La boule rouge

One of the most interesting of the Fox pre-code talkies, for several reasons: 1) It has nice girl Frances Dee as a perverse and masochistic society miss, snarling and hip-shaking and shocking the elite. 2) It has Judith Anderson, in a swell backless evening gown, playing a moll, against-the-grain casting of the most inspired sort, even if the movie never explains her high-tone Brit accent vs. her brother's American Midwest elongated vowels. (She also played a gangster years later in "Lady Scarface," but it's a much less interesting film.) 3) You get to see Blossom Seeley, the great vaudevillian, sob a couple of torch songs, and she's the real thing. 4), and most fascinatingly: George Bancroft plays a no- better-than-he-should-be bail bondsman who works both sides of the street and is terribly corrupt, yet the movie likes him, we like him, and he doesn't have to repent for it. It's lively and violent and funny, and, unlike so many Fox early talkies, it has the fast pace of a good Paramount or Warners flick from the same period.

Wow! Were do you start with this one?

Director Rowland Brown (soon blackballed in Hollywood for striking a producer) certainly confirms his reputation for style with this racy little pre-Code gem, in which an impossibly youthful Judith Anderson and Frances Dee are both revelations: the former as a supple, sleepy-eyed, smoky-voiced dame draped in a succession of slinky backless thirties evening gowns; the latter as a spoilt little minx who in Miss Dee's own words is a "a kleptomaniac, a nymphomaniac, and anything in between".

Great fun.

This is another case of a film that turned out to be different than I had expected: in fact, I thought it would be a gangster picture – which is why I watched it following 2 Josef von Sternberg genre entries that happened to feature the same star, George Bancroft! Still, it does concern a racket of some kind – since the protagonist is a leading bail-bondsman with an ability to pull strings where and when required (if anything, this was an area of work which was hardly ever touched by cinema and certainly not at this point!).

The film came at the tail-end of the "Pre-Code" era, but it offers plenty of salacious elements – notably a gratuitous semi-nude Hawaiian dance and the uninhibited character of Frances Dee (which she herself described as "a masochistic nymphomaniacal kleptomaniac"!). Ironically, the lovely actress – soon to marry Joel McCrea and perhaps best-known for the Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur horror classic I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943) – had just come off something from the opposite end of the spectrum, the David O. Selznick/George Cukor adaptation of the literary classic LITTLE WOMEN (1933)! Anyway, as had been the case with all 3 Bancroft vehicles I watched prior to this (there was also yet another Sternberg title, albeit not genre-related), he is played up to be something of a ladies' man (whereas a review of THUNDERBOLT [1929] had described his physical appearance as "repellent"!) but, at least, here he eventually settles down with someone closer to his type and age i.e. Judith Anderson in an early – and atypically glamorous – role (she is the owner of a speak-easy which comes equipped with a chanteuse whose vocal range takes in both Mae West and Al Jolson!).

Another important character is Anderson's younger brother, an unrepentant criminal whom Bancroft is often required to bail-out for the woman's sake. However, the situation is complicated when Dee (another of the hero's clients) enters the picture – Bancroft neglects Anderson for her but, after she meets the "exciting" young man herself, begins an affair with him behind her 'protector''s back! In a complex turn-of-events, the protagonist himself becomes a pariah and is marked for death (via an exploding billiard-ball a' la Buster Keaton's SHERLOCK JR. [1924]!) by the city's gangland factions – with Anderson's consent! – but, ultimately, she sees the error of her ways and races against time to stop the attempt (suspense is admirably built here through cross-cutting, with her car even getting involved in a wreck!). The finale sees the two getting back together…while Dee bumps into a girl who had been practically ravaged by her proposed employer when answering an ad and, ever a glutton for punishment, she takes up the call herself!

Finally, this is the first of 3 pictures by Rowland Brown (who seems to favor shooting from odd angles!) I will be watching over the course of succeeding days – the others are the thrillers QUICK MILLIONS (1931) and HELL'S HIGHWAY (1932); incidentally, he would make another film with Bancroft i.e. the gangster milestone ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938) – by which time, however, both had been demoted: the director to co-scriptwriter status and the star to a supporting role!

"Blood Money" is a noir mystery and drama set in Los Angeles in the early 1930s. This was during the Great Depression, but there's no sign of bread lines and people out of work here. One can imagine that the depression was felt much less in the film capital where movies were still being made to help raise the spirits of the public across the nation. Well, that included crime and murder flicks as well. While this one isn't about murder, it is one heck of a film that shows widespread corruption.

Just about everybody and anybody who is anybody is a friend of and probably on the take with Bill Bailey. The famed bail bondsman is played very well by George Bancroft. I can't think of another film that ever featured or touted a character who was a bail bondsman. Such roles barely get notice when they do appear in an occasional film.

