La Madone des sandwiches

The first half of That Certain Feeling is a gauzy, undramatic look at two people who pretty much just fall in love at first sight. The second half is the story of two people who love each other trying to forge their path in a world of harsher reality than either of them expected, filled with wonderful moments and touching scenes. It really is a tale of two halves with the first feeling like competent but unremarkable silent filmmaking and the second half feeling like highly accomplished and perceptive silent filmmaking. Freed from working under Harry Langdon and newly hired by Harry Cohn at Columbia, Frank Capra seemed to be showing that he was already capable of much more than managing a comedian's pratfalls.

Molly (Viola Dana) is a poor widow with two children who dreams of marrying a millionaire. At the same time, Andy B. Charles Jr. (Ralph Graves), son of the restaurant magnate A. B. Charles Sr. (Burr McIntosh) who owns the ABC Restaurant chain, is living large on his father's dime and testing his patience for his wayward ways. Leaving her job one day of working at a cigar counter in a department story, Molly accidentally runs into Andy, discovers he's a millionaire in an amusing bit of business dealing with an open-top bus and Andy's car, and they are instantly smitten with each other, having a night out and quickly marrying.

Now, this business takes the first half of the film, and it's pretty typically lightly amusing but never all that engaging. There's no dramatic tension behind anything, just a rich guy and a poor girl instantly falling for each other with the smallest of obstacles quickly overcome. Some of those obstacles are amusing (there's some business with a waiter that Andy tries to keep standing up to hide he and Molly kissing by manipulating the server with a cane), but it's ultimately just light and frothy entertainment without much bite or weight for about forty minutes (depending on the speed of the presentation, mine was slowed down).

The second half is far better, though, and I dare to call it kind of great. It all starts with Senior cutting Junior off completely because he's convinced that Molly is just a gold digger out for Junior's money. She tries to leave him as a favor to Junior, but Junior won't have it. They end up determined to make a life together, no matter how they have to manage it. See? There's dramatic stakes around this. They have a real obstacle, Senior's insistence on keeping them apart or at least away from his money, and they have to overcome their own poverty to build a life together. It's not groundbreaking storytelling, or anything, but it is solidly built storytelling.

After some amusing business around Andy being completely unsuited for physical labor, he comes up with the idea of selling boxed lunches to his fellow workers, directly competing with his father's business. Molly ends up running it, and we get our first full dramatization of the American Dream from Frank Capra. It's all about a vision and hard work, providing a better product at a better price than your competitor and succeeding because of the combination of it all (and not one scene of filling out a business license for some reason). It's satisfying to watch, but it gets even better when Senior, trying to figure out why his thinly sliced ham restaurant business is in the opening stages of failing, shows up at the little sandwich factory.

We get bits of farce as Senior sees Junior but doesn't know that Molly is Junior's wife, thinking that Junior is just the place's bookkeeper, all while Junior helps Molly with negotiations from behind her glass door, playing with the conventions of silent cinema as Junior tries to get himself understood by his wife in assorted ways. I think my favorite is when he covers the words on boxes to send specific messages.

It's kind of amazing how satisfying the second half of That Certain Thing really is as the young couple triumph through their own gumption. Performances are all solid with Graves pretty much just charming his way through the film and Dana having the larger gamut of emotions to carry, which she handles well.

This Frank Capra character...I think he may go places in the movie business. If only he can get the first half of his next film to work better.

Even this early in his career, Capra was quite accomplished with his camera-work and his timing. This is a thin story -- and quite predictable at times -- but he gets very good performances out of his cast and has some rather intricate camera moves that involve the viewer intimately. The first part looks like a Cinderella story, though anyone with brains can see that the bottom will fall out of that -- the rich 'prince' will lose his fortune.

Nonetheless, because of his good cast and fast pace, it's easy to get caught up in the clichés. Then the movie does become more original, as the married couple have to find a way to make a living. The ending is very predictable but satisfying. I also want to compliment the title-writing: very witty and fun.

