Loose Ankles

... 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.

I enjoyed so many of the performances in this movie. The plots been summarized in other reviews, so let me just mention my favorites. Louise Fazenda as Aunt Sarah lets loose with some great physical comedy. According to IMDB she was 45 when this was made, but had performed in Mack Sennett comedies and her training shows in this. I also enjoyed the maid (Inez Courtney?) who responds to Loretta Young's comment that she "must have been in a comprising position at one time" -- "Oh, the position wasn't so bad....." The help she provides to the young and innocent Loretta as she tries to involve herself in scandal is quite funny.

A very enjoyable way to spend just over an hour.

After receiving a "foot powder" (as director Ted Wilde has the camera caress her beautiful legs), pretty Loretta Young (as Ann Harper Berry) is ready to attend the reading of a wealthy grandmother's will. She inherits a fortune, but Ms. Young must marry a nice young man and avoid scandal in order to collect. Young decides to advertise. She finds good-looking and unscrupulous Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (as Gil Hayden) through an escort service. However, their business arrangement gets complicated by love and scandal...

Young's sexy opening is followed by the beautiful actress appearing in slinky attire. Not to be outdone, Mr. Fairbanks is stripped of his clothing by zealous maid Daphne Pollard (as Agnes), in order to assume a "compromising" position. However, it is cute gigolo Eddie Nugent (as Andy Martin) who gets the naughtiest scenes. Introduced in a bathtub, Mr. Nugent later appears without his pants; apparently, for no other reason than to exchange more personal foot spankings with fellow escort Norman Selby (as Terry Todd)...

The cast winds up in the wicked "Circus Cafe", with leggy dancers and plenty to drink. Straight-laced aunts Ethel Wales (as Katherine) and Louise Fazenda (as Sarah) don't know the punch is spiked. Also appearing are snorting Otis Harlan (as Rupert Harper), smoking Inez Courtney (as Betty), and studly Raymond Keane (Linton Harper). Young and Fairbanks become mechanical as the supporting players take over the screen. "Loose Ankles" is stolen from them, especially by Nugent and Ms. Wales.

******* Loose Ankles (2/2/30) Ted Wilde ~ Loretta Young, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Edward J. Nugent, Ethel Wales

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" has a lively start (certainly any movie that opens with a close-up of Loretta Young's legs starts on the right foot - pun intended), Young and Jr. (Douglas Fairbanks Jr., that is) are appealing, and Inez Cortney is a joy as Young's cousin. But when the focus switches to Young's two middle-aged aunts and their two "professional escorts", especially in the extended "circus cafe" segment, the film becomes dreadfully unfunny. ** out of 4.