Quand on est belle

Constance Bennett stars as a lower class girl who takes the easy way. That is, she becomes a kept women. We see her in beautiful gown, in jewels, in furs. Adolph Menjou is footing the bill.

Then she meets newspaperman Robert Montgomery and wants to give it all up for true love. I won't reveal the ending. But it's not an especially happy one, and three cheers to Hollywood for not selling out.

A few comments on the perfumers: . Robert Montgomery is not someone I can imagine anyone's throwing over even a modest income for.

. Clark Gable has a fairly small role here. He plays, with of course no mustache, Bennett's proper working class and disapproving brother-in-law.

. Bennett is chic as she always is. But she isn't photographed in a faltering manner. Her profile is rather flat. She appears to have an overbite and her false eyelashes seem apparent. Maybe the director of photography and she did not get on well.

. The brilliant Marjorie Rameau turns in the earliest of her fine performances that I have seen. She plays another kept woman. When Bennett is down on her luck and asks for a loan, she sends her packing. But when her daddy dies, she comes to Bennett for money and is given it.

Her performance is in a different realm from that of any of the other players in this movie.

Bennett is a strangely forgotten star of early movies. Rambeau is a sadly underrated actress, whose career spanned several decades.