No Limit

Cute theater usherette Clara Bow (as Helen "Bunny" O'Day) agrees to apartment sit for a friend, and unexpectedly finds the premises serve as a center for illegal gambling. There, she meets suave, but crooked, Norman Foster (as Douglas "Doug" Thayer). Mr. Foster is hot-and-bothered, and Bow is head-over-heels. "I thought you had 'It'," he tells her. Although Bow had long admired Foster's looks, she is put off by his forwardness. But, he pursues her to the alter. Can their marriage survive his underworld ties?

Paramount photography by Victor Milner gets "No Limit" off to a terrific start. The locations are great. Bow seems more self-assured than in previous "talkies"; her voice was never as big a problem as were her nerves. It's difficult to believe Foster would fail to recognize Bow, even in the dark; but, he is both a convincing and endearing heel. Stu Erwin (as Ole Olson) plays the unfortunate "dumb Swede". The film provides an opportunity to see the first Mrs. Bing Crosby, pretty Dixie Lee Crosby (as Dotty "Dodo" Potter). And, don't forget, Gary Cooper appears in "Fighting Caravans".

***** No Limit (1/16/31) Frank Tuttle ~ Clara Bow, Norman Foster, Dixie Lee Crosby

Stu Erwin's uncle dies, leaving him a movie theater, a mansion, and a limousine.... no cash. He doesn't need the house until he's married, so he lends them to Clara Bow, an usher in the theater he's sweet on. She discovers that the mansion is a gambling house, and the money rolls in until the cops close it down. She has also picked up Norman Foster, and they get married. It turns out that not only does he like to gamble; he's connected with a gang.

It's a pleasant pre-code romantic comedy, with plenty of scantily clad beauties and Erwin doing his slow-talking dope. Dixie Lee and Thelma Todd are two of the ushers, and while there's nothing much in it, Miss Bow's star power made this a very popular movie in 1931. Paramount publicity had it that she had had a nervous breakdown during the shooting. It doesn't show.

Clara Bow is remembered primarily as a star of silent films, like Valentino and Theda Bara, but unlike them she made several talkies, some of which hold up quite well today. No Limit, however, is not one of Clara's better sound vehicles. This film is a rarity, only recently restored and given public screenings for the first time in many years, and it would be nice to report that it's a rediscovered gem, but unfortunately it's a dog and the script is to blame. Film buffs, Bow enthusiasts, and fans of the Pre-Code era may well find it of interest despite its flaws -- as I confess I did -- but general audiences will find only an awkwardly paced comedy-drama full of uncertain shifts in tone, ridiculous plot twists played straight, clunky dialog, and unfunny "comedy relief," much of it provided by a supporting player who represents that eternal favorite of hack screenwriters, the cutesy immigrant who mangles English.

Clara plays a naive movie theater "usherette" nicknamed Bunny who is persuaded to look after an apartment in a ritzy building, unaware that the place is an illegal gambling joint. (For a New Yorker, Bunny is a bit slow on the uptake.) She also gets involved with one of the gamblers, a real sleaze-ball who takes advantage of her, and she's slow to react in this situation, too. It takes way too long for our leading lady to wake up and smell the coffee, and meanwhile we lose patience with her. There's nothing wrong with Bow herself as a star of talkies: her voice was fine, and she delivers her lines with a natural quality that comes off better than some of the other players' painfully precise elocution. She's energetic and charming, and carries this film with ease, but like John Gilbert she had to deal with second-rate material cobbled together by screenwriters who were themselves still struggling to master the new medium. Listen to all the love talk she and the leading man have to deliver and you may be reminded of Gilbert's infamous "My darling I love you, I love you" speeches in His Glorious Night, lines that made audiences hoot with laughter. Who could recite this stuff without sounding foolish? It's impressive that Clara plays her part with such conviction, no matter how silly things get, and emerges with her dignity intact.

The opening sequence is the highlight. Clara and her girlfriend (played by Dixie Lee, Bing Crosby's first wife) are working girls struggling to get to their jobs on time. There are some good location shots of a New York tenement neighborhood as the girls rush outside to the elevated train. (Is this the Sixth Avenue El? or were they filming in Clara's birthplace, Brooklyn?) Next there's a funny sequence on the train, significantly played in silence. Clara's eyes are more eloquent than any of the lines she's required to speak. It's a promising intro, but all too soon Bunny and the other characters are required to behave in ways that aren't credible for a second. Bow is clearly smarter than the woman she's playing, and the most dismaying aspect is that she becomes such a doormat to the aforementioned crook who blatantly uses her for sex, and who actually admits this to her face -- but darn it, she can't help loving the mug anyhow. (Clara's boyfriend is played by Norman Foster, an actor who turned director a few years later.) Even the crook's highly unconvincing eleventh hour conversion to goodness can't overcome the high yuck factor of this relationship. Add Stu Erwin's caricature of a moronic Swedish sailor, and Harry Green as the Jewish Guy Who Mangles English, and you've got all the ingredients for a pretty dismal experience. Pre-Code buffs may want to see No Limit despite its deficiencies, and for fans of Miss Bow it's a must, but it's not likely to satisfy the average viewer.

P.S. For those with an interest in slang there's a notable moment in this film. In an early scene Bunny the usherette arrives late at the theater, prompting one of her co-workers to make a sarcastic remark, something along the lines of: "Well Bunny you're always on time for work—NOT!" The phrase is a little startling for anyone under the impression that negating a sentence by ending it with "NOT!" came along much later. The things you learn from old movies!

Clara Bow is solid in No Limit and it's amazing how good she got at acting in talkies, culminating in her terrific performance in Call Her Savage. But the script here is loose and the casting is bad for several key roles.

Stu Erwin is terrible as the "Swede" and he doesn't even bother trying for the accent that El Brendel or Joseph Cawthorne could have done in their sleep. Norman Foster (usually in Andy Griffith type parts) is also lousy as the lead thug (with a mustache yet)who falls for Bow. But they hardly matter.

The whole show here is Clara Bow. She's funny as the wisecracking usherette who isn't so wise after all when she babysits a swanky Art Deco apartment that turns out to be a gambling den. She has a great delivery of lines and looks terrific. The story just doesn't make much sense.

Harry Green is the theatre boss, Dixie Lee is Bow's chum, Thelma Todd shows up in a part that makes no sense, and Mischa Auer is a thug.

Starts off great but quickly falls into bizarre plotting that never goes anywhere.

In this early talkie, Clara Bow plays a movie usherette who who gets to babysit a Park Avenue apartment that turns out to be an illegal gambling den. Clara is wonderful as always, despite all the emotional stress on the set that is occasionally noticeable on screen. There's a lot of inside humor for Clara buffs in this film - for example, the scene where she gambles with what she thinks are 50 cent chips that are actually worth $100 apiece. History buffs will also appreciate the images of the New York City subway in the opening scenes. In fact, No Limit does for the El what It did for Coney Island. The story itself is lightweight fluff, of course, but it is very nicely done and the film can still make you laugh out loud. Well worth watching.