The Reckless Hour

Dorothy Mackaill, real life Ziegfeld Girl turned actress, might've become another Crawford or Davis had she come along seven or eight year later. Her early talkies are nearly-lost artifacts which shouldn't really hold up well today, yet her performances are always worth-watching. Here she plays a working girl who has to retreat to a "rest home" after getting pregnant by a wealthy playboy, driving her family into bankruptcy. Surprisingly fresh and fast-paced. Mackaill, as well as Joan Blondell as Dorothy's sassy sis, is "a real peach" and a natural comedienne. This is probably her finest showcase, based on the play "Ambush" by Arthur Richman. **1/2 from ****

"The Reckless Hour" appeared in theaters in August 1931. That was nearly two years into the Great Depression that had gripped the industrial world. Hollywood had always done a lot of comedy, but now it was cranking out comedy films along with musicals and other films with gaiety and laughter. Audiences that did or didn't have money to spend on entertainment, surely didn't want to spend it watching morose movies about gloom and doom. This was a time when people needed things to help lift their spirits. This may seem far-fetched to audiences of the 21st century, but it was very real for people of the 1930s who lost jobs, incomes, businesses, houses, farms, and, in many cases, hope.

Yet, Hollywood still produced some dramatic films. A common element of those included the wealthy, high society, and the fun life. Audiences could still dream about the good life – a life that most would never really achieve or see. And, mostly those serious films about the rich and worldly had a tragic element to them. The message was that all was not sunshine and gaiety at the top.

"The Reckless Hour" has the usual appeal to riches. The film seems to be set in a time when there wasn't a depression. I would guess that models and jewelry clerks would have been among the least employed during that time. Yet, here we have Dorothy Mackaill and Joan Blondell in just such jobs. Mackaill's Margaret Nichols is the model, while Blondell plays her sister, Myrtle. It's through Margaret's job that this film acquires its riches theme.

I won't divulge the story more here, but just note that this is a surprisingly good morality play. It bursts the bubble of the idea that wealth is everything and brings happiness. The title hints at what is to come. It's a story about hope, decency, mistakes, forgiveness, family, selfishness and charity, kindness and sacrifice. In its own way, this film could lift the spirits of audiences.

The attention given this film for being "pre-code" seems nothing more than a marketing effort today. While there is a situation that could be very scandalous in that day and time, it is only alluded to in the film. And, it's important to the plot, and as an example of the culture and mores of the time.

All of the cast give good performances. Mackaill was a dramatic actress who starred in many silent films of the 1920s. She made the transition to sound with several good films in the early 1930s. But, the rise of many new talented and attractive stars diminished her demand and she retired from films by the mid-1930s. Blondell, on the other hand, was more diversified, and her movie career would last until her death at age 73 in 1979. She played in many comedies, but was also very good in dramas, musicals and other genres. Walter Byron's career also started in the silent era and came to an early end by the start of the 1940s.

This is a good film for a look at these and some other good actors who graced many films into the mid-20th century, but who today are little known. Conrad Nagel, H.B. Warner and Claude King had very good careers in movies.

Dorothy Mackaill stars as Maggie, a sensible girl from Jersey City who works as a model in New York City but lives with her family. She's tired of dating ordinary men and one day meets a rich man (Walter Byron) who's eager to date. She enjoys the gifts and evenings at nightclubs but her parents are worried.

Meanwhile her younger sister(Joan Blondell) is dating the guy Maggie jilted. Her father (H.B. Warner) is having a tough time with his book shop, and her mother (Helen Ware) defends Maggie's dating the rich guy. Things start to go wrong, however, when Maggie discovers she is pregnant. She assumes the rich guy will marry her. After he dumps her, she's left to explain things to her father.

After some time in a "rest home," she meets another rich guy (Conrad Nagel). Has she learned her lesson? Will he be interested in "damaged goods"? Should she tell him everything?

