The Reckless Hour

I enjoyed this film a lot, because Dorothy Mackaill, who I guess was an answer to Marion Davies, has a really sweet demeanor. I'm happy there's a happy ending, and in fact, I never saw Conrad Nagel looking better! I also very much like Joan Blondell, who was so cute in these very early roles, before they gave her that stiff glamorous hairdo. I can't stand the wise-cracking boyfriend, but then maybe that's the idea, we're not supposed to like him. It's a fun film with some really touching moments. I first saw Dorothy Mackaill in "the flirting widow" with Basil Rathbone , and I really liked her in that, too.

... starting with model Margie Nichols (Dorothy Mackaill) trusting socialite Allen Crane (Walter Byron) enough to go out with him and think him on the level after he basically insults her on first meeting. All dressed up in formal attire, he at first thinks her a fellow socialite and is very polite, but after he finds out she is a model in the dress shop his demeanor changes significantly, he gets familiar, and basically says she'll eventually sleep with him.

At home Margie has a rather difficult situation. Mom (Helen Ware) is dissatisfied with Dad's (H.B. Warner as Walter Nichols) income, with him owning a book shop and being happy with just that. She wants him to be bolder with his money and become an investor and a big shot, and she's constantly nagging on the subject. Margie is bored with her main suitor, Harry Gleason (Joe Donahue), but sister Myrtle (Joan Blondell), for some unknown reason, is just aching to take this zoot suited wise-guy away from her sister and drag him to the nearest JP. Conrad Nagel plays artist Eddie Adams with which Margie has a second course of reckless moments in the last half of the film after she becomes cynical about romance. She and the artist are a good match as he has become cynical too due to a faithless wife and his resulting failed marriage.

This is pretty much a precode with lots of conventional angles - middle class girl thinking she has found her rich prince charming only to find out he's a heel and that when it comes to his family the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree, feuding parents with one parent lending a sympathetic ear to the troubled daughter and the other parent oblivious and self-involved, and a couple of colorful neighborhood characters to lighten up the melodrama just a bit.

A couple of things of note. Joan Blondell's mating ritual with Joe Donahue's Harry Gleason just had me thinking - I'd actually believe she found this character interesting if Harry was being played by James Cagney, who was also still a supporting player at this point. After all, it was the kind of street wise character that Cagney excelled at playing that Joe was obviously aiming at portraying, but instead he just seems like a street-wise wannabe braggart. There's also a very interesting scene at a club when Margie is out with Allen. When he's talking things over with Eddie as to his plans that evening Allen basically tells Eddie - with Margie standing right there - that he's occupied because the two are spending the night together. That Allen would talk about her like she was a piece of meat in front of a total stranger should have told Margie that this relationship was not on its way to the altar. Finally notice Ivan F. Simpson as Eddie's butler who also played similar roles in George Arliss' films.

I'd recommend this as a very typical precode of the era, but with interesting performances by those involved and a look at Warner Brothers in transition, as it would soon abandon the stars it started out with in talking pictures such as Dorothy Mackaill and H.B. Warner and turn more towards stars such as Joan Blondell.

This film is 86 years old and presents such a different world from the one we live in today.

"The Reckless Hour" concerns a young model, Margaret (Dorothy Mackaill) who falls for a playboy Allen Crane (Walter Byron). Her family isn't wealthy - Margaret lives with her parents Walter and Harriett (H.B. Warner and Helen Ware). Her mother, of course, is thrilled that she's dating someone from a wealthy family.

Walter isn't. He notices she's wearing a very expensive bracelet and informs her that if she's seen wearing it, people will realize it's too expensive for him to have given her. Then what will people say? Back then, a man giving jewelry was just not done unless the two are engaged or married. Margaret says it's a fake, and besides, it's an engagement gift, to Walter's relief.

