Le désir de chaque femme

A beautiful story of love, that reminded me of Greta Garbo's "Anna Christie". I loved Vilma Bankee's voice and accent. I felt that the film was charming in it's "innocence" and simplicity, while dealing with a very complex issue. I hope that I may someday see it again.

Many silent movie stars from overseas who worked in Hollywood saw their marketability go down when talkies came upon the scene. A number of them either knew little English or spoke with heavy accents. In the silent era, with inter titles, they made huge bucks because it didn't matter if they knew the language.

There's a debate whether her Hungarian accent spelled doom for one of film's more popular actresses, or whether she just became uninterested in acting. But Hungarian born and raised Vilma Banky's only surviving talkie and her last Hollywood movie was February 1930's "A Lady To Love." Hand selected by Rudolph Valentino to play opposite in two of his most successful movies, 1925 "The Eagle" and 1926 "The Son of the Sheik," Banky was a highly sought after actress in Hollywood. Billed as "The Hungarian Rhapsody," she was Samuel Goldwyn's biggest star attraction, making more money for him than any of his other actors. In an arranged studio marriage with actor Rod La Rocque in the summer of 1927, Goldwyn paid for one of the most extravagant receptions Hollywood had ever witnessed. The marriage proved to be one of the longest marriages between two screen stars, lasting almost 50 years until La Rocque's death in 1969.

Banky's acting resume was long and deep. But when she arrived in Hollywood in 1925 she knew absolutely not one word of English. Her first talkie, the now lost 1929 'This Is Heaven,' proved to be a nightmare for her. Her next movie, "A Lady To Love," under the direction of Swedish director Victor Sjostrom, Banky had an easier time, but she still spoke with a heavy accent. The actress decided to go to Germany to appear in two additional films, then retired from movies, something she said she was going to do when she married La Rocque.

Director Sjostrom felt the same way as Banky did about talkies. He was one of the highest paid Hollywood directors in the mid-to-late 1920s for MGM. But he felt uncomfortable with the new audio technology and left MGM for Europe after the completion of "A Lady To Love" to direct just four more movies before returning solely to acting.

"A Lady To Love," based on Sidney Howard's 1924 Pulitzer Prize winner "They Knew What They Wanted," stars Edward G. Robinson as Tony, a large estate winery owner in Napa Valley who gets Lena (Banky) to marry him sight unseen by passing a photo of his younger brother Buck (Robert Ames) as himself. Even though she's attracted to Buck, she ends up marrying Tony. Then things get really sticky when Buck returns after a long absence.

Banky and La Rocque, after he retired from movies in the 1940s, made a nice living selling real estate in the area. She lived to be 90, outliving her husband. But her death wasn't reported for over a year. With no children, Banky was upset no one had paid her a visit during her final years. She dictated to her lawyer not to make public her death when it happened. With 24 movies under her belt, only eight exist today. And "A Lady To Love" happens to be one of them.

Sidney Howard's 1924 play "They Knew What They Wanted" had already been brought to the silver screen in 1928 as the silent "The Secret Hour" (Paramount) which I have not seen and probably never will since I am averse to silent movies. Just two years later, it was given the talkie treatment by MGM as "A Lady to Love", originally entitled "Sunkissed".

As one would expect, everyone is very histrionic, especially Edward G. Robinson, but effectively so when one is accustomed to watching early talkies and knows what to expect. The three stars have good chemistry, no matter if they're all together or just in couples. The prolonged early scene between Vilma Banky and Leon Ames is quite amusing and well paced. Ames seems the most natural, but maybe that's because he's the only one without an accent. The character portrayed by the Austro-Hungarian Banky is Swedish, but was originally American and the writing reveals this with the numerous ain't-s and other colloquialisms which sound natural from Ames' mouth, but very artificial from hers. Just changing the character's nationality to suit the actress without revising her lines seems like a lazy fix and was somewhat irritating to me, but not enough to detract from my overall enjoyment of the film.

What can one say about Robinson as the Italian grapeg rower? This is probably his hammiest film performance, yet he is always watchable and entertaining. Seeing him fall down the stairs in a drunken frenzy or giggle like a squeamish schoolgirl when Banky is rubbing him down are particular highlights. I couldn't help but laugh at the prominently placed portrait of Mussolini on his wall considering that World War II was just nine years away at the time.

Merritt B. Gerstad's cinematography is very fluid (for an early talkie), beautiful and atmospheric, as it usually was in films lensed by him - see the talkie version "Seventh Heaven" from 1937. Apart from the creaky title music, the score is confined to source cues as was customary at the time. Max Steiner would soon set a new trend with his extensive (for its time, of course) score for "Symphony of Six Million" in 1932.

