Lady with a Past

This is a charming, subtle little pre-code in which everything is implied and little actually shown.

Constance Bennet is a good girl from a good New York family and no one finds her interesting. In Paris she finds Ben Lyon, an indigent American who bums a beer from her. She hires him as a gigolo and he shows her how to be fascinating to men, using frequent kicks to the shin to encourage her education.

Lyon is particularly good in his fast-talking role and Miss Bennet is at her most charming. The two have real chemistry together and Edward Griffith directs with a gracefully moving camera under the control of the under-rated Hal Mohr. All of these combine to produce a comedy that is knowing without being cynical.

... that premise being that Constance Bennett as Venice Muir cannot attract a man at all. Constance isn't some plainly dressed and drably made-up wallflower that physically transforms, which is the plot you'd expect. From scene one she is the glamorous looking woman she usually plays, yet we are to believe that because she wants to discuss the books she's read that men would chew through wood to get out of being in the same room with her? With her looks and bearing she should reasonably expect to recite the dictionary and yet be followed by suitors - men simply aren't that deep.

David Manners proposes marriage to Venice when drunk, slinks away when sober, and leaves Venice wondering what she'll have to do to change her luck with men. Her solution - hire someone (Ben Lyon) to be her "boyfriend" and tell tales about her lack of virtue and her exciting nature that in turn should attract some actual suitors. These things never work out as planned - I'll let you watch and see what happens.

"Lady with a Past" is Constance Bennett as an unlikely bookish wallflower who sails from New York City to Paris where she engineers a fake sex scandal hoping it will make her the talk of the town by the time she returns and thereby attract the attention of young men who find her literary chatter a big bore. She also talks to herself and pretends to be singing out loud when caught in the act.

Her co-conspirator in Paris is the golden voiced Ben Lyons whom she picks up at a sidewalk café after he tricks her into paying his food and drink tab. But her heart really belongs to David Manners, a handsome member of her social set who is looking for someone more exciting.

If this all seems terribly unexciting, it is. Then why watch? Miss Bennett, of course. They don't make 'em like that any more. In the pre-production publicity it was said that Miss Bennett was being fitted for 17 gowns to wear in the film. I didn't count, but she probably did.

Constance Bennett is miserable. Despite having money and being a pretty lady, she is hardly noticed by men. Yet, at the same time, 'bad' women attract men like flies. For instance, one woman was acquitted for shooting her husband--and now men won't leave her alone! So, out of desperation, she hires a guy down on his luck to pose as her lover and create the impression she's a loose woman! He seems a bit worldly and indicates he knows how to make her attractive by making her mysterious and a bit trampy. The plan works pretty well--but, of course, by the end of the film several complications have occurred.

The plot is pretty clever and is carried off pretty well due to good acting from Bennett and Ben Lyon. Not a great film, but nice entertainment and worth your time.

In order to find this film believable, you have to buy the premise that Constance Bennett, one of the most beautiful and glamorous Hollywood stars ever, is unattractive to men. Does her character, Venice Muir (her parents honeymooned in Venice) wear glasses, frumpy clothes, have dull hair? Uh, no, she looks like Constance Bennett, it's just that she's playing an intelligent woman who likes to read. Meanwhile, the woman who may have poisoned her husband gets all the attention at parties.

One night, while roaring drunk, a man with whom Venice is in love, Donnie Wainwright (David Manners), proposes and wants her to sail with him to France to be married. The next day, he's sober. So Venice travels alone.

In Paris, she meets a man Buy (Ben Lyons) whom she hires as a gigolo to bring her to parties and get her into the right circles so that she can meet someone. He has the idea that if he creates a "past" for her, she will be more exciting to men.

This is a nice film, but I didn't believe it for a second. Venice has intelligence, money, glamor, beauty, and guys want to date a woman who might have killed her husband? If it had been another actress, someone like Anna Lee, Sylvia Sidney, good-looking but perhaps not a knockout, it would have been more realistic.

For Constance Bennett fans. She is always a joy, and the performances are good, particularly from Ben Lyons.