Femmes de luxe

One reviewer here complimented the whole cast of "Ladies of Leisure." Well, I must respectfully disagree. I found Ralph Graves' performance to be rather wooden. Graves had been in films since he was teenager just after Word Ware I had ended, but clearly he found it difficult to deliver a natural performance in the sound medium.

I do recommend the film for historical purposes if nothing else. It was released in the Spring of 1930 and may have been filmed in late 1929. That would definitely qualify "Ladies of Leisure" as a member of that first generation of sound films dating from 1928 to 1930.

One thing I wondered about is whether a boom mic was used. I think someone else opined that hidden mics, placed here and there around the set were still used in this production. I do know from my reading that sound film technology was making progress just about on a week by week basis in those early days.

This movie is one of the legendary Barbara Stanwyck's earliest starring roles. The title of the movie actually refers to prostitutes and that is what Stanwyck plays in this one, though it is, of course, only suggested. The set-up is that Stanwyck, a prostitute, is hired by a painter to be a model for one of his paintings. Through the course of the movie, Stanwyck's character, who has never know real love, is touched by the young painter's caring gestures (though to him, he is only being polite). As always, the beautiful Stanwyck carries the movie in the palm of her hand, and when the film is serious, it's pretty decent. Some problems arise in the humorous scenes with her chubby co-star (who died later in the decade because of self-starvation), a stereotypical, high-pitched, talkative New York girl who has too much of a silly vaudevillian personality to generate many laughs (remember, this is early 1930 and vaudeville was just beginning to wind down). Like a lot of early talkies, this movie is roughly edited, and the acting by the male lead is somewhat wooden. The story is okay, perhaps a bit too sentimental, but the movie is an interesting glance into the 1930s and the early stages of a screen Goddess' career.

23 year old Barbara Stanwyck became a leading film star in 1930 with the release of LADIES OF LEISURE, after having starred in two flops in 1929. This is a very slender story of a good time girl who falls in love with a millionaire's son who basically is just interested in her as a model for a painting he wants to do. Given how free-wheeling and blunt most early talkies were on morality, this movie is surprisingly discreet about Stanwyck's character's past. We are supposed to read into the story she's a prostitute (or more accurately, a former mistress) - but in her first scene she is fleeing a yacht party that's too risqué for her!! Stanwyck rings honesty out of a cardboard script and she's got good support from three second-tier silent stars who are quite good in talkies - Ralph Graves as the object of her affection, Marie Prevost as her wisecracking, less prudish pal, and especially Lowell Sherman as Graves' drunken buddy who is very open to being Stanwyck's next sugar daddy yet the best scene is the confrontation being Stanwyck and Graves' mother, superbly played by a somewhat unsung character actress, Nance O'Neil.

The movie's minor fame today rests on it being Stanwyck's first screen success and an early hit for director Frank Capra yet Capra's direction is rather dull and often awkward and the movie is very badly edited with some scenes conspicuously made up of different takes with shot angles and acting rhythms off among other giveaways (to say nothing of the scene where Graves answers the phone and says "Hello" way before the receiver is anywhere near his mouth!!) As mentioned by another reviewer, a "silent" version of the film was also shot (the smaller studios like Columbia were still making silent versions of some of their films up to 1931 for the ever dwindling number of movie theaters that were still not wired for sound), I don't know anything about the silent version being available on video and not the sound film, possibly the silent version fell into public domain and that's why that version alone is on tape, however the sound version still exists and was shown on American Movie Classics in the early 1990's back when that channel actually showed classic movies. Turner Classic Movies, on the other hand, has so many MGM and Warner Bros. films at their disposal they hardly need to go elsewhere for films so it's not likely they will bother to pick up rights to this movie from Columbia. I wouldn't be surprised, however, one day to see it and a number of other early Capra talkies together in a boxed DVD set given his legend as a director.

Reviews of this film do not make clear that it apparently is available in both sound and silent versions. The version of this film borrowed from our local library was the silent version as apparently this film was Capra's 2nd talkie and last silent (per Moviediva web site). It had a very distracting soundtrack that did not match the moods on the screen at all. Still, if you are a Capra or Stanwyck fan, the silent version is better than none at all and worth the time. Hopefully, I will be able to see a sound version on Turner or AMC.

Although this is not the type of film I'd usually watch, I was blown away by its intensity and depth of emotion. It's a fabulously made picture about hope: finding hope when it seems impossible, finding hope when it's not being looked for, finding hope when it's felt that it's not deserved.

Unlike a lot of films from around 1930, time is taken for proper character development which is essential to a picture of this nature. Each person is allowed to evolve into someone real, three-dimensional and believable. The care in creating such authenticity isn't just confined to the leads, the supporting characters, even their two friends, who aren't quite comedy relief but do lighten the mood are proper rounded characters. Unlike your typical Warner Brothers quickie in which a hundred things happen at quickfire machine gun speed, there's hardly any action in this at all. Scenes are used to tell the story and build the tension. It's a relatively long film but it most certainly does not drag.

What is also incredible is that this was made in 1930 - have you seen most of the absolute rubbish that was made in 1930? Why is this so good? Is it because of Frank Capra's direction or because of Barbara Stanwyck? The technical professionalism, the acting and the overall feel of this is light years ahead of most of the output from that year. If you didn't know any better you'd probably guess that this was made in the 1940s. The question is, if a film from 1930 could be made this good, why were most films from that year so dreadful! Frank Capra doesn't use any particularly obvious gimmicks, fancy techniques or wacky camera angles, just perfect filmmaking, perfect photography, perfect acting and above all, perfect storytelling. He distils the story with razor-sharp focus directly on the emotions and mental anguish of Stanwyck's character, 'Kay.' The world outside of her relationship with 'Jerry' is made to seem fuzzy and unfocused in comparison with the intensity of what she is experiencing. It takes skill to make a story so entertaining in which there's so little action, one where the characters themselves rather than what they're doing, is what we're watching but Capra manages it.

It's equally refreshing that a film which garners its drama from the inequality of society that it manages to criticize the system without condemning it, the rich aren't the typical lazily written pantomime moustache-twirling villains exploiting the poor often seen in films about the haves and the have-nots but are treated with some sympathy. Had this been made a year later when The Great Depression had properly started however, this might have been handled differently?

Capra enforces the feel is isolation experienced by Kay as she becomes part of that alien high-society world with some beautiful imagery. There are the long shots to the exclusive penthouse suites showing how far away from the real world they are. When Kay stays over in Jerry's apartment for the first time she's not sure she's meant to be there, she knows she doesn't really belong and the way the camera films this from an outside window surreptitiously makes us the viewer also a little uneasy as well, are we supposed to be watching this? We're outsiders as well, we're not meant to be there either. The us and them motif is even used in the edge of the seat climax: when Kay's friend has to find Jerry she has to struggle up the stairs to the top of the skyscraper where he lives because she's not allowed the easy ride up in the elevator.

It's not a fantastic film but it is a proper film and I can't help again just being amazed how this could possibly have been made when most films in 1930 were sheer dross. I am also amazed that this was only Barbara Stanwyck's third talkie because she's impossibly good. There's probably a Star Trek episode where a movie made in the 1940s slipped back to 1930 through some time vortex, can't think of any better explanation.