A German language version for foreign distribution was filmed in parallel on the same sets. This was not unusual in the pre-dubbing era of the early 30's - Dracula was filmed in both English and Spanish in 1931. Nevertheless, "Die Sehnsucht jeder Frau" (Every Woman's Passion), as it was retitled in German, was unusual in that it retained the English version's director Victor Seastrom (a Swede) as well as two of its stars - Banky (Austro-Hungarian) and Robinson (Romanian), while the American Ames was replaced by Joseph Schildkraut. I would personally love to see this version out of curiosity - who would have guessed Edward G. knew German? - but it seems to be lost.

The play was eventually filmed in English for the third time in 1940 under its original title, released by RKO and starring Charles Laughton and Carole Lombard. I have yet to see this version since I am also somewhat averse to both stars, but I may give it a chance one day since I moderately enjoyed their previous collaboration - Paramount's "White Woman" from 1933. None of those four film versions of the play has been officially released on DVD, let alone Blu Ray, but I hope this 1930 version gets released by the Warner Archive Collection since I would gladly make it part of my own.

I knew this story first from the musical version, THE MOST HAPPY FELLER, with its great Frank Loesser score. Later, I saw the straight remake, THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WANTED, with Carole Lombard's best straight dramatic role. This version, directed by Victor Sjostrom, is very primitive. Oh, Vilma Banky, despite the claims that her sound acting was always bad, is quite good, although she's best in the sequences in which she says nothing or spends her time mumbling her lines; Edward G. Robinson's portrayal is so stereotypical that it seems almost comical for most of the movie, until the finale, when he plays it big and is very affecting; still, I thought it would have been better played by Henry Armetta -- until I realized that Armetta was still playing bit roles under a different name at this point.

It's Robert Ames as Buck, the casual trouble-maker in this triangle, who is infuriating in this movie. He doesn't start any of the trouble. He doesn't care. He wanders in and out, and Ames plays him as a completely uninvolved drifter, which is completely appropriate, so why does everyone invest so much in him? Yes, he's good-looking in an unkempt way, but there's nothing noteworthy about him. We're supposed to imagine that Miss Banky has talked herself into marrying the man in the photograph, and he's simply taking advantage of the situation, but he's played as not a heel for sleeping with her, nor a good guy for leaving.

So what are we left with? A bit of a curiosity, with the MGM staff still learning how to handle the sound equipment and a fine final two or three minutes from Robinson. It's not enough to make it a good movie, but since it's Edward G. Robinson, it's worth looking at once.

Vilma Banky was a famous silent film star, brought over from Hungary in the mid-20s by Sam Goldwyn. She was an instant star in films like THE EAGLE with Rudolph Valentino and THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH with Ronald Colman. Her talkie debut was in 1929 in THIS IS HEAVEN; it was a notorious flop. A LADY TO LOVE would be Banky's final American film and her second attempt at a talkie. And it's a very good film indeed.

Banky plays a waitress in San Francisco who is spotted by an immigrant grape grower (Edward G. Robinson) who has come to the city to find a wife. He brings the waitress to Napa for an arranged marriage but she is immediately attracted to Robinson's foreman (Robert Ames). Although Robinson has fallen and broken is leg, the wedding takes place (she wants a home and things) but on their wedding night, Banky has a fling with Ames.

Ames then goes away and leaves Banky with Robinson. She nestles into her newfound safe haven and takes care of Robinson. Over a period of a few months she discovers she has fallen in love with the doting Robinson, but then Ames returns and threatens to make trouble.

Robinson (in his third talkie)is, as always, a total pro. And even with an Italian accent and a wild white white, he's a pleasure to watch. Ames is OK in the thankless part of the cad. Supporting players include Henry Armetta and George Davis as foolish workers, Anderson Lawler as the doctor, Lloyd Ingraham as the priest, and Richard Carle as the postman.

But Banky is front and center here as Lena. Much was made of her failure in talkies because of her thick accent. After this film flopped she made a couple films in Europe and retired from the screen. But I was struck throughout this film at what a nice voice she had and how much her accent resembled that of Greta Garbo in ANNA Christie that same year. THIS IS HEAVEN is apparently a lost film so we may never be able to judge Banky's talkie debut. But her second effort is solid.

The best scene in the film is where Banky attempts to give Robinson a bath while he's in bed (with a broken leg). It's a giddy and delightful scene, especially with his aversion to water.

Banky was long married to silent star Rod La Rocque. He continued in talkies as a supporting player through the early 1940s.