Precode Picks #2

 

Precodes: Let Us Be Gay, Smart Money, Dark Hazard, Susan Lenox, and a Hot Lobby Card

LET US BE GAY (1930) --- Doormat duckling turns swan when wife Norma Shearer gets shaft from straying husband Rod LaRoque, this after she bore him two kids if traipsing about the house with hair ribbons and endlessly singing “I Love You, I Love You,” a treacly tune I know not the origin of. Norma really pulls out stops for opener scenes here, no make-up and believe me, Shearer without war paint was plain personified; you’d not figure her to have ever been a movie star, let alone in a position to remain one. Let Us Be Brave might have been more apt title here, as Norma yields not an inch to glamour expectation. Were fans shocked? I sort of was but admired Norma the more for stepping so far out of safe space. There’s reason why she tops among favorites. Let Us Be Gay creaks by compare with The Divorcee and fireworks it had, but I’m told a Frisco revival had lines round block from the Castro Theatre. Did they misunderstand what Let Us Be Gay was about? The source play by Rachel Crothers ran from February 1929 to December of the same year, 353 performances  at the “Little Theatre,” which was built in 1912 and seated 597. Ross Alexander starred and Warren William had a support part. One and only Robert Benchley reviewed for the old LIFE magazine: “A little better than moderately good, but nothing to go home and fling yourself on the couch over.” Shame we can’t travel back in time and view the play. Seeing the film is near as good however, the whole having been shot like on stage with a cast posed and waiting for cues. Country estate setting and life among idle rich is again a backdrop, this reliable for necessary stillness and no one getting too far afield of microphones. Best aspect of Let Us Be Gay is Shearer’s transform from dowdy to chic. Will she reconcile with errant husband she encounters at Marie Dressler’s weekend gather? Precode by calendar definition if less fun in sense of other Normas from like period, though certainly worth a look, available from Warner Archive and run on TCM in HD.

SMART MONEY (1931) and DARK HAZARD (1934) --- Taken aback by a Warner memo found in outstanding book that was Scoundrels and Spitballers, Edward G. Robinson topic of March 1935 in-house discussion: “ … there is no denying the obvious: Robinson is no longer the star he once was. The public has already decided this.” Robert Lord, who knew his creative business, wrote this. Correspondence among execs and producing staff was seldom site for tact. Lord’s note went to Wallis, whose patience with players was, like anyone’s, dictated by their standing at ticket windows. Had anyone confided to Edward G. Robinson that he was on the slide? Chances are he felt it by attitude and body language going in and out of WB’s commissary and sound stages. Any actor was hypersensitive to standing. Question from our distance is, why had the public lost interest in Eddie, if indeed they had? Two of his viewed lately give a hint, Smart Money, which came next after Little Caesar, and Dark Hazard of a few years later, presumably when the star began to slip. The two along with several others of Robinson’s precode lot have an element in common, that is him as braggart, would-be ladies’ man, self-declared winner who always lost. He’s a luckiest gambler in the world till chips go ways down in Smart Money, light confection before last reel application of ice water, tone change not unknown to then WB programmers. Nick “The Barber” Venizelos is loud, vain, and a chump for hard dames. Robinson was five foot four and a half it is said, so how to credibly get the girl? Trouble was he took onscreen falls until they got monotonous. I for one like little guys to win, at least every now and then. Writers at Warners were intent on keeping Eddie behind eight balls. Love was constantly denied him, us allowed, encouraged, to feel his characters not entitled to it.

