La casa della 56ª strada

Lightning-paced drama directed by Robert Florey stars Kay Francis (top female star at Warners) as a chorus girl in 1905 who is pursued by an older man (John Halliday) who has no interest in marriage and a younger man (Gene Raymond) who wants to marry her. She opts for Raymond and becomes a society hostess and eventually has a baby. Later, when she learns Halliday is ill, she visits. He tries to commit suicide but Francis is convicted and jailed for 20 years. The baby daughter grows up (Margaret Lindsay). Out of jail, Francis goes by the name of Mrs. Stone and meets up with a gambler (Ricardo Cortez). They work in a speakeasy and everything is OK until the daughter shows up one night. The ironic ending is perfect.

At 68 minutes, this film whizzes along but is filled with lots of period detail and plot elements. Very nicely done. Kay Francis gets to transform from the frilly 1905 fashions and hair to a sleek henna-rinsed beauty in 1927 and finally to a slightly graying babe dealing cards in 1933. She's terrific, and the ending will surprise you.

Co-stars include Nella Walker, Henry O'Neill, Frank McHugh, Hardie Albright, and William "Stage" Boyd.

Kay Francis is extraordinary in this fatalistic tale--the surprises this plot has in store for her character, Peggy Van Tyle, are heart-wrenching: stoically, heroically, she survives them all.

For audiences suffering through the depression, the hardened-heart determination of Peggy Van Tyle must have proved inspiring. Things start out well for attractive dancer Peggy Van Tyle, but everything she loves is taken from her, even her dignity, and there are great scenes here of her adjusting to the "modern" world she reenters after serving 20 years in prison for a murder she did not commit.

This story is full of unexpected twists, not the least of which is how successful Peggy is in her "fresh start" as a hustling gambler. The at-sea casino card game she plays against her future partner-in-hustling Bill Blaine is astounding: no one can match Kay Francis's poker face!

This is a very grim tale. But the strength of character--really, I should say the "durability" of character--which Kay Francis portrays here is ultimately supremely uplifting. No matter what life throws at her she does not break!

Kay Francis stars in the melodrama "The House on 56th Street," also starring Gene Raymond, John Halliday, Ricardo Cortez, Margaret Lindsay, and Frank McHugh.

What a soaper. Francis plays a chorus girl, Peggy, who is being wooed by two men -- Monty van Tyle (Raymond) and the older Lyndon Fisk (Halliday). She marries van Tyle. They move into a beautiful house on Park Avenue and E. 56th Street in New York City. They have a daughter, named Eleanor, after Monty's mother.

So far, so good. Then Lyndon contacts her, begging to see her, as he's not a well man. Reluctantly she does visit. She rejects his advances, and he reaches for a gun to kill himself. They fight over the gun; it goes off, and Peggy goes to prison for 20 years.

While in prison, Monty dies in action during World War I. When she is released, she learns her mother-in-law left her a decent amount of money and assumed she was not going to contact her daughter. Peggy promises she is out of her daughter's life.

Peggy has an amazing makeover and goes on a cruise, looking for a fresh start. Her father was a gambler, and on the shop she meets Bill Blaine (Cortez), another card shark. She knows he's cheating and takes him to the cleaners. They fall in love and go to work in a speakeasy, running the gambling concession. The speakeasy happens to be located at the House on 56th Street.

Peggy hasn't come full circle yet; but she's about to.

Kay Francis is fabulous, giving a strong portrayal of a woman who has suffered a great deal, yet carries on. And as usual, her clothes are gorgeous. In fact, when Monty comes to see her in jail before they ship her off to the prison, she's in black with sequins.

I have to admit I'm fascinated by the type of woman Kay Francis played in the '30s - strong, independent, smart, and vulnerable. She was perfect for these roles, which later would be played by people like Barbara Stanwyck and Bette Davis.

This 1933 film's action begins in 1905. The first quarter or so, though the quality of acting and period costumes and sets is high, may strike today's viewer as the most cliched of Cinderella stories, more suitable for a Depression-era shopgirl seeking escape than a sophisticated 21st-century Internet user. Pretty proletarian chorus girl Peggy (Kay Francis) is romanced by not one but two fabulously wealthy playboys. As would any of us, she opts for the younger and handsomer of the two, who additionally wants to marry her over the objections of his stuffy mother, who of course eventually is won over by Peggy's natural charm and sweetness.

By this time, unless you're a fan of Harlequin romance novels, you may be sorely tempted to switch to another channel, DVD or website, as I probably would have had my spouse and I not been watching together, each reluctant to be the one to suggest pulling the plug.

However, there is one hitch in this opening chapter of bliss. Peggy's older, less handsome rich playboy was more than just a hopeful suitor. In fact she was his mistress in a richly furnished love nest. So there is hope that something a bit more dramatic will develop, and indeed it does and the film morphs into a typical hard-hitting fast-paced pre-code melodrama.

This is where my deep thought comes in. If a similar story was presented today as a movie, TV show, short story or novel, it would start with some later courtroom scene or act of violence to let you know what was in store, then flash back to the beginning without your having to wonder if anything interesting was going to happen.

Hey, I know, even in 1933 they knew about flashbacks. They also knew that 1930s moviegoers, with no TV or computer waiting at home, who had paid their nickel for four hours of escape from the Depression, were not going to walk out of the theater after fifteen minutes, so the film could start slow and work its way up.

So don't necessarily touch that dial, or remote, or keyboard and be prepared for, eventually, a pre-code action melodrama with, as so often, a morally ambiguous conclusion.

Stage performer Kay Francis leaves wealthy lover John Halliday to marry society man Gene Raymond. Visiting Halliday after an operation, he says he should have married her, pulls out a gun, and tries to kill himself. Miss Francis tries to stop him, but fails, and is found guilty of his murder. Twenty years go by before she is released and gets a makeover. She meets gambler Ricardo Cortez and they fall in love, but returning to New York, they get jobs at the gambling house, where her daughter Margaret Lindsay, who thinks her dead, shows up. And then the story gets complicated.

Miss Francis gets a lot of costume changes and a couple of hair-dye jobs, of course, from stage tights through high fashion, and does very well in her performance as usual. After her heyday, she got an undeserved reputation as a clothes horse and nothing more. Cortez, still trying to hang onto leading roles after sound revealed an accent unsuitable for his silent, Valentino-like roles, does also does very well. Director Robert Florey might have made this about the changing face of New York, and perhaps that story wound up on the cutting-room floor. With Frank McHugh, William 'Stage' Boyd, and Hardie Albright.