Precode Sauce From Sturges

Strictly Dishonorable Warms Up 1931 Screens

Remembered as having come from a Broadway success written by Preston Sturges, Strictly Dishonorable is not unlike The Moon Is Blue from two decades later. The latter's piquancy over threat of despoiled innocence made for hot water in Code-dominated 1953, but here it's 1931 and pre-code license opens screen door for Sturges' suggestive dialogue and situations. Paul Lukas is the career seducer undone by guileless Sidney Fox, she of brief stardom at Universal and premature career end/death afterward. There's little to relieve confinement from the stage, two sets encompassing all of action, that word a misnomer as Dishonorable is Strictly talk. Lewis Stone was borrowed from Metro to play variation on world-wise tipplers he'd been in The Secret Six and several of the Garbos. Strictly's suspense turns on whether Lukas will sleep with a willing Fox after reveal that he would be her first, a titillating topic for early 30's patronage, but obviously less so now. Strictly Dishonorable was remade by MGM in the 50's, so they bought Universal's negative, thus TCM playing it current. The film is a slow sit, but not without interest.