Ann Carver's Profession

Fay Wray made this the same year as she did King Kong. In this one, she stars as Ann Carver, a working girl who becomes a successful attorney - pretty far ahead of her time! She marries Bill (Gene Raymond) an architect who has big plans, but isn't as successful as he'd like to be. They run into legal trouble, and its up to Ann to try to get them out of it. A lot of clever lines and fun scenes, well done by the cast. Raymond and Wray make a very believable couple, and the script flows with no pot holes or plot-holes. Claire Dodd is in the cast, and one of my favorites, Jessie Ralph, as Terry, the over-dramatic housekeeper. This was made just prior to the film code enforcement, as we can tell by the courtroom scenes, and the backless dresses on F. Wray. "Ann Carver" has a lot in common with "The Bride Walks Out", kind of a remake by RKO in 1936, which also starred G Raymond, but this time with B. Stanwycke. Written by Robert Riskin, who won the Oscar for writing "It Happened One Night". Directed by Edward Buzzell, who directed a couple of the Marx Brothers films. Good, fun entertainment, even if the ending is a little weak.

If you go into this movie with your expectations being low, then this movie is not that bad. But if you are looking for a diamond in the rough with an entertaining cast and interesting plot then this movie is not for you. Fay Wray surprisingly does a nice job of playing a female attorney that will defend her separated husband against a charge of murder. But that acting alone cannot save this movie from production woes.

What had happened was that Ann Carver Graham (Fay Wray) and her husband Bill Graham had split up when Ann's career became too great for Bill to handle. Bill finally got a job singing at a local night club that made him happy. But one evening Ann catches Bill in the presents of another woman named Carole Rodgers and thinks the worse. Bill then moves out of the house leaving both Ann and Bill feeling bad about the situation.

When Carole is found dead, Bill is arrested for murder. Ann, his separated wife, will defend him. The case looks bad for Bill but Ann will give a stirring speech to the jurors in order to free the man she loves.

As many already said, this is a B type movie. Most of the acting is poor and the film feel cheaply made. It made be nice to look back and see the fashion of the day but little else can be obtained from this picture.

... but wait, there's more! Law school graduate Ann Carver (Fay Wray) marries architecture graduate and college football hero Bill Graham (Gene Raymond). Being the Depression, Bill can only get a job as a draftsman. His wife stays home as was the custom in those days, even if the couple had no kids. At a dinner party, Ann gets involved in a discussion of how to win a case, and winds up with a job offer. She climbs in her profession and loves it, Bill languishes in his, and hates it.

The Grahams get posher digs, they have servants, all on Ann's money. When Bill can't pay the household servants when Ann is away on business, he quits his drafting job and gets a job singing at a club, using his football celebrity as collateral because it means much more money. Unfortunately the other singer who got him this job is played by Claire Dodd. It's always a bad omen to pal around with Claire Dodd in a precode. The Graham marriage breaks apart, and Bill takes to drinking heavily, sometimes with and sometimes without Dodd, whose advances he rebuffs.

Then Dodd's character dies and Bill gets accused of her murder. And in a preposterous development Ann defends him at trial by claiming - truly - that nobody can find a motive for Bill murdering the woman, and -ridiculously - besides it was all her (Ann's) fault because she wanted a career. How dare her! How will this turn out, watch and find out.

What makes this very paint by numbers plot rise a star above mediocre is the twist of how Claire Dodd's character actually dies. Nobody ever figures it out, except the audience, who witnesses the entire thing. The 1930's equivalent of Quincy does not come along and solve the riddle. And I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it.

Also, there is a very precode courtroom scene, where Ann makes her name. She is defending a breech of promise suit - that is where a man promises to marry a woman and then backs out. In the 30s this could mean big bucks for the woman if the man was rich, and in this case he is. The reason he backed out was that he found out the woman was black. She claimed that he always knew she was black, and that it should have been obvious when they went swimming that she was. That she never hid her race or lied to him. The opposing counsel says that anybody should be able to tell a black woman from a white one. So Ann brings in six women - three white, three black, but all of the same skin color - and demands that the opposing counsel say who is who. The judge breaks up this circus but the point is made and the woman suing the rich man loses. Now this all sounds very racist because it is, but it was cut out of versions of this film shown in the production code era that started the following year because - wait for it - the film is making it look like race is only skin deep AND that a white man could be married to a black woman and never even know it. Oh the horror!

Sometimes even very formulaic old films are worth seeking out for the twenty minutes or so that they are NOT formulaic.

Lest We Forget, Before Women were Propelled into the Workforce by Necessity During World War II, the Professional Female was a Somewhat Controversial Anomaly. Hollywood did use the Situation Frequently During the 1930's as the Depression Made Things More Gender Equal as the Economic Suffering Dispersed Like a Plague Among the Populace.

In this One Fay Wray is a College Graduate Along with Her Football Star Husband (Gene Raymond) and His Career as an Architect is Stalling and She Decides to Pursue Her Own Status as a Lawyer. She Abandons Her Wifely Duties as Her Amiable Husband Becomes More and More Frustrated.

It is an Interesting Bit of Antiquity and has Some Things of Interest Including a Bizarre Courtroom Scene at the Beginning that Concerns Itself with Society's Segregation. It Shows its Pre-Code Pedigree as Hubby has an Affair and Shacks Up with Claire Dodd and the Sex and Drinking are On Display Quite Freely.

The Ending will Certainly Disappoint Women Libbers as it Resorts to a Standard Conservative Courtroom Speech About a Woman's Place. Fay Wray is Given an Opportunity to Show Some Acting Chops in the Same Year She would be Immortalized in One of the Best Films Ever Made. One She would Forever be Associated. Later in Life She Stated..."I have now realized that King Kong was my friend."

Ann Carver's Profession (1933)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Entertaining curio from Columbia has Fay Wray playing a wife turned brilliant lawyer who must defend her estranged husband (Gene Raymond) when he is accused of killing a nightclub singer (Claire Dodd). This is an extremely interesting little gem that manages to be entertaining as a film but also because of the way it showed women and race of the time. The husband ends up leaving the wife because she's making more money than him, which is something he's embarrassed about. Seeing a woman work here way up without using sexuality is something else not all that common from films of this era. The way the film views race is another interesting thing because Wray's first big trial is a black woman charged with dating a white man but not telling him she was black. This entire courtroom scene is rather jaw dropping as even blackface doesn't seen as out of date as this sequence. We see the attorney bring in "questionable" black women who might be white. The entire sequence is surreal, strange and certainly something you probably won't see in too many movies. The biggest problem with the film comes in the final ten minutes when the trial of the husband actually starts. The actual ending is a downright disaster but even worse is how we get to that ending with a certain speech inside the court. It was so bad I actually wanted to hit the mute button. Wray turns in a decent performance, although I think she goes a tad bit over the top during some of the court scenes. Raymond, Dodd and the rest of the supporting cast do fine work and the director keeps everything moving at a nice pace. This is yet another forgotten film that popped up on Turner Classic Movies and it's one more should check out as it gives us a rather interesting insight to some rather strange topics.