Precode Picks #3

 

Precodes: The Age of Consent, Female, What's Playing Broadway, and The Painted Veil

THE AGE OF CONSENT (1932) --- Any depict of the college experience circa 1932 is manna for me, The Age of Consent doing it with game cast of youngsters not burdened by star status nor baked-in song and patter to be highlighted were this, say, a Paramount project. Post-twenties setting, so no need for racoon coats or hip flasks, initiates to life swapping sarcasm as they learn of “free love” and other concerns revolved around Topic A. The Age of Consent is precode to extent of what drives girls and boys, none constrained by faculty advice to go slow what with temptations like Dorothy Wilson and Arline Judge, one sent by parents to get proper educated and maybe a husband, the other of working class who will put out where a young man merits such gesture. This all smacks of real life except what do I know of collegiates in 1932 but for recognizing tropes from my own long-past experience and what got observed during that not-so radically changed epoch. To most essential point, were girls on campus to book learn or snare a mate? At least two confessed to me post-graduation that parents expected both. You’d fail and waste their investment lest you brought home a diploma plus a husband. I saw a lot of friends marry right out of, or during, college. How did they work out? NSG for a most part, as ones (or twos) I can think of are on at least second wedlocks today, or single and relieved to be that way. Callow Richard Cromwell (for casting he got, we could dub him “Callow Cromwell”) gets in a pickle after one-night wing-ding with Arline, and he was supposed to be engaged to Dorothy. Seems Arline fed him hootch and hours later he couldn’t recall their act of lust, a movie device reflective of no reality I ever knew. There are indulgences simply not to be forgot mere hours later, no matter what one has to drink, or am I wrong?

The Age of Consent schools us re slang cleverly applied to collegiate conversation never so bristling in my own experience. Were RKO scribes former campus wits as was customary case where writing was especially good? Insights to growth and maturity are supplied by Professor John Halliday, who a generation before got his sheepskin but surrendered love, thus “finish your education” is not what he’ll preach, and for this instance at least, we are told at the fade that degrees while OK are no substitute for home, family, and whatever job might be got. Was this responsible advice? Search me, as dropping out, let alone to marry, would have been unthinkable in seventies sojourn as I experienced it, unless ceremony was of shotgun nature of which not a few were observed as well. Does youth still attend institutions to learn life as opposed to what books would teach? Seems at times I was there more to show campus films than learn about poets of yore (English major), height of arrogance telling a prof not to expect me next day for necessity of drive to High Point and scoring Bride of Frankenstein on 16mm from piratical George Ashwell. “Hey, will you introduce and show it to the class next week for extra course credit?” asked Dr. Mahan, to which I wrongly concluded Everybody wins!, him happy, students too, and me maybe off the hook for Beowulf. College then was continual game of slip-slide and fool choice in priorities, Greenbriar in a sense what I’ve got to show for it, but perhaps there are worse ways to apply one’s higher learning.

FEMALE (1932) --- Ruth Chatterton acknowledges at the end of Female that “I’m only a woman,” and thereby surrenders control of the multimillion dollar automotive firm she inherited from her father to George Brent. Now that is trusting a guy beyond reason, judgment and any semblance of self-preservation. Where will they live, in her mansion customized specifically to her needs? And why should she give that up for the sake of any man, even George Brent? (the pair would wed offscreen as well) I sat long trying to figure the post-end power structure for these two. “Drake Motors” is hers, subject I suppose to stockholder will and that of a Board of Directors, but what does Brent's “Jim Thorne” bring to the party? Largest real-life category of women who should not trust men are women with money, because how do any know if it's them or the money men want? “Alison Drake” is frankly better off in executive chair with men-as-toys she can enjoy in off-hours. Why should she give in to convention that is marriage and comparative isolation that is home and hearth? I could endorse Alison’s decision were the actress playing her a tad younger, but Chatterton was past forty when she essayed Female and starry eyes for Brent or any other George is tough for alert eyes to accept. And here’s the other bugaboo … Brent was in real life twelve years Chatterton’s junior. His Thorne protests at one point that he will not be a gigolo to Alison, but methinks that’s very much how he comes off, at least to jaded eyes that are mine. Depression-wracked watchers were lots more worldly wise than I could ever hope to be, and I can’t help guessing they looked askance at all this. Female is fun despite absurdities, being sixty minutes long and pleasingly fleet. Deco trappings (her house!) is a feast for senses smitten by luxury as known by precious 30’s few. Female plays HD on TCM.

