Born to Be Bad

Loretta Young looks gorgeous. She gets to wear a lot of clothes. It's a little hard to buy her as an amoral, manipulative man-trap. But she works hard and this is partly because we know her oeuvre.

I have recently watched a lot of her early movies, which are not substantial enough to comment on. These include "Road To Paradise," "Party Girl," and "Big Business Girl." These are all early sound pictures and very creaky.

Here, though, Young is costarred with youthful and handsome Cary Grant. He hasn't quite become the Cary Grant who is rightly a fable in the history of Hollywood. But he's of course handsome and they are well matched -- if not necessarily plausible romantically.

The rest of the cast is OK. But the director was Lowell Sherman, who was excellent and has been underrated in later decades.

Having grown up w/Loretta Young as a paragon of virtue in her TV show and her movies (seen on TV) - The Bishop's Wife, The Famer's Daughter, Come to the Stable, etc, etc, etc - I was surprised and entertained by this bauble. She plays a slut w/verve, AND she is dressed w/ her habitual hyper elegance. She changes outfits 5or 6 times a day, evidently. Her rather brutal screaming at her raucous son strikes an odd note, making her (no other word will do) horniness even more striking. Cary Grant is about as long-suffering & gullible as he was w/ Mae West, but he also looks good. Fast, sentimental and raunchy, she even gets to tear up several times - a swell little film.

This is the type of Pre-Code film that makes you curse the Hayes Code and the Catholic Legion of Decency. It is more serious and adult orientated movie than almost any movie for the next 20 years.

You have ambiguous lead characters who are allowed to be both good and bad people, so you can't really guess how things will turn out. The Hayes Code pretty much separated characters into good and bad and you could easily guess who would be rewarded (the good) and who would be punished (the bad).

Loretta Young is the revelation here. She looks a bit like Liza Minnelli in "Cabaret" and she seems to genuinely enjoy breaking social customs and taboos. She reminded me of Joan Crawford's character in "Rain". Her determination to seduce Cary Grant away from his wife still manages to shock us, or at least me, in 2010.

I know that Loretta Young hosted an anthology television series in the 1950's, which was rerun in the daytime through the 1960's. As a child, I found it quite boring and never watched it. I'm sure I would find it fascinating today.

The lackluster boy actor is the only weak part of the film. Young plays their scenes with genuine warmth, but the kid just gives us an early version of the East Side Kids caricature.

Cary Grant is his usual good guy self, but undergoes quite an unusual transformation. It is rare when Grant does something to alienate the audience in a movie, as he does here. He seems in complete control, but Loretta's sexiness causes him to lose his cool persona.

In most films we root for a mother who is going to lose her wayward son to state institutions. Here, we almost root against her getting her kid back. All in all, a fine film.

Letty (Loretta Young) is a tramp. Early in the film she is established as a classy, attractive girl who appreciates fine things. The viewer is then given a shock when she suddenly changes in demeanor. I was impressed with the way Loretta Young was able to go from "nice" to "naughty" in one scene, giving away her character's true nature beyond a doubt. For nearly the full length of the movie we see Letty trying to cheat her way through life, convinced it is the only way to survive.

Audiences of 1934 may have been looking for escapism in motion pictures, but I do not believe they could have found Loretta Young's character appealing. Pregnant at 15, she was taken in by a kind book store owner, but as she reached her early 20's she had taught herself and her son to win at any cost. In doing so, she becomes an escort to prominent men while her son, Mickey (Jackie Kelk), learns to be "street-wise" at a very early age. You could easily imagine Mickey ending up in prison. Having a lawyer offer advice on how to commit a new scam was a nice touch. Surely no one could feel sorry for Letty losing her son as an unfit mother. Loretta played that "unfit" part perfectly.

Cary Grant really blended into the background in Born To Be Bad. His star was rising, but virtually any lead actor could have played Mal Trevor. Jackie Kelk was slightly older than his character, Mickey, at the time the movie was made. I found Mickey's change of heart to be a bit too easy, but as others have commented the movie is a bit short. Maybe with more time to show the supporting characters develop the movie would have made more sense. The only characters that really had any depth were Letty and Mickey.

This movie is worth watching if only for the costumes. Loretta Young's hair is soft, shiny, straight at the top and fuzzy and curly at the bottom. It's a virtually impossible hair style to achieve. Her acting is stellar, her figure so razor thin,yet still feminine and curvy. This was before there were anything but natural fibers, and the cloth used to make the costumes in the movie looks like liquid silver and gold. Cary Grant is a little weak, hair plastered down, no good dialogue for him. But he's still Cary Grant, so that's all you need to hold your attention completely. The little kid actor is awful, and worse, he's not even cute! He makes you want to turn away from the screen. Huge ears, huge nose, looks like he's already hit puberty--really embarrassing scene where he's in a tight swimming suit and his mother comments it looks like a girl. Also some icky scenes of what could only be described as family violence between the mother and the son. When the movie is over you say, "What!? It's over?" Then you start going over the last scene to see if you missed anything. Keep your eyes open in the last five minutes. Not that the surprise is anything but the abrupt ending, but you'll feel better if you were concentrating. Just sit back and get lost in those beautiful Loretta Young eyes, and ask yourself, "Are her eyes blue or violet?" *sigh* It's also a little disturbing when you think about how the movie is portending Loretta's own life. I really hate the character of the creepy little book store owner who is supposed to represent decency in Loretta's character's life. He just comes off as a perv. Also insulted by the antisemitism in what appears to be a crooked Jewish lawyer. Still rude even though it's 1934. I think Cary's wife is actually a strong character, though not well-developed. Probably most of her scenes ended up on the floor. Interesting use of the latest technology of the age--movies in the courtroom and recording in your own home. Must have been very space age at the time, and it's so fun to see the old 78 records you could break apart with your hands. It's a revealing slice of 1934 which shows that the human experience has not changed much in 75 years. But the movies have-where are those gorgeous movie stars?