I viewed this film in the David Bradley collection. In 1928, Frank Capra directed "That Certain Thing", starring Viola Dana, and then he immediately followed it with "So this Is Love", starring Shirley Mason ... apparently never realising that Viola Dana and Shirley Mason were sisters. (Capra mentioned both actresses in his autobiography, but never mentioned their relationship.) "That Certain Thing" is a sprightly romantic comedy of the late silent era, with some of the distinctive "Capra-corn" elements already firmly in place.

Ralph Graves (Capra's favourite leading man of this period) is excellent as Andy Charles, son of A.B. Charles the lunch-wagon millionaire (well-played by Burr McIntosh), who got rich by mass-producing lunches for working people. When Andy marries poor-girl Molly (Viola Dana), old man Charles suspects (not entirely without reason) that Molly married young Andy for his money, and Charles Snr promptly disinherits his son. But Andy is no spoilt playboy; to support himself and his new wife, he rolls up his sleeves and goes to work on a building site. Molly genuinely loves Andy, even though she was hoping to latch onto his father's bank balance, and now she dutifully packs her husband a box lunch that she made herself.

When a minor problem on the worksite makes Andy lose his appetite, he hands his lunch to one of his workmates ... who is so impressed with Molly's handiwork, he vows he'd be willing to pay good money for a lunch like this. Andy passes this news to Molly, and soon she's making box lunches which Andy eagerly peddles to his workmates. When word gets out that Molly's lunches are better than anything these poor working stiffs are likely to find elsewhere (especially at the Charles restaurant chain), the nickels and dimes start rolling in. Pretty soon Molly and Andy are giving Andy's millionaire father some serious competition in the lunch business...

There are some excellent Capra touches here, including some populist humour of the kind which is usually associated with the peak years of Capra's long-term collaboration with screenwriter Robert Riskin. (In Capra's films, many of the distinctive touches which film critics usually attribute to Capra are actually Riskin's work.) One of Andy's co-workers has bought a ham sandwich from the A.B. Charles sandwich company ... but he complains about the scanty portion of ham, which has apparently been sliced "with a razor". Sure enough, in his office, millionaire Charles is gleefully telling his cronies the secret of his success: "Slice the ham THIN." At the end of the film, when Molly's sandwich business is prospering, she reveals the secret of her own success: "Slice the ham THICK." This is such a typically Riskin-esquire piece of business, I was surprised to learn that Riskin didn't work on this film. The dialogue (on silent-film intertitles) is by Al Boasberg, better known for his work with comedians such as Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers.

"That Certain Thing" suffers from the small budget typical of Columbia films from this period, especially noticeable in the scenes shot in the "luxurious" office of millionaire A.B. Charles, which is actually rather cramped and spartan. In his autobiography, Capra reveals how he was able to economise on this movie: the box lunches used as props during filming were distributed afterwards to feed the cast and crew!

"That Certain Thing" (the movie's title is never explained) is an excellent silent film, with good lead performances from Graves and Dana, two actors whose careers failed to prosper in the talking-film era. I wish that they were better known, and I wish that this movie were better known as well.

That Certain Thing is the story of a gold digger (Viola Dana) from a tenement house. Her mother uses her to take care of her two brothers, but they are a loving family. Although Dana's character has the opportunity to marry a streetcar conductor, she refuses and holds out for a millionaire. Everyone makes fun of her for her fantasy, but are surprised when one day she really does meet a millionaire, son of the owner of the popular ABC restaurant chain. The two marry hastily, but the girl's dreams of wealth are shattered when the rich father disowns his son for marrying a gold digger. However, she truly loves her new husband and the two are unexpectedly successful at making it on their own.

A rare glimpse of movie star Viola Dana, this film is a lot of fun. Dana's role is accessible, natural, and entertaining. She displays a knack for comedy as well as an ability to do drama.

The mechanics of the film are a lot of fun too. The camera displays sophisticated late silent techniques like mobility. The title cards are also incredibly clever.

If you like films like My Best Girl, It, or The Patsy, you will enjoy this film.