Lilly Turner

Lilly Turner plays like a distant and more wholesome relative of Tod Browning's Freaks. Ruth Chatterton, excellent as always, stars as a sideshow employee married to a lush (Frank McHugh) but in love with straight arrow George Brent. To complicate matters, an addled strongman (Robert Barrat) is in love with her, and escapes from the State Hospital in order to pursue her. The film is atmospherically shot by James Van Trees, and there's solid support by Guy Kibbee as the charlatan in chief of the shabby road show. Strongly recommended for fans of pre-Code cinema.

This Pre-Code moves along at a crackling pace. Lilly Turner is a gal from Buffalo who marries a fast-talking actor Rex Durkee (Gordon Westcott) after a whirlwind courtship and finds out on her honeymoon that he is not exactly the answer to her maiden's prayer. Rather than a successful vaudevillian he is a third-rate carnival performer whose poverty forces her into the carnival scene too. He cheats on Lilly and sponges off of her until she announces her pregnancy, then he skips town. And, believe it or not, things just go downhill for Lilly from there. And this is only twelve minutes into this 65-minute film.

Like "Heroes For Sale", there are no sustained bright spots in this one - they both end on a depressing note. But it doesn't exactly enumerate the widespread problems of the Great Depression like "Heroes does, other than that the only attractive nice guy in the film - Bob Chandler (George Brent) - is a bright young man with a recent degree in civil engineering who has to drive a taxi because of the lack of jobs in his chosen field.

Many compare this movie to "Freaks", and although I don't really agree with that assessment, it does have a kind of Tod Browning vibe going for it. I'd recommend this one, just realize it is not going to lift your spirits.

Once I'd seen Ruth Chatterton in "Dodsworth," I wanted to see her as much as possible. In a movie different from that also from this one, she plays a brazenly sexual executive: That film is "Female." "Lilly Turner" has many elements of the standard women's picture. A women's picture that is, one must note, distinctly pre-Code. Also one that is directed by William Wellman.

It transcends the genre on many counts, though: Chatterton gives an excellent performance. I had to laugh when she gives her age as 22! Chatterton was 40 when this came out and 40, especially for women, was sort of the equivalent of 60 today.

Fine actress she was, whatever age she was passed off as. She gets excellent support here from peculiar collection of co-stars and supporting players. Frank McHugh is especially good as the alcoholic carnival worker who rescues her when she's dumped by a no-good new husband.

I was particularly impressed by the scenes with Robert Barrat. He was hardly an actor of Chatterton's caliber. He plays a strongman in the carnival run by Guy Kibbee. In his later scenes, the nature of which I will not give away, he is filmed in a manner highly reminiscent of German Expressionism. James Van Trees filmed the whole movie beautifully but these sequences are true knockouts. They'd be right at home in the very finest of film noir.

Be advised that some of the dialog exhibits racial and ethnic insensitivity that was acceptable at the time.

Lilly Turner (1933)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Ruth Chatterton plays the title role, a woman who gets married but then loses her husband when it turns out he is already married to another woman. She loses her baby and then joins a traveling medicine show where she meets another man (George Brent) but her pass might catch up with her. Here's another Pre-Code from William A. Wellman but the screenplay doesn't do anyone justice. The performances are all very good with Chatterton really stealing the show as the tough as nails woman. Brent also turns in a fine performance as does Frank McHugh, Robert Barrat and Ruth Donnelly. The screenplay is full of cliché material from the wrong men falling for Lilly up to the ending, which anyone will see coming from a mile away. The bigamy plot twist might have been shocking for the day but it too is pretty watered down even for the era.

Absolutely loved this. It's one of those gritty Depression melodramas where the amount of misery and misfortune piled upon our hero can only happen in Warner-land. Coupled with Forbstein's familiar jaunty score to lighten the mood, this is everything you want.

Leo Forbstein's jolly score is cleverly based on the old tear-jerker 'Till We Meet Again' and 'Spin a Little Web of Dreams' from FASHIONS OF 1934. That's one example of how Warners blended strains of tragedy into an upbeat tone. Despite the unmitigated misery of the story, weirdly the mood of this is positive and optimistic - well, as optimistic a Depression audiences could hope for.

Poor Ruth Chatterton marries an abusive bigamist, gets pregnant, loses her job, loses her husband, loses her home, loses the baby and ends up in poverty working in a carnival side show run by a sexual predator with just one friend who's s hopeless alcoholic. All of that's just the first fifteen minutes! ... then it speeds up! It's astonishing how much story is squeezed into an hour whilst still fully developing the characters. One example of how Wellman condenses superfluous plot to allow him to focus on character is when McHugh helps out his friend Lilly. To save her from the stigma of becoming an unmarried mother he marries her but this whole story is handled in about ten seconds. McHugh says: 'I'll see you alright.' Then we simply see a marriage certificate.

In the best tradition of a Warner early thirties melodrama, just when you think things can't possibly get any worse for poor Lilly...it does. It's like every cliché, every story and plot twist from every pre-code movie ever have been squeezed into one wild and wacky hour. Any pre-code fan must see this - it's like all your Christmas presents rolled into one.

One reason for watching early thirties pictures is because they usually star a sexy young lady like Joan Blondell or Claudette Colbert and I must confess that foolishly I wasn't going to watch this simply because Ruth Chatterton isn't on 'my list.' My shallow stupidity almost made me miss this near classic. Ruth Chatterton is (as I've now learned usually is) fantastic in this. She's just so real. Her naturalness and ordinariness makes her so completely believable - which is a real feat considering the story.

One reason I decided to watch this is because it's directed by William Wellman. He's not someone you'd associate with melodramas, he didn't really enjoy having to do this but his genius turns this absurdly over-the-top story into a totally absorbing grown-up drama. He really captures the seedy, shabby and unstable world these poor victims of The Depression are forced to inhabit. He truly transports you body and soul back to 1933.

And another reason to watch this is because Frank McHugh and Guy Kibbee have both got proper parts. McHugh isn't just the five minute comedy relief drunk, Kibbee isn't befuddled old 'Pop'. No, they're both superb actors here portraying genuinely realistic and believable actual living people.

Can't believe I nearly didn't watch this - it's exactly the sort of movie a pre-code fan like me loves.