Stolen Heaven

Rain dampening business, streetwalking Nancy Carroll (as Mary) heads up to her New York apartment with what she believes is a handsome young drunk. Instead, Phillips Holmes (as Joe Bartlett) turns out to be a thief with a head wound. Correctly sensing Holmes is a soul-mate, Ms. Carroll covers for him when police search the apartment building. Agreeing they both have no real future, the pair decide to spend the $20,000 he has stolen, then commit suicide. They go to Palm Beach for their last hurrahs…

There, love complicates matters…

"Stolen Heaven" scores points for re-teaming Carroll and Holmes, so promising in "The Devil's Holiday (1930), and a good opening. But, it's downhill from there. As the madcap couple frolic in Florida, you begin to see some serious strains in the script. Co-stars Carroll and Holmes often appear directionless and/or under-rehearsed… but blocked. The script, obviously not written for its stars, needed a revision. And, don't expect any reason on Earth for its main characters to be named "Mary" and "Joseph".

***** Stolen Heaven (2/21/31) George Abbott ~ Nancy Carroll, Phillips Holmes, Louis Calhern, Edward Keane

Interesting pre-coder directed by famous stage director, George Abbott, and with several excellent scenes.

Nancy Carroll plays a hooker who gets followed by a young man through an ugly and shadowy city. She thinks he's drunk (Phillips Holmes) but is turns out he's been wounded in a robbery of a radio factory where he used to work. As the police swarm into the seedy tenement, she decides to help him and the two forms an uneasy alliance culminating in a suicide pact.

He's gotten $20,000 and they decide to go out on a high note, blowing all the money and then killing themselves. Both have been beaten down by life. They escape to Palm Springs where we catch up with them in a great shot that starts with a marimba band and slowly pulls back to reveal the lush resort filled with fashionable people. Then we spot the young couple on the dance floor, immaculately dressed and rubbing elbows with the rich. Louis Calhern plays a rich lech who's after Carroll.

But the cops track them down as they are about out of money. They must decide on their agreed-to suicides or to keep running or go back and pay for their "crimes." Calhern gets involved in the conclusion.

Carroll and Holmes are quite good even when they're overacting, just because the story is so surreal. The moral of the story seems to be that life is good as long as there is plenty of money. But is it?

Phillips Holmes (Joe) ends up at the apartment of stranger Nancy Carroll (Mary) after following her in a dazed condition. She is actually a street walker and he has just stolen $20k. He is injured and the two of them open up to one another and seem to have a connection. However, the police are not far behind and come calling at Nancy's apartment block to catch the thief. She shields Holmes and the two of them make a suicide pact. They will spend all the money together and then end it all.

The film starts well and the acting is fine. Louis Calhern (Steve) appears as a wealthy womaniser with an interest in Nancy and he has a nice transformation during the film - he starts out as a creep. There are some entertaining sections of dialogue and poignant moments in the film, eg, when Carroll tells Holmes that they have been invited to a party the following week to which Holmes replies that they won't be around. We deduce from this that the money has run out. Do they see it through?

The opening sequence is incredible, starting with the shadows on torn billboards of the two protagonists in a seedy cityscape. She's a whore, and he, stumbling drunk, is following her to her room. Actually, she discovers when they get to her room that he's not stumbling drunk--a bullet had grazed his head and nearly knocked him out. There's no question, though, about her being a cheap whore, and the room a being whore's room. At one point, he looks around and says, "How'd I get here?" Her disgusted response: "The fairies brought you." He asks for a drink, and she gives him one: "One of the girls left this bottle here yesterday." There's a commotion in the hall. Detectives are searching the house for the man who just held up the payroll in the factory opposite. She tells the boy, "Quick, get off your clothes." He jumps into the bed and pretends a drunken sleep. The detective is looking for bigger fry and doesn't give her too hard a time for prostitution. She says he's been there for hours; she doesn't know anything about him. In these scenes, the acting, direction and writing are simple and direct. The two are shown as both cynical and naive; two lost souls. So far, superb! But then they decide to take his money, go on a spree, and when it's gone they'll commit suicide. Not superb. After the great opening sequence, the story becomes very sloppy, degenerating into primitive and unbelievable melodrama. At one point, for example, she asks how much money is left. Just $1,000, he says, only one day left. One day on $1,000 in 1931?? And Nancy Carroll unabashedly chews the scenery: "I don't want to die!" Hey, OK, so who's forcing you? But the film doesn't totally disintegrate. For example, the opening shot at a ritzy Havana hotel starts with a close-up of the band and gradually pulls back, tracking through the diners, all the way back for a long shot of the dance floor. When a stateside detective catches up with them, there are some lively plot twists, and Calhern, a wolf who has been after Nancy, winds up helping them when he sees that true love is bound to triumph. See this for the vital, gritty, pre-Code opening sequence; the rest is OK in a primitive way.

This is absolutely dripping in atmosphere and oozing with the authentic feel of the big bad city as The Depression took hold. Besides having a great engaging story, it just looks so good - a real time machine movie.

This could only have been made in the early thirties. Made at any other time, the story would have sounded completely ridiculous but made when it was, it accurately reflects the mindset of those desperate years. During that time, the expression: "Let's spend all this stolen money, let's live like kings for a while and then kill ourselves" bizarrely was a perfectly feasible attitude to have.

Obviously Nancy Carroll is faultless in this but poor old Phillips Holmes got quite a bit of criticism for this: Why didn't they use a rougher tougher actor to play "a desperado"? He's far too placid and bland to be taken seriously. When he says: They'll never take me alive! He's so unconvincing, he's such an unlikely villain. ..... But that's exactly why he's perfect in this role! He's a normal, mild-mannered middling sort doing a middling sort of job. People like this were exactly the ones who suffered and the ones who could often see no other way to survive than to behave completely out of character.

It's estimated that the majority of Americans in the early thirties saw the banks and businesses as the enemies of the people. The police were seen as paid thugs working for those evil entities, not a service to serve or help or even to maintain law and order. It would not have been too unusual for someone like Phillips Holmes' character to cross that very fuzzy boundary. This was a different alien world!

Although written and directed by a Broadway guy rather than a pictures guy, this is as removed from a static, stagey theatre production as you can imagine. It seems that not only was George Abbot a top theatre impresario but knew how to make pictures better than a lot of established directors. Watching a picture made in 1930 is often a really awful experience because so many directors hadn't figured out how to make talkies by then but not George Abbot. This is a beautifully fluid and dynamic visual and auditory treat. Besides making his characters alive and genuine, he really captures the contrast between the haves and have-nots.