Bed of Roses

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.

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

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.

Actually, not a bad film for an old antique. Bennett and Kelton are two prosties with no shame in their game. The films open with the girls having served their time---either for soliciting or theft--and getting booted out of the clink. Bennett rolls a drunk for his bankroll aboard a barge headed down the river. She gets busted by an adamant Matt McHugh, and jumps overboard rather than face the music and go back and do more time. She is fished out of the river by Joel Macrae, who skippers a cotton barge. Despite his kindness to her, she rolls him too--for the whole payroll...and skips. But this time, her conscience gets to her...and she discovers love. She pays him back...instead of blowing a fuse, he proposes to her. But she is busy milking another sucker, a sugar daddy she meets by way of deceit. He falls for her, and takes her in, giving her some stability. But...love will out...she's ready and willing to throw it all away because she loves the cotton barge skipper. But , she has a past that needs to be reconciled, and sugar daddy beats her over the head with it. So, with love in her heart, but with low self esteem and fear of rejection by the lover she has at long last found, she dis-appears, even gets a job ! Remarkable. Macrae finally finds her, and what happens is the stuff fairy tales are made of. The film is a worthwhile watch, though I am certain that audiences of the early '30s did not look upon it the same way they would some half a century later with the likes of Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. Pert Kelton gets special mention...she steals her share of scenes and was quite a siren of the screen during that period...she had sex-appeal that oozed and dripped from the screen. Maybe it did her more harm than good, but she is one of the sexiest women on the screen during this period. One line she utters that I really like is "...I'll take vanilla", one of the strident wisecracks of the screen during this time. Also, Mildred Washington appears, playing a maid. Mildred did not shuffle, and was a star in her own right on the Black circuit. Her unfortunate early death robbed us of a presence on film that was both intelligent and vivacious. See this film...despite its age, it deals with the subject matter realistically, for the most part, is well made, and very entertaining.

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.