Bed of Roses

Constance Bennett and pal Pat Kelton get out of prison and will do anything--ANYTHING--to get a man with cash. Bennett eventually falls in love with poor Joel McCrea--but will she be able to tell him about her past?

Nothing new story wise but some of the dialogue and situations are pretty frank for 1933. It's made quite clear that Bennett and Kelton have, and will, sleep with men for money. Also one woman is very obviously a kept woman. Very much a pre-Code film.

The dialogue is sharp, funny, fast and racy. All the acting is great--Bennett is just beautiful, McCrea is young, hunky and handsome and Kelton is hysterical doing a Mae West imitation.

Quick (67 minutes) and worth catching.

Snappy comedy drama. With all the biting dialogue and crusty dames, I kept thinking '30's Warner Bros. but it's RKO on a Warner's trip. Bennet and Kelton are a couple of hookers on probation looking for a way to get by. So guess what, Bennet meets sugar daddy Halliday who sets her up in comfort after initial misgivings (she probably applied her professional know-how). So it's now a bed of roses except that she can't get over cotton barge captain McCrea. Trouble is he's a straight shooter who might reject her if he finds out about her past. So what's she to do-- stay with sugar daddy or follow her heart and risk rejection. And will Kelton's presence help since she's a constant reminder.

All in all, it's a little gem, with sassy Kelton providing spark. Some of the lines are knee-slappers, like the guy who tells the girl he's a boll-weevil exterminator to which she replies, "I ain't done nothin' ". Mc Crea may get top male billing, but it's really Halliday getting the screentime. Note too how the screenplay finesses prostitution even though 1933 is still pre-Code. And that's along with cracks about Prohibition, which was about to end its 13-dry years. Anyway, thanks to the writers including underrated director La Cava, it's a nifty programmer of the sort old movie fans love to stumble across. I know I did.

Incorrigible and beautiful Constance Bennett (as Lorry Evans) and her gin-loving pal Pert Kelton (as Minnie Brown) are released from prison on the same day. Dressed to the nines, the pair set out to seduce and rob wealthy men on the way to New Orleans. Ostensibly a prostitute, Ms. Bennett nonetheless avoids sex by getting her victims too drunk to perform. An old trick. En route, Bennett meets and falls literally and figuratively for tall, dark and handsome Joel McCrea (as Dan). After robbing Mr. McCrea, Bennett installs herself as well-kept mistress to wealthy publisher John Halliday (as Stephen "Steve" Paige). As the film progresses, Bennett and the cast realize what you knew all along, but Bennett's past and present could prevent her future happiness with McCrea…

****** Bed of Roses (6/29/33) Gregory La Cava ~ Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, Pert Kelton, John Halliday

This one's really a very good picture and upon watching it...I didn't feel like watching an old piece of a museum...no, no, on the very contrary, it's a lively, very well paced, cast & acted film, I'd even say it didn't seem dated to me. Surely Gregory LaCava (later responsible for Carole Lombard's 1936 "My Man Godfrey") did an excellent job with this picture.

I'd never seen before Pert Kelton, in her young days...and she's hot!, I found myself laughing loudly, after listening to her endless wisecracks, playing the heroine's (Constance Bennett) pal, world weary, self-assured, etc... her way of speaking reminded me of Mae West. Both Girls (Bennett & Kelton) impersonate a pair of streetwalkers or "easy women" who want to make it big & go places, after being released of prison.

Johnny Halliday is very good too, as the millionaire Bennett tries to "catch"... and Joel McCrea, is the usual good guy, ... but no so naive, honest man, for whom Connie Bennett falls . He plays very well opposite Bennett, 'cos they have lots of chemistry...well, that may be the reason why they were paired more times by RKO.

Look for Jane Darwell (uncredited) as the head of the women's prison from where Kelton & Bennett are released at the beginning of the movie and for Frankling Pangborn as a clerk... I'm even sure that I saw Louise Beavers (star of "Imitation of Life" (1934)), as one of the women that were released along with Bennett and Kelton.

You've got to watch this one, not only if you're fond of Pre-Code early talkies, but for plain fun.

Bed Of Roses is the fourth and final film that Joel McCrea and Constance Bennett did which certainly should qualify them as a screen team. Paired by RKO Pictures the two worked well together.

The fact that both Bennett and Pert Kelton are a pair of prostitutes recently released from prison qualifies this film as a before the Code classic. The picture is quite frank about what they do.

In fact they're back doing it as soon as they're released shows they haven't repented. But both are looking for some comfortable permanent arrangements. For Kelton she manages to rope a traveling salesman, but in that same dodge Bennett jumps off a Mississipi riverboat fleeing from the captain after she's caught rolling another of the salesman for his dough.

Where she's picked up by Joel McCrea who runs and lives on a cotton barge. Thanks, but no thanks says Bennett, she's after bigger game and lands it in the person of New Orleans millionaire John Halliday.

I won't say any more, you know how this will end. And remember this is before the Code went in place. The lack of the Code made motion pictures a lot more free with details, but the American movie-going public expected stories to go a certain way.

What might have been nice is a bit more of Pert Kelton, her scenes have some real bite to them, but Bennett and McCrea acquit themselves well here.