1932 - ***
Lily Damita is a pretty earthy fox in some righteous satin black gowns in this early Lubitsch-esque Paramount gem. Charlie Ruggles is the travel agent pal of rich Roland Young who's been courting married Thelma Todd; javelin throwing Cary Grant (in his feature debut) comes home early and sees her in a compromising position. They all head down to Venice from Paris and porters sniff the girl's luggage as they load it, all to the title tune, ala "Isn't it Romantic" in Love Me Tonight made the same year. Nothing goes according to plan but the Hollywood Venice recreations are lovely, the night outdoor scenes tinted deep blue are too dark but beautiful. Damita's hair is thick and shaggy; her accent endearing; her spirit fiery; TCM's restoration rich and lovely.
This same boilerplate would be used again with most of the same actors in KISS AND MAKE UP and again by Billy Wilder in KISS ME, STUPID. Kiss kiss and make me up, Stupid! I can't stand watching dweebs like Ray Walston and Roland Young get jealous of the women they hire to pretend to be their wife. It's sleazy and uncouth!
1934 - ***
"Don't you know that ugliness is a disease?!"
The title is witty because Cary Grant is a Parisian plastic surgeon / 'cosmetician' / beauty spa impresario who gets a steady stream of high wallet women through his palatial parlor (Warren Beatty in SHAMPOO is a eunuch by comparison) and all the while devoted secretary Helen Mack fumes in the background. Long tracking shots with direct-to-camera staring / POV action as hotties in various stages of undress and exercise greet our good doctor as he strolls through his vast emporium. The farce angles heat up once the action moves to the Riviera. Gran'ts wealthiest patient, Eve (Genevieve Tobin) threatens to get fat "in all the wrong places" unless Grant sleeps with her, or at least attempts to. In order to preserve his masterful handiwork, Grant makes a tremendous sacrifice: he marries her and then finds her cockblocking him with all his own beauty tips, sabotaging his career while she debates which outfit to wear.
Horton as the cuckolded husband has a great monologue about the hell of dating a too-beautiful woman, and he's right, it is hell. Helen Mack might change all that with her modest Maureen O'Sullivan-style straight shooterhood, but then she meets Horton on the rebound. They sing a duet: "Corned Beef and Cabbage, I Love You." Man, Horton sure got a lot of hot young girls nearly to the altar, before guys like Grant, Cooper or March chased them down in cars full of ether. Meanwhile Grant also gets a chance to sing--"Love Divided by Two," twice! These songs stick out like sore thumbs... and I like that. Meanwhile, a sheik brings his harem in to see Grant --they go in as old depressed old Muslim women and come out as El Morocco flappers. It's wrong on every level there can possibly be and just more reasons why Paramount is the pre-code studio of choice for the discerning acidemic (Find it in the Cary Grant - Screen Legends Collection DVD).
1933 - ****
Continuing our early Cary Grant Paramounts, this was Mae West's big breakthrough and she's amazing. Even if you're not a fan of turn-of-the-century clothes and manners, this film is so mega rich in robust, beery good cheer and accumulated details you're apt to forgive it. The big saloon where Mae works, singing "I wonder where my easy rider's gone," and "I love a man that takes his time" is etched so well you can practically smell the cigar smoke and beer-soaked sawdust. As a missionary next door trying to rehabilitate Mae, Grant steals scenes but Big Dan's the one rocking West, 24 karat-style, and maybe working a white slavery racket. Meanwhile Chick--a lifer up river at Rikers--is serving time for a crime he committed for Mae's benefit. The big lug bouncer is her pal and encourages Mae to go up and see Chick cuz "bein' up there without the woman what makes you feel that way? It ain't no picnic."
This one passes the acid test - the air is thick and breathable, the death hangs in the air -- vice and despair are never more than a stone's throw away, and Mae's sense of humor is a warm beacon in the galaxy.
1933 - ****
The cinema I love can be boiled down to a few images: Kim Novak hypnotizing Jimmy Stewart with her cat in BELL BOOK AND CANDLE; Marion Crane driving with a twisted look on her face in PSYCHO; and now Gregory Ratoff as a Lugosi-as-Svengali-esque White Russian in SECRETS OF THE FRENCH POLICE, standing behind a hypnotic wheel while he programs a young Parisian flower girl into thinking she's Princess Anastasia. Like its sensational pulp magazine poster, the film's awash in mystical pre-code gimcracks, some reminiscent of expressionist greats like TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE--with the criminal helping the cops, but this time robbing everyone blind in the process. At least he's patriotic: "I never rob a Frenchman." Frank Morgan is the very cool police chief, always acting a little behind the eightball when he's actually three yards in front of it. A good strategy! This is the second awesome 'discovery' I made on TCM starring Gwili Andre, who I never heard of before ROAR OF THE DRAGON. For just these two films alone, TCM has proved the worth of my entire cable package.
1932 - **1/2
MGM pulled out the Eisensteinian stops for this exercise. The FAIL SAFE to the Von Sternberg's Scarlet STRANGELOVE, it's a fascinating and detailed look at a huge chunk of Russian history relatively unrepresented - the pre-revolution, before and into World War One craziness, coupled with Rasputin and his atypical fall from grace, caught trying to make it with the sexy young sister of the hypnotized czar. MGM goes all out with moody lighting schemes, and Lionel Barrymore knows how to work a lantern in the dark to really amp up the horror and there's some sexual creepiness (see vid below). But man, how much better it would be if Lionel'd switched roles with brother John, who's more or less wasted as the straight man? Was Rasputin too much like Svengali, who John played so ham-afinitively in 1931? Meanwhile, sister Ethel is pretty underused, looking the most hungover, which is saying a lot. And what an awesome and underrated movie SVENGALI was, much better than this, which is a little too talky, but at least GODFATHER style talky, royal court looking with unease at the million-strong peasant protests sort of stuff. And Anastasia is even in it, pre-revolution and before getting lost in the chaos and then turning up dazed in White Russian ex-pat circles all over Paris, as we saw in SECRETS OF THE FRENCH POLICE. Man, it's all connected!
PS - The real life version of John Barrymore's character sued MGM for defamation, and that's why that "resemblance to living or dead" blurb pops up even on historical biopics from then on, thanks for teaching me that, Robert Osborne! I like to imagine granddaughter Drew Barrymore as the czsar's little sister, thus completing the family portrait. But for all that, a much better film about the Barrymores, if you can find it, is THE ROYAL FAMILY OF BROADWAY.
Fabulous reviews. If we're talking early 30's Rasputin-themed films, I cannot recommend the German film, RASPUTIN DER DEMON DER FRAUEN, enough. Conrad Veidt is so perfect and it is surprisingly racy, but also more intelligent than the title would let on.
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