Precode Picks #6

 Precode: Night Nurse, Heated Up Ads, and Downstairs

NIGHT NURSE (1931) --- Surface-wise hardcore precode, Night Nurse bites into pastry with a sour center, potential for fun nulled by content unpleasant enough in GPS quarters for me to swear off repeat views each time watching, only to come back thinking this time I’ll be made of sterner stuff. Still I want to jump into the screen like Sherlock Jr. and take pizza plus hot dogs to starved children kept prisoner by purveyors of evil that include Clark Gable at early application of brute man support, him socking Barbara Stanwyck just off camera range and rich-deserving last reel disposal by breezy bootlegger Ben Lyon who ends up being cheeriest aspect of 72 minutes not otherwise easy to get through. Precode walked high wires over fun, witty apply of situations just this side of censorable, risk being bridge too far to discomfit viewers and make time sat an ordeal, like here and in horror films judged to have gone overboard like Freaks and Island of Lost Souls. Frustrating for me was Stanwyck, anybody, not taking corrective action on behalf of babies deprived of nourishment, deliberate act of villains chasing an inheritance. Takes awhile as in too long for motive to reveal itself, so for reels we just get kids abused for no apparent reason. Night Nurse is dropped ball surprising for Warners, though yes there is Stanwyck taking lumps in drag-out showdown with a drunken femme, plus she and Joan Blondell in-out of nurse uniforms, some of frankest exhibitionism precode tendered, enough so to be excerpted here/there among sampling of extremes. Gable gets a strong entrance to make it seem Warners is aborning his star rather than MGM that would. Socko, and again oft excerpted, is the camera moving quick and close to CG when he growls, I’m Nick … the chauffeur, a moment still to quicken pulse.

MORE OF SUGGESTIVE ADS --- Suggestive, but suggesting what? I suggest it’s license as in chuck wedlock and let’s try on free love, which works after all for Bette Davis and Gene Raymond. Under cover of humor, wit if you will, but the message is plain, “complete and unprejudiced” where frankly advocating (?) laughter toward wedding bells and yawns at bassinets. Ads could be wisecracky and sometimes radical, as here. A lot of daughters and sisters were drawn to Ex-Lady on titillating promise of “Moratorium on Marriage.” Was this mere fairground pitch or a fundamental challenge to established mores? Depends on how seriously one took theatre ads, or the films they advertised. Feature titles could and did welcome winds of cultural change, Ex-Lady by its name a thumb-to-nose toward tradition. There had to come a reckoning, less provoked by the movies perhaps than salacious ads that promoted them (for more on Ex-Lady, plus further ads and graphics, go here). As any coin has both head and tail, observe RKO Palace promotion for Back Street in 1932. Distress of my clipping reflects that of Irene Dunne as kept woman (for years and years) of John Boles, toll paid for promiscuity as moralists would point out, Back Street backing argument that only sadness comes of sex outside wedlock. This too was precode, as in fallen woman sagas that seldom if ever ended happy for principals, outcome reflected here with Dunne, chin rested on palm, but no rest for having crossed social boundaries. As if to hammer home point, there is center art of what might be any discarded mistress left to contemplate her misery, “For Every Woman who has loved unwisely … and for Every Man who has loved too well” again a titillation, this time with price tag attached. Lock up your daughters, or at least keep them away from precode newspaper ads.

DOWNSTAIRS (1932) --- So how to reconcile Downstairs with John Gilbert as contractual cast-off MGM wanted to see fail, but did they really? Not when he was trusted to write, and star as rotter-in-chief, being male counterpart to Jean Harlow’s amoral Red-Headed Woman and note both getting away scot-free for misdeeds and poised to graze upon fresh victims as end titles usher us out. Villain as rooting interest finds early application in Downstairs --- at no time do we, or at least me, want Gilbert brought to ruin for his perfidy. It’s told that Gilbert’s “Karl Schneider” was initially drowned in a wine vat by Paul Lukas, preview audiences turning thumbs down to that and MGM obliged to reshoot and let Karl live, which shows at least how this character, and Gilbert’s playing of him, appealed to his public. It takes magnetic personality to commit succession of venal acts but keep us captivated, Gilbert an anti-hero to prefigure lots to come, including late model Paul Newman’s Hud, except Hud was meant for us to revile yet emerged as sixties role model instead, the makers surprised as anyone that 1963 would so embrace such a heel. Downstairs differs for Karl conducting life and people on his own altogether selfish terms and writer/actor Gilbert confident we’ll love him for it. Again, maybe just me, but not for a moment do I want to see Karl undone by events, any more than I would care to watch Hud bow down. Even if he framed Downstairs largely for comedy, there is bite enough thanks to precode for Karl to mean business and to Downstairs credit, never repent or make amends. Looks like Gilbert was onto something way ahead of his era, Downstairs perhaps a gamble that only a star on career decline might choose to take. Bet it all, said John Gilbert, double or nothingness from here on.

Gilbert’s was the kind of romantic persona that needed to identify close with his character and circumstance in order to give of his best. So dispiriting was most of his talking vehicles that it was impossible for him to connect, A Gentleman’s Fate being lately watched example, him a gangster's son (but unknowingly) living large off trust money, a premise I doubt Gilbert or anyone bought, so how to apply himself believably? Pace is glacial, as frankly is Gilbert. He was a man of moods wherein up he could reach stars, but down … disaster. I’ve wondered before if he was bipolar. That would explain a lot of what went on, certainly the periods of depression and self-medicating. Downstairs seemed a rescue. Thalberg told Gilbert they’d adapt his story and let him star, Irving lifted off the floor with a bear hug in return. Essence of Gilbert was no neutral setting. His career went back to the teens, and Jack's teens, having written, also directed, in fact done almost everything. There were friends --- who in fact was not his friend? It surely shocked Gilbert when comparative none came forward to lend meaningful help when he needed it. Failure attracts few however, especially in an occupation where fear rules. Mere perception of Gilbert as washed up was what washed him up. Did he ultimately suffer for having become such a white-hot star? Jack was best man at Paul Bern and Jean Harlow’s wedding, doom cleaving to doom. For all I’ve written of Gilbert there is obvious sympathy and fascination. Had he gone out with Downstairs, he’d have gone out a 100% winner, even if the picture lost money, which unhappily it did. Cheers, however, as Downstairs is terrific, among best of still unheralded precodes, and a regular on TCM in HD.