The Lady Refuses

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.

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.

We can't really expect low-budget pre-code melodramas to be 'great films'. They're automatically of historical interest because of the themes they dare to explore and which were banished from the screen in 1934. If you have decent actors, and interesting enough plot and some "daring" dialog many of these films can be enjoyable, if ultimately disposable. THE LADY REFUSES is a dead serious entry and thanks to Gilbert Emery and star Betty Compson it works in its own terms. Compson does well as a "woman of the street" who happens upon a sympathetic, lonely, older rich man who takes her under his wing. She's smart and perceptive about his situation: a beloved son has no time for his father. When Emery enlists attractive Compson to help lure the son away from a "bad woman", things get complicated. It doesn't all go as you'd expect. Among the better of the lesser-known pre-code movies now back in circulation, it's no masterpiece but Emery and Compson raise it a bit above the average.

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.

This is another Compson story that does not avoid the scandalous. While the Code would not want supposedly middle class moral families exposed to a lower class prostitution story, there is nothing in the plot that strays from praising wealth and condemning immorality. Veblen's conspicuous consumption is the reason to watch. In the absence of strict censorship, high fashion provides cover for quasi-nudity. This not so early talkie has inconveniences like camera noise, bad dialog and incoherent acting. But concerning the looks of apartments, night clubs, the sounds of jazz, fashions, beauty, dark lighting, noisy editing, a blurry camera this is fairly inimitable. To show prostitution as an economic choice was still normal in 1931.