The Trial of Vivienne Ware

Hang on to your hats gang, this one moves real fast. More interesting than great moving making. But fun with lots of familiar faces to 30's movie geeks (like me). Check out lovely Joan Bennett in her blonde phase. Maude Eburne, Herbert Mundin and Christian Rub show up with their usual memorable roles. Skeets Gallagher and Zasu Pitts add zip as over the top radio hosts covering the trial. And Lilian Bond crushes as the "other woman". One bad note: Cook and Dinehart as the attorneys scream at witnesses and each other and the judge non-stop. I found it very annoying. Predictable and a little creaky but still well worth a watch IMHO.

This was shown at MOMA, New York City, 11/15, on a restored print. The print was gorgeous, probably as good as you can restore a print of a movie almost 85 years old. Had never seen it before and thought it must have value as a milestone of some sort in filmmaking. After all, the Museum of Modern Art is pretty fast company.

Alas, it's just an old picture that breaks no new ground and struck me as dated, and the only strong point was the vintage cast and the atavistic feel of a creaky oldtime movie. As the title states, it's about the murder trial of a woman who we know from the start is innocent. We also suspect the identity of the murderer and the predictable outcome. Along the way, we get a fascinating look at the media attention the trial attracts, as a radio station sets up a temporary studio in a room adjacent to the courtroom. Here we find 'Skeets' Gallagher and Zasu Pitts as trial reporters and serving as comic relief as well. Everyone dressed to the nines, as was evidently the custom in the 30's, and for those of us too young to know or remember, the two opposing lawyers haranguing the witnesses in loud, penetrating voices.

It was fun to watch some of the old-time character actors, and especially to see Joan Bennett as a platinum blonde. Donald Cook was the love interest, and with his customary dour expression. Also on hand were Alan Dinehart, Maude Eburne and Noel Madison who were recognizable to 30's audiences but forgotten today. In sum, I would rather have watched it on TV as the trip to NYC wasn't worth it.

In this brief, pre-Code drama, Joan Bennett stars as a woman at the center of a love triangle. She loves Jameson Thomas, but he's no good. Donald Cook loves her, and he nobly stands aside when she announces her engagement. The next morning, however, Jameson is found dead and Joan is arrested for his murder. It's a good thing Donald is a defense lawyer, isn't it?

The Trial of Vivienne Ware is very old and it feels that way. It's not one of those silver screen gems that can be preserved through the generations and included in the Criterion Collection. The mindset regarding relationships and women's roles in general are very outdated. For example, there's a group of journalists in the courtroom, only one of them is a woman. When she's given the microphone during the on-air radio coverage, all she does is talk about Joan's outfit in court that day. If Joan is your all-time favorite actress, you can check this out, but otherwise, find yourself another courtroom drama.

It's only a hour long but what a long tedious hour! I can't think of any reason to watch this other than to gain an insight into what passed as light entertainment in the early thirties. Radio dramas were massive back then and this is essentially a radio drama with visual aids. To a 21st century audience however this is neither entertaining, interesting or fun.

OK, viewed purely academically, there is an interesting style to this. It's filmed to that same a frenetic fast pace which was typical of those old radio dramas but I'm not sure that style works in a motion picture. It looks quite good; there's a lot of nice fluid camera movement, rapid editing and very short scenes spliced together with interesting 'swish cuts' which add to the sense of speed director William Howard was trying to achieve. The acting is adequate but because it's all so fast and the characters aren't fully developed people, you can't really tell. You don't get to know the characters, there's no depth or development to any of them, they're just parts of the silly story.

William K. Howard was given the task of turning a popular radio serial into a movie, and succeeded. A carefully-written script that actually paid attention to the way cases are tried was the first step. Some great support, particularly Skeets Gallegher and the always fascinating Zasu Pitts helps. A restless camera helps keep up speed, and some interesting sets -- particularly the nightclub set -- make this a fine movie, even if the leads, who became lovers more than twenty years later, had no memory of working together on this one.

I wish to call your attention, if you ever have the chance to see this movie -- it is very rare and the one print I saw was a 16 mm. print, blurry as you would expect -- to the swish cuts. A swish cut is when the camera starts to pan away, then the illusion of high speed movement starts and when the camera slows down it is panning into a new shot -- maybe a quarter second elapses. It adds tremendous excitement to a sequence and Howard uses a lot of them here.

Unhappily, a lot of editing techniques for shot changes were on their ways out. By about 1935, Hollywood had settled on the now-standard techniques, except for a few movies which attempt to evoke the older movies. A loss to film grammar, but what can we do about it now, except to enjoy these techniques when we see them?

May 20 2010: I just noticed a modern use of the swish cut: any Doctor Who fan out there should take a look at Season 5 Episode 4 for the use of one, four minutes into the proceedings.