Sa douce maison

Every cliché, every stock character and every conceivable plot twist are knitted into this gloriously daft, frenetically fast early thirties ultra, ultra-soapy melodramatic melodrama.

If you found yourself in 1933 and was asked to make something which you knew audiences would flock to, you'd make this. It's got everything 1933 wanted. Rose-tinted nostalgia for the gilded age, romance, tragedy, estranged daughters, murder, prison ...and Kay Francis. In many ways it is just a box ticking exercise, there's absolutely nothing special about this. There's too much happening in too short a time for you to become emotionally engaged but nevertheless it's enjoyable enough.

Unlike something like NIGHT COURT, made a year earlier which makes you get up and rant at the screen with the injustice it portrays, this doesn't quite hit you where it's meant to. Although fortunately nothing like the awful STELLA DALLAS which ushered in the sentimental fluff of the forties, there are ominous clouds of that type of mush visible on the horizon in this. It's not helped by Robert Florey's bland direct-by-numbers approach, weird incongruous close ups and sloppy editing.

But still, where else are you going to get so much squeezed into just over an hour than in a classic Warner pre-code?

The House On 56th Street is a Stella Dallas like melodramatic soap opera that Kay Francis did for Warner Brothers before Bette Davis made a specialty of them for that studio. This pre-Code film is laced with irony for Kay.

Kay's a Floradora girl from the Ragtime Era who has all the men chasing her in 1905. She's the kept woman of ragtime rake John Halliday, but young Gene Raymond sweeps her off her feet and they marry and have a daughter. He takes her back to the family digs on East 56th Street in New York City and fancy digs they are.

Halliday gets some bad news from his doctor that he's only got months to live and he wants to live them with Francis, whatever the scandal. Francis tries to prevent him from committing suicide, but when Halliday does in the struggle for the pistol, she goes up for manslaughter and gets 20 years.

Fast forward to the Roaring Twenties and Kay's now free and living anonymously and making a living as a gambling lady with Ricardo Cortez and William 'Stage' Boyd. She gets an opportunity however to impart one really big favor on grownup daughter Margaret Lindsay and it's a beaut.

Although Bette Davis would later do these kind of parts, I mention Stella Dallas because The House On 56th Street also involves a mother separating herself from her daughter for her own good. Francis's role which she does a fine job with seems to fit Barbara Stanwyck even better.

Favorite scene here is the gambling scene on board a ship where Francis takes Cortez to the cleaners even though he's cheating. It reminded me a lot of the climax in Rounders with Matt Damon and John Malkovich.

Though The House On 56th Street is dated, it's still an effective film. Note the sense of irony in Francis's final line in the film.

Stage performer Kay Francis leaves wealthy lover John Halliday to marry society man Gene Raymond. Visiting Halliday after an operation, he says he should have married her, pulls out a gun, and tries to kill himself. Miss Francis tries to stop him, but fails, and is found guilty of his murder. Twenty years go by before she is released and gets a makeover. She meets gambler Ricardo Cortez and they fall in love, but returning to New York, they get jobs at the gambling house, where her daughter Margaret Lindsay, who thinks her dead, shows up. And then the story gets complicated.

Miss Francis gets a lot of costume changes and a couple of hair-dye jobs, of course, from stage tights through high fashion, and does very well in her performance as usual. After her heyday, she got an undeserved reputation as a clothes horse and nothing more. Cortez, still trying to hang onto leading roles after sound revealed an accent unsuitable for his silent, Valentino-like roles, does also does very well. Director Robert Florey might have made this about the changing face of New York, and perhaps that story wound up on the cutting-room floor. With Frank McHugh, William 'Stage' Boyd, and Hardie Albright.

The premise may not have been an original one, but Kay Francis was always a very watchable and more actress and was often one of the better things about all her films (which varied quality-wise generally). She was my main reason for seeing 'The House on 56th Street', one of my quests in seeing all of the films of people that impressed me enough to see more of their work. Have also liked Ricardo Cortez, usually cast in the more villain-type roles, in other things, but Gene Raymond has always been a hit and miss for me.

Is 'The House on 56th Street' one of her best? In terms of films, it's nowhere near close, it's no 'Confession'. In terms of performances though, it is towards the top and it boasts one of her more complex characters too. Cortez is also served well. Raymond left me indifferent here though. Overall 'The House on 56th Street' to me was not a great film and for some it will be easy to criticise. There are a lot of things worthy of a lot of praise though.

A good starting point being Francis, who is extremely good here and is the main reason to see the film. She is very elegant, but also burns with intensity and poignancy. Cortez is suitably smarmy and does fare joint best of the supporting cast, the other standout being charming Magaret Lindsay. 'The House on 56th Street' is a good looking film as well, stylish without being overblown and looking like it was shot with a lot of care and time. The locations are also beautiful. The music fits nicely, not quite enhancing things but at least it fits.

Script has some nice wit and is intelligently done in places. The story starts off very well and has some nice turns in the plot. The film is nicely directed and the main character, a complex one, is fascinating.

Despite those good things, it was hard for me to ignore 'The House on 56th Street's' drawbacks. It does tend to be very sudsy and over-heated in the writing. The story does have its moments, but does get too over-dramatic and loses momentum in the latter stages. Suspension of disbelief is hardly unheard of in film, it is actually a relatively regular occurance to put it politely. That doesn't stop the latter stages especially from being rather ridiculous. The ending is particularly hard to swallow.

While Francis as well as Cortez and Lindsay fare very well, Raymond is practically a just there cipher and John Halliday likewise. Not even Frank McHugh makes much of an impression!

Concluding, worth a look but only a little above average. 6/10

Kay Francis is extraordinary in this fatalistic tale--the surprises this plot has in store for her character, Peggy Van Tyle, are heart-wrenching: stoically, heroically, she survives them all.

For audiences suffering through the depression, the hardened-heart determination of Peggy Van Tyle must have proved inspiring. Things start out well for attractive dancer Peggy Van Tyle, but everything she loves is taken from her, even her dignity, and there are great scenes here of her adjusting to the "modern" world she reenters after serving 20 years in prison for a murder she did not commit.

This story is full of unexpected twists, not the least of which is how successful Peggy is in her "fresh start" as a hustling gambler. The at-sea casino card game she plays against her future partner-in-hustling Bill Blaine is astounding: no one can match Kay Francis's poker face!

This is a very grim tale. But the strength of character--really, I should say the "durability" of character--which Kay Francis portrays here is ultimately supremely uplifting. No matter what life throws at her she does not break!