Mystérieux week-end

The title, that it stars Joan Blondell and Ginger Rogers and the opening scene with scantily clad showgirls sharing bunks suggests this must be some undiscovered Warner Brothers 1930s musical. Wrong! This is actually a serious drama. Not a good serious drama that doesn't feel horribly dated but not too bad either.

It's intriguing as to why Jack Warner allowed three of his big stars to appear in a film made by his rival, Fox Films. Fox films were virtually bankrupt at this time and would be taken over very soon by Jack Warner's own head of production, Daryl Zanuck. Something very odd going on there? Sounds like part of a plot to a Wall Street conspiracy movie doesn't it?

The movie however is less interesting; the acting is very credible, the direction and look of the film is interesting but the story somehow just doesn't have enough focus on what it's trying to be. Joan Blondell does however show she can play a different role to her usual down-on-her-luck fluzy character and actually does it really well, managing to create a believable character you want things to work out for.

With plenty of legs, lingerie, and even a few smacks on the behind, there is plenty of eye candy 1933-style early on in this movie, and it's clearly pre-Code. Joan Blondell plays an up-and-coming chorus girl with a complicated love life, being secretly married and having male admirers. Her glowering husband, played well in increasingly dark tones by Allen Vincent, is led to believe she has a lover, and leaves her. The notoriety in the press helps fuel her rise to the top, and as years go by, she's famous while he finds himself in debt. The movie then takes on the feel of a drama, with him pressuring her for money, and when he finds out she has a child, he tries to use that as leverage. The movie isn't a work of art or anything (and isn't particularly well preserved compared to others from the time), but it was interesting to see Blondell in a strong role, sexually free and standing up for herself amidst a courtroom barrage that reveals the ever-present double standard. It's worth the 61 minute run time.

I saw 'Broadway Bad' in May of this year, at the Cinevent festival in Columbus, Ohio. If I hadn't been attending the festival anyway, I would never have bothered to see this movie, as it stars an actress whom I loathe: Joan Blondell. Always cheap, vulgar, squawk-voiced and unattractive, Blondell is in her usual mode here. She manages to look a bit different this time round, but only because this movie was made at Fox (Blondell's usual studio was Warners) ... so the lighting, costumes, hairstyles and general ambiance are a change of pace for her. The storyline - concerned with morals, reputations and sexual hypocrisy - is something more typical of Warners than of Fox.

Blondell plays a chorus girl named Tony. (Is that short for Anthony?) In the 1930s, chorus girls were generally perceived to be of low virtue (and some of them certainly did fit that description), but we're given to understand that Tony is a good girl for all her brassy behaviour. She gets a proposition from playboy Craig, who is wealthy in his own right, but she turns him down to marry Bob, who's even wealthier but only because he's the scion of a prominent family.

Apparently, Tony is genuinely in love with Bob (rather than gold-digging his folks' money), yet she remains friendly with Craig. When Bob catches Tony with Craig once too often, he divorces her. In order to obtain the divorce, Bob's father's lawyers ruin Tony's reputation.

As she's now been branded as a bad girl, Tony decides to cash in on it. She straight away becomes a Broadway star by trading in on the public perception that she's a slut. (Oh, so that's how it works!)

I forgot to tell you about the baby ... I mean, the scriptwriters forgot to tell you about the baby. All through this argle-bargle, Tony has secretly had a baby. Apparently she was with some other man before Craig and Bob. We never do find out who this man was, nor the precise nature of Tony's relationship with him - were they married? is he dead? - nor anything that would enable us to decide how much of our sympathy Tony deserves.

Bob's rich parents find out about the baby, and they assume that Bob is the father. They sue Tony to acquire custody of the child. The courtroom scenes degenerate into soap opera. Expect some big revelations that you really won't care about.

Ginger Rogers is quite good as Tony's friend, a chorus girl named Flip Daily. (She must be an acrobat.) I would rather have seen this movie with Ginger Rogers in the lead, as she was vastly more talented than Blondell and certainly easier on the eyes and the eardrums than Blondell ever was. I'll rate 'Broadway Bad' 4 out of 10, mostly for its proficient photography and efficient direction by the underrated Sidney Lanfield. There are some good supporting performances. Rogers is excellent, as is Ricardo Cortez as the semi-caddish Craig. (Over the course of his career, Cortez made an interesting and graceful transition from shiekish leading man to cynical hero to amoral cad to outright villain: at this point, he was in his early cad phase.) Joan Blondell, as usual, stinks. The lighting on the Fox sound stages doesn't conceal Blondell's facial moles as well as the lighting at Warners did.

Unlike one of the other reviews, I don't particularly like nor dislike Joan Blondell. I also think that she's not the reason I hated this film so much. Instead, it's terrible writing...the plot is goofy and the court scene at the end of the show is ridiculous.

