Back Pay

Back Pay (1930)

** (out of 4)

Watching this early talkie makes it easy to understand why Corinne Griffith's sound career really didn't take off. This here would turn out to be her next to last film (before making one more nearly three decades later) and with material like this it's no wonder she stepped aside. In the film she plays Hester Bevins, a small town girl who is loved by Gerald (Grant Withers) but she turns down his proposal because he'll never make much money. Hester runs off to New York City where she gets involved with various rich men but when Gerald goes off to war everything changes. BACK PAY is a really, really bad film on many levels but I must admit that it kept me totally entertained because you never really knew where it was going to go. I should say that the film is 100% predictable so in that way it's not hard to see where it's going. What's so strange is that the film just goes off in various directions and some that you won't see coming. Just check out the first minute when the film starts off with Griffith singing a really bad song and this here tells you things are going to get crazy. The story itself is pretty predictable but it's also hard to figure out. It seems like stuff just happens for no reason at all including Gerald going off to the war, which has apparently been going on for a while yet it's never mentioned in the film until his broken heart goes. The ending, which is meant to be powerful, is so poorly done that it actually had me laughing harder than most of the comedies I've seen from this period. Griffith actually isn't too bad in her role but the screenplay simply gives her nothing to do. Withers, on the other hand, isn't suited for the role here and comes off pretty bad at times. BACK PAY is a film that most people are truly going to hate but I think fans of Griffith will want to check it out as well as those who enjoy bad movies. I will say that the 56-minute running time flew by, which I'm very thankful for.

A rare talkie for silent film legend Corinne Griffith (and the only one of her sound films that gets any circulation today), BACK PAY is an agreeable soap opera about a dreamy small town girl Hester Bevins (Griffith) who loves her unambitious but decent local boy but she knows There's A Big World Out There. The ward of her slovenly aunt who owns a run-down boarding house, she impulsively abandons the sticks when a traveling salesman proposes to take her to the big city. Beautiful Hester practically overnight becomes a rich man's mistress but has she really pulled out her small-town roots or gotten over the boy back home? This little movie has received some harsh reviews by some IMDb posters but I felt it was acceptable very early talkie. Griffith is a vision although she was nearing the end of her days as a screen star after over a decade of top stardom. Her speaking voice is quite pleasant if unmemorable. She sings the song "They'll Never Believe Me" in a lovely moment with beau Grant Withers leaning against a tree that opens the film. There are a few brief moments where the naturally refined Hester's clashing with the crude world of low-income South are brilliantly captured, Corinne and Grant's romantic interlude interrupted by the loud, gossipy sarcasm of their boorish friends ("little people, little lives eeewww" Corinne hisses in disgust), and slightly later walking home in a romantic daze and brought sharply down to earth by her vulgar gum-chewing aunt ("always in that filthy pink kimono"), a leering boarder, and most vividly, a sink full of long unwashed dishes and discarded beer bottles that all would have turned Pollyanna into an advocate of the primrose path as it does Hester.

The copy of "Back Pay" that is being shown now on TCM is apparently a very truncated version. Over 20 minutes is missing--as some studio types thought this change would make for a better feature. It also is often a sign that a film is in trouble and the studio was desperate to make it more marketable. So, this review is only for this short version.

"Back Pay" starts with one of the most unintentionally funny musical scenes I can recall. Corinne Griffith is singing to her boyfriend but it seriously looks as if she is a zombie!! I have NEVER seen anyone sing with less energy or conviction. Heck, her lips barely even move nor does she even twitch! And, her boyfriend lies there as if he is dead! Seriously--you just have to watch this opening to believe it. Now I know this is an early talking picture--but even by the standards of 1930 it's pretty awful. And this gets me to the single biggest problem that ruins the film. Although I might have expected an early sound film to be stilted and have lousy acting, by 1930 this was NOT a problem in most films. So, had the film come out in 1928 or even 1929, I might have cut the film some slack. However, the director must have either been insane or totally incompetent as the actors (particularly but not exclusively Griffith) had poor delivery and many of the scenes should have been re-shot. Surely any sane director would have noticed the zombie-like delivery at the film's beginning--but this one apparently did not. And, repeatedly, the actors seemed to have little in the way of delivery--and they were allowed to give such lackluster performances. They either talk too fast, too soft or look stilted. As a result, the movie sucks. I know this sounds mean, but it irritated me that Miss Griffith was allowed to give such a bad performance--along with a cast of folks who seemed to have little idea how to act in a talking picture.

