Femmine di lusso

It's the old hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold story but Barbara Stanwyck and director Frank Capra make it shine. Not only is Stanwyck great but there isn't a bad performance by anyone in the film, even down to the minor characters. Capra attains a naturalness from his actors rare at this point in the talkies. The only complaint might by that Ralph Graves' accent is more convincing for a cowboy than a son of the upper crust, but that's a quibble. Other pluses are Jo Swerling's smart dialogue with hardly an unnecessary line and John Walker's cinematography, the best of its time (the night scene as Stanwyck spends the night on Graves' couch is a marvel of lighting, pacing and atmosphere).

LADIES OF LEISURE, adapted to the screen from a play, is another in a long line of Frank Capra-directed films that pits the lower orders against the upper through the device of a romantic entanglement. In this case it's "lady of leisure" (read: prostitute or good time gal) Barbara Stanwyck against the slightly bohemian scion of a wealthy banking family (Ralph Graves). The theme of the movie is set right away as we see a bustling Manhattan street at night. Suddenly bottles fall from the sky and explode on the sidewalk, narrowly missing pedestrians. They are coming from a group of drunken young women who are tossing them over a penthouse terrace balcony for kicks. These party girls have been hired by dissolute swell Lowell Sherman, a friend of Graves, who, offended by the crudity of the party scene, hops into his roadster for a drive into the country. He stops by a lake where he sees a young woman (Stanwyck) dressed in an evening gown rowing herself ashore in a canoe. It turns out she too is a party girl and is also escaping a wild party, this time on a yacht. He finds her attractive and offers her a ride back to the city. As is her habit, she picks his pocket while he's driving. Thus the plot line is set. We know what will happen by the end. Along the way we are treated to a beautifully etched characterization by Stanwyck who covers a wide range of acting territory from crude and lowdown to transcendentally idealistic. The equally inventive Marie Prevost provides generous support as her overweight roommate. Lowell Sherman, playing the same type of hard-drinking, pleasure-loving sophisticate as he often did in other movies (Bachelor Apartment, What Price Hollywood), is also excellent.

For whatever reason, Ralph Graves cannot perform like a flesh and blood human being. His movements are stiff and unmotivated, his emotions seem forced and sudden. Even the expression on his face looks pasted on from some other character in some other movie. All wrong. One is not surprised to see that within a few years he was playing uncredited bit parts in third-rate movies. His silent film credits are numerous and go back to the teens so one can only wonder what his appeal was. He is not bad looking, so one must assume that his substantial silent film career owed a lot to his appearance.

I'm contributing this mainly to comment on what most of the other reviews say that I disagree with: Ralph Graves was perfect in this role. Yes, he's wooden, but that's what works so perfectly with Barbara Stanwyck. Where it really matters is in their romantic scenes: first on his balcony, then at breakfast and particularly after his father leaves and they really get together for the first time. I'm not saying he's a good actor in general, but they had great chemistry in this film, and that's worth a lot. He's a realistic type of man, very focused and businesslike; some people think an artist couldn't be like that, but that's not true. It's frustrating to see everyone remarking on the clever performances of Marie Prevost and Lowell Sherman and denigrating Graves. The picture hangs together very well precisely because all the roles are ideally cast. Doubtless Stanwyck and Capra supply the magic. It's a film that's new to me, and I keep going back to it.

Reviews of this film do not make clear that it apparently is available in both sound and silent versions. The version of this film borrowed from our local library was the silent version as apparently this film was Capra's 2nd talkie and last silent (per Moviediva web site). It had a very distracting soundtrack that did not match the moods on the screen at all. Still, if you are a Capra or Stanwyck fan, the silent version is better than none at all and worth the time. Hopefully, I will be able to see a sound version on Turner or AMC.

23 year old Barbara Stanwyck became a leading film star in 1930 with the release of LADIES OF LEISURE, after having starred in two flops in 1929. This is a very slender story of a good time girl who falls in love with a millionaire's son who basically is just interested in her as a model for a painting he wants to do. Given how free-wheeling and blunt most early talkies were on morality, this movie is surprisingly discreet about Stanwyck's character's past. We are supposed to read into the story she's a prostitute (or more accurately, a former mistress) - but in her first scene she is fleeing a yacht party that's too risqué for her!! Stanwyck rings honesty out of a cardboard script and she's got good support from three second-tier silent stars who are quite good in talkies - Ralph Graves as the object of her affection, Marie Prevost as her wisecracking, less prudish pal, and especially Lowell Sherman as Graves' drunken buddy who is very open to being Stanwyck's next sugar daddy yet the best scene is the confrontation being Stanwyck and Graves' mother, superbly played by a somewhat unsung character actress, Nance O'Neil.

The movie's minor fame today rests on it being Stanwyck's first screen success and an early hit for director Frank Capra yet Capra's direction is rather dull and often awkward and the movie is very badly edited with some scenes conspicuously made up of different takes with shot angles and acting rhythms off among other giveaways (to say nothing of the scene where Graves answers the phone and says "Hello" way before the receiver is anywhere near his mouth!!) As mentioned by another reviewer, a "silent" version of the film was also shot (the smaller studios like Columbia were still making silent versions of some of their films up to 1931 for the ever dwindling number of movie theaters that were still not wired for sound), I don't know anything about the silent version being available on video and not the sound film, possibly the silent version fell into public domain and that's why that version alone is on tape, however the sound version still exists and was shown on American Movie Classics in the early 1990's back when that channel actually showed classic movies. Turner Classic Movies, on the other hand, has so many MGM and Warner Bros. films at their disposal they hardly need to go elsewhere for films so it's not likely they will bother to pick up rights to this movie from Columbia. I wouldn't be surprised, however, one day to see it and a number of other early Capra talkies together in a boxed DVD set given his legend as a director.