Erros do Coração

Almost silly plot but the three stars are very good. Ruth Chatterton plays the "richest woman in America" who has had a string of bad marriages but is being romanced by novelist George Brent. He is pursued by "the pest of Park Avenue," Bette Davis. Chatterton loses current husband (John Miljan) to gold digging Adrienne Dore.

Chatterton runs off to Paris for a divorce while Davis pursues Brent. Brent goes to Paris after the divorce but Chatterton can't make up her mind. He goes to Romania! Back in New York, Chatterton learns that the new wife is pregnant and that Brent and Davis are an item. Wrong on both counts. Things come to a head when Chatterton learns Brent is planning a year in China to write. That settles it.

The next morning the trampy wife can't wait to break the news of the evening's romance but Davis decks her and throws her out of her house. The old husband and trampy wife crash into a tree on their way back to town. She croaks but the mangled husband is calling out for Chatterton......

Total drivel but entertaining because of some snappy dialog and three tops stars.

Berton Churchill, Sam McDaniel, Cecil Cunningham, Walter Walker, Virginia Hammond co-star......

There are 3 short clips at the start of this movie, set in 1900, 1920, and 1930, respectively, taking place in powder rooms where high society women gossip about Caroline Grannard, lead character, 'richest woman in the world', played by Ruth Chatterton; she is born, gets married, and lunching with writer Julian Tierney (George Brent). Interior decoration, dress, and even background music, are all period appropriate. While Warner Brothers probably had these sets and dresses and extras lying about from other movies, and whole thing cost very little, question that interest me is why all that for a simple exposition that would have taken two lines of dialogue in the movie proper? Did the director and producers wanted filler to pad up something so insubstantial that it cannot even stand on its own for 1 hour and 10 minutes? Seems so.

Plot here involve romantic and marital entanglements of rich society people, mainly on who the lead character really loves, her (soon ex) husband she 'mothers', or the writer who she keeps hanging without deciding (to the annoyance of a rather spoiled society girl (Bette Davis) who is in love with him). Nothing else, there is no higher purpose, no socio political commentary, no deep psychology, no insight into human nature and relationships, no simple enjoyable love story/villainy even. While there is no absolute requirement that movies should have some of that, absence do make them rather boring.

However, this is not boring, mainly because of the acting. Chatterton is so good that i want to see more of her movies. As others have noted, in this movie she has a way of repeating and even stammering some dialogue that is so naturalistic that i initially wondered whether they had run out of takes and used the least bad. But it happened frequently enough, and there were similar stuff with her gestures, that it was soon clear it was deliberate. She comes from a stage background, but when modern 'method actors' use similar techniques, you can spot them right away. Almost all the others were rather good too, though from a different style. Brent as usual underplays his part. Energetic Davis (3 years before her breakthrough role in 'On Human Bonadge') in that phase of career when Warner tried to make her blond, sexy, and glamorous (successfully in my opinion though she herself thought otherwise), found the right foil in Brent (with whom she was to star in quite a number of her best movies), as demonstrated by her scene with him in his apartment. John Miljan, who plays husband, and Adrienne Dore as his lover, were also good.

All these rich people and no one seemed to know a Depression was on.

Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, and Bette Davis star in "The Rich Are Always With Us." from 1932.

Then ten-year marriage of Caroline Van Dyke (Chatterton) and Greg Grannard is falling apart. It's one of those things where everyone flirts openly no matter if the spouse is standing right there or not.

Julian (Brent) is mad for Caroline, but she resists him, and, sensing Greg may be on his way out, pushes the issue. She says no and leaves for Paris, intending to file for divorce.

Julian follows her. Greg is having a hard time financially - I guess the Depression did hit him. Caroline returns to the U.S. to help -- she's filthy rich and always has been.

And so it goes, with Malbro (Davis) in love with Julian as well.

Elevated by the performances. Bette Davis is so young and fresh, she's marvelous. Brent looks very elegant in his dress clothes and plays the bachelor well.

And Ruth Chatterton - I can never figure out why I love her so much. Although forty at the time, she plays a thirty-year-old, which she often did. And I think they could have helped her a little by not giving her such awful clothes. She came from a stage background and really had a way with a line. Very natural, and yet somehow manages to be sophisticated at the same time. The whole film has a level of sophistication one doesn't see today.

Okay film - see it for the performances, particularly the early Davis, who nearly walks away with the film. And check out Brent lighting two cigarettes and giving one to Chatterton - guess that preceded Now, Voyager by a few years.

Rich Are Always with Us, The (1932)

** (out of 4)

A nice cast can't save this tiresome drama about boring rich people and their boring, pathetic lives. Ruth Chatterton plays Caroline who has the great fortune of being the richest woman in the world but this doesn't stop her husband from leaving her for a "normal" woman. She has a man (George Brent) who wants to marry her but there's another rich woman (Bette Davis) after him. All three remain friends as their money and personal lives continue to grow frantic. I can't imagine this film going over too well in 1932 considering what the country was going through at the time. It's hard to imagine poor folks lining up for this thing and enjoying what was in front of their eyes because even when viewed today these characters are all one-note and rather boring. The screenplay is a major bust because there's not a single character written that you'll care for or want to see happy at the end. I'm sure great movies could be made about unhappy rich people but this here isn't it. It's never too clear what the film is trying to accomplish because on one hand it wants us to feel sorry for these people but on the other why should we? The screenplay doesn't give them any personality and in the end it's just impossible to care for them, which is a major problem in a movie like this. Director Green should also be taken to task because you can't tell anyone was behind the camera. There's not an ounce of energy to be found anywhere as there's no atmosphere and the look of the film is quite flat as well. The one saving grace are some fine performances by a more than good cast. Chatterton was always good at playing this type of woman but the screenplay really lets her down. Both Brent and Davis are good in their roles but the screenplay doesn't help them either. THE RICH ARE ALWAYS WITH US isn't one of the worst films ever made but once the end credits come up there's really no purpose in the entire film.

When I first got this movie, I didn't watch it right away, thinking that, most probably it was a light comedy drama movie, but the actors interested me, especially George Brent and Bette Davis. Knowing that, in this movie, starring Ruth Chatterton, who was married with George Brent at that time, was happened to be the movie where Bette Davis and George Brent fell in love, appealed to me. Later on Chatterton and Brent would divorce but Brent and Davis never married although they kept a relationship for quite long.

But when I saw this movie I realized what a great actress Ruth Chatterton was. And for a time when actors and actresses would say their line the best right and straight forwarded way, Ruth Chatterton speaks in such natural way, at times repeating one or two words in a sentence, as if there was no camera at all. Something that nowadays actors do, at times not so naturally.

Bette Davis still not being "caught" by the clever camera, appears very glamorous, beautiful and determined, but her eyes, alas, the camera doesn't really focus the moment she is sitting on a couch and looking to the right, slowly... what would made her later on "Bette Davis' eyes". Anyhow she is so wonderful here that Davis fans will really love her play.

The romantic scenes are very well filmed, and because everything seems so naturally sophisticated, Brent kisses and embraces with a great gentleman's style. What he was in real life.

This movie's plot is very simple, but it is very well portrayed and love has a great importance as a meaning, like in so many classic movies. Only that in this one, love goes beyond "you and me"