) so radical. Her final scene eloquently gives the lie to conventional morality and left me agape. No need for the 1960s-lib genre with movies like this.

This film isn't particularly outstanding in so many ways. Some of the acting and plot elements were rather pedestrian (at best) and the plot is very hard to believe, but despite all this I actually enjoyed the film more than my score of 6 might indicate. That's because this is a "Pre-Code" film (actually, this term should be "Early-Code") and I find these films VERY entertaining relics from our past. The Hays Office was created in the 1920s to enforce morality and decency in the film industry, but it was still in its early days and studios routinely ignored it until the stronger "Production Code" was adopted in 1935. Up until then, films were often amazingly risqué and adult--even by today's standards. A few examples of the things that led to the Hays Office being created and strengthened were:

--The 1920s version of BEN HUR, in which there was quite a bit of nudity and violence--and this was a Biblical Epic!

--The film PARACHUTE JUMPER includes a scene where Frank McHugh is hitchhiking. When a car passes without stopping, his thumb instantly becomes a middle-finger!

--In BIRD OF PARADISE, TARZAN THE APE MAN and THE BARBARIAN, there were some very explicit bathing scenes in which you see a lot of Delores Del Rio, Maureen O'Sullivan and Myrna Loy!

While THE LADY REFUSES doesn't include nudity, it is definitely a "Pre-Code"-style film because of the very adult themes. The leading lady (Betty Compson) plays a prostitute "with a heart of gold" who is hired by a man to seduce away his son from a "gold-digger"! And, later both the son AND father fall for this prostitute and want to marry her! Oddly, however, the words 'prostitute', 'hooker' nor any of the other slang terms for the profession are used in the film--though it's very clear that this is Ms. Compson's job. In addition to this adult aspect of the film, the son twice spends the night in Ms. Compson's bed and everyone in the film THINKS that they were fornicating (though they weren't). Such innuendo NEVER would have been tolerated just a few years later.

Now despite all these sleazy elements, the movie itself is pretty entertaining and well-made--and definitely kept my interest. Ms. Compson was a dandy actress in the film and it's sad her career as a talking picture leading lady slowly fizzled. As for John Darrow and Gilbert Emery, they both were pretty poor at times--having some trouble with their lines and occasionally over or under-acting. It wasn't bad enough to severely hinder the film, but it was noticeable if you were paying close attention.

The bottom line is that for fans of the "Pre-Code" films or film buffs, this is a MUST-SEE film. For most others, it's a time-passer or eminently one you can skip.

Betty Compson shines in this woman's story of a prim British Lord who rescues a poor woman from the cops, and hires her to save his son, who has drifted away from a career in architecture and into the arms of a scheming gold-digger with a violent Lithuanian pimp. Complications ensue. The "Britishness" of the setting is a bit off, as some of the actors fail to achieve the proper accents, but the rooms in the home of the landed gentry are magnificently over-the-top, as are the apartments of the wealthy, and the glimpse inside a fancy couture shop. These sets present a smashingly florid mash-up of English Manor, Frenchified beaux-arts, and geometric art deco that would fall out of favour shortly, but was the height of luxury at the time.

This film flirts with ideas it never names, and although Compson flings herself between virtuous and tough-as-nails, the actual defining moment comes when diminutive Daphne Pollard, as a landlady, bursts into song while scrubbing the floors. The song she sings in her warbling Australian-Cockney voice is the chorus to "She Was Poor But She Was Honest," a British musical hall favourite that may have begun life as a genuinely tragic Victorian lament, but which by World War I had become a burlesque filled with outrageous verses declaimed with mock portentousness.

It's the same the whole world over It's the poor what gets the blame It's the rich what get the pleasure Ain't it all a blooming shame?

Look up Elsa Lanchester's version on You Tube and listen closely to the lyrics.

There are countless verses, but these two, which appear in many versions, form an actual gloss on the plot:

She was poor but she was honest, Victim of the squire's whim; First 'e loved 'er, then 'e left 'er And she lost 'er name through 'im.

Then she ran away to London For to 'ide 'er grief and shame; But she met another squire And she lost 'er name again.

I wonder if Daphne Pollard improvised the singing of that song or if it was really in the script. Either way, it certainly fits.

Sad morally questionable British drama/romance about a father who hires a new prostitute to lure his son away from a gold digger...but in the process falls in love with her himself! Of course the lady in question starts bringing up the "code among gentleman" and how he would always wonder or question her.

Wonderful early 30's clothing and set. I learned that cocktails and ice were an American thing.

If you are ok with melodrama this might be for you.

"Beds aren't respectable, especially this bed, wicked little spider."

"Don't worry, don't blush, I once studied to be a nurse."