The Right of Way

Right of Way, The (1931)

** (out of 4)

A hot shot, loud mouth and obnoxious attorney (Conrad Nagel) is beaten and left for death. A fisherman finds his body, takes him home and soon the attorney recovers but he can't remember who he is. With the help of a nurse (Loretta Young) he learns how to be nice but will the past catch up with him? This is one of those early talkies that talks way too much. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that this 65-minute movie had more dialogue than a three hour movie of its time. Another major problem is the casting of Nagel who delivers a very bad and embarrassing performance. Young isn't given much to do either. Previously made in 1915 and 1920.

Not to be disrespectful of the early days of talkies, but if you see this one listed on TCM, skip it. It absolutely creaks with age. Set in Quebec, "The Right of Way" is a melodrama about a rather mean attorney nicknamed "Beauty" (don't ask me why) who gets involved in a bar fight when he goes to see his thieving brother-in-law in a bad part of town. As a result of the beating he takes, he develops amnesia and is brought to a rural area by a man he defended. When he regains consciousness, he remembers nothing, and takes the name Charles Mallard. He falls in love with the lovely daughter of the postmaster, played by Loretta Young. Young, radiant and beautiful, was about 18 when she did this film.

Except for a naturalistic Young, the acting is outrageously bad, intensely melodramatic, with many lines said with tremulous voices. As is often the case in the early days of sound, the actors weren't used to the medium yet so their timing is off. And the French Canadian accents - horrific. I can't agree with one of the posters about Conrad Nagel - yes, he was over the top, but so was his atrocious dialogue. He at least didn't drag the pace.

Not good.

It's so amazingly awful that it makes PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE seem like THE GODFATHER. This is so unimaginably bad - really bad that it's weirdly wonderful making it one of the funniest things you'll ever see.

You've got to see this with your own eyes to believe it. Once you've experienced it you'll want to see it again because it's so bad it's hilarious. Some films are bad, some are terrible but this creates a whole new dimension of hell that Dante would be proud of. It's not one of those terrible stagey dull early talkies which are so lifeless that you can't be bothered to watch - this is anything but boring. If someone wanted to make a comedy about the early talkies they could just use this. It feels exactly like one of those parodies but although it's hard to believe, it's actually meant to be serious - well I think it is?

Being made in 1930 is no excuse. There were plenty of films - or rather a few films made in 1930 and even in 1929 which were pretty good. OK, it was made on the horribly cumbersome Vitaphone system which certainly didn't help but again, others managed with it. This is just jaw-droppingly badly made.

Everything about this is as worse as it could possibly be. The story is beyond stupid, the script is completely surreal as though written by aliens and it feels like it was directed by someone from one of those isolated tribes deep in the Amazon who'd never left the jungle or discovered fire yet.

And as for the acting - you'll not believe what your eyes are telling you. You're not high - this really is happening! Conrad Nagel proves himself to be the worst actor in the history of cinema. I half suspect his remarkably utterly absurd performance was him trying to be funny but that would be too charitable. He's doing a sort of bizarre John Barrymore impersonation - indeed, were this a proper film, Barrymore might have been OK in this.

Then just when you think you've never seen such bad acting in your life you're treated to Olive Tell as his wife - O. M. G! I challenge you to watch her and keep a straight face!

Oh and there's sweet seventeen year old Loretta Young. Since she's betrothed to a sixty year old, I'm thinking that it's probably ok to find her attractive? Even she is rubbish in this which since she was ok in LOOSE ANKLES and a few other 1929/1930 movies, points the finger of blame at director Frank Lloyd - but he made MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY so what was going on here? Maybe Warners just wanted to close down their First National operation or maybe everyone was very, very drunk?

If you've run out of drugs - just watch this instead!

I like a lot of the early '30s "pre-code" films but this was just drivel with poor dialog and some poor acting. I only watched it to see Loretta Young, who was a real beauty in her younger days.

The dialog and some of things in here are so dated, so sappy and so overly-melodramatic with the lead character, played by Conrad Nagel, that it's almost laughable. What lawyer interrupts his closing speech to pick up a hankie from a woman in the audience, and then whisper something, kiss her hand and leave the courtroom? The guys nickname is "Beauty," and he sure is that! I wonder if audiences in the early '30s actually took this character and dialog seriously....or were they enamored to have "talkies."

Well, at least Loretta looked super, and sounded like a normal person but how many could people today watch this and stick around long enough to see her? She doesn't appear until almost a half hour, which is almost half the movie!

A Bizarre, far-fetched, wholly unrealistic bit of nonsense! Conrad Nagel's performance is so overripe it is actually hilarious! And what the hell was with that mustache of his? As most of the other reviews have said, the one saving grace is the presence of beautiful Loretta Young, who was obviously adapting to making talking films much better than her co-stars! The film is so crudely constructed and acted that i cant help but wonder if it was made earlier and sat on the shelf for a while? I cant agree tho that one should avoid this film, it is def an early talkie curiosity and because of Nagel's outrageously overwrought performance, almost a must-see!