Man of the Moment

From 1923 to 1930 Laura LaPlante was the Queen of Universal Studios. She was a delightful comedienne and a fine dramatic actress. She was outstanding in the part-talkie epic "Showboat"(1929) though the film itself in its current form is mediocre at best. She left Universal in 1930 after two musical flops but found considerable success in England starring in half a dozen comedies for Warner Brothers-Teddington Studios. "The Man of the Moment"(Warner Bros, 1935) made its U.S. debut last night and proved once and for all that LaPlante should have had a great talkie career in the kind of films she excelled in the silent twenties. SHe makes a delightful pairing with the handsome young Douglas Fairbanks Jr.. The film is given a glossy Hollywood-style sheen, the script and direction is excellent, but it is these 2 stars at their charismatic best that makes this constant fun. Why Warner Brothers did not re-team these two is a mystery....The film never got a U.S. release though Fairbanks was a major star at the time. LaPlante's career was going into eclipse but she was still widely known by the public.

This film concerns a poor man named Douglas Fairbanks Jr., engage to an heiress, ( Margaret Lockwood, and one day he saves a woman (Laura La Plante) from drowning and falls in love with her. Douglas Fairbanks becomes deeply involved with Laura La Plante and finds himself hiding her in his apartment as a male servant. Douglas Fairbanks friends tease poor Laura La Plante and even threaten to hairbrush him/her and things get pretty upsetting. The men also want Laura La Plante to take off her/his clothes. There is plenty of great scenes and outstanding photography for a great classic film starring two great veteran actors. However, you must remember this is a very old English B Film and not filmed very often in the United States. If you like Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and like his early films, this is a film you will definitely enjoy.

A lot of the recent TCM rediscoveries (and U.S. premieres!) of Warners' British productions from the 1930's are turning out to be quite good movies and not the cheap, reviled "quota quickies" of legend. This is one of them, a charming British foray into the screwball genre with some of the same sexual cheekiness American productions of the so-called "pre-Code" era (1930-34): the heroine spends a good chunk of the film in male drag and the bridal suite actually has a double bed. It's quite a bit slower than a U.S. version of the same story would have been, Margaret Lockwood's crying jags get tiresome (she'd go on to be a major British star and is best known as the female lead in Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes") and some musical underscoring would have helped, but on the whole this is a clever and amusing film. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., who in his American films in the period was sometimes cast in roles that were beyond his acting skills, is perfectly cast here and delivers a memorable comic performance, and after seeing (and being unimpressed by) some of Laura LaPlante's late silent and early talkie performances at Universal, I was pleasantly surprised by her work here and disappointed only by her utter lack of a British accent. (I kept expecting to hear a bit of dialogue explaining that she was an American stranded in Britain and forced to take a secretarial job there to survive.) Let's hope the other 27 surviving Teddington productions get shown here soon!

I enjoyed this film, its easily equal to the screwball comedies being made in the US at that time. In some ways even more daring since it deals with subjects that would quickly be censored in the US. Suicide, extramarital sex & office romances, a single woman staying and traveling with a single man (It Happened One Night), cross dressing, rowdy stag parties that walk a thin line just to mention a few. Plus the scenes around pre-war London are fun. But the real reason for watching this film is Laura LaPlante, what a terrific actress. Great comedic timing, a natural accent, pretty in a non-30's way (I kept thinking of Laura Dern), and obviously willing to do slapstick. LaPlante energized every scene she was in, and put sappy Margaret Lockwood to shame. Its a mystery why she couldn't compete with the likes of Carole Lombard or Myrna Loy - she was definitely their equal. I particularly liked the scene by the river when Mary is trying to get her nerve up to jump in, but her nerves and the river aren't quite up to the task. The stag party scene made me cringe, was that planned by the director - or was that truly a more innocent time. While Mary may be a dreamer - she's not stupid, she enjoys a challenge, and she has found it in the Fairbanks character. There was an off hand chemistry between La Plante and Fairbanks and its a shame that it wasn't nurtured. I would like to see more of the British La Plante movies screened.

Both stars of Man of the Moment had started in silent films; The dashing Douglas Fairbanks Jr (Gunga Din, Stella Dallas) stars as Tony, who is about to get married. The film begins as Tony stops Mary from drowning herself. The girl, who he calls "Nuisance", is played by Laura LaPlante ( MANY silent films, Cat & the Canary, Showboat) The fun but typical hijinks and misunderstandings follow, and now his marriage to the silly, young rich girl Vera (Margaret Lockwood, Man in Grey, Alibi) is in jeopardy when her father gets involved. Fun romp, but the plot does involve suicide, gambling, drinking, and other violations of the Hays code, so that may explain why it's not shown very often, although other movies with those elements are shown all the time. The director Monty Banks, also plays the flirtatious doctor in the film. Ironically, the actor playing the father of the rich girl, Peter Gawthorne seems to have gotten his start in Hollywood much later than the younger cast, but always played positions of authority, the police captain, the Lord, the Judge. The writer of the play, Yves Mirande, had also written and directed the 1940 version of Moulin Rouge. There is also another film titled "Man of the Moment" from 1955, but it does not appear at all related to this film.