Well, the bracelet is real, as a friend informs Walter, and it really isn't an engagement gift. Margaret and Allen are fooling around in an apartment he keeps in the city. One night while on the town, they meet a friend of Allen's, Eddie (Conrad Nagel). He is immediately attracted to Margaret, and then realizes that she's sleeping with Allen.

Upset that Allen may be taking his daughter for a ride, he confronts Allen's father, who never heard of her. A confrontation between Allen, his own father, and Walter - overheard by Margaret - solidifies the fact that Allen has no intention of marrying her. Allen's father insists that if he said he would, he's going to. Margaret says no. Later she tells Walter that she's pregnant - by saying "I didn't tell him...everything."

Walter raises the money to send her to a rest home. When she returns, she learns that Eddie, who is an artist, having learned she's no longer with Allen, has been asking for her. She decides to work for him.

Really lovely film, based on a play, dealing with a common pre- Depression theme then - class differences - which ended with the Depression when writers like Clifford Odets began to write plays about the working man. And, before the code, women who slept with men before marriage weren't killed in the last reel as punishment.

Dorothy Mackaill was beautiful and gives a touching performance; Joan Blondell as her wisecracking sister is a riot. For me the best performance was by H.B. Warner. Warner is most famous for being Jesus in the DeMille King of Kings, and more famous for being Mr. Gower, the pharmacist in It's a Wonderful Life. His performance is heart- wrenching and his love for Margaret is palpable. In this film he's in his fifties but today could pass for 80. Amazing.

Excellent film - check it out.

Joan Blondell, here playing the little sister, is about a thousand times more charismatic on-screen than star Dorothy Mackaill, and her presence is one of the only excuses to give THE RECKLESS HOUR (1931) a shot.

The Depression-era melodrama starts off boringly enough (until we meet Blondell's character) and covers the familiar ground of the rich boy dating the middle class girl and making promises he never intends to keep, leaving the girl to suffer the consequences on her own.

Dorothy Mackaill's line readings really bring the movie down. It's something about her enunciation and how she spaces her lines apart. Blondell, for example, is much more naturalistic, but H.B. Warner and Conrad Nagel are also noticeably better than Mackaill in their scenes with her. Top-billed Mackaill is probably the worst actor in the whole film, and some of the scenes late in the movie, with the melodrama slapped on pretty thick, are almost impossible to take seriously.

Joan Blondell, just starting out in Hollywood, is relegated to a supporting role with limited screen time, but is nevertheless delightful. Fans of hers might want to give this one a look if it shows up on TCM. Otherwise...

Attractive department store model Dorothy Mackaill (as Margaret "Margie" Nichols) begins a relationship with suave and wealthy Walter Byron (as Allen Crane). Of course, she hopes he's marriage material. Her working class father H.B. Warner (as Walter Nichols) thinks Ms. Mackaill is making a mistake. Mackaill's lover teasingly promises "dishonorable intentions." This turns out to be no joke. Mackaill finds herself unmarried and in trouble. She turns her attention to suave portrait painter Conrad Nagel (as Edward "Ed" Adams). The attraction for Mr. Nagel seems more genuine, but he's stuck in an unhappy marriage...

During the later 1920s, Dorothy Mackaill was a successful second-tier star, impressive as Richard Barthelmess' love interest in "Shore Leave" (1925) and lending good support to "The Barker" (1928)...

"The Reckless Hour" finds her doing well in "all-talking" films, but her career faltered and Mackaill gave up the game. Here, she's a bit too worldly as the poor shop-girl, but gets stronger as her character matures. She and director John Francis Dillon have some fine moments - the highlight has Mackaill sneaking into her Jersey City apartment after spending the night with her lover in New York City. However, the director seems lax in spots - notably during the sequence where Mackaill's portrait is completed without fanfare. The supporting cast and crew are fun, with Nagel getting a chance to impress during the second half.

***** The Reckless Hour (8/15/31) John Francis Dillon ~ Dorothy Mackaill, Conrad Nagel, H.B. Warner, Walter Byron