La revanche du coeur

Actually, not a bad film for an old antique. Bennett and Kelton are two prosties with no shame in their game. The films open with the girls having served their time---either for soliciting or theft--and getting booted out of the clink. Bennett rolls a drunk for his bankroll aboard a barge headed down the river. She gets busted by an adamant Matt McHugh, and jumps overboard rather than face the music and go back and do more time. She is fished out of the river by Joel Macrae, who skippers a cotton barge. Despite his kindness to her, she rolls him too--for the whole payroll...and skips. But this time, her conscience gets to her...and she discovers love. She pays him back...instead of blowing a fuse, he proposes to her. But she is busy milking another sucker, a sugar daddy she meets by way of deceit. He falls for her, and takes her in, giving her some stability. But...love will out...she's ready and willing to throw it all away because she loves the cotton barge skipper. But , she has a past that needs to be reconciled, and sugar daddy beats her over the head with it. So, with love in her heart, but with low self esteem and fear of rejection by the lover she has at long last found, she dis-appears, even gets a job ! Remarkable. Macrae finally finds her, and what happens is the stuff fairy tales are made of. The film is a worthwhile watch, though I am certain that audiences of the early '30s did not look upon it the same way they would some half a century later with the likes of Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Pert Kelton gets special mention...she steals her share of scenes and was quite a siren of the screen during that period...she had sex-appeal that oozed and dripped from the screen. Maybe it did her more harm than good, but she is one of the sexiest women on the screen during this period. One line she utters that I really like is "...I'll take vanilla", one of the strident wisecracks of the screen during this time. Also, Mildred Washington appears, playing a maid. Mildred did not shuffle, and was a star in her own right on the Black circuit. Her unfortunate early death robbed us of a presence on film that was both intelligent and vivacious. See this film...despite its age, it deals with the subject matter realistically, for the most part, is well made, and very entertaining.

Incorrigible and beautiful Constance Bennett (as Lorry Evans) and her gin-loving pal Pert Kelton (as Minnie Brown) are released from prison on the same day. Dressed to the nines, the pair set out to seduce and rob wealthy men on the way to New Orleans. Ostensibly a prostitute, Ms. Bennett nonetheless avoids sex by getting her victims too drunk to perform. An old trick. En route, Bennett meets and falls literally and figuratively for tall, dark and handsome Joel McCrea (as Dan). After robbing Mr. McCrea, Bennett installs herself as well-kept mistress to wealthy publisher John Halliday (as Stephen "Steve" Paige). As the film progresses, Bennett and the cast realize what you knew all along, but Bennett's past and present could prevent her future happiness with McCrea…

****** Bed of Roses (6/29/33) Gregory La Cava ~ Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, Pert Kelton, John Halliday

A witty vehicle for the beautiful Constance Bennett, this has dialogue that seems to aspire to that of Noel Coward.

Bennett and the delightful Pert Kelton leave prison at the same time. (Later, Bennett refers to Kelton as her roommate from convent. One wonders if Patrick Dennis was inspired by this when he had Belle Poitrine describe her reform school friend Winnie as a friend from boarding school. This occurs in "Little Me," one of the most hilarious books ever written and surely, 40 years or more after its publication, a dead-on commentary on movie star autobiographies.) Bernnett finds herself a nice sugar daddy in John Halliday. He sets her up in some swank apartment, let me tell you! Alas, she meets Joel McCrea, here the owner of a fishing boat. He looks bony here -- but as gorgeous a man as ever graced the screen. His only equal was Gary Cooper around this time.

Bennett falls for him and is willing to dump her riches to take to the sea with him -- as who in his or her right mind would not have. These plans are thwarted by jealous Halliday. But after a Mardi Gras sequence that doesn't entirely work, all ends happily -- at least for our two beautiful stars.

Bed Of Roses is the fourth and final film that Joel McCrea and Constance Bennett did which certainly should qualify them as a screen team. Paired by RKO Pictures the two worked well together.

The fact that both Bennett and Pert Kelton are a pair of prostitutes recently released from prison qualifies this film as a before the Code classic. The picture is quite frank about what they do.

In fact they're back doing it as soon as they're released shows they haven't repented. But both are looking for some comfortable permanent arrangements. For Kelton she manages to rope a traveling salesman, but in that same dodge Bennett jumps off a Mississipi riverboat fleeing from the captain after she's caught rolling another of the salesman for his dough.

Where she's picked up by Joel McCrea who runs and lives on a cotton barge. Thanks, but no thanks says Bennett, she's after bigger game and lands it in the person of New Orleans millionaire John Halliday.

I won't say any more, you know how this will end. And remember this is before the Code went in place. The lack of the Code made motion pictures a lot more free with details, but the American movie-going public expected stories to go a certain way.

What might have been nice is a bit more of Pert Kelton, her scenes have some real bite to them, but Bennett and McCrea acquit themselves well here.

I have watched many movies of the 1930's and I think I can make the following statement in clear conscience: the first 15 minutes of 1933's "Bed of Roses" is the dirtiest sequence of main stream film to grace the screen for the next 25 years! Wow, it is awesome. The great Constance Bennett, and her hooker partner Minnie, both just out of jail, need a ride to New Orleans. Minnie cozies up to a truck driver, asks for a ride, he says "what's your offer?" Then, a minute later, Bennett sidles up, and Minnie asks her, "can you drive?"! Implied yet relatively explicit is the suggestion that Minnie will be "paying off" the driver in the back of the truck! Wow! Then, once on the riverboat, the two girls are short of cash, so Minnie quite obviously whispers a rude offer into the steward's ear. He rejects the offer, but she doesn't mind - "nothing personal" she declaims. Judy Garland never behaved this way with Mickey Rooney over at MGM!

Folks, I am ever-grateful that the "Code" forced Hollywood to keep its movies very clean for 2 or 3 decades: the art of that period will never be surpassed again. But taking this path makes all those slightly naughty movies of the early 30's that much more fascinating and wonderful to see, like they got away with something, and we are the beneficiaries of that daring.

Another interesting decision the director makes is to take about 15 minutes worth of early action, which takes place on the Mississippi River, and have it all occur in a quite heavy fog. The hazy sheen in which the actors perform is noteworthy for how long this goes on for. Again, daring and interesting.

Constance Bennett is fantastically seductive, cynical, world-weary and manipulative. Joel McCrea is great being himself. And Samuel Hinds, one of my favorite minor character actors, with his perpetually silvery hair, is his usual fatherly best.

A great one from the early days, not to be missed, even if not one of the characters has a Louisiana accent.