The Woman Racket

Blanche Sweet is tired of living on cop Tom Moore's salary. So she leaves him and goes back to John Miljan's night club. But she is expected to do more than wear pretty clothes and sing for her supper.

It's a holdover from the previous year, and shows the problems that MGM had in moving into the sound era. The pacing is slow, and the blocking is static. It also shows the sort of language diversity that Metro used in the changeover to talkies, with far more natural lower-class accents and a general lack of polish...which did not, alas, translate into naturalism. With Sally Starr, Robert Agnew, and Lew Kelly.

There is a raid on a speakeasy. Policeman Thomas (Tom Moore) keeps Julia (Blanche Sweet) from being arrested. They get married, but she is soon drawn back to the other side of the law.

I don't know much about Blanche Sweet. She seems to be a brassy gal with good screen presence. Her sound era is short-lived with a few appearances later in life as she got rediscovered. One is never sure why one star stays and another goes. She is into her thirties and she wouldn't be the only one left behind by the Hollywood machine as she reaches this age. If television existed back in her day, she could have transition to that medium.

... but you can't take the speakeasy of the girl. At least not easily.

The film opens with a raid on a speakeasy, and the cops are posted at all of the exits just to make sure that the middle class customers and the people just trying to eke out a living are embarrassed, arrested, and financially damaged over doing something that everybody did during prohibition - drink. Tom - one of the cops - sees a pair of comely legs hiding in the bushes. He pulls her out and sees the rest of her is just as comely (Blanche Sweet as Julia). So he helps her escape (the fruits of "pretty privilege"), dates her, and marries her. But before long Julia is tired of living on Tom's paltry salary and craves the excitement of the nightlife again. One night when Tom is working, she dresses up, goes back to the "Blue Moon" speakeasy where she used to work, agrees to get her old job back that pays more than Tom's salary, and returns home just to be caught by Tom as he is coming in. They argue about what she has done, and during the day while Tom is gone, Julia leaves him, and goes back to the speakeasy to work and live.

But the guy she thought was so chivalrous and charming -John Miljan as Chris, coowner of the speakeasy - turns out to be just a cheap gangster and womanizing cad. Chris should know better than to steal a cop's wife and then bite off more than he can chew as far as criminal activity. Julia should know better than to mouth off to a cheap gangster about just what all she can pin on him. Complications ensue.

The only really confusing issue about this whole thing is that initially the cops raided this establishment. Now Tom comes and goes and seems to know the place and the owners, yet does nothing and arrests nobody. This is not explained at all. This was obviously a B effort by MGM since it has none of their big stars in it, plus the thing is completely mistitled. There is nothing of females or forced errors in this film, and the title insinuates it might be about prostitution. Instead it really is not salacious at all.

I enjoyed it because it gave the talented and unfairly forgotten Miljan a bigger role than usual, I just love looking at the art deco styles of the time, and Sally Starr and Robert Agnew have some adorable musical numbers together. Starr was going to be MGM's answer to Clara Bow, but that never really worked out.

Recommended for fans of the precode era.

THE WOMAN RACKET is an early MGM talkie filmed in 1929 and released in January 1930. It's a crime drama notable as the feature-film talkie debut of Blanche Sweet, who had returned from England, where she filmed her final silent film (THE WOMAN IN WHITE). She had made one Vitaphone short at Warners before tackling this feature at MGM. Interestingly, Photoplay magazine had run a squib about MGM's interest in shooting ANNA CHRISTIE as a talkie and Blanche Sweet was rumored to be in line to star in the remake of her 1923 silent film.

In this talkie, Sweet is very very good as Julia and pulls out all the stops as the speakeasy hostess who gets in over her head. She even sings "He's Good Enough for Me" atop a piano. The film is sunk, however by only so-so performances by Tom Moore as her cop husband and John Miljan as the snarky club owner. The film was apparently also released as a silent. There are also a couple of obvious sound issues.

In any case, the film apparently didn't do much at the box office and Sweet obviously didn't get another crack as playing Anna Christie.

Woman Racket, The (1930)

** (out of 4)

A cop (Tom Moore) saves a show girl (Blanche Sweet) from a pinch and soon the two are married. Things start off well but soon the wife grows bored of her housewife role and soon she's back in the nightclubs where she gets caught up with a dangerous gangster (John Miljan). THE WOMAN RACKET is your typical crime picture from MGM and sadly it's really not all that good. I think the main reason for people to tune into this thing is for Sweet who most film buffs will remember from her remarkable work with D.W. Griffith. This was one of her few sound films so that will be the main draw and there's no doubt that she's the best thing in the movie. As someone who has seen over a hundred Griffith films, it's always fun seeing his original troupe in other people's work. With Sweet she was always playing that "down home girl" and she was usually dressed in rags or made to look less attractive. It was really pretty strange seeing her in this role playing a sexy singer who uses her looks to gain a thing or two. I was really caught off guard at how well Sweet looked in this role but she also comes across extremely charming. There wasn't a single second where you don't believe her in the part and she perfectly sells that sexuality and charm. Moore, on the other hand, doesn't come off as well. I think he's a tad bit too laid back at times and it seems like he was struggling with some of the dialogue at times. He's certainly far from horrible but he doesn't add too much. Miljan is pretty good in the role of the gangster as he has no trouble coming off like a snake and he makes it easy to hate this character. Like many early talkies, this one here suffers from talking way too much as there are way too many dialogue scenes that just keep on and on. There are a couple musicals numbers, which aren't too bad and especially those performed by Sweet. Buffs will notice Sammy Lee served as musical director and he would eventually become a director at the studio doing various musical shorts. THE WOMAN RACKET just doesn't have enough life, energy or style to make it work so in the end it's mainly for those interested in Sweet.