Riptide

This movie may come off dull to some when first seeing. But you have to understand movie & theatre history to appreciate a film like Riptide. For me it was seeing a legendary and famous lady actually acting and speaking in one of her very few films. In this case Mrs Patrick Campbell(Stella Beatrice Tanner Campbell). Like Mrs Leslie Carter, another famous Mrs, Mrs Pat, in her youth, was a famed actress from the theatre of the 1890s and 1900s. Her relationship with writer George Bernard Shaw is legendary amongst Shaw or Broadway Theatre fans. Mrs Pat didn't seem to make any silents and for posterities sake made three or four talkies in the 30s as a novelty of which Riptide is the only one I've viewed. Thank goodness! because at least many of us fans, generations down the road, can get to hear and see what she sounded like and perhaps get a glimpse of her acting and appreciate her legend. This is what's great about film. Preserving the performances of a once famous actress like Mrs Patrick Campbell. If only other theatre Greats had done movies like Mrs Pat. Ie: Maude Adams(the original Peter Pan), Julia Marlowe(famed American Shakesperean actress), John Drew(uncle of the three Barrymores).

This story is a typical Norma story of the day. Much like those that she had played in earlier films of the early 30s. She's caught between two men. In this case Herbert Marshall & Robert Montgomery. She marries Marshall, has a daughter with him and then he's gone away much of the time and she starts to take up with the younger Montgomery. The rest of the film is a series of adventures for Norma as Aunt Hetty(Mrs Pat) and others take her to St Moritz, Monte Carlo etc to help her find herself. Marshall was himself an interesting actor. He, like Ronald Colman and Basil Rathbone had seen action in WW1. In Marshall's case he lost a leg and even though a suave/textured leading man here, as well as in other films, he's walking around ably on a wooden leg. All in all I quite enjoy the treats this film offers. Norma was a very sexy woman with a nice shape. She wears some nice(and Pre-Code) form fitting gowns and looks fetching. Silent screen star Lilyan Tashman makes her next to last appearance in a supporting role as one of Norma's friends. She died soon after this was made. And of course the ultimate treat of this movie, seeing theatre great Mrs Pat Campbell and hearing her act. Wonderful!

Norma Shearer is a delight in this film, which was the last of her pre-Code appearances. She gives a very natural, charming performance in scenes that call for tenderness, temptation, flirtation, and playfulness, including those with the two leading men (Robert Montgomery and Herbert Marshall), her aunt-in-law (theater legend Mrs. Patrick Campbell), and her adorable daughter (Marilyn Spinner). She's helped considerably by the script which has a lot of life to it, something evident from the beginning, when we see Marshall in a giant 'Insect Man' costume and Shearer in a revealing 'Lady Sky bug' number, get ups designed by Adrian for a "World of the Future" ball. The story degenerates into a bit of a soap opera in its second half, but it had scored enough points with me early on that I didn't mind too much.

One thing that's great about it is its frankness with the sexuality of Shearer's character. From the dialogue, it's clear she's had premarital sex with men before meeting Marshall's character, and has sex with him too. She's content to leave it at a fling, but he wants marriage, a role reversal from what we'd traditionally see. At the same time, she's not portrayed as a tramp, on the contrary, she's sweet, funny, honest, and full of life. When they marry, though, the expectation is that she'll "settle down," which she jokingly agrees to ("From now on, a ring in the nose and a beating every Saturday night, please"). Fast forward five years, and tension comes in the form of Montgomery's character, a friend from her single days who meets her while her husband is travelling, and over drinks makes a pass at her. She rebukes him, but the story makes the newspapers, and between that, Montgomery's persistence, and Marshall judging her, she's torn between the two men from then on.

As I mentioned, it spirals a bit, but watching Shearer deal with the emotions of the character made the film for me. In one fine scene, Marshall throws her past up into her face while suspecting her of adultery, thinking of how she "didn't stop with a kiss" back in the day, calling to mind the double standard of the period. That's a little irritating, but this was the reality in 1934, and Shearer is given the power of choice, without being condemned. Eyebrows are raised by the other characters, but if she goes off with Montgomery's character they and the audience will know it's due to the thrill having faded from her marriage, and that she will survive. As she puts it, "No man is gonna let me or not let me do anything ever again."

The film drew the ire of the Father Daniel Lord, one of the authors of the Production Code, who condemned Shearer for taking the role of a "loose and immoral woman" and her husband Irving Thalberg for casting her in films like these, which in turn enraged Thalberg. Lord (and Joseph Breen's) position were more about keeping women in their place, since the behavior of Marshall's character is the same but there were no comments about a "loose and immoral man." They would soon put the shackles of the Production Code on Hollywood, which makes seeing this last Shearer film before that happened, at a time when she was quite good as an actor, special for me.

Norma Shearer's emotional range and charm is always a delight. Her costumes in shiny silk charmeuse and deep dark velvet translate so well in vintage black and white, and the topic of a woman's "decency" in the 30's and small minds is dramatic and poignant. I love this decade of movies for the history and social culture they often evoke.

One of the things I find interesting in these comments are how many people insist that this is a terribly old fashioned story that couldn't be made today. Really? Because while watching this all I could think was that if movies could be said to have a family tree, then I think the movie The Kids Are All Right, which has been praised to the skies for being such a "modern" story, shares plenty of DNA with Riptide. There is a theory that there are really only 36 plots, and every story is just different variations on those 36. I think the key when watching these movies is asking yourself, what is the basic bare bones plot of this story? Can this story be told now and is someone telling it? The answer is almost always yes. It's fun to realize the progression.

There were a couple of really great scenes in this. The bug costume scene in the beginning(that was a seriously skimpy spider costume!) and the scene where she gets drunk with Trent and jumps into the pool. I did wish the film would have followed up a bit more with her husband's secretary, who was clearly in love with her. They just showed him mooning over her the whole movie, but never went anywhere with that. It seemed a bit random. I think if you're not going to do anything significant with something like that, don't include it in the movie.

She was incredible. This movie quickly jumps forward in time, but the dialogue between Mary (Norma) and Trent was great. If only she had kept making movies and not ended so abruptly.

No movies today compare to Riptide (which was controversial at the time)