Having watched far too many pictures from 1929: some good, many ok but most awful, I can now spot which directors and actors are going to make it into the thirties. Nobody associated with this seemed like they'd make the transition.....then I realised that this was made in 1933. Everything about this feels much older. This cliché ridden, uncomfortably acted stagey production is definitely not what you'd expect from 1933.
Although it's a pretty poorly made film, it is reasonably entertaining and you'll stick with it probably just to confirm your suspicions that you can predict exactly what's going to happen in each subsequent scene (not very difficult). You might be watching this to see who Colleen -(absolute mega-star of the silent cinema) Moore was. If you are then you'll wonder what all the fuss was about - she's not that convincing. Maybe it's because Coleen Moore retired from acting when sound arrived and this is actually only her second talking picture....then again she is better in her first talkie, POWER AND GLORY. She was a massive star in the twenties and one wonders why her comeback pictures weren't spectaculars with her surrounded by all the top talent of the day.............she is not surrounded by any talent of any day in this one.
Maybe it was because of nostalgic reasons that Columbia chose to reunite veteran silent film director Marshall Neilan with his old muse but it was not a good idea. Mr Neilan was something of a pioneer and innovator when moving pictures were being born but now in the thirties he was regarded as yesterday's man, not someone to be trusted with anything prestigious. The story of why they picked him is probably more interesting than the story of this film. Considering this is from a proper studio, the direction is appallingly amateurish.
The story of the story of this film is also intriguing. The writing credits include three of the classic early thirties screenwriters but it's presented in a most curious way. "Based on a story by Anita Loos and John Emmerson" but for some reason these two didn't write the screenplay - the screenplay was "adapted by Clara Beranger." (whoever she was) with and then to add even more cooks to spoil the rather watery broth anyway, we then get "dialogue by James Creelman" (whoever he was). After all that, it's followed by "additional dialogue by Grace Perkins" who seemingly came along to tidy up the incoherent jumble and do her best to give the characters some character.
I think Loos, Emerson and Perkins thought nobody noticed that they wrote the same story six times a year just with different titles. It is cliché after cliché but it's not unpleasant. Those uncomfortable, sexist 1930s attitudes to sex and the single girl are prominently featured in this. However many times you watch films from this period, you never get used to how the blatant sexism is so innocuously presented as though completely normal. That a 32 year old woman should be so terrified of confessing to her boyfriend that she is not a virgin because of the very high likelihood that he will no longer want her is presented as much asmatter of fact as the fact that people need to breathe air to stay alive. The intimations are that if a girl had been so loose and appalling and wanton to sleep with a man whom she didn't marry, she was a piece of dirt that no respectable man could even look at without feeling repulsed. Nobody, nobody, nobody ever thinks that the man who slept with the girl has done anything other than have a jolly good time. And nobody thinks this is odd!