An outside picture for Columbia, I Am the Law, gave relief, if temporary. Robinson is happily wed and prevails over criminal element, maturity meaning he won’t have to bellow or brag so much as in formative past. Dark Hazard snatches a cheery ending from jaws of yet more loss, a save for the movie I did not expect but was pleased to get. Robinson could show heart in ways he almost certainly improvised, like when greeting a race dog with hugs and kisses. We don’t want such a man, or any animal lover, to end on skids. Smart Money and Dark Hazard are taken with gaming culture in all of variations, cards, horses, dice, and yes, dogs. Betting is made fun, and I wonder if a greater enforced Code added language to discourage this. Crime skirts edges of gambling, but gunplay won’t intrude on Smart Money or Dark Hazard, risk centered instead on go broke prospect behind each deal or snake eye roll. Robinson had hard luck etched in his face. He couldn’t have gotten away from it any more than other plug ugly character men, no matter their brilliance as actors, an image fortified by Eddie’s offscreen travails, worst of these a wife who wanted a movie prince and grudgingly took a frog, worst of all letting E.G. regularly know it. He at least had a fabulous art collection to keep him warm, but even that went half to the monster spouse once he finally got shed of her. A second mate appreciated him, in fact shared his intense interest in paintings. Fans of Robinson perhaps identify with him more than with profiles labelled splendid. Imitators used to be everywhere but now are gone. I saw a video where Billy Crystal spoke to his admiration, did his Eddie voice, all to the good till it hit me that Crystal's own tribute was thirty years ago at least.

SUSAN LENOX (1931) --- Must passion come at such price as here? Promising engineer Clark Gable, full of concepts to build a better bridge, enjoys rustic cabin idyll with G. Garbo, is betrayed by her (GG not altogether at fault, as carny viper John Miljan can be persuasive). Gable falls to ruin as result, which by that I mean drunken, derelict, wandering seas-sort-of-ruin which no woman should be empowered to cause, not even Garbo at throbbing summit. What Gable as “Rodney” needed was some of Gary Cooper’s Morocco detachment, latter a preferred precode role model for boys otherwise ensnared by sirens. Greta Garbo was Metro-proposed temptation no male could resist, ideally (they thought) cast as Mata Hari in same year as Susan Lenox, but what of GG and males today? We could guess majority response to such query, not to Swedish Sphinx advantage, but might one say the same of Dietrich? Exotic travels well, or doesn’t. What lured in the thirties will not necessarily lure ninety years hence. Guys picking precode winner today, prospect for prom date anyway, would likely lean Toby Wing’s way, or as-qualified Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, Gloria Stuart, pick a partner as there were plenty. Garbo suffered no matter comfort of circumstance, Susan a coddled concubine of OK older guys and even a marriage prospect (one proposes), a sounder choice than sullen and still drink-addled Gable. And where does latter come off so destroyed by any woman’s misconduct? Again the Gary Cooper parallel. These guys by their looks and carriage could get on with healing and be healed in a hurry, just for being Gable or Cooper, that after all why men in the audience cheer them and women swoon them. Audiences prefer heroes to pick up pieces quick and proceed on next jungle trek or turn of wheel that is vigor life. No brooding for my role models please.

LOBBY CARD LURE OR LURID? --- Did movies, at least promotion of them, invite rigid enforcement of the Code? Here is further evidence that yes, they did. I’ve long been of opinion that advertising was a worse bugbear than the films themselves, ads much more viewed than what played inside. Lobby cards shouted to the streets from fronts and cooperating store windows. Maybe you could avoid watching Melody Cruise in 1933, but you’d not duck same going in or out of the theatre, let alone in newspapers, looking at a magazine, passing a billboard. And don’t overlook tire covers spinning the message. Was there nudity in Melody Cruise? We might say no but tell that to a mother in 1933 as Junior peers up close at border art on the lobby card shown here. Promotion took liberties as everyone knows, but here was promise of things forbidden whatever license precodes were presumed to have. This was cootch dancers giving it all up on the midway and then covering up once ticket buyers sat down in the tent. So-called “bluenoses” need not examine evidence on screens when glance at posters told all they needed to know. Film companies could police what pressbooks printed, but who among creative showmen relied on pressbooks? More than one told me they were useless but to wrap fish, for what did far-off distributors know of hometowns and what they’d buy? Theatre ads in willing newspapers could scorch where needed, and in hard times, such heat was always needed (see a chapter devoted to such in The Art of Selling Movies). I’m surprised a crackdown did not come sooner. What then of Melody Cruise? Chances are it’s no better or bolder that whatever else RKO had up precode sleeves, proof of pudding frequent on TCM. Examine the lobby card, see the pic, and let us know if Melody Cruise in any way delivers upon extravagant border claims.