Difamada

One of the Interesting Things about Pre-Code Films is, of course, the Frankness and Non-Skirting way the Story and Dialog go about the Business of such things as Pre-Marital or Promiscuous Sex. It's just there, not Avoided like Post-Hays Movies. Here it is Actually the Central Part of the Storyline as the "in love" Couple check in to a Hotel.

The Next Morning, after Making Whoopee the Lovers use this as a Way to get Her Father to "force" Them to Marry (something the Dad did not want), because it is the Accepted Thing to do. But if that isn't Complicated Enough, Enter a "Loving" Brother who Despises His Sister's Cad Boyfriend and then there are Fireworks.

The Remainder of the Movie is set in a Courtroom where things get a bit Dicey about the Spicey Love Making and Crime. The Movie has a 1932 Mindset and looking at it Today might seem Difficult or a bit Strange with all the Talk about Unwritten Law and so forth, and the Ending may come Across as a Little more than Strange.

Overall it is Worth a Watch for the Dated Dialog, Social Mores, Incestual Overtones, and the Bizarre Conclusion.

Once again, if you don't know who Helen Twelvetrees is, then you had better get acquainted. She was a big star in the early thirties. With a name like "Twelvetrees", how is it I never heard of her before either?? I have now seen her in over 9 films, "State's Attorney" (1932), "A Woman of Experience" (1931), "Her Man" (1930), are just a few examples, with "A Woman of Experience" being excellent!

The reason I recommend this film is so you can experience the great acting job Helen Twelvetrees does in her transitioning between types of personalities in her life. It is almost as if she is playing four different characters.

First she plays a young innocent in love and blind to what she is getting into. Then she has to play cold and hard and a woman who would turn her own brother over to death row. Then she becomes crazed and frantic as she starts to see the error of her ways. And finally she does the best performance of all when she takes the witness stand and becomes a lady with no morals and brash.

The plot is "simple". She loves a man (Monroe Owsley) who is only after her for her money. Everyone sees it but Twelvetrees. Her father (played very well by Robert Warwick) forbids the marriage and so the Owsley takes her to a hotel over night, knowing it will ruin her reputation in society and her father will then force them to marry. Twelvetrees' brother (Robert Young) tries to help her out of the situation but she insists her lover is good and she loves him. Finally Young turns on Owsley and exposes him for the mercenary liar he is. The lover punches Young. Young returns with a gun and in a rage shoots the lover dead.

Twelvetrees, still in love, turns on her brother and says that she will see him go to the electric chair for what he has done. Lewis Stone plays the defense attorney for Young. But when Twelvetrees takes the stand and swears it was cold blooded murder, it looks dark for Young.

I won't spoil the end. Watching for the first time, I truly did not know if Twelvetrees was going to come through and do the right thing. You will have to see for yourself. It makes a good ending!

As a footnote, I have also been seeing a lot of Louise Beavers too in recent films. She makes an appearance in the court. It is a small part and almost unnecessary, but the studios seemed to like putting her in films wherever they could. They even had a publicity photo done with her behind Young that is not in the film. But it is good to see them promoting her either way.

So attend the intense court room drama and watch the Classy Classic called "Unashamed". You will LOVE Twelvetrees!

Anyone interested in early 1930s American society should watch this. Whilst the story is mind blowing, the execution of this picture is well below par for an MGM production. It's got quite a cheap feel to it so it's nothing like as good as it could have been. Nevertheless it throws such disturbing social inequality and hypocrisy at you that you'll still be shouting angrily at your screen.

Veteran director Harry Beaumont was still well respected in 1932 but by now not the most innovative or imaginative guy on the lot. Apart from the bubbling fountain at the start, this suffers from rather stagey direction and some of the bit parts are surely cardboard cut outs aren't they? Bayard Veiller wrote some absolutely superb films in the early thirties. His script for this however lacks his usual flair for realism - it's based on his own play and he didn't seem to make too much of an effort to convert this into a movie. This coupled with Beaumont's old fashioned style results in a slightly theatrical feel. So we've got dull direction, some poor acting, unrealistic dialogue but these aren't the main problem with this - what's wrong with this film is it's a fascinating glimpse into the hypocritical morals and attitudes of the early thirties but it doesn't criticise them or try to explain or even comment on them, it just says what was happening without saying why. But maybe I've seen to many "campaigning" Warner Brothers pictures which went in for that sort of thing........and indeed they also made a film inspired by this same "honour" murder case TWO AGAINST THE WORLD in the same year but they completely squandered their opportunity by making a mushy romantic melodrama out of it. This version is not a mushy romantic melodrama!

