Loose Ankles

This film, based on a 1926 stage play, is extremely funny and fun to watch. It is also somewhat hard to find. I was fortunate to see it screened at Cinevent 39.

The story concerns a group of society people hearing a will read to them. The deceased's niece (Loretta Young) has most of the luck when an estate is left to her under the condition that she find a husband and no scandal be brought to the family. Everyone else's inheritance depends on this clause, but Ann (Young) doesn't want her share. In fact, she's determined to force everyone out of theirs because she thinks the family is too greedy. Off she goes to put an ad in the paper for a boy to "compromise her." Andy (Edward Nugent) finds it in the paper and thinks he'd be perfect for the role, but instead thinks maybe his room mate Gil (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) would be better suited. In a very funny scene, Gil goes to Ann's home and is taken advantage of by the maid (Daphne Pollard).

Somehow, they all end up at a speakeasy where Ann's uptight aunts Katherine (Ethel Wales) and Sarah (Louise Fazenda) steal the show during a drunken spectacle where Andy tries to control his laughter.

This film is certainly a pre-code. Aside from outright illegal drunkenness, we see Andy taking a bath and women disrobing men, along with the generally racy storyline. Possibly the reason they got away with so much (besides being made during the pre-code era) is because this film is based on a play.

Thankfully, the camera-work does not make the film's roots evident. Of course, there are many shots that look like characters on a stage, but we also have a moving camera and many close-ups to take advantage of the beautiful stars. Young and Fairbanks struggle with their dialogue, but there are enough scenes with the character actors to make up for their scenes.

Based on a successful play and moderately pre-Code, this look at 1930 Flaming Youth has Loretta Young as a not-that-interesting heiress and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., looking younger than I've ever seen him, as the nice boy forced to pose as a gigolo by his roistering buddies. There's some amusing pre-Code clucking about overnight guests of the opposite gender, and a lot of footage given over to Louise Fazenda, as a too-prim aunt unwittingly given some liquor and turning into a loose woman; this was the era when alcohol was still automatically hilarious. Warners peddles its own contemporary hit songs in the background ("Am I Blue?", "Painting the Clouds With Sunshine") and there's some clunky choreography in the nightclub sequence, but the focus is mostly on Loretta and Doug, who are quite charming together. His lack of experience shows, but he's convincingly a young man in love, and what young man could wish for a lovelier conquest than Loretta. An undemanding time capsule, with sufficient spirit.

Loose Ankles (1930)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Rich girl Ann Harper (Loretta Young) inherits her grandmother's fortune but she must get married and have the man approved by two of three selected people as well as avoid any scandal. Feeling the entire thing is a bunch of junk, Ann decides to "hire" Gil Hayden (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) to make some trouble and cause her the inheritance. LOOSE ANKLES starts off on a very good path but it quickly falls apart during the second half but there's still plenty of reasons to check this out. If you're a fan of Douglas or especially Young then this here is going to be a must see because the two of them have some nice chemistry together and this helps keep the film moving at a good pace. This is especially true for Young who is very good in the part and the director wastes no time showing off her beautiful legs. The film certainly fits the pre-code standard of allowing more frank situations to enter and there's a very funny scene where Young is trying to undress Fairbanks but not really knowing how. Another funny scene is the will reading where Young really gets a chance to shine. The supporting players are also good and help keep this film moving. I think the film starts off well but begins to fall apart in the second half because things get a tad bit too silly for their own good. Still, fans of the stars or pre-code films should still have plenty here to enjoy.

"Loose Ankles", though released in 1930, was made in 1929. According to IMDB, the director died and the studio held the film for release until the following year. As you watch the movie, you need to consider when it was made. In 1929, sound films were still very new...and studios were still experimenting on how to use this new technology. While the sound quality is pretty good in "Loose Ankles" as you can clearly understand what folks are saying (this is NOT true with many other films of the day), the film suffers from a problem some films dealt with at the time...relying too much on dialog in order to show off the new technology It also tries too hard to be wacky! In other words, folks talk very rapidly and the dialog is practically shouted at the screen...and subtle, is sure ain't!

When the story begins, a strange will is being read. Ann (Loretta Young) has just been told that she'll inherit a huge amount IF she marries and gets her family's consent. But Ann dislikes her annoying family and she wants to break the will...because then no one will inherit anything. How will she break it? By creating a scandal...and the will stipulates if there are any newspaper scandals then the money will be donated to help pets instead of spoiled relatives. So, she advertises for a terrible, disreputable man to marry her...hoping for the worst. Of couse, along the way, she ends up meeting a dreamy guy instead (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.).

This is a very watchable film but probably won't appeal to folks who aren't already old movie buffs. For 1929, it's very good....but compared to films made just a year or two later, it is a bit dated.

... but overall it was a delightful little precode with Loretta Young seeming much more mature than her 17 years would have you expect. The film opens with a close up of Loretta's ankle swaying to the beat of the title song "Loose Ankles" her foot is wearing only an ankle bracelet as a man's hand caresses her leg and foot. The camera pans back and we see that the man is just a pedicurist surveying his work. That's the fun about precode. Nothing has to happen. By today's standards nothing really does. It's the possibilities and the implications.

The back story here is that Grandma Berry has just died and her already wealthy relatives are drooling for more on this, the day of the reading of her will. Ann Harper Berry (Loretta Young) turns out to be the recipient of the lion's share of the estate, but she must marry and also bring no scandal - as in nothing in the newspapers - to the Berry name in order to fully inherit. To incentivize the rest of the family, they cannot inherit their portion of the estate until Ann marries. Ann rebels against the entire set-up and puts out an ad for a "young unscrupulous man" to compromise her and cause a newspaper-worthy scandal so she and her greedy family will be barred from the inheritance. Gil Hayden (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is the man who applies for the job at the cajoling of his male escort roommates who are trying to get him back into the workforce, and Ann is under constant watch by the rest of the family to make sure she causes no scandal. The scene in her bedroom as an inexperienced Ann tries to figure out the actual mechanics of creating a scandal with Gil with the help and advice of her obviously quite experienced maid is worth the price of admission.

This film runs 69 minutes and probably would have been better paced if it had been about 15 minutes shorter. It features a nightclub scene that drags on way too long with not much going on during a large portion of that time. Louise Fazenda is a hoot as one of Ann's aunts, but it is odd that Warner Brothers had her dressed up as a bit of a vixen the year before in "On With the Show" and here she is playing a woman in her 50's - she was only 35 at the time. It's obvious they have her wearing some kind of body suit to make her look much heavier and older than she is.

The dancing act in the nightclub - "The Circus Cafe" - is unique among nightclubs with lots of toe dancers and clowns doing acrobatics. It's not every day that you see circus themed entertainment in a Prohibition era speak easy, and quite frankly it was very reminiscent of the final scene in "Gold Diggers of Broadway".

If this one was a little faster paced I'd give it an eight, but as it is I give it an entertaining seven as it makes the excellent point that people are neither as wild or as tame as they might seem on the surface or as they imagine themselves to be.