WHAT SILENTS & PRE-CODES HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[JackFavell]

I absolutely adore The Guardsman, Ferchu! It's truly of another age - sophisticated and theatrical in the very best way possible. It's like looking at a Noel Coward revue or some other glimpse into Broadway of the 1920's, filmed perfectly. The performances are superb, transforming a charming Molnar play into something surprising and terribly exciting. You are never sure what each of them will do. Everything about it is of the highest standard. It crackles.

[feaito]

Sophisticated and theatrical in the very best way possible.

With this sentence you sum it up perfectly Wendy.

[feaito]

Today I watched two Precoders:

"But the Flesh is Weak" (1932) a film based upon a play written by Ivor Novello in which Bob Montgomery and C. Aubrey Smith play a son and his father, who's used to living off rich women (the only woman he loved was the late not-rich mother of Bob). They live in London and mingle with the smart set. But Bob tends to fall for the poorer girls. Bob sets his wills on a rich heiress, expertly impersonated by Heather Thatcher (her father is a British Duke), but he then falls madly in love with a French lady (played by Austrian actress with a French name, Nora Grégor) who's the impoverished widow of an English Mr. Brown. She's going out with a stuffy high society type (played by E.E. Horton) but Bob's shenanigans and ardent pursuit of her ruin all that. A pleasant comedy of manners with Pre-Code touches if not altogether successful.

"Aggie Appleby Maker of Men" (1933). This one is a an absolute knock-out, starring Wynne Gibson as a tough dame who after a brawl falls for strong, big, no-good, con-man Bill Gargan (terrific as well). But his bad ways get him to jail leaving Wynne (Aggie) penniless and without a roof. ZaSu Pitts, who's her pal, invites her to visit her in the boarding house she works in and Aggie ends up mixed up with a mousy, fussy, blue-blooded character impersonated by Charlie Farrell (he's good!) and in the process she turns him into a red-blooded man and they fall for each other quite naturally....Also in the cast are Blanche Friderici as Farrell's aunt, Betty Furness as Farrell's blue-blood fiancée and Jane Darwell as a landlady...A real discovery with excellent dialogue, acting, and a good, believable plot...Wynne Gibson's impersonation is truly superb.

[feaito]

I looked up Nora Grégor -leading lady of "But the Flesh is Weak"- on imdb.com and I read that she was an operetta diva who died in Chile in 1949, in Viña del Mar, the city where my wife was born and lived before she married me! She was married for a time to the famous Austrian political figure, Prince Ernst Ruediger von Starhemberg and starred in the French Version of "His Glorious Night" and in the German version of "The Trial of Mary Dugan", both filmed at MGM too. She starred in Jean Renoir's "La Règle du Jeu" (1939) which I have on DVD and I'll try to watch ASAP.

[feaito]

I watched yet another excellent Precode, a Crime drama of political intrigue titled "Secrets of the French Police" (1932), deftly directed at RKO by A. Edward Sutherland. In it Frank Morgan plays a prominent member of the Sûrité who tries to solve the assassination of one of the most respected members of the French Secret Service. Lovely Gwili André, looking a lot like the early Myrna Loy, impersonates an orphaned flower girl who's kidnapped by a mad, lunatic, sadistic Russian General (amusingly and floridly impersonated by Gregory Ratoff... shades of Fu Manchu in a way) who hypnotizes her in order to make her believe she is Anastasia, the only living heir of the Tsar's fortune. The Russian General lives in a chateau surrounded by marble statues and Chinese servants -we later learn that he is the son of a Russian nobleman and a Manchu Princess and that a streak of insanity runs on the side of his paternal family. Rochelle Hudson has a brief role as member of the secret service and John Warburton is quite good as Renault, a pickpocket who's in love with André. Superbly filmed, with a highly absorbing, entertaining plot; a great surprise!

[JackFavell]

I have question.... was Bill Gargan a leading man in this picture or more of a character actor? Somewhere very early on in talkies he went directly from leads to big dumb cops or gangsters. I saw him recently as a leading man and was just knocked out - he was great!

[moira finnie]

I'm glad you had a chance to see Secrets of the French Police (1933), 'Nando. What a potpourri of cultural influences were on display in this flick: lost Romanoffs, flower girls with their virtue in jeopardy, hypnosis, and Raffles meets Bulldog Drummond.

I could not believe the amount of smoking Frank Morgan did in this movie, though I loved the arcane "forensic scientific methods" and his cockamamie chart that he applied to the case in the secret recesses of police hq. I thought that the atmosphere in Gregory Ratoff's palatial underworld hideout owed quite a bit to Dracula (1931)--or maybe it was the cave of Chandu the Magician (1932)?

I loved the scene when the billboard became a key feature. That part reminded me of Dr. Mabuse movie!

Romantic decadence seemed to be all the rage in the late '20s and early '30s. I guess it helped people forget a grittier reality outside the theater.

