Anybody's Woman

Ruth Chatterton had some really odd roles over at Paramount. This is a pretty conventional precode tale full of conventional precode tropes, but Ruth Chatterton is the whole show.

Attorney Neil Dunlap (Clive Brook) is dumped by his wife for a wealthy man. He's in a hotel drinking to forget when he sees Pansy Gray (Ruth Chatterton) playing a ukulele and singing in the building across from him. Neil's companion asks Pansy and her companion to come over and join them. They do. A drunken Neil proposes to and marries Pansy that night. A slightly more sober Neil discovers what he did the next morning AND that it made all of the papers. He is going to have the marriage annulled, but an acquaintance, Gustave (Paul Lukas) tells Neil that he respects him for this unconventional act and convinces him to give the marriage a try. Neil thinks he is giving Pansy a chance to "make good".

Well, at home back in Wilmington,DE (Wilmington??? I have to give the film points for an unconventional setting) Pansy has to deal with winning everybody over, including the servants, who are ready to walk out rather than work for her. Her new husband is polite to her, even sobers up with her help, but he is just being "nice". He does not love her. And then something happens that makes him pour out all of his doubts about her character to her. How does this work out? Watch and find out.

Chatterton's Pansy is honest and she knows how to roll with the punches life throws her, but she doesn't quite know how to deal with all of these snobs in her husband's world, especially when she is not clear on who are and are not her friends, because if she is not accustomed to kindness from people, up to now at least she could count on authenticity.

The print I saw had the title "Anybody's Woman" blacked out and a new title "The Better Wife" printed over it. Maybe an artifact of the production code era? By the way, that title is NOT referring to Pansy. This film gets good performances out of all of the main players - Brook, Chatterton, and Lukas. It has very intelligent dialog, and except for the fact that the film could not seem to change scenes without intertitles, it really is quite modern in its viewpoint. And who would ever think that an electric room fan could become a plot device in a romantic moment?

Although the only copy seems to be a horribly degraded print on YouTube, it's still worth watching. It's an intelligent and mature, well acted study of the sexism and snobbery which pervaded society in the late twenties. Ruth Chatterton gives an outstanding and inspiring performance which is unusually natural for such an early film.

Clive Brook plays a member of the social elite, he finds himself unexpectedly married to Chatterton's character who might now be called a cheap tart. He thinks he's helping her out of the gutter, she's not too sure. Her suspicions are correct - the social inequality of this impossible mismatch is subtly and skilfully conveyed in Dorothy Arzner's fifth talkie.

Like most of her pictures, this shines a vivid arc light on the unfair attitudes towards women but also on the snobbery of the time. Dozens of films from this period tackled the subject of social injustice but most resorted to sensationalist melodrama, usually with a 'tart with a heart of gold' type being used and abused by an evil moustache twirling villain. Here the rich man in his castle is just as damaged and vulnerable as the poor girl at his gate. Clive Brook's character may seem absurdly pompous by today's standards but he reflected what the upper echelons of society were really like. Since people like that don't exist anymore it's difficult to relate to him but even so, we do develop some emotional empathy for him.

On several occasions, some of Brook's friends try to grope and kiss his new wife but Brook is completely unable to understand that a "woman like that" could possibly be insulted by such behaviour, They were gentlemen after all. Although she's his wife, she's still just a cheap 'showgirl', that's how you treat such people. "What on earth is wrong with the woman?" His typical for the time attitude that "women like that" cannot have the same sensitivity or respect that "decent women" have is cleverly challenged in this. Although directed by proto-feminist Dorothy Arzner and written by one of her favourite female writers, the great Zoe Akins (who was responsible for many fabulous pictures in the thirties - not just HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE) and even edited by a woman, the film does not present the gentleman as monsters - they're just the way people were and in this film they're actually treated quite sympathetically. Very refreshing.

But it's not all feminist and working class indignation. It's actually an enjoyable story about love blossoming in the most unlikely of circumstances. It's quite unique in that aspect so well worth worth watching - despite to poor YouTube quality.

Neil Dunlap (Clive Brook) marries burlesque performer Pansy (Ruth Chatterton) after a drunken night which he does not recall. His sister tries to convince him to dissolve the marriage as Pansy is not in the same social class as her lawyer brother. We are also introduced to Gustave (Paul Lukas) who is a friend of Neil's and who falls in love with Pansy. The film follows the story of her fight for acceptance from Neil while Gustave simultaneously plays his cards up front and asks for her love in return for his. She must choose between the two men.....

The film is OK. Ruth Chatterton plays her role well and it is good to see that she can give as good as she gets - she is also self-sacrificing and funny. Clive Brook is annoying in his drunk scenes but good when sober and Paul Lukas gives a determined performance as Gustave, who is a wealthy client of Neil's. There are some good scenes, eg, when Neil confronts Gustave about making love to Pansy and both men are brutally honest with each other......However, I felt that more could have happened during the course of the film. Still, it's OK.

