La Pente

A very good film by MGM back in 1930--this one is non-stop viewing. It was nice to see Clark Gable in a non-hero role and once again, great acting by Gable and Joan Crawford. One scene that stands out for me, is where Clark Gable slaps William Bakewell in the face. Now, I don't know if Bakewell actually got hit in the kisser, but his facial expression sure looked like he did!! This film is not dated at all--it is that good of a film. Very good movie all around.

Don't listen to fuddy-duddy critics on this one, this is a gem! Young rich Joan and her brother find themselves penniless after their father dies - and now they have to work for a living! She, naturally, becomes a reporter, and he, just as naturally, a driver for the mob! By wild co-incidences their careers meet head on, thanks to gangster Clark Gable. In the meantime there is the chance for a moonlight underwear swim for a bunch of pretty young things and for Joan to do a couple of risque dance numbers (with all the grace of a steam-shovel).

But none of this is supposed to be taken seriously - it's all good fun from those wonderful pre-code days, when Hollywood was really naughty. Joan looks great, and displays much of the emotional range that would give her career such longevity (thank God she stopped the dancing!). Gable is remarkable as a slimy gangster - he wasn't a star yet and so didn't have to be the hero. Great to see him playing something different. And William Bakewell is excellent as the poor confused brother. And there are some great montages and tracking shots courtesy of director Harry Beaumont, who moves the piece on with a cracking pace - and an occasional wink to the audience! Great fun!

OK, this is far-fetched fiction but it's still frightening to think that this reflected the way things actually were. It's a crazily convoluted story but you can't help but thinking that such choices wouldn't be put into fiction if they weren't even slightly possible. When The Crash came destroying lives, what did people with no training and no work experience do? Organised crime was one easy option: it paid the bills, it kept you from starving, it kept you alive....for a while anyway.

The other option for employment seemingly was to become a journalist - perhaps not such an easy option but unlike her brother's unwise career plan, that's what Joan Crawford's Bonnie does when they become broke. Incidentally, women journalists and women writers, especially in Hollywood, although the exception were not that uncommon. Indeed the writer of this film, Aurania Rouverol, was a noted female playwright.

As a work of fiction, this is perhaps Miss Rouverl's greatest achievement. The plot is quite nonsensical but in the magical hands of Irving Thalberg's team at MGM, you're swept along with this stupid story, accepting it all as perfectly normal.

MGM was the last of the studios to make the switch from silents to sound and as such talking pictures were still a novelty to the studio when this was made. This is very much evident with this. The most sophisticated and classiest silent films were often from MGM and they couldn't abandon that style they'd built up over all those years so easily. Like in the 20s, in this film, faces and expressions are used to tell the story and nobody was better at that than Joan Crawford. The story allows her to really develop her character and her experience one of the leading silent stars ensures first rate acting.

Clark Gable, in one of his very first roles is only swaggering around for about twenty minutes but he makes quite an impact. Although he is a one-dimensional nasty piece of work, he has an electrifying presence. His on-screen (and subsequent off-screen) romance with Miss Crawford also gives this film an authentic undercurrent of sexual tension. This and the overall high standard of acting (much better than in some other offerings from 1931) again helps to keep this crazy plot seem real. Even so, as a motion picture, it doesn't quite hit the mark but is nevertheless still entertaining.

This is not a great precode, but it's good enough to keep your interest, particularly if you are fans of Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, or even Cliff Edwards. As others have already mentioned, it is historical for being the initial teaming of Joan Crawford and Clark Gable, although Gable is sixth or seventh billed at this point. Don't expect Gable the gallant cad in this one - here he is pure cad.

The film is largely an unremarkable morality tale about the follies of the very wealthy spoiling their children even into adulthood to the point where they complain about having to "get up in the middle of the night (9 AM) to eat breakfast.", which are the sentiments of the two Jordan children. When Wall Street crashes, dad dies from the shock and Bonnie Jordan (Joan Crawford) and her brother are left penniless. Bonnie chooses to break into newspaper reporting, but her brother chooses a less honest option which brings him into contact with Gable the gangster. After her close friend, reporter Bert Scranton (Cliff Edwards), is shot to death, Bonnie decides to go undercover as a dancer at Gable's nightclub to try to get to the bottom of the murder. She solves the crime, but at great personal cost.

The best parts of this film are watching Joan Crawford in a dance number and watching the great chemistry Crawford and Gable have together. You get bigger doses of Crawford and Gable together in "Possessed", which was made later this same year - 1931. Joan Crawford was already a big star at this point. As for Clark Gable, he has to wait until he manhandles Norma Shearer in "A Free Soul" before he catapults to true stardom.

The story is simple, but Joan Crawford is one of those empowering roles that are such a feature of the pre-Code era, and you get Clark Gable in just his 3rd film as well. The setup is that a rich family living it up in the roaring 20's go bust with the stock market crash. Not only do they lose everything but the father dies on the exchange floor, leaving behind two kids (Joan Crawford and William Bakewell) who have never held jobs or gotten an education. While the son can't fathom working and would prefer to sit around getting drunk (a nice little critique of the spoiled rich), he eventually gets involved with bootleggers. The daughter, on the other hand, is a plucky young woman who turns down a marriage proposal that would have made her rich, and goes out and becomes a newspaper reporter instead.

You can probably guess what I love about Crawford's character. She's a modern woman who looks great out on the dance floor, believes in "trying love out on approval" (a scene which clearly signals pre-marital sex), and would rather work and be independent than settle for the traditional role of wife. Her brother is incredulous, leading to this exchange:

Bonnie (Crawford): "I'm not going to do any of those stupid, silly, conventional things. You'd be surprised what a girl can earn when she sets her mind to it. I'm no dud." Rodney (Bakewell): "You've got the looks, kid. Trade on 'em. Open up a beauty parlor. ..." Bonnie: "That's your idea of me, huh? Beautiful but dumb. All right, I'll show you. I'm going out to get a man-sized job."

That second dance she does when she's working undercover in the gangster's nightclub to get a story is delightful and evokes the flapper era, but to me the feminism in the film is what makes it a solid film, despite its basic plot. Crawford is not known for her on-screen charm, but she summons it here, and does well in the various aspects of her role - society woman, flapper, newspaper reporter, and love interest (hey, the complete woman). Gable is suitably tough as the gang leader, and he and Crawford have great chemistry together. I didn't care for the contrived confrontation which occurs and how the film ends though, which was really unfortunate, and kept it from a higher rating.

Another quote, from Gable to Crawford after her dance: "You got me going, sister." "Can I depend on it?" "In a big way."