They Call It Sin

They Call It Sin (1932)

One of many really good Loretta Young films from this era. She's young and energized and makes a great lead. This story of a sweet country girl being swept off her feet by a genuinely nice man must have struck to the core of women all over the country. Nothing extraordinary here, but all in all well done and compact.

There are parts of the film that feel like it's an early talkie—they are a bit stiff— but there are many more parts, especially with Young, that are so fresh and alive they feel almost contemporary. The other big name is George Brent, more famous for many low key roles next to Bette Davis, and it's fun to see him so young here. But it's actually the two other leading actors —there are four—who match Young for energy on the screen. One is the other man, a common kind of actor (David Manners) with believable energy. The second is a sassy woman who supports Young through her travails, Una Merkel.

So in all they make a fast and strangely interwoven group. You won't find the sexually suggestive layers of other pre-Code films here, even though some rules are seemingly broken. But you will find a freshness, if not intensity, that keeps this breezy drama going. They call it entertainment.

This film caught my attention immediately because of the great actors in this film and Loretta Young, (Marion Cullen) who looked so radiant as a church organist in a very small church. David Manners plays the role as Jimmy Decker who comes from a rich family and is an engaged man to his boss's daughter. Jimmy Decker visits Kansas and walks into a church and is struck by the beauty of Marion Cullen who plays the hymns: "On Ward Christian Soldiers" and "Rock of Ages" which seem to captivate his heart strings. Jimmy gets deeply involved with Marion and she gets into a problem with her mother and father and they tell her she is an adopted girl and they do not think she is a good Christian and in many ways disown her. Marion runs off to New York City and seeks out Jimmy Decker and then the trouble starts for this couple in love. Great film and George Brent, (Dr. Tony Travers) gave a great supporting role. Enjoy.

A startlingly mature teenage Loretta Young stars in this fast-moving melodrama as Marion Cullen, a songwriter who leaves her Kansas home for New York City to shape a career in show business and to follow the man she loves, Jimmy Decker (David Manners), a salesman whose business junket to her home town has tied their hearts together. Decker, however, is betrothed to another (Helen Vinson) and Marion discovers that success in her new profession benefits from a relationship with Ford Humphries (Louis Calhern), an influential producer but a libertine whose demands upon her include more than her ability to craft tuneful pieces for the stage. Decker, now married, continues to harbour his love for Marion, as does his best friend, medical doctor Tony Travers (George Brent) and it remains for the young musician to decide which of the three men she will choose and what sort of position she will prefer for herself, that as mistress, wife, or other woman. Graceful Loretta Young is asked to provide acting skill instead of solely her superb bone structure, and she does so to good result in mosaical scenes, displaying a full range of emotions while making them believable and, of course, is a perfect mannequin for the Orry-Kelly gowns with which she is raimented. David Manners must rely upon more than his profile here, and the stage-trained actor performs creditably, specially so in airy scenes, while silky George Brent and shrewd Louis Calhern execute their roles well; it is Una Merkel as Dixie Dare, Marion's Gotham companion, who nearly steals the show with her rendering of a salty-mouthed, high-stepping chorus girl. The entire production benefits from the extensive cinematic background of director Thornton Freeland who utilizes an interesting assortment of camera angles, is responsible for the crisp cutting and editing and handles his extras with sureness, with only the abrupt final minutes barring the work from achieving a higher aesthetic plane.

"They Call it Sin" is a 1932 film starring Loretta Young, George Brent, Una Merkel, Louis Calhern and David Manners. It's about a small-town beauty named Marion who falls in love with a man, James Decker (Manners) passing through town. He is engaged to another woman. It doesn't stop him, however, from falling in love with Marion. After a row with her parents and finding out she's adopted, Marion heads for New York, hoping to do something with her musical talent, and looks up Decker. Disillusioned upon learning he's engaged, she eventually takes up with a producer (Louis Calhern) who has a bad reputation as far as women are concerned. When he realizes she's in love with someone else, he fires her from his show and steals the music she wrote. Trouble follows.

Una Merkel plays dancer Dixie Dare, Marion's roommate, and she's a riot - wait until you catch her dance act sans the cartwheels she was hired to do. George Brent is a doctor friend of Manners who finds himself falling for Marion. All in all, it's a very attractive cast. As was the style in the early '30s, Loretta is blonder here than most people will remember her. The luminous Young is gorgeous in a series of outfits. Some people criticize her acting - I have always found her very natural and believable.

There was nothing new even in 1932 about the young girl in the big bad city, but the cast makes this film fresh and holds one's attention. It's not a long movie, but for the time it lasts, it's entertaining.

Merkel, Brent, Manners, and Young had JUST gotten into films at the tail end of the silents, but were even bigger hits in the talkies. Marion (Young) is the organist at a small town church, and meets Jimmy (David Manners). They hit it off, but when she shows up in New York, now there's explaining to be done. Fun scene where Dixie (Una Merkel) asks Marion for a cigarette, and when she says no, Dixie takes one of her own out anyway, and smokes it! Then they try to wiggle their way into show biz. Marion has real talent, and Dixie is full of energy and sass. Directed by Thornton Freeland, whose NEXT film would be the awesome "Flying Down to Rio..." check it out, if you haven't seen it. fun stuff. early Rogers and Astaire. Fun show about a show.