I recently denigrated Ruth Chatterton's performance in another film and became beset with the malaise that attends the negative mindset. Asked myself, "how could I be so hardened?" I set about researching her films I was familiar with. Happily, I started with "Anybody's Woman." As the film began, [and I HAD to watch the whole thing , again] it was clear that this was the performance by which I had judged all of Chatterton's. Indeed, it is the standard to which I hold Paul Lukas and Clive Brook.

While the plot of a society gentleman-marries-chorus-girl-on-bender has been done ad nauseum, this film achieves complete veracity. Ruth Chatterton's Pansy Grey is a natural, decent sort, who recognizes her own faults and refuses to let them drag her down. She is loyal to the point of self-sacrifice and tough when she needs to be. Chatterton displays acting talents from A to Z, from soft spoken to shouting, and so effective that volumes are spoken when she just leans her head against Clive Brook's chest. Brook benefits from superb lines, and he'll deliver some with uncommon fire. Paul Lukas, here, is cast in an outgoing and straightforward part which showcases him better than anywhere else.

All three vertices of this romantic triangle play a taut script right to the hilt. The intense sincerity these three bring to their roles makes every scene memorable. Structurally, the film is deliberately broken into stand alone blocks of time, each labeled silent movie style: "A Month Later", "The Next Day" and so on. Elsewhere, this device is used as a crutch, here, you are allowed to savor what you've just experienced. It is as though the film makers are saying, "if you thought that was good, watch this!"

I'm sure much credit must go to the director, Dorothy Arzner. Close ups are judiciously used and there is a natural quality pervading each set piece. She's blocked her actors and composed camera frame according to the relationship of the onscreen principles. Early in the film, Brook's and Chatterton's heads are in opposite corners of the frame. Later, during a confrontation, the three leads are almost huddled, lost in the room. While this could play onstage, only cinema can manipulate the viewer in this fashion.

Please, please Paramount, take a look at this picture and release it to home video. There is gold in your vaults.

"Anybody's woman" as a term means a woman that could be had for whatever it is she was looking for: a kiss, money, jewels, a good time. Should a man give her what she desired and she was his, this would make her anybody's woman. That wasn't Pansy Gray (Ruth Chatterton).

I realize that I love movies with strong female characters. I'm not talking physically strong and can beat up everyone because I generally dislike those movies. I'm talking mentally and emotionally strong, and having strong character. Ruth Chatterton has played a strong woman several times: "Charming Sinners," "Sarah and Son," and "Frisco Jenny" all come to mind, but I think her character Pansy Gray in "Anybody's Woman" was the strongest.

One night a very drunk Neil Dunlap (Clive Brook) pestered Pansy into marrying him. I know what you're thinking, "What kind of "strong woman" would be pestered into marrying a guy she doesn't even know?" I was thinking the same thing at first, but Pansy had her reasons.

When Neil woke up the next morning he had no idea that he'd gotten married the night before. He asked the most obvious question of Pansy which was did she want money.

Pansy didn't want money and she didn't want a divorce. She wanted the opportunity to make a good name for herself. She was a working girl who'd been arrested for indecent exposure on stage, and marrying a well-to-do man like Neil would afford her the opportunity to fix her image. She consented to any arrangement Neil wanted so long as he allowed her to remain married and repair her reputation.

Pansy proved to be a stand up woman and wife. When Neil's rich, entitled, grubby clients got handsy with her she didn't hold back. Her behavior was out of bounds for a society crowd, but it was exactly what most men would want: a woman who can thwart unwelcomed advances.

She would have to get most assertive with Gustave Saxon (Paul Lukas), Neil's best and wealthiest client. He made wild and unsubstantiated assumptions about her sexuality and pressed up on her a little too much. I don't know a husband that would not have respected her actions, but her husband,Nei,l was from a different social sphere. He gave benefits of any doubts to his client and not his unsophisticated wife.

Pansy was the best mistake Neil ever made. He was a sloppy drunk because his wife left him for a richer man, and Pansy dried him out. She forced him to sober up and get his business affairs in order. And what was just as good was that she never assumed that proper, pompous, pretentious manner of speaking or behaving. She was a girl from the street, but that didn't mean she was easy or that she'd go for any dude with dough. In fact, she had more self-respect, decency, and faithfulness than MOST of the cultured women depicted on screen in the 30's. She was more than Neil could've asked for. She could've parlayed her new status into a relationship with more affluent men such as Neil's client Gustave Saxon (Paul Lukas), but that wasn't the type of woman she was.

You had to love Pansy. She was down to earth and a good person without being angelic. She was a woman the ordinary Joe can relate to without being foul or loose and if Neil couldn't realize what he had he was the loser, not her. Pansy was great and she wasn't just anybody's woman.