Loose Ankles

"Loose Ankles" has a lively start (certainly any movie that opens with a close-up of Loretta Young's legs starts on the right foot - pun intended), Young and Jr. (Douglas Fairbanks Jr., that is) are appealing, and Inez Cortney is a joy as Young's cousin. But when the focus switches to Young's two middle-aged aunts and their two "professional escorts", especially in the extended "circus cafe" segment, the film becomes dreadfully unfunny. ** out of 4.

Talkies introduced a new breed of cinematic female comedians that were quickly replacing such silent movies' light-hearted actresses as Mabel Norman and Mary Pickford. Teenager Loretta Young, 17, serves as a prime example of those young performers with silky voices ready to step into the shoes of the silent veterans. Her February 1930 comedy "Loose Ankles" demonstrates Young's ability to draw laughs from theater audiences. The film's premise showcases a pair of prudish spinster aunts to Ann Berry (Young), who stands to inherit a fortune from her late wealthy grandmother if she marries a man acceptable to her two guardians The plot, adapted from the 1925 Sam Janney play as well as the 1925 silent, 'Ladies At Play,' follows the manipulations of Young and her cousin, Betty (Inez Courtney) when they place an ad in the paper for a potential hubby. Ann Berry doesn't want the money and is looking for a scandal to break the inheritance. They pick one sucker, Gil Hayden (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), who answered the ad.

The free-spirited movie fires at a near 'screwball comedy'-fashion pace in the hands of Ted Wilde's direction. An Academy Award nominee for Best Director of a Comedy Picture for his 1928 Harold Lloyd "Speedy," Wilde had the natural touch of making scenes hilarious by mixing full-to-medium framed shots with reactionary close-ups in the midst of a quickened pace. Wilde's imprint shows during the scene when Ann Berry arranges reporters to come to her apartment as a naked Gil is discovered in her bedroom. As a 'pre-code' era film, when the Hays' Production Code Office was more permissive with their censorship than later on, "Loose Ankles" was allowed to show a sequence of the two aunts, Aunt Sarah Harper (Louise Fazenda) and Aunt Katherine Harper (Ethel Wales), getting snookered at an illegal speakeasy by two of Gil's roommates acting as gigolos.

The film's snappy dialogue shows an advancement in suggestiveness from those silent movies where their inter-titles were restricted from displaying over-the-top innuendos. One exchange in "Loose Ankles": "You don't mean to say you've been in a compromising position?" Response: "Well, the positions weren't so bad, but the circumstances were." With scenes of illegal drinking, salty language and suggestive sequences, Hollywood was indeed heading in a new direction with the arrival of talkies.

Loretta Young fit snugly in this 'new woman-of-the-screen' category. Born Gretchen Young, her mother secured parts parts for her at the tender age three, beginning in 1916. Appearing in ten movies in the next 12 years, Young's big role during that span was as an extra as an Arab girl in the 1921 Rudolph Valentino's "The Sheik." Young's hired manager's wife, actress Colleen Moore, gave Gretchen her stage name, Loretta, after Moore's favorite doll. Young's first credited debut under her new name was in Lon Chaney's 1928 'Laugh, Clown, Laugh.' After filming "Loose Ankles," she eloped with actor Grant Withers, nine years her senior. A year later, her marriage was annulled. Even an emotional divorce couldn't stop Young from playing spritely roles in comedy, especially after she displayed her comedic chops in "Loose Ankles.".

I enjoyed so many of the performances in this movie. The plots been summarized in other reviews, so let me just mention my favorites. Louise Fazenda as Aunt Sarah lets loose with some great physical comedy. According to IMDB she was 45 when this was made, but had performed in Mack Sennett comedies and her training shows in this. I also enjoyed the maid (Inez Courtney?) who responds to Loretta Young's comment that she "must have been in a comprising position at one time" -- "Oh, the position wasn't so bad....." The help she provides to the young and innocent Loretta as she tries to involve herself in scandal is quite funny.

A very enjoyable way to spend just over an hour.

"Loose Ankles", though released in 1930, was made in 1929. According to IMDB, the director died and the studio held the film for release until the following year. As you watch the movie, you need to consider when it was made. In 1929, sound films were still very new...and studios were still experimenting on how to use this new technology. While the sound quality is pretty good in "Loose Ankles" as you can clearly understand what folks are saying (this is NOT true with many other films of the day), the film suffers from a problem some films dealt with at the time...relying too much on dialog in order to show off the new technology It also tries too hard to be wacky! In other words, folks talk very rapidly and the dialog is practically shouted at the screen...and subtle, is sure ain't!

When the story begins, a strange will is being read. Ann (Loretta Young) has just been told that she'll inherit a huge amount IF she marries and gets her family's consent. But Ann dislikes her annoying family and she wants to break the will...because then no one will inherit anything. How will she break it? By creating a scandal...and the will stipulates if there are any newspaper scandals then the money will be donated to help pets instead of spoiled relatives. So, she advertises for a terrible, disreputable man to marry her...hoping for the worst. Of couse, along the way, she ends up meeting a dreamy guy instead (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.).

This is a very watchable film but probably won't appeal to folks who aren't already old movie buffs. For 1929, it's very good....but compared to films made just a year or two later, it is a bit dated.

... but overall it was a delightful little precode with Loretta Young seeming much more mature than her 17 years would have you expect. The film opens with a close up of Loretta's ankle swaying to the beat of the title song "Loose Ankles" her foot is wearing only an ankle bracelet as a man's hand caresses her leg and foot. The camera pans back and we see that the man is just a pedicurist surveying his work. That's the fun about precode. Nothing has to happen. By today's standards nothing really does. It's the possibilities and the implications.

The back story here is that Grandma Berry has just died and her already wealthy relatives are drooling for more on this, the day of the reading of her will. Ann Harper Berry (Loretta Young) turns out to be the recipient of the lion's share of the estate, but she must marry and also bring no scandal - as in nothing in the newspapers - to the Berry name in order to fully inherit. To incentivize the rest of the family, they cannot inherit their portion of the estate until Ann marries. Ann rebels against the entire set-up and puts out an ad for a "young unscrupulous man" to compromise her and cause a newspaper-worthy scandal so she and her greedy family will be barred from the inheritance. Gil Hayden (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is the man who applies for the job at the cajoling of his male escort roommates who are trying to get him back into the workforce, and Ann is under constant watch by the rest of the family to make sure she causes no scandal. The scene in her bedroom as an inexperienced Ann tries to figure out the actual mechanics of creating a scandal with Gil with the help and advice of her obviously quite experienced maid is worth the price of admission.

This film runs 69 minutes and probably would have been better paced if it had been about 15 minutes shorter. It features a nightclub scene that drags on way too long with not much going on during a large portion of that time. Louise Fazenda is a hoot as one of Ann's aunts, but it is odd that Warner Brothers had her dressed up as a bit of a vixen the year before in "On With the Show" and here she is playing a woman in her 50's - she was only 35 at the time. It's obvious they have her wearing some kind of body suit to make her look much heavier and older than she is.

The dancing act in the nightclub - "The Circus Cafe" - is unique among nightclubs with lots of toe dancers and clowns doing acrobatics. It's not every day that you see circus themed entertainment in a Prohibition era speak easy, and quite frankly it was very reminiscent of the final scene in "Gold Diggers of Broadway".

If this one was a little faster paced I'd give it an eight, but as it is I give it an entertaining seven as it makes the excellent point that people are neither as wild or as tame as they might seem on the surface or as they imagine themselves to be.