La revanche du coeur

This is a superbly engrossing melodrama with a hard-hitting edge presented in an accessible, non-confrontational style.

Like a lot of early thirties pictures, the theme this deals with is the pitiful and frighteningly awful lack of opportunities young, poor women had back then. It's not as shocking as Loretta Young's SHE HAD TO SAY YES (actually an even better film) which left you with the jaw-dropping realisation of what times were really like but nevertheless it still destroys any false preconceptions that gold diggers or prostitutes did that out of choice.

In a challenging role, Constance makes her character difficult to like at the start. Her task is to try to get the get the audience on her side which she achieves effortlessly. She mainly played heiresses or glamorous romantic heroines so this was a bit of a departure for her but any worries that she'd not be able to convey a low-life, hard boiled amoral girl from the wrong side of the tracks were instantly dispelled. (She does a million times better at this than her sister did in the terrible ME AND MY GAL) I wonder if this character was a man would the audience be so easily swayed - but of course what made this person so unpleasant was specifically because she wasn't a man: she had had to survive in that brutal society in the only way she knew how.

Director Gregory la Cava never lets your attention slip for a minute, makes it lovely to look at and plays a lot with symbolism. It's interesting to compare how different Constance Bennett's character behaves depending on what sort of room she is in particularly in the prison cell or the ill-gotten opulent suite, her self-made prison cell.

Overall it's a fabulous insight into how life had to be lived in the early thirties. It's directed with energy and fun so although it's all serious stuff, it still feels funny. Constance Bennett is surprisingly brilliant, she gained her fame from her looks but this proves that she's wasn't just a pretty face. She carries this whole film herself so how good the rest of the cast are doesn't really matter - although you do get a little irritated by Pert Kelton's annoying Mae West impersonation.

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

Gregory LaCava, shows he is a very inspired director with "Bed of Roses" a film that dealt frankly with things that were to be forgotten when the Hays Code was finally enforced in 1934. This was a different Hollywood, one that took chances in presenting things the way they were, and without being hypocritical about them.

This was obvious a vehicle for Constance Bennett, the beautiful actress. She plays Lorry Evans, who has just been released from jail. Together with her partner, Minnie Brown, they hit New Orleans in search for a meal ticket, preferably a rich man to keep them in style.

Lorry finds such a man in Steve Paige, who is more than generous, but he demands something that the beautiful Lorrie doesn't feel for him, love! She meets hunky Dan Walters, and it's love at first sight, or so it seems. The only problem is that Dan is a poor man who can't give Lorrie what she has been used to.

As far as the melodrama goes, it's pretty conventional. What made an impression on this viewer was the frankness in which the subject matter is presented. Constance Bennett and Joel McCrea are perfect together. Both of them were attractive and young, in contrast with "sugar daddy" John Halliday, who keeps reminding Lorrie about her new acquired tastes. Pert Kelton, is seen as Minnie in a fantastic performance.

This was a film produced in Hollywood before the Code and it shows.

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.

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.