Tony (Blondell) is a chorus girl on Broadway and according to this movie, that makes her very suspect, as apparently such women were seen as being only a step or so above a prostitute. Tony has a vague sort of relationship with a known Playboy (Ricardo Cortez) and when her husband sees the pair together he sues for divorce. Oddly, up until this husband shows up, you have no idea Tony is married. This sort of surprise turns up later...which is why I point this out here.

After her name is drug through the mud by her ex, Tony decides that as long as folks think she's a skank, she's going to run with it. No, she does not sleep around...but she cashes in on her notoriety to become a big star on the stage AND she lets all sorts of men buy her things. BUT, and this makes little sense, she's ALSO supposed to be wholesome despite this image and she doesn't live a wild and lavish lifestyle as she pretends. Instead, she keeps a small apartment for her child...something NOT mentioned until near the end of the film. Both times it felt as if these plot devices were just tossed in at the last minute.

What's next and what about the court hearing at the end of the film? Watch to find out...or don't. It's pretty farfetched and silly...so don't say I didn't warn you!

The acting wasn't terrible but the writing and direction were. After all, the film kept springing all sorts of things with no telegraphing it each time...which is confusing and makes it seem gimmicky. Overall, a cheap sort of film which really seemed like Fox Studio put very little money or time into the film.

"Broadway Bad" (Fox Films, 1933), directed by Sidney Lanfield, is an interesting movie more for its casting than its story. Starring Joan Blondell, Ricardo Cortez, Ginger Rogers, and Donald Crisp, all contract player names usually associated with Warner Brothers studio, yet all featured in this one Fox movie with a backstage musical sounding title to it. Regardless whatever studio release, it's definitely common ground material found in many a motion picture during the Depression era pre-production code thirties.

Following an introductory segment on a train revolving around gossiping chorus girls from Lew Gordon's Frolics of 1929, Antoinette "Toni" Sanders (Joan Blondell), a member of the troupe, having missed the train to be alone at an empty stadium of Yale University to be with Bob North III (Allen Vincent), a college boy and rich man's son, while her loyal friend and roommate, Flip Daly (Ginger Rogers) awakens to find Toni's bed has never been slept in all night. It is later revealed that Toni is secretly married to Bob so not to be expelled from college. Craig Cutting (Ricardo Cortez), the show's backer responsible for Toni's employment, is unaware of Toni's marriage. Thanks to the troublesome Aileen (Adrienne Ames), Craig's former mistress, she takes Bob to Craig's penthouse apartment where he's holding a social function with Toni. Misunderstandings occur as Bob walks in on them, followed by a divorce, naming Craig as correspondent. To avoid a scandal, Toni attempts to leave Gordon's (Spencer Charters) Frolics. Instead, thanks to Joe Flynn (Phil Tead), a publicity man, stumbles upon the idea how such publicity will help the show's proceedings. Through the course of time, Toni rises from chorus girl to featured player of Frolics of 1933. As for Toni, who has risen to fame and fortune, is now a mother of a four-year-old son she calls "Big Fella" (Ronnie Cosbey), and romantically involved with Craig. As for Bob, now down-and-out, having lost all financial income from his father (Frederick Burton), owing a huge $15,000 gambling debt. Bob comes to Toni, who refuses to have anything to do with him. When Bob discovers the child she has to be his son, he and fellow gambler and racketeer, Tommy Davis (Francis J. McDonald), attempt to get more money out of her as well as Bob taking her to court so to disgrace her name and gain custody of the boy.

Other members of the cast consist of Donald Crisp (District Attorney Darrell); Margaret Seddon (Bixby, the babysitter); and Eddie Kane (Eddie Malone, the Jeweler). While some sources label songs listed in this production, only "Forget the Past" is vocalized only too briefly. During its relatively short 62 minutes, which might have been longer in the director's cut, the major disappointment is how little screen time Ginger Rogers is offered. She's here and there during Blondell's troubles, with little to offer. "Broadway Bad" also shows how Ricardo Cortez could play decent characters as opposed to nasty ones for which he excelled, notably at Warner Brothers.

A very rare find as in most Fox Films of the early thirties, "Broadway Bad" is not so bad but not that great either. It had a lot to offer but little to add. Blondell seemed a little out of place in a role that might have better served for Barbara Stanwyck. Even though a Fox Film, it does use a latter 20th Century-Fox logo in surviving prints that were televised on New York City's public television showing on WNET, Channel 13, in December 1992, and decades later, on a cable channel called "Movies" in November 2016. Regardless of its pros and cons and age, "Broadway Bad" is a worthy viewing, especially for long forgotten gems such as this one. (**)