A Lost Lady

While not being totally enamoured by the film's title (called 'Courageous' in my country, 'The Lost Lady' known elsewhere would have been far more suitable, and a title that doesn't really gel properly with the plot summary), the subject intrigued enough. Also have liked what has been seen of Alfred E Green's films and Barbara Stanwyck was to me and many others one of the best actresses of the golden age and gave many great performances. It was interesting to see Frank Morgan in an against type role.

A large part of me however was rather disappointed in 'Courageous'. Considering Stanwyck and Morgan's calibre, it should have been a much better film. Is that saying that 'Courageous' is bad? Of course not. It is very well made and acted in particular and starts off great. It is just a shame that it gets increasingly silly and melodramatic too early and ends underwhelmingly, am aware that these are potential traps fallen into a good deal in films at that time but still.

'Courageous' has a lot of great things, starting with the great acting and some of the cast playing against type. This is not one of Stanwyck's tough roles and requires her to be a little more subtle and sensitive, her performance here is very sincere and controlled, nothing feeling overdone or false. Morgan's role here is a dramatic one and a change from his usual eccentric ones, he understates beautifully and has affecting chemistry with Stanwyck (particularly towards the end). Am more familiar with Ricardo Cortez in villainous roles, so it was again interesting to see an in comparison softer side and he manages to give an as sympathetic as he can edge to a character who isn't that really. Rafaela Ottiano does a nice job too in her role.

It as a film is very well made. Beautifully and stylishly shot, atmospherically lit in a sometimes eerie way and with sumptuous sets and costuming. The music doesn't feel intrusive or overused and adds to and not over-emphasises the atmosphere. Green's direction has a lot of striking parts visually and he makes the first half of the film engaging. As indicated, 'Courageous' starts off well.

So it was unfortunate that the rest of the film wasn't as good. The melodrama gets into overload in the middle and it is very overwrought melodrama at that. Especially in the soap operatic Stanwyck and Cortez scenes where one still can taste the increasingly bitter suds after watching, not because of them but the writing. The writing is very sudsy and sometimes quite silly in their scenes and the brief attempts at levity are not amusing or needed, Willie Fung just doesn't fit and more at odds with everything else.

And then there is the ending. Too abrupt and too pat (almost like forgetting that the middle act didn't happen), not to mention subdued. That it was subdued though is admittedly preferable to the film getting more increasingly melodramatic than it already was, but it just felt anaemic. The waste of Lyle Talbot in a prominent role in the source material criminally reduced to practically nothing is unforgivable, as a result he is completely forgettable.

Summarising, watchable definitely but for a crew of this calibre this could have been a lot better. 5/10

A very good cast is well directed, but this film is practically hobbled by a pedantic, bowlderized script. The story concerns Stanwyck as a society dame whose fiance is shot by an angry husband on the eve of their wedding. Stanwyck is sent to the country to recover her spirits, and there attempts suicide (although the film actually shows her SLIPPING off the edge of the cliff) and is rescued by a gentlemanly older man (Morgan), whom she subsequently marries. Her affair with Cortez (who often seems to fill this undesirable role) consumes much of the rest of the film. Unconvincing conclusion adds to the mire that this film got stuck in.

'A Lost Lady' starts off strong, with Barbara Stanwyck and Phillip Reed in love and about to get married, only to have their plans tragically changed. As Stanwyck goes into seclusion in order to pick up the pieces, she's approached by Frank Morgan (who you may recognize as the Wizard of Oz), an older man whose love for her is pure yet platonic. From there the film attempts to troll the depths of friendship, love, duty, and marriage, as other men (Ricardo Cortez and Lyle Talbot) are also attracted to Stanwyck. The plot seems to have little to do with the Willa Cather novel of the same name, and as the film progresses, it seems melodramatic and not all that authentic. It's always great to see early Barbara Stanwyck, and in this one you'll see her hit a few tennis balls among other things, but not even she can raise this above being pretty tepid. It was made right at the outset of the production code, which undoubtedly played a role. At 61 minutes it breezes by, and, having failed to develop some of the potential of the story, ends abruptly.

Barbara Stanwyck, the greatest actress never to have won an Oscar, is here unusually young and glamorous in a succession of ravishing Orry-Kelly creations as she is torn between staying faithful to nice but dull (although fabulously wealthy) husband Frank Morgan and dashing young blades Lyle Talbot and Ricardo Cortez.

It's unusual to see Ms Stanwyck adorning a Women's Picture at this stage in her career; slickly packaged in a grade A production by Warner Bros. rather as they would soon showcase Bette Davis. The original 1923 Willa Cather novel had been filmed with Irene Rich ten years earlier (sadly now lost), and after seeing this glossy travesty Ms Cather never allowed her work to be filmed again during her lifetime.

No movie with the great Barbara Stanwyck is completely without interest, but there is little else to recommend this misbegotten movie. Willa Cather was so horrified at what had been done to her novel that she refused to sell any of her other books to the movies, and one can see why. The story, characterisations, time span, plot, and tone have all been changed, for the worse, in a trite Hollywood way. For example, the house in the book, which is a nice-size house whose distinction is the beautiful scenery around it, is here a huge mansion with the standard Thirties-mansion double-height curving staircase. Complex relationships in the novel are here so oversimplified as to be almost meaningless. The movie adheres to a post-Code morality, also very simple, good vs. bad, where the book was much more subtle and complex.

In what I think is the only case of this I have seen, Stanwyck has a different hairstle in every scene, which changes her appearance greatly. It makes you feel that trivial details like these, at the expense of consistency, are what most concerned the film-maker (Alfred Green-- who?).