TCM has posted several clips from this outlandish movie on their site. Operator 99 has posted quite an interesting piece on poor Gwili [url=http://operator_99.blogspot.com/2008/05/gwili-andre.html]here[/url]. She was very lovely, though I'm never sure if she really understood English in any of the roles I've seen her in.

[feaito]

I have question.... was Bill Gargan a leading man in this picture or more of a character actor? Somewhere very early on in talkies he went directly from leads to big dumb cops or gangsters. I saw him recently as a leading man and was just knocked out - he was great!

Wendy, the leading man here was Charles Farrell and Bill was the second male lead (third billed), but ***spoilers*** he gets the girl at the end

[feaito]

I'm glad you had a chance to see Secrets of the French Police (1933), 'Nando. What a potpourri of cultural influences were on display in this flick: lost Romanoffs, flower girls with their virtue in jeopardy, hypnosis, and Raffles meets Bulldog Drummond.

I could not believe the amount of smoking Frank Morgan did in this movie, though I loved the arcane "forensic scientific methods" and his cockamamie chart that he applied to the case in the secret recesses of police hq. I thought that the atmosphere in Gregory Ratoff's palatial underworld hideout owed quite a bit to Dracula (1931)--or maybe it was the cave of Chandu the Magician (1932)?

I loved the scene when the billboard became a key feature. That part reminded me of Dr. Mabuse movie!

Romantic decadence seemed to be all the rage in the late '20s and early '30s. I guess it helped people forget a grittier reality outside the theater.

TCM has posted several clips from this outlandish movie on their site. Operator 99 has posted quite an interesting piece on poor Gwili [url=http://operator_99.blogspot.com/2008/05/gwili-andre.html]here[/url]. She was very lovely, though I'm never sure if she really understood English in any of the roles I've seen her in.

Hi Moira, thanks it's an interesting blend of subjects indeed! I agree with your opinions; I'd think that Ratoff's underworld was kind of reminiscent of Leslie Bank's "Hounds of Zaroff" surroundings....I haven't seen Mabuse, but I loved the reconstruction of Andre's face by the Sûrité. Thanks for the links. Miss André acted in very few films and it's the first time I see her on the screen.

[feaito]

Watched another Precoder: "The Nuisance" (1933), starring that fast-deliverer of dialogue supreme, machine-gun Lee Tracy as a shyster who focuses on defending "victims" of accidents and literally creating cases against companies...he also counsels beauties for breaches of promise, but his forte are accidents and fake victims. Frank Morgan is the drunken fatherly doctor who works with him faking x-ray exams. John Miljan is his nemesis at these trials. Charles Butterworth plays an expert in being run-over by cars.... Virginia Cherrill is a beauty whos needs legal counseling on breach of promise by a prominet man of the city's High Society. Madge Evans is the lovely girl that Miljan hires to try to frame-up Tracy (he has a weakness for lovely ladies....).

I have to admit that at first Tracy's character annoyed me quite a bit, but as the film went on I began to even like him . Frank Morgan is superb and very likable as the drunken doc who's kind of a foster parent to Tracy...he gives a sensitive, honest performance. Madge Evans is also very good as the double-crossing dame who eventually falls for the wise guy. The first time I saw her on screen was in Cukor's "Dinner at Eight" (1933) and she did not impress me at all -she had a lackluster role. Then I saw her in Feyder's "Son of India" (1931) opposite Ramón Novarro and I did not like her role or acting. But afterwards I saw her opposite Gable in "Sporting Blood" (1931) and opposite Al Jolson in "Hallelujah I'm a Bum!" (1933) and what a change! She really delivered in those two; it was another actress altogether. She's also great with Tracy in this film. It seems that she worked better with fast-talking, stronger masculine types. She came back to life!

[CineMaven]

I'm sorry to interject this in the pre-codes section, folks please forgive me, and this has nothing to do with anything of cinematic importance...but Feaito, your baby picture always makes me smile. ((That is you right?))

[JackFavell]

Fer-

The Nuisance was very good, I just saw it too. It has to be one of Tracy's best roles - you almost feel for the guy!He actually shows some conflict here, and some heart. I did like him. I think your review is absolutely on target - I've never been a fan of Madge Evans, but she really did a great job in this one!

[Papermoon]

I saw The Letter(1929)...Yes, the Jeanne Eagels version. In case anybody is wondering, yes, it's a bootleg, but the quailty was pretty good. I have to say I enjoyed it more than the 1940 Bette Davis remake(no offense to Ms. Davis though). Jeanne Eagels perfermance was great, especially during the last scene.

[moira finnie]

Hi Papermoon,
About ten minutes of The Letter was posted on youtube about six months ago (though it's gone now). I thought that Jeanne Eagels was fascinating. I'm glad to hear that the whole movie still exists and is in circulation. There was a plan at one time to issue a DVD with the Bette and Eagels versions on one disc, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside, along with many of other DVD projects, darn it.

[feaito]

I'm sorry to interject this in the pre-codes section, folks please forgive me, and this has nothing to do with anything of cinematic importance...but Feaito, your baby picture always makes me smile. ((That is you right?))

Thanks Theresa, yes it's me.