You've read what this is about and as I've said, this isn't the greatest example of filmmaking but it's OK. What makes this fascinating viewing is its take on the morality of the age.

Bearing in mind the relaxed approach to what constituted decent behaviour in the years following The Great War in many strands of society, it would be nice to think that this is highlighting the hypocrisy of that era's morality. In reality however it just seems to be reinforcing those puritanical attitudes, the fake facade of decency which society pretended existed. This film should have a message but it doesn't - it's just reporting the situation.

What you pick up from watching films from this period is the "unwritten law" that if a girl slept with a man she would without any hesitation have to marry him. That was just the way things were.....apparently? The crux of this film is that Helen Twelvetrees' character professes to have had sex with someone but didn't want to marry him! Shock horror! We're expected to think that this was utterly unbelievable, that the population would be outraged by this proof of how wanton and disgraceful women could be! But this was at the end of the roaring twenties......yet this film is based on actual real events....it hardly seems like planet Earth does it! The title of this refers to the fact that she unashamedly admits to sleeping with a man, out of wedlock. This makes her so utterly loathsome and despised by all decent people you'd think she was a child murderer. But all she's done is said that marriage is old fashioned and she doesn't see that having unmarried sex is a big deal. It is beyond bizarre to us these days that this would cause such unmitigated disgust and sheer hatred.

Nobody however seem to bat an eyelid that Joan and her brother Dick are clearly having an incestuous relationship (well the critics certainly did at the time). Veiller and Beaumont make this very obvious right from the start with the "amusing confusion" of the opening scene. That goes some way to explain Dick's incendiary jealousy of his sister's lover. When you re-watch this - and yes, you will because there's so much going on, you'll begin to think that I underestimated these filmmakers: there's just so much going and although it's from the pre-code era there are certain things which still must remain unspoken - maybe they're allowing you to fill in the gaps yourself. It's certainly multi-layered!

Helen Twelvetrees loves Monroe Owlsley, who adores her, or at least the three million dollars she stands to inherit. He inveigles her to go to a hotel with him; her brother, Robert Young, finds out about it, tries to prevent her, and winds up shooting Owlsley. He is placed on trial for murder.

I think there are some fine performances here, in what is essentially a stage play. Miss Twelvetress plays the nitwit very well, expressing her spoiled character well. Monroe Owlsey plays his cut-rate Lowell Sherman rotter very well; his scenes with father Jean Hersholt are heart-breaking in his manipulation of the sentimental old man. Robert Young, as the murderer is appropriately callow.

The value of this movie, ninety years later, is showing people trapped in their own little society, secure in the mistaken belief that they are invulnerable. Not a one of them can conceive of any bad consequences to their selfish, thoughtless actions. I doubt that a modern audience would take that message away from the film. Many pre-codes seem to concern a society so alien to modern thoughts that one has to dig to get any instruction from them. Still, under the direction of the highly capable Harry Beaumont, every actor inhabits his character fully.

In "The Unashamed" the Ogdens are a wealthy family that is very close and loving. Jean falls in love with a crass fortune hunter named Harry Swift who is obviously after her money. Her father and brother try everything to dissuade her. To force the issue, Harry persuades Jean to spend the night in a hotel with him (horrors!) When they fling this unheard of behavior in the face of her father and brother, to induce them to consent to marriage, things go badly. Jean's brother Dick shoots and kills Swift. However, Dick wants only to protect Jean's honor so he insists to his defense lawyer, Trask, that Jean be kept out of it completely.

The latter half of the movie consists of Dick's trial, and Trask's problem in trying to save Dick from the electric chair while protecting his wishes not to tell the real story of what happened. Thus Trask is not allowed to use the "unwritten law" as a defense (that's the one that allows husbands to kills their wives and wives' lovers). In addition, Jean is extremely bitter toward her father and brother since they've ruined her happiness. So she's not about to cooperate in the defense. Until...

This picture is extremely melodramatic, in a style which seems rather alien to us today, and a lot of the acting and dialogue is too stagy for our taste. Nevertheless, for its time, it was quite well done. The issues of class, honor and gender that the film raises may seem quaint but there were very real to rich people of the 20's and 30's. Similarly, the courtroom scenes are quite well executed with a real attempt to observe appropriate legal proecdures. The ultimate twist ending is also quite effective and will remind you of a more recent (and classic) courtroom movie.