The Lady Lies

"The Lady Lies" is one of Claudette Colbert's first films and she's paired with Walter Huston in a rather confusing pre-code outing. When I say 'pre-code' I am referring to the era just before July, 1934...when films had all sorts of adult content which were essentially outlawed by the code. For example, the characters curse several times during the movie and the movie IMPLIES a lot...a hallmark of many pre-code pictures.

As far as the plot goes, I think it's an example of a film which implies a lot without saying it...at least that's what I THINK was happening.

Rich guy Robert Rossiter (Huston) is a widower whose two kids were sent away to boarding school. In the meantime, Robert meets a nice working girl, Joyce (Colbert) and they fall in love. However, Robert's straight-laced family don't approve. Why? Well, that's the vague part. It might just be because she's not from the fancy set and the family are snobs. But it might also be implying she's become Rossiter's mistress...with all that implies. But frankly...I don't know. If it's the former, everyone REALLY overracts to the romance. If it's the latter, they sure didn't make it clear...and this lack of clarity is why I didn't love the picture.

Overall, an okay time-passer...that I really wanted to like more. And, while Huston and Colbert are very good, the actors playing the children are just awful...among the worst performances by child actors I can recall.

I'll stick to the performances and the filming here, rather than to the storyline. First of all, I don't think I have ever seen a film from 1929 that is better and more naturally acted, with the microphone picking up every little vocal nuance in a way that we did not get used to entirely until at least, say, 1933 or 1934. The scenes are rarely visually static, but this is basically a filmed play, so there isn't much camera action necessary. Every one of the actors is better, or at least more natural-sounding and -looking, than in almost any other 1929 film I've seen, and there are never any of those pregnant pauses or moments when the cameraman doesn't seem to know what to do to extricate his camera from one scene and go on to the next. Maybe the actor playing the Puritanical relative is a bit on the old-fashioned side where speaking is concerned, but the man he is playing is something of a social-religious fanatic, so he gets away with it. But all four leads, plus the children (especially Tom Brown as the son) are superb throughout. I expected this of Colbert, Huston and Ruggles, but was really surprised at just HOW GOOD they were. Add to them, the not-much-seen Betty Garde as Ruggles' illicit paramour and Joyce's best friend, and it is just a wonderful quartet. Garde, whose major career was on stage, radio and early television (I seemed to see her every time I turned on the TV back then), wasn't really attractive enough for film and far too tall for most leading men at 5'10", and my only real recollection of her in movies is from two decades later, when she played the mother-dominated nurse who helps villain Richard Conte escape from his hospital confinement in CRY OF THE CITY, a vivid performance of a hopelessly unhappy large and older woman. But, here, she is just delightful as a floozie with both brains and heart, and one whom we are sure will end up snagging Charlie Ruggles for good after our part of the story ends. Ruggles is superb, but wasn't he always? Huston, who to me was one of America's five or six greatest STAR character actors of the first half of the last century (the others being Muni, Tracy, March, and the Barrymore brothers) is fine here, although his role is not quite as demanding as many others he essayed in the early talkies. But the standout is Colbert, who is simply born to act on the screen, so natural is her delivery and appearance at every moment. She has a near-cello voice and it is captured beautifully in 1929, while some other very fine actresses were still semi-screeching to be heard properly. If anything - and this is really quite amazing for 1929 - the film is underacted by all but perhaps Tom Brown, but hey the kid was only 16 and would be around for another 50 years. Yes, the story is old-fashioned, but it is not maudlin. I was very happy with, and admittedly surprised by, just how well this whole film came over, as it is superior to the vast majority of films from this very confined era that are better-remembered today.

Watched this film because I am a big Claudette Colbert fan.She came across well enough but the script though probably fashionable for the time seems dated now. Huston was OK to a point but overacted towards the end of the film .Given a decent script we might have seen him in a better light

While buying a gift for his daughter, widower Walter Huston (as Robert Rossiter) finds French salesclerk Claudette Colbert (as Joyce Roamer) to be both pretty and helpful. Soon thereafter, a chance meeting leads to an over two year affair. Apparently succumbing to his snooty Massachusetts relatives, Mr. Huston decides not to marry below his station, and develops an "understanding" agreeable to Ms. Colbert. It couldn't be that Huston is listening to his perpetually drunk pal Charles Ruggles (as Charlie Tayler), who warns Huston to stay away from brunettes. Colbert is considered a "jezebel" among Huston's friends and relations.

Becoming aware of their father's affair, teenage children Tom Brown (as Robert "Bob" Rossiter Jr.) and Patricia Deering (as Josephine "Jo" Rossiter) decide to meet Colbert, who shares a New York apartment with Huston. Young Mr. Brown telephones Colbert with dire health news. To turn the tables on the tricky kids, Colbert tells them she and Huston's upcoming trip to Europe is also going to be a honeymoon. But, it's just a cruise. This is how "The Lady Lies" gets its title. The film is probably most interesting as a chance to see the then stage actress Claudette Colbert in an early starring appearance (showing plenty of profile).

**** The Lady Lies (9/21/29) Hobart Henley ~ Walter Huston, Claudette Colbert, Tom Brown, Charles Ruggles

Claudette Colbert is a shop girl. She helps widower Walter Huston pick out a birthday gift for his daughter, Patricia Deering. Later, they run into each other and Huston takes her to lunch so he can read her the enthusiastic letter his daughter has written. Miss Colbert becomes Huston's kept woman and things go along very nicely until the night Huston has his children home -- Tom Brown plays his son -- and a couple of their New England relatives. They endure a Sodom-and-Gomorrah rant, and matters come to a head.

Huston certainly hit the ground running in the movies in 1929. Besides this movie and THE VIRGINIAN -- I've yet to see GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS -- he also appeared in three shorts, one as Jean Valjean and one as Abraham Lincoln! In this movie he gives the most naturalistic performance in an early talkie I have ever seen. The opening scene has him trying to get some paperwork done while Charles Ruggles natters on; Huston's distracted, muttered replies are pitch perfect.

The story, despite its rather standard plot, has some fine situations, and director Hobart Henley takes advantage of the superior sound technicians in Paramount's Astoria studio to produce a lovely scene in a restaurant. It's shot wild, letting the camera move freely, while the soundtrack is filled with the babble of a large room's conversations. Henley had entered the movies in 1914 as an actor, and soon became a successful director. He retired from the screen in 1934, even though he was only 47; he lived another 30 years. Like many a now-obscure director, I have no idea why he quit so young.