Bed of Roses

Incorrigible and beautiful Constance Bennett (as Lorry Evans) and her gin-loving pal Pert Kelton (as Minnie Brown) are released from prison on the same day. Dressed to the nines, the pair set out to seduce and rob wealthy men on the way to New Orleans. Ostensibly a prostitute, Ms. Bennett nonetheless avoids sex by getting her victims too drunk to perform. An old trick. En route, Bennett meets and falls literally and figuratively for tall, dark and handsome Joel McCrea (as Dan). After robbing Mr. McCrea, Bennett installs herself as well-kept mistress to wealthy publisher John Halliday (as Stephen "Steve" Paige). As the film progresses, Bennett and the cast realize what you knew all along, but Bennett's past and present could prevent her future happiness with McCrea…

****** Bed of Roses (6/29/33) Gregory La Cava ~ Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, Pert Kelton, John Halliday

I have watched many movies of the 1930's and I think I can make the following statement in clear conscience: the first 15 minutes of 1933's "Bed of Roses" is the dirtiest sequence of main stream film to grace the screen for the next 25 years! Wow, it is awesome. The great Constance Bennett, and her hooker partner Minnie, both just out of jail, need a ride to New Orleans. Minnie cozies up to a truck driver, asks for a ride, he says "what's your offer?" Then, a minute later, Bennett sidles up, and Minnie asks her, "can you drive?"! Implied yet relatively explicit is the suggestion that Minnie will be "paying off" the driver in the back of the truck! Wow! Then, once on the riverboat, the two girls are short of cash, so Minnie quite obviously whispers a rude offer into the steward's ear. He rejects the offer, but she doesn't mind - "nothing personal" she declaims. Judy Garland never behaved this way with Mickey Rooney over at MGM!

Folks, I am ever-grateful that the "Code" forced Hollywood to keep its movies very clean for 2 or 3 decades: the art of that period will never be surpassed again. But taking this path makes all those slightly naughty movies of the early 30's that much more fascinating and wonderful to see, like they got away with something, and we are the beneficiaries of that daring.

Another interesting decision the director makes is to take about 15 minutes worth of early action, which takes place on the Mississippi River, and have it all occur in a quite heavy fog. The hazy sheen in which the actors perform is noteworthy for how long this goes on for. Again, daring and interesting.

Constance Bennett is fantastically seductive, cynical, world-weary and manipulative. Joel McCrea is great being himself. And Samuel Hinds, one of my favorite minor character actors, with his perpetually silvery hair, is his usual fatherly best.

A great one from the early days, not to be missed, even if not one of the characters has a Louisiana accent.

Snappy comedy drama. With all the biting dialogue and crusty dames, I kept thinking '30's Warner Bros. but it's RKO on a Warner's trip. Bennet and Kelton are a couple of hookers on probation looking for a way to get by. So guess what, Bennet meets sugar daddy Halliday who sets her up in comfort after initial misgivings (she probably applied her professional know-how). So it's now a bed of roses except that she can't get over cotton barge captain McCrea. Trouble is he's a straight shooter who might reject her if he finds out about her past. So what's she to do-- stay with sugar daddy or follow her heart and risk rejection. And will Kelton's presence help since she's a constant reminder.

All in all, it's a little gem, with sassy Kelton providing spark. Some of the lines are knee-slappers, like the guy who tells the girl he's a boll-weevil exterminator to which she replies, "I ain't done nothin' ". Mc Crea may get top male billing, but it's really Halliday getting the screentime. Note too how the screenplay finesses prostitution even though 1933 is still pre-Code. And that's along with cracks about Prohibition, which was about to end its 13-dry years. Anyway, thanks to the writers including underrated director La Cava, it's a nifty programmer of the sort old movie fans love to stumble across. I know I did.

Constance Bennett and pal Pat Kelton get out of prison and will do anything--ANYTHING--to get a man with cash. Bennett eventually falls in love with poor Joel McCrea--but will she be able to tell him about her past?

Nothing new story wise but some of the dialogue and situations are pretty frank for 1933. It's made quite clear that Bennett and Kelton have, and will, sleep with men for money. Also one woman is very obviously a kept woman. Very much a pre-Code film.

The dialogue is sharp, funny, fast and racy. All the acting is great--Bennett is just beautiful, McCrea is young, hunky and handsome and Kelton is hysterical doing a Mae West imitation.

Quick (67 minutes) and worth catching.

This one's really a very good picture and upon watching it...I didn't feel like watching an old piece of a museum...no, no, on the very contrary, it's a lively, very well paced, cast & acted film, I'd even say it didn't seem dated to me. Surely Gregory LaCava (later responsible for Carole Lombard's 1936 "My Man Godfrey") did an excellent job with this picture.

I'd never seen before Pert Kelton, in her young days...and she's hot!, I found myself laughing loudly, after listening to her endless wisecracks, playing the heroine's (Constance Bennett) pal, world weary, self-assured, etc... her way of speaking reminded me of Mae West. Both Girls (Bennett & Kelton) impersonate a pair of streetwalkers or "easy women" who want to make it big & go places, after being released of prison.

Johnny Halliday is very good too, as the millionaire Bennett tries to "catch"... and Joel McCrea, is the usual good guy, ... but no so naive, honest man, for whom Connie Bennett falls . He plays very well opposite Bennett, 'cos they have lots of chemistry...well, that may be the reason why they were paired more times by RKO.

Look for Jane Darwell (uncredited) as the head of the women's prison from where Kelton & Bennett are released at the beginning of the movie and for Frankling Pangborn as a clerk... I'm even sure that I saw Louise Beavers (star of "Imitation of Life" (1934)), as one of the women that were released along with Bennett and Kelton.

You've got to watch this one, not only if you're fond of Pre-Code early talkies, but for plain fun.