Une perle rare

Bebe Daniels is a French maid.... for inside jobs. She meets Ben Lyon when he breaks open the safe her "employer" keeps her jewels in. After he gets out of jail, she talks him into going straight...for a while.

Ben Lyons is good, and has the best pre-code line: "I don't need a partner when I've got my right hand". Bebe is great, whether she's putting on a French accent or screaming at Lyon. Apparently he thought so too. They were married three months after this movie was released.

Bebe had been in the movies for 20 years at this point, beginning with the Oz movies that L.Frank Baum had produced. She spent several years as Harold Lloyd's leading lady, then the 1920s, Paramount and Cecil B. Demille came calling. She was booted out of Paramount because she "didn't have a voice" and immediately sang up a storm in RIO RITA. Unfortunately, her other RKO vehicles, like this one, didn't fare so well at the box office. Eventually she and Lyon moved to England and a long career in radio and TV. She died in 1971, 70 years old.

More than a few movies were made in the 1930s and 1940s about a criminal going straight, and there have been some very good caper films that have involved couples. Most of those were also comedies, or had light touches with some humor. "Alias French Gertie" has something of both of those type of films, without any humor. It's also one of the very early talkies and its crudeness is evident throughout.

The production and technical aspects are raw and the acting mostly stiff, except for Bebe Daniels. But even she over compensates in one long scene of preachy dialog when Gertie dresses down her hubby, Jimmy Hartigan. Ben Lyon still shows some of the deliberate positioning and quick freezes from the silent films he made. Detective Kelcey, Mrs. Matson and other characters also show their stiffness. So, the direction isn't very good in this RKO film either.

All of these things distract from the film. And, since the screenplay itself isn't very good, it's hard to stay with this film. There just isn't much here to enjoy. This is one that might serve in a film history class to show the stages in improvements from various technical aspects, camera work and directing to acting.

One possible aside from this film might be that it's the occasion of Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon meeting that led to their marriage in June of 1930. The couple had a very successful lifelong partnership in film, theater, radio and television. But, few people, even movie buffs, would find this film worthwhile.

Here's the one good humorous exchange of dialog.

Gertie Jones, "Say, we're heading back to town. Can we give you a lift?" Detective Kelcey, "You wouldn't take me for a ride, would you?"

TV viewers of the 1950s familiar with The Lyons would be shocked to discover Ben Lyons & Bebe Daniels misspending their youth as a pair of career criminals who meet cute when Daniels posing as a French maid - who in private lapses into fluent Brooklynese - crosses the path of safe cracker Ben Lyon.

The original play by Bayard Veiller was called 'The Chatterbox', which aptly describes Lyon, who never stops talking and as he hubristically brags that "when I pull a job it's like I signed my name on it!" it's hardly surprising that he swiftly ends up in the slammer.

Upon release he tells his beloved "Gertie, we're turning square!" - which provides the interesting knowledge that the term 'square' was already in use long before it was employed pejoratively by beatniks - before finding out the hard way that legitimate businessmen are even bigger crooks than he; a message that still resonates today.

In her third talkie, Bebe Daniels stars here as Gertie Jones, a thief who poses as a French maid to rob old ladies of their jewels. In the middle of a job, she is interrupted by a safecracker, Ben Lyon. When the pair is caught by the police, Lyon gallantly takes the rap and serves a year in prison. They fall in love.

Once out of prison, Daniels pushes for the couple to go straight. They meet a nice elderly couple and the man takes Lyon as a business partner for a $30,000 investment. They revel in "the straight life" until fate take an ironic turn.

Daniels and Lyon, both major silent stars, are quite good in this 1930 talkie. The chemistry between them is obvious; indeed, they married soon after making this film. While the plot is rather creaky, the stars inject tons of personality and make this watchable.

Robert Emmett O'Connor plays Kelsey the cop, Nella Walker and Maude Turner Gordon play rich victims, Arthur Housman plays a crook, Ray Cooke plays the wise-cracking office boy, Betty Pierce plays the sad-sack Nellie, and John Ince and Daisy Belmore play the kindly older couple.

Bebe Daniels and Ben Lyon would make a few more films together in the US and UK before turning to radio in the early 40s. Their "Hi, Gang!" series was a hit and was made into a 1941 feature film. From there they starred in "Life with the Lyons" on radio, TV, and 2 feature films with their children, Barbara and Richard.

... as Bebe Daniels plays jewel thief Gertie Jones who impersonates a French maid to get inside of the homes of wealthy persons and then steals their valuables when they are away from home. One night she is planning to do just that when an interloper arrives - safe cracker Jimmy Hartigan (Ben Lyon). She gets the drop on him and gets his gun and is having a long pointless conversation with him when the cops arrive, summoned by another servant who heard the commotion. Jimmy doesn't point the finger at her and takes his lumps alone, getting a one year prison sentence because this may not be his first crime, but it's the first time he got caught.

Gertie is waiting for him when he gets out, and it's part romance but also part business as they team up and rob enough rich people that they manage to bankroll thirty thousand dollars in 1930 money. But Gertie is beginning to lose her nerve over this crime business, and that feeling is deepened when an old pal who taught her the business comes to the door, just released half-dead from stir. She convinces Jimmy to go straight, but then they fall victim to their own naivete so that complications ensue.

This film starts out as a precode kind of "age of chiselry" film with the flavor of something Cagney and Blondell might have made at the time, but it rapidly and oddly segues into a bit of a morality tale about going straight and doing the right thing as though this was 1934 and the production code had painted a white line right down the middle of the film.

But maybe it's a good thing that Jimmy and Gert went straight, as there is always a cop hanging around either trying to catch Jimmy when he's a crook or encouraging him with fatherly advice when he decides to go straight. What public servant has time to dedicate to one thief? Why would you want to steal in a jurisdiction with this guy always hanging around? Also, another question I've always had about these older films. Gert and Jimmy hire Gert's recently paroled pal as a maid - understandable. But why do people decide to help out their down and out friends and make them wear that demeaning maid's outfit? It's one step up from being dressed up like an organ grinder's monkey, but I digress.

I'd say this is mainly worthwhile because of the onscreen chemistry between Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels, married for over 40 years, with their marriage only ending in her death - a rare thing in Hollywood.