PRECODES ON THE GREAT WHITE WAY --- “Current Attractions” as in early 1932, here is trade mosaic of what was tendered to Broadway patrons when features and especially ads for them were looser than loose. I’ve long believed movies ran distinctly second to daring of ads selling them, newspapers seen more by tender eyes than product splayed upon screens during years before toothy Code took sway. Did Junior ask Dad to explain copy that read, “Temptations Never Come Singly … To a Married Man”? Did Dad lie and reply that such temptations are nothing other than too much ice cream or fudge? Rest assured Junior got to truth of matters, one way or another. My mother’s adolescence came amidst the precode era, her favorite actress Helen Twelvetrees, which means at ages fourteen, fifteen, she was going and seeing Twelvetrees vehicles, most of which were resolutely precode. Don’t let anyone tell you youth wasn’t worldly in those days, just for seeing what they did on screens if no other way. Much that is promoted by this montage is lost to us now, in whole or Code-cut part. Mata Hari, Forbidden, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were gelded for reissues and still are not put right. Mati Hari exists complete in a Euro archive but nothing has been done by present owner Warners to access it. Live acts were seasoning for features that in most cases ran less than ninety minutes so as to make room for what much of patronage was really there to see. Note nascent star and down-billed Bing Crosby sharing show time with This Reckless Age. I like how Sooky is touted as “A Picture for Grown-Ups,” and someone please step up who has seen Stepping Sisters, being one I never heard of before seeing this page. Imagine … Disney owns it now. Well, maybe we’ll finally get Stepping Sisters after it enters Public Domain in a few years.

THE PAINTED VEIL (1934) --- Garbo as restless wife of stolid cholera healer Herbert Marshall gets an itch for rakish George Brent in modern-set Hong Kong dressed by Metro to look more a real thing than if they had boated over with full cast/crew. Compare The Painted Veil with 1955’s Soldier of Fortune, latter which was done far flung and achingly authentic (many Cinemascope captures of wider-than-wide vistas), but then comes interiors back on Fox environs that barely bother about Far East flavor. Distinction of The Painted Veil lies in all sets, décor, scrims, street scenes, looking my idea at least of just right, even if they weren’t within three thousand miles of site depicted. Again … big enough studios with resource like MGM did not need to go far afield when artisans could improve on reality right at home, plus ravish their stars with lighting and affect they’d never have gotten hauling all across oceans for so-called “real thing.” Drama is effective, based on Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil released post-enforcement edict, but I’ll include it here for maintaining spirit of precode, which in this case is honesty re GG in faithless mode and reckless passion, continental sizzle intact despite new rules damping same down. Seems Herbert Marshall was cuckolded lots in movies, though closer exam reveals he was as much cuckolder as cuckoldee. I like how Garbo spills truth to him in seeming first scene where he suspects, sparing us slog of getting to a showdown. The Painted Veil saw profit. It was not until Conquest that Garbo had her first red ink bath, over a million gone with that Napoleonic wind. Like with Norma Shearer and Riptide, also 1934, Garbo and handlers tried at business as usual, but stories revolved around infidelity were fast passing their day, at least on terms precode had played them, doom to Garbo, Shearer, host of others who breached morality walls and thrived for it in past circumstance that would not come back. Companies couldn’t even get a pass to reissue scorchers such stars had done during peak lure when anything went, or at least seemed that way. What was there but decline and age the bane they would have confronted either way? Appropriate then that Garbo and Shearer would retire from films within a year of one another, neither needing the gaffe or further chase after money.