Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Monday, October 25, 2021

Office Boy-Toy in Kay Clutches


Kay Francis Precode-Declares Man Wanted (1932)



Kay Francis teed off her Warners contract with this, but new addressing came with a price, uproar a result of WB hiring her away from Paramount, along with fellow stalwart William Powell. Studios publicly called star raids bad cricket, slave trading best handled in orderly fashion, said moguls among themselves. The Warners being industry bad boys made their actions all the more an affront. Hadn't they disrupted routine enough by jump-starting talkies and forcing a whole town to retrofit? Accusation flew in the trades as others got in the game. Darryl Zanuck of start-up Twentieth-Century Pictures gave Warners a taste of their own medicine by grabbing off George Arliss after WB carelessly let his contract expire without renewal terms in place. Such was grim game of star wrangling, and occasional rustling. 



Man Wanted
was an improvement on Kay Francis merchandise sold by Paramount, being quicker-to-points than recent ones fueled on molasses. 62 minutes was time enough to reach foregone conclusion of editorix (is there such a word?) Kay hiring David Manners for a secretary, then getting "that way" about him amidst deco backdrop and cocktails shaking. Precode was noteworthy for letting adults behave like adults, thus Francis here in more-or-less open marriage with likeable layabout Kenneth Thomson, who's happily not tendered as the heavy just for finding someone he likes better, doing us and Kay a favor by easing way for her to hook with Manners. A decades-later pair of Francis bios assured immortality with confirm of offscreen habits surpassing loose life she led in precodes (those diaries!). Man Wanted looks luminous on TCM in HD, and there is a DVD.

3 Comments:

Blogger Filmfanman said...

If this is an example of the kind of movie that could no longer be made after the Code was adopted, then the adoption of that Code was simply a bad thing for American movies. It is far better now with a system of restricted admittance to movies based upon the age of the person seeking admission, for at least movies like this can now be made.
It's still hard for me to believe that there was a time that they couldn't, as the Code was gone long before I reached adulthood.

3:40 PM  
Blogger DBenson said...

A thought: Aside from naughty throwaways, how far did precode films actually challenge the status quo? "Erring women" still had to suffer for a non-guaranteed redemption. Mae West was never thus humbled, but then she cannily presented a sympathetic personal morality. In contrast, men who stray might get by with a last-reel repentance, getting to have their cake after eating it. They come home to forgiveness like Harry Langdon at the end of "Long Pants" (which, on revisiting, leaves wide open the nature of his seeming cohabitation with the gun moll).

3:06 PM  
Blogger Filmfanman said...

I just now watched "Lawyer Man" with William Powell and Joan Blondell, and I'm not sure that "challenging the status quo" isn't what that film is about.
I mean, the politicians and high-society types are depicted one and all as being a little or a lot crooked, one such character not hesitating to send gun-toting thugs to get their point across, while that same unscrupulous character is shown as being in charge of appointing the DAs and Judges.
Watching this film, I can understand politicians - if this film is accurate in its depictions of big-city political life of those times as being corrupt, that is - being very anxious NOT to have films being shown suggesting corruption as a routine and everyday matter in the administration of large cities, as this one does; in this film, there's no "reform" of the system shown, nor even attempted beyond what the protagonist needs to expose for the settling of his personal scores against a few names, and once they are settled, Powell's character happily drops any idea of trying to further reform the system itself and instead goes back to being a small lawyer, explicitly to help "little guys" to fight the injustices they suffer from this corrupt system - while some of the same fixers Powell was up against are shown as continuing in charge, after a few crooks have been punished and relations have been "adjusted" to Powell's satisfaction.
I can see those who adopted the Production Code hoping to keep the local authorities, and their censorship powers, off the film industry's backs by them agreeing amongst themselves not to produce and show films depicting local graft and corruption - unless it is also shown as being exceptional, and especially as always being punished if not prevented by other "good guys" in the Government.
In this sense, the lack of a production code, in itself, was a "challenge to the status quo" - insofar as the depiction of unpunished and routine corruption in public affairs was even possible.

5:33 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024
  • April 2024
  • May 2024
  • June 2024
  • July 2024
  • August 2024
  • September 2024