Are You Listening?

This is a cleverly made, fast moving blend of several genres which will hold your attention. It's produced with typical MGM professionalism and has a realistic script with credible well developed characters.

It's not the most thrilling picture in the world but it's so well made that you'll keep watching. What's particularly memorable about this is its editing. Like a modern-day tv soap, none of the scenes last more than a couple of minutes then there's a geometric wipe to the next scene. This lively technique gives the picture a lot more energy than you might expect. Veteran director Harry Beaumont proves that you can indeed teach an old dog new tricks.

Films with multiple storylines were popular in the early thirties, the most famous being GRAND HOTEL, the best being SKYSCRAPER SOULS. This approach required not just the leads but all the characters to be real people, people with actual personalities and background stories. For such a relatively small picture, the characters in this are remarkably well rounded.

Although his character is meant to be a little bland, comic actor William Haines delivers quite a heartfelt performance but the stars are really the women who display some real acting skill. Madge Evans makes you believe that she is in love with "Bill." Karen Morley makes you loathe her. You just know that Anita Page, playing the middle sister is cynical of the wild carefree life she's adopted. Joan Marsh, the younger sister is naive, full of life and vulnerable. Indeed it's eighteen year old Joan Marsh who adds the necessary vitality to this. Joan was MGM's other Jean Harlow - had there not already been a Jean Harlow, Joan might have become a bigger star.

William Haines, usually a leading man in light romantic comedies in silents and early talkies, has become a bit of a cult figure because his career may have ended because he refused to give up what for those days was a fairly open gay lifestyle, even if not known to the general public. Then again, he just may have outgrown that type of role and his career would have ended anyway. Don't feel bad, he became a renowned interior decorator to the stars.

In this, his last big film, it looks like the studio wanted to put him in a more serious role but couldn't quite decide if the film was a comedy, a romance, a soap opera, or something darker.

It's pre-code in the way the sympathy is tilted toward his relationship with his girl friend and away from his shrewish wife, who seems to have no function in life but to be frigid, criticize everything he does, and demand money.

The plot revolves more around the girl friend and her two sisters and their love lives. Most of the plot strands end up unresolved or resolved in unconvincingly lame fashion.

Not terrible but mostly for those like myself who find most pre-code films interesting for their style and historic interest, even the lesser ones.

For those of you who are expecting to see smirky and smart alecky William Haines in Are You Listening you will be in for a shock. Haines is subdued and serious and a result looks a bit lost in the part of an unhappily married radio writer. He would like to get married to Madge Evans a cute and perky young thing. He's asked for a divorce from Karen Morley.

Morley is the one who really carries this film. She puts some real bite into the part. Her answer to Haines is, I'll stay married to you until you get a good enough job with a big enough salary so I can get some decent alimony to live on. A woman like that, I'll bet you could have heard the hisses outside the theater from the audience when Morley offered those sentiments.

It all ends rather badly in this pre-Code melodrama for some in the cast. Think of the Dr. Crippen case from the United Kingdom and you will know.

It certainly was pre-code, wasn't it? More than the usual amount of girls getting out of the shower, girls standing around in their nighties. Pretty strong story and acting performances though. William Haines and friends work at a radio station, and that figures into the investigation when the un-expected happens. (Don't want to give too much away!) I think having lots of big names in this one helped - Madge Evans, Anita Paige, Neil Hamilton. I always loved Jean Hersholt. Even Hattie McDaniel in here. Ethel Griffies is Mrs. Peters. Country girl and her sisters move to the big city and the adventures they have! Was fun seeing the sound effect machines at the radio station. Reminded me of the Bob Hope films, where he works in radio and gets caught up in capers.

Directed by Harry Beaumont, who had been around Hollywood since day one, just about! He had also directed Joan Crawford in her early stuff. This is a fun watch. Caught it on TCM.

Some Pre-Code Girly Imagery is on hand here as this rather Routine Drama is Enhanced by some Really-Cool looks inside the 1932 Radio Studio at the Machinations and Machinery, Technology and Radio-Art on Display that are Historic and Interesting.

It is that Backdrop that sets this Apart from the Routine as the Radio is also used as a Tool to Track the Couple on the Lam. Notice how the Announcer on Air calls Him a Killer and not a Suspect or Alleged Killer, that is Important as a Snapshot of the Media in the Early Thirties and is Priceless.

Slightly Above Average for the Aforementioned and is Certainly Worth a Watch in a Time Travel Cultural Context and the Production is Glossy and Slick. It's the Drama that is Pedestrian but it does have just Enough Entertainment Value to Pass as a Light-Weight Crime-Drama.