Mackaill is terrific as Maggie and earns audience sympathy by being so nice. She's matched here by the snappy Joan Blondell who drops wise cracks every time she opens her mouth. Warner and Ware are fine as the parents. Byron is an appropriate louse. Nagel is fine as the nice guy. Also in the cast are Billy House as Jennison, Dorothy Peterson as his wife, and Joe Donahue as the sourpuss Hal.

As a pre-Code film, there are some surprises in the way the women act. A few years later, the Code would force certain behaviors and conclusions. There's one outrageous exchange when Maggie declines to go out with her drippy boyfriend. When Blondell's character jumps on her for standing him up, the mother says something like, "Leave Maggie alone. She's been on feet all day." Blondell (whose character works at Macy's) snaps back, "And where have I been all day? On my back?"

This film is 86 years old and presents such a different world from the one we live in today.

"The Reckless Hour" concerns a young model, Margaret (Dorothy Mackaill) who falls for a playboy Allen Crane (Walter Byron). Her family isn't wealthy - Margaret lives with her parents Walter and Harriett (H.B. Warner and Helen Ware). Her mother, of course, is thrilled that she's dating someone from a wealthy family.

Walter isn't. He notices she's wearing a very expensive bracelet and informs her that if she's seen wearing it, people will realize it's too expensive for him to have given her. Then what will people say? Back then, a man giving jewelry was just not done unless the two are engaged or married. Margaret says it's a fake, and besides, it's an engagement gift, to Walter's relief.

Well, the bracelet is real, as a friend informs Walter, and it really isn't an engagement gift. Margaret and Allen are fooling around in an apartment he keeps in the city. One night while on the town, they meet a friend of Allen's, Eddie (Conrad Nagel). He is immediately attracted to Margaret, and then realizes that she's sleeping with Allen.

Upset that Allen may be taking his daughter for a ride, he confronts Allen's father, who never heard of her. A confrontation between Allen, his own father, and Walter - overheard by Margaret - solidifies the fact that Allen has no intention of marrying her. Allen's father insists that if he said he would, he's going to. Margaret says no. Later she tells Walter that she's pregnant - by saying "I didn't tell him...everything."

Walter raises the money to send her to a rest home. When she returns, she learns that Eddie, who is an artist, having learned she's no longer with Allen, has been asking for her. She decides to work for him.

Really lovely film, based on a play, dealing with a common pre- Depression theme then - class differences - which ended with the Depression when writers like Clifford Odets began to write plays about the working man. And, before the code, women who slept with men before marriage weren't killed in the last reel as punishment.

Dorothy Mackaill was beautiful and gives a touching performance; Joan Blondell as her wisecracking sister is a riot. For me the best performance was by H.B. Warner. Warner is most famous for being Jesus in the DeMille King of Kings, and more famous for being Mr. Gower, the pharmacist in It's a Wonderful Life. His performance is heart- wrenching and his love for Margaret is palpable. In this film he's in his fifties but today could pass for 80. Amazing.

Excellent film - check it out.

Joan Blondell, here playing the little sister, is about a thousand times more charismatic on-screen than star Dorothy Mackaill, and her presence is one of the only excuses to give THE RECKLESS HOUR (1931) a shot.

The Depression-era melodrama starts off boringly enough (until we meet Blondell's character) and covers the familiar ground of the rich boy dating the middle class girl and making promises he never intends to keep, leaving the girl to suffer the consequences on her own.

Dorothy Mackaill's line readings really bring the movie down. It's something about her enunciation and how she spaces her lines apart. Blondell, for example, is much more naturalistic, but H.B. Warner and Conrad Nagel are also noticeably better than Mackaill in their scenes with her. Top-billed Mackaill is probably the worst actor in the whole film, and some of the scenes late in the movie, with the melodrama slapped on pretty thick, are almost impossible to take seriously.

Joan Blondell, just starting out in Hollywood, is relegated to a supporting role with limited screen time, but is nevertheless delightful. Fans of hers might want to give this one a look if it shows up on TCM. Otherwise...