The Office Wife

When Lewis Stone tells his secretary that he is going to Europe on his honeymoon, she collapses. Dorothy MacKaill is tapped to be his new secretary by the knowing but kindly office manager, Hobart Bosworth. It's not long before she's indispensable to Stone, and hopelessly in love with him.

It's a sweet-tempered pre-code movie, with the two leads always behaving properly, yet kindly towards each other. The spice is added by the comments of Blanche Friderici, smoking bad cigars in a man's suit, as an acid commentator on the role of the office wife; Joan Blondell as Miss McKaill's sister, a model who lets the manager pinch her once a year to keep her job, and Natalie Moorhead, as Stone's wife, who's carrying on an affair.

It was a peak year for Miss McKaill, who zoomed to the top as Warner Brothers' pre-code lady, knowing and wise. There's only one lingerie scene in this one, and that's with Miss Blondell. Miss McKail's career would crash and burn with the strict enforcement of the Production Code; she would be in only one movie after 1934. She would retire to Hawaii, and live until 1990, dying at the age of 87.

Larry (Lewis Stone) has a wife Linda (Natalie Moorhead) but the appointment of a new secretary Anne (Dorothy Mackaill) throws a spanner in the works. Larry and Anne fall in love with each other while Linda drifts away from him. It is up to Katherine (Joan Blondell) to let Larry know what the real deal is.

The acting is sometimes stilted and the basic idea of Larry and Anne getting together is utterly ludicrous. He is more like her grandfather, ie, they are 2 generations apart. Set against this there are positives such as the roles played by Joan Blondell and Blanche Friderici as "Kate". Friderici is the best lesbian I have seen and I was quite surprised to see that women could be so outwardly gay in 1930. She smokes a cigar and dresses like a man but there is absolutely no attempt to feminize the look as there was with Dietrich. This girl is all man! And it's brilliant.

The film is OK, nothing more, and it's interesting to see that the women of the time seemed to favour that short haircut which makes them look a bit severe. Joan Blondell's hair is the nicest coz it looks the most fluffy.

I think I have seen more subtle documentaries. This film has one message, repeated in every scene. A busy executive spends more time with, and will form a closer bond with, his personal secretary (office wife) than with his wife. What is unclear is whether this is meant as a warning or a justification. Despite the suggestive advertising to the contratry, the film goes to great lengths to emphasize that the bond is created by working closely together, and not by any seductive maneuvers from either side.

The executive in question is a publisher played by Lewis Stone. HIs character is upright, well-behaved and a complete workaholic. Despite working long hours every day including his holidays, two secretaries and a socialite all fall desperately in love with him. Stone is one-note as the obsessed exec., oblivious to the feelings of any of the women around him. How and when he wooed the fun-loving socialite he marries near the beginning of the film is a mystery. Lewis Stone would have been about 50 when the film was made, but he looks older, more father figure than Romeo.

The film opens with a prologue of a sort, to make sure the message of the film is understood from the start. Publisher Stone hires a writer to write a series of articles on the same subject as the movie: A busy executive spends more time with, and will form a closer bond with, his personal secretary (office wife) than with his wife. This scene is entirely unnecessary to the plot of this very short film, but it may be the most entertaining part. The female writer is dressed as a man and smokes a cigar. There may be a cultural reference or gag that I am missing, but my first thought was that the filmmakers felt the need to explain why the writer was not also desperately in love with Stone. Blanche Friderici is fun to watch but sadly plays no active part in the rest of the film. Her only other appearance has her alone, typing up her article in order to remind us once again what the film is about.

The 'office wife' of the title is played by Dorothy Mackaill. I enjoyed her performance. Her wide-eyed silent film roots show, which is not a problem for me, but some other viewers might be put off. The film also features one of the first film appearances of Joan Blondell, as Mackaill's sister. While Mackaill does show off her legs at every opportunity, her character needs to be seen as fairly pure. It is Blondell's function to provide the sex, by performing every scene she is in in various states of undress.

The Office Wife was based on a story by Faith Baldwin, originally published in Cosmopolitan. It is interesting to note that she is also credited with publishing in the same magazine the story that Sa femme et sa dactylo (1936) was based on. In many ways it is a re-telling of the same story, although in 1936 the Hays Office had a lot more control over how the characters could behave, and how the story ended. Still, Wife vs. Secretary managed to do a lot more with the same premise.

A somewhat interesting early talkie, more for the minor cast members than the major ones. Dale Fuller (Maria Macapa in "Greed") has a stand-out bit at the beginning as a lovestruck secretary and Blance Frederici plays an extremely mannish writer (a Gertrude Stein parody?). The best bit, stealing the limelight away from the female lead, is the movie debut of Joan Blondell as the lead's sister, spending the entire movie either getting into or out of lingerie. The lead, Dorothy Mackaill, seems wooden next to her. The direction has some odd gaffes usually associated with earlier talkies (fluffed lines, cameras failing to follow action properly) that speaks of a rushed production.

The Office Wife is one of those early talkies that seems to be missing something. This one runs only 59 minutes and was directed by Lloyd Bacon with Michael Curtiz hired to re-shoot some scenes. My guess is that Natalie Moorhead's affair with Brooks Benedict was mostly axed.

Anyway, ambitious secretary Dorothy Mackaill is brought in as a replacement secretary to the boss (Lewis Stone) of a publishing house after his old secretary (Dale Fuller) keels over when he says he's getting married (to Moorhead). The running gag is that a mannish cigar-smoking writer (Blanche Friderici) is writing a book abut how secretaries are really office wives and spend more times with the husband than the real wife does.

Mackaill has a dud of a boyfriend (Walter Merrill) and a peppy sister (Joan Blondell in her first film) and of course falls for old Stone but he seems oblivious. Of course he really is oblivious since Moorhead is openly carrying on with Benedict in her few scenes.

Mackaill is always easy to watch and Moorhead finally gets a scene when she tells Stone she's filing for divorce. He doesn't care. Blondell's next film, Sinner's Holiday, was released before this one was.

This one has the usual pre-Code interest in women's lingerie and legs with Mackaill and Blondell in various poses.