I you STILL decide to see this film, a few things to look for apart from Griffith's awful singing is the masseuse who can barely be understood, the scene with her old boyfriend where the actors keep talking over each other's lines as well as when actors inexplicably talk too fast in some scenes. Some might blame the actors, but isn't it the director's job to notice this and re-shoot these awful scenes?!

Written by Fannie Hurst (Imitation of Life, Back Street), Back Pay is a prime example as to why some silent film actresses took a nosedive. Talkies revealed Miss Griffith's shortcomings as an actress. Although a very beautiful lady, she seems very uncomfortable with dialogue and gives an inconsistent performance. Some of her scenes are well acted but most are not. To be fair, she did give some good performances--in silents--like her Oscar-nominated title role in The Divine Lady (1929). This was her last Hollywood film and her only surviving all-talkie. The other one, Lillies of the Field, is lost. A typical Fannie Hurst tear-jerking melodrama.

Corinne Griffith was a big star in silent films. She made a handful of late silents with talking sequences and then two all-talking films. Both bombed. In 1932 she made a last stab at talkies in an English film and it bombed too.

Back Pay was Griffith's last Hollywood film. It's based on a Fannie Hurst novel and should have been a showcase for her talents as an actress, but the 55-minute film seems a mangle from the beginning. Directed by William Seiter, Back Pay never seems to settle. It's so obviously set in 1930 (clothes, cars, songs, decor) but pretends to be pre-WW I.

Griffith plays a hick from Demopolis, VA who works in a department store. She's in love with a fellow worker (Grant Withers) but yearns for more. She exits on a train out of town. Next scene has her in New York City as a rich man's girlfriend. She has lost the hick accent and is wearing expensive clothing. The lover (Montagu Love) seems nice man and gives her whatever she wants.

She and her friends decide to motor to Hot Springs, a mere 30 miles from Demopolis. Griffith gets a yen to seen the old town and runs into Withers. They chat and she is amazed how good the old town looks. Next scene takes us to Lake Placid where a wistful Griffith is still thinking about Withers.

Back in the city she gets of rush a emotion when WW-I soldiers are marching away to war. Next we see Withers get gassed on a battlefield. Blind and dying from gas poisoning Griffith visits him, gets another rush of emotion, and marries him when she learns he has but weeks to live.

Withers dies on Amistice Day and Griffith is a better woman for it all and even refuses to go back to her old life as a mistress. The End.

Back Pay is Griffith's only surviving talkie so it's impossible to tell if she was playing a part of if her voice (think Zasu Pitts) was really her voice. In any case she comes across very badly. Withers is even worse.

Montagu Love is fine as is Louise Beavers (as the maid), but everyone else is just dreadful. Vivien Oakland (the friend), Hallam Cooley (the traveling salesman), Louise Carver (the masseuse), Virginia Sale (the secretary), and Geneva Mitchell (Babe) are all bad.

But let's blame the director. The film is hideously directed and paced, and the editing is terrible, Was this cut to shreds at some point? Does that explain the abrupt transitions? Seems doubtful. There are so many anachronisms it's hard to believe this was a better film but badly edited.

Griffith was excellent in the few silent films I've seen her in (The Divine Lady, Garden of Allah) and by the end of the silent period was a huge star. She even supposedly won an Oscar nomination for The Divine Lady--a fact inconsistently reported in Oscar histories. But she is not very good in Back Pay.

Griffith is another silent star whose birth year varies widely in different various sources, anywhere from 1894 to 1898. Her first film was in 1916 so she could well have been born in 1898, but if she was born in 1894 she would have been 36 when she made Back Pay--way too old for the part of Hester.

Well no matter. Griffith was a great star in the 1920s--the Orchid Lady--and rivaled Gloria Swanson, Lillian Gish, Greta Garbo, and Mary Pickford in popularity. She was often compared to Norma Talmadge for the kinds of roles she played. And, ironically, like Miss Talmadge, faded from the screen after only a few attempts at talkies.

To be fair Corinne Griffith should be remembered for her great film successes during the silent era and not for the few misguided talkies she attempted. Note: Griffith's memoir became the hit film, Papa's Delicate Condition, in 1963. Griffith appeared in more than 65 films and produced a dozen.