WHAT SILENTS & PRE-CODES HAVE YOU SEEN LATELY?

[charliechaplinfan]

Yes, they didn't suit one another. Precodes are quite a mixed bunch, sometimes you get the suggestive titles that suggest lots of naughtiness yet are average dramas, then another film with a unproposing title can be a real eye opener. I do love my precodes, short enough to watch without interuption and usually with good scripts.

Today I watched the Criterion Docks of New York what a film with atomosphere, Von Sternberg was quite good on atomosphere and his dockside comes to live. Everything seems dirty, squalid and drenched with the smell of the dock and cheap alcohol. Betty Compson looks remarkably like Marlene, perhaps he was fixing on a type by this time? She has the same nose and hair colour and the camera likes her. George Bancroft completely different here from Underworld, his size used to good advantage as the strong stoker showing his brute strength. The way the story turns around from saved suicide, to marriage, half hearted of course to realisation. It's a lovely film, compact and full of feeling. George Bancroft, what a good actor, particularly in this movie.

[feaito]

The Docks of NY is a true masterpiece. I have to see yet the Criterion release.

[charliechaplinfan]

The Critierion release is the one to see, before this I'd only seen a grainy copy.

Today I watched Girls About Town, one of George Cukor's first directorial efforts starring Kay Francis, Lilyan Tashman, Joel McCrea and Eugene Palette, I particularly liked the opening sequence, it had a fresh feeling to it. The girls are employed to loosen their escort's wallets and on returning with the guys to their apartment building they have to let the guys down gently as 'mother' is waiting up for them. Mother is Louise Beavers who fusses about the two girls like a mother hen. Kay and Lilyan are matched with Joel McCrea and Eugene Palette, Kay and Joel falling in love but the path is not smooth, the story isn't the strongest but the actors are very entertaining.

[charliechaplinfan]

I watched Frank Capra's Forbidden today, I think I must have seen clips of it on youtube as the plot seemed fimiliar, or has it been remade, it's a little like Back Street with Charles Boyer and Margaret Sullavan, an adulterous relationship that can't be made legal due to the wife's infirmaty. This is particularly heartbreaking because Barbara Stanwyck's character Lulu gives up her daughter rather than cause a scandal. Both Barbara Stanwyck and Adolphe Menjou give very good performances, it's not the usual Capra fare, there's not a great deal to smile about but gritty and precode it certainly is.

[JackFavell]

You know, ever since I saw A Woman of Paris, Adolphe Menjou has been growing on me, and I find now that he is one of my favorites. Each new pre-code I see him in he just blows me away.

[moira finnie]

I can't say that Adolphe Menjou is ever going to be on a favorite list in my heart, but Forbidden may be the film where I like him the best. (He's almost sexy for a few moments...almost). Stanwyck is extraordinary in this film, which was the last in a sense, in the period just after she and Capra called it a day on their romance, (she wouldn't marry him--but she brought out something so different from the rest of his work during their time together). Perhaps that is one reason why the movie has an elegiac tone running through it.

Unfortunately, this movie does not appear to be available on DVD in North America--but it is on youtube. Cinematographer Joseph Walker makes this film shimmer so beautifully! :
[youtube][/youtube]

[Rita Hayworth]

You know, ever since I saw A Woman of Paris, Adolphe Menjou has been growing on me, and I find now that he is one of my favorites. Each new pre-code I see him in he just blows me away.

Same here, Jack Favell ... that is why I adore him in both pre-code and talkies ... he is so versatile in every step of the way. He can take one word "spoken" and have it expressed in many different meanings every time you see a particular scene. I adore him in Rita Hayworth's ... "You Never Been Lovelier" and in "A Woman of Paris" he was incredible in that movie. I only seen that movie once in my lifetime and I wished to see it again.

I repeat ... he has an unique ability to take a word spoken and have it expressed in many different meanings ... every time I see "Lovelier" ... I see on an average of two times a year ... he changes the content of the words differently each time I watch a particular scene.

That's makes him a great actor!

[JackFavell]

It's taken me a long time to get past Menjou's real life history, and just to enjoy him as an actor. He can be charming and debonair, but then in movies like Morocco, he can be devastating and understated. I even like him in Little Miss Marker. You really get why he's called Sorrowful.

I think Capra's early films are much more interesting, some are pretty gritty. Most that I've seen are very satisfying, to me, more so than the later heartfelt films.

[charliechaplinfan]

I'm not altogether clued up when it comes to Adolphe Menjou, he was Charles Boyer's best friend but they fell out. Did Menjou go as far as to name names?

He is a good actor, that there's no denying. I read a book on Stanwyck but didn't realise she'd been romanced by Frank Capra. Forbidden is a good precode, Barbara Stanwyck has a maturity in precodes films not always seen with other actresses.

[Rita Hayworth]

I'm not altogether clued up when it comes to Adolphe Menjou, he was Charles Boyer's best friend but they fell out. Did Menjou go as far as to name names?

And, he is not easy actor to get along with and he did fell out with Charles Boyer. i read that somewhere before in some book that I read at my local library. I can't remember the title of the book. As far as to name names? ... I wished to help out here ... but, I can't.

[JackFavell]

I know he was a friendly witness, and I believe he did name names. For years I have resisted my first impulse to like him. I finally decided to let bygones be bygones, disliking the man, but appreciating his talent and the characters he played.

[knitwit45]

[ChiO]

From the website Immortal Ephemera:

Adolphe Menjou was absolutely unapologetic about his politics. After testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee he famously referred to himself as “a Red-baiter,” adding that, “I make no bones about it. I’d like to see them all in Russia. I think a taste of Russia would cure them.” Menjou cheerfully named names before the committee and described his method of spotting a Communist: “Anyone attending any meeting at which Paul Robeson appears, and applauds, can be considered a Communist,” he said.

He's quite good as General Broulard in PATHS OF GLORY, sharing the corruption spotlight with George Macready (in the George Macready role), but neither could hold a candle to you-know-who.

[JackFavell]

Ugh! Repulsive. Well, that brings it all back to me. I can still say he's a good actor.

[charliechaplinfan]

I was well aware of him as an actor, very good in many films before I realised his political leanings. The only place I came across his broken friendship with Boyer was in Boyer's own biography. I don't think there was any secret that Menjou was right wing even if Boyer was liberal, it wasn't important to their friendship but whe he appeared as a friendly witness that ended the friendship if not completely but for many years.

I think it's possible to admire talent even if you adhor the person.