But here, our "hero," while operating on the edge of the law - not clearly violating it, is a likable guy who is friends with all the police force, the judges and courts, and the city and state politicians. Bailey's girlfriend is Ruby Darling (played by Judith Anderson), who owns and runs an upscale speakeasy. Blossom Seeley plays the singer in her joint. Seeley was a famous singer who performed on vaudeville and in nightclubs, and this is just one of four films that she was in.

When Bailey gets a society gal out of a jam for shoplifting, he is smitten by her. Frances Dee plays Elaine Talbart. But she goes for any man who's exciting and winds up with Ruby's brother, Drury Darling, who's a master con-man and robber. Bailey has some problems when Ruby is jealous of his affections for Elaine, but in the end things might just work out

Lucille Ball has a small part in this film as one of Drury's girl friend's at the race track. Here are some favorite lines form this film.

Judge's Wife (Florence Roberts, uncredited), "Well, that Bill Bailey has a lot of nerve." Judge (Clarence Wilson, uncredited), "Mmm, yeah. But he's got a lot of influence too."

Butcher Weighing Sausages (Herman Bing, uncredited), "That was Bill Bailey. He just ordered one hundred and fifty turkeys for Thanksgiving." Butcher (Dewey Robins, uncredited), "For charity, huh?" Butcher with Sausage, "Yeah, sure, for our poor judges, our poor lawyers, and our poor police officers."

Racetrack Spectator (Dennis O'Keefe, uncredited), "You haven't picked a winner tonight, Bailey." Bill Bailey, "I make all my money off losers."

Ruby Darling, "Weren't you ever romantic?" Bill Bailey, "Heh, heh. Can you imagine a guy getting romantic in a reform school, hmmm?"

Bill Bailey, "As long as you have cities, you're bound to have vices. You can't control human nature by putting in a new mayor."

Bill Bailey, "The only difference between a liberal and a conservative man is that the liberal recognize the existence of vice and controls it, while the conservative just turns his back and pretends that it doesn't exist."

Bill Bailey, "The tougher the times, the better my business."

Bill Bailey, "Why, if you were dying and needed blood for a transfusion, I'd be the first one to give it." Ruby Darling, "So, the only way we can get together is to have a blood transfusion, huh?"

Ruby Darling, "I can remember when you thought a hamburger sandwich was a banquet. And you called a dinner a feast."

Bill Bailey, "And, don't forget - behind every Barnum there was always a Bailey."

Rowland Brown was a prolific scenarist, but directed only a handful of films, the best being 1932's rather remarkable "Hell's Highway." This effort from the following year is interesting if not as successful. George Bancroft plays a bail bondsman who's somehow the kinpin of the town--at least its shadier quarters--and as such attracts a thrill-hungry debutante (Frances Dee). She proves trouble, particularly when they cross paths with his pining ex-flame's (Judith Anderson) genial ne'er-do-well brother (Chick Chandler), and the deb can hardly help throwing over semi-respectable George for an honest-to-god bank robber.

This movie has a fast pace, considerable esprit, and enough suggestive pre-Code titillation, though it's hardly in the "Baby Face" league of outrageousness. What makes it interesting is more the atmosphere than the plot, and the performances--both the ones that work and those that don't, quite. Bancroft is good, though maybe coasting a bit too much. Stage legend Anderson made her film debut (one short aside) here, and you can see why she didn't make another movie until Hitchcock and "Rebecca" seven years later--she's definitely got an unusual presence, but you can tell she just isn't comfortable with the medium yet. Ditto Blossom Seely, a then-famed vaudeville and nightclub singer who plays the latter here (she's basically onscreen just to sing three songs), but she too doesn't feel at ease, so she comes off as a somewhat colorless Mae West knockoff--I'm sure she had a lot more to offer than she communicated in a screen career that obviously didn't work out (this was the last of three films she made in 1933, her first and last such efforts).

Even if these performances are limited successes, they nonetheless add texture. And there are a number of very good performances, most notably by Chandler and Dee. He underlines the film's insouciant amorality by playing a compulsive stick-up-guy as a devil-may-care youth who doesn't commit crimes out of any need, but just because,..well, it's fun, and he can't help himself.

Dee was usually cast in nondescript ingenue roles, but she really digs into this change-of-pace character. The script doesn't spell it out, but the way she plays the society girl (who in addition to picking up shady men is a compulsive shoplifter) makes it absolutely clear that this woman is CRAZY--the kind of nuttiness that probably would have landed her in lockup already if she didn't have wealth and privilege protecting her, with a tycoon father eager to view her behavior just as mild eccentricity. She does have a couple eye-opening lines pretty much saying flat-out that she is looking for a bad man who will push her around--she's a debutante looking for a club-using caveman, the less respectable the better. It's quite the character, almost more than the movie knows what to do with, and Dee really throws herself into it, without becoming hammy. Pity her career didn't take a few more such left turns--she clearly relished the opportunity to be "bad." At a revival screening much, much later, she reportedly told the audience that in "Blood Money" she played "a masochistic kleptomaniac nymphomaniac," something you don't see everyday on screen (esp. in 1933), and to her credit that is exactly how it comes off.