Mothers Cry

The archetypal creaky early talkie, Mothers Cry stars Dorothy Peterson as the hard put upon mother of four whose bad seed son (Edward Woods) brings ill repute and woe upon the family. Her one note performance is only outdone in ineptitude by Woods, who rolls his eyes and snarls through a mask of heavy pancake makeup and distracting lipstick. In all honesty, he looks like Michael Jackson. The rest of the family is portrayed by David Manners and Helen Chandler (a year away from starring together in Dracula), neither of whom distinguish themselves, and Evelyn Knapp, who delivers the best performance here, though that isn't saying much. Reginald Pasch appears as Knapp's German husband, a decent sort who sounds like he's seen one too many El Brendel pictures. The best thing about Mothers Cry? It's literally the final shot of the film, as Peterson admires the Anton Grot designed handiwork of her architect son (Manners). For very hardcore '30s buffs and masochists only.

Mary Williams gets married soon after the film begins. After having four kids, her husband is killed and she is forced to raise them on her own. But trouble is brewing, as her son Danny clearly is a sociopath and delights in tormenting one of his sisters (Helen Chandler) and shows nothing in the way of a conscience.

Years pass and Danny is still awful...and a criminal. The second daughter is barely mentioned or seen in the story. The second son, Artie, is a successful young man and budding architect. As for the mother, she is STILL making excuses for Danny and while she doesn't realize it, this will spell disaster for the family as she really has to make a choice...Danny or the other three and their happiness.

This film is a product of when it was made. Instead of having the usual First National/Warner Brothers polish you'd expect, it's oddly silent and overly restrained. There is little incidental music (not too uncommon for 1930) and the acting is occasionally pretty bad (Chandler is the worst of them...often staring into space instead of acting). While the story is interesting, this is a very uninspired and low energy tale....and it shouldn't have been. A time-passer that should have been better.

MOTHERS CRY (First National Pictures, 1930), directed by Horace Henley, is vintage mother-love story taken from the play by Helen Grace Carlisle. Rather than producing silent screen actresses as Mary Carr or Belle Bennett, best known for their mother roles, stage actress Dorothy Peterson was the chosen one in her movie debut. Not very well known as a movie actress whose career expanded through the late 1940s, this is believed to be Peterson's only leading movie performance. Though a showcase for Peterson, she is supported by another newcomer to the screen, Edward Woods, playing an ungrateful son born to be bad.

The story begins with a prologue at the turn of the century where riders in a trolley car pulled by a horse gather together singing "A Bicycle Built for Two," followed by a newspaper clipping of William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan campaigning to run for United States president. Next scene opens with Mary (Dorothy Peterson) with an engagement ring on her left finger by her future husband, Frank Williams (Pat O'Malley). Their union brings forth four children, with only one born to be bad. After Frank dies, Mary provides for her children working as a seamstress. Years later, Mary's adult children, including Arthur (David Williams), destined to become an accomplished architect; Beatty (Helen Chandler), wanting to become an actress; Jenny (Evalyn Knapp), engaged to marry the foreign born Karl Muller (Reginald Pasch) to have twin children, all fulfilling their accomplishments in life, while her first born, Danny (Edward Woods), who's been a problem to the family since childhood, now falling with mobsters who beat him for him double-crossing them. Danny soon walks out on the family, returning home three years later with Sadye (Jean Bary), his wife, with plans of moving in with them. Though Danny appears to have changed for the better, Beatty sees different by leaving home to support herself working for Gerald Hart (Sidney Blackmer). As Mary tries to make sacrifices to save the family name, Danny proves to be more trouble than she can handle. Others in the supporting case include Frank Sheridan, Freddie Burke Frederick and Charles Hill Mailes. Look quickly for character actor, D'Arcy Corrigan, amusingly playing an undertaker reading a magazine on tombstone designs.

Rather than aging the mother role to extreme wrinkles and silver hair, Peterson's Mary is allowed to show credibility from young lady to youthful image of a mother in her 40s. Edward Woods, as the unsympathetic older son born to be bad, is an obscure actor by today's standards. He's known mostly as the sidekick and best friend to James Cagney gangster classic, THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931). While Woods (sporting more facial make-up than his female co-stars) plays it tough in MOTHER'S CRY, he doesn't allow any sympathy to his viewers, leading them to feel whatever happens to him is well deserved. Typical for early talkies, it's leisurely paced using title cards as passages to the next scene. Though there are some long pauses with no underscoring, and some uneven acting, the story gets by for its 74 minutes.

Never distributed on video cassette but available on DVD, MOTHERS CRY can be seen sparingly on Turner Classic Movies. (**)

This family weepie takes full advantage of the static, austere feel of genre filmmaking in the early sound years. In no way exceptional, even for 1930, "Mother's Cry" and its actors nonetheless do the job, despite some talky speechifying and a particularly tacked-on ending. Edward Woods (not the 50s schlock director, although they share a fondness for heavy eyeliner) plays eldest brother Danny Williams, gangster in the making and prime mover of the plot. With his insane mugging, canned "I'll-say-she-isms" and tight-vested jazzbo suit, he's a regulation foot soldier in the Vitaphone crim army. Woods is better, and better remembered, as sidekick to Jimmy Cagney in "The Public Enemy," made the following year. The family home, where the camera stands as still as the 1900 furniture, offers a bit of subtext for dedicated pre-Coders. Silver-haired Ma Williams clucks and gushes in expected manner over budding architect Artie (beta-male lead David Manners) and baby sister Beattie (the exquisitely fragile Helen Chandler). These two cuddle, kiss and coo in a way not at all appropriate for siblings. Meanwhile, older sister Jennie marries much older Karl, whose only role is to add German (Yiddish?) comedy relief and father cuddly twin babies. Danny's crimes eventually strike closer to home than we expect, as he falls victim to an appalling failure of judgment. Here, near the end, occurs some real heart-tugging drama. The ultimate happy ending isn't worthy of that pre-climax (to give you an idea, it implies Artie has designed the Chrysler Building, which changes appearance three times in one short sequence).

Dorothy Peterson marries Pat O'Malley during the Gay Nineties. They are a well matched couple, loving each and their four children. But O'Malley dies, leaving Miss Peterson to struggle and witness the failure of three of them.

It's a bit creaky and a bit over-the-top, with 32-year-old Miss Peterson still trying to reach the cheap seats. Two years earlier, she had been in the opening-night cast of the 1928 Dracula, playing Lucy Harker. Now and forevermore -- for the next fifteen years, anyway in the movies -- she played the aging, suffering mother. She died in 1979, aged 81.