Love On The Shattered Lens: Charming Sinners (dir by Robert Milton and Dorothy Arzner)

Posted on February 14, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Based on a play by Somerset Maugham, 1929’s Charming Sinners takes place amongst the very rich.

Kathryn Miles (Ruth Chatterton) is married to Robert Miles (Clive Brook). Robert is wealthy and a respected businessman and, through her marriage, Kathryn is also wealthy and …. well, she’s not quite respected. The fact of the matter is that everyone is gossiping about the fact that Robert is cheating on Kathryn. Kathryn denies that Robert is being unfaithful but she knows that he is. She also knows that Robert is cheating with her best friend, Anne-Marie Whitley (Mary Nolan). Even when Anne-Marie’s husband, George (Montagu Love), comes to suspect that Anne-Marie is cheating with Robert, Kathryn tells George that it isn’t true and defends her cad of a husband.

Why is Kathryn doing this? As Kathryn explains it, she doesn’t feel that marriage necessarily means that you have to love someone. Kathryn married Robert for the money and the status and, as long as she has that, she’s willing to overlook Robert’s dalliances. Admitting that Robert is cheating would obligate her to go through a divorce and potentially lose everything that she has. If this film had been released just a few years later than it was, the Production Code would have insisted that Kathryn suffer for her less-than-reverent attitude towards the institution of marriage. Since this is a pre-code film, Kathryn is portrayed as being strong and determined. What the Production Code would have deemed a drama, the pre-code era considered to be a comedy.

Still, Kathryn does get revenge on her husband by openly flirting with a former lover, Karl Kraley (William Powell, handsome and suave as ever). Kathryn also makes some money on her own, proving to her husband that she could be a success even if she hadn’t married him. Kathryn informs Robert that she is going to be living her own life, even if they are married. And if Kathryn wants to take a lover, that’s her decision.

And good for Kathryn! Seriously, Robert is so smug and sure of himself that it’s deeply satisfying to watch as Kathryn reveals that Robert was never as clever as he thought it was. Though the film does not end with the dramatic divorce that some might expect, it does end with Kathryn taking control of her own life and making her own decisions about how she’s going to live it. That type of ending is rare enough today. One can only imagine how audiences in 1929 reacted to it.

But is the film itself any good, you may be asking. It’s an early sound picture and while the cast all proves their ability to handle dialogue, the largely stationary camera often makes the film feel like a filmed play (which is largely what it was). Like many pre-code films, the emphasis here is on how the rich have better clothes and better homes than the majority of the people watching the movie. That’s not a problem for me. I like looking at nice clothes and wonderfully decorated houses. Some others may dismiss this film as just being about the problems of the rich but my personal opinion is that everyone has problems. Wouldn’t you rather have problems as a wealthy person than a poor one? The most important thing is that the film features two of the best actors of Hollywood’s early Golden Age, Ruth Chatteron and William Powell, and they both give excellent and charming performances.

Charming Sinners is a bit of time capsule and probably not for everyone. If you’re not interested in the film’s era, it probably won’t hold your attention. But, to a fashionable history nerd like me, Charming Sinners definitely had its charms.

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: East Lynne (dir by Frank Lloyd)

Posted on January 31, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the history of the Academy Awards, East Lynne is a curiosity.

Released in 1931, East Lynne was one of the five films to be nominated for Best Picture at the fourth annual Academy Awards. Best Picture was the only nomination that East Lynne received, which of course leaves you to wonder just what exactly was so good about it. Why was it nominated as opposed to something like A Free Soul, which received nominations for Best Actress and Director and which won the Best Actor Oscar for Lionel Barrymore? East Lynne was a success at the box office but so were The Public Enemy, Little Caesar, and Scarface. None of those classic gangster films made much of an impression with the Academy but all of them are better remembered today than East Lynne.

One reason why East Lynne has fallen into obscurity is because it’s not an easy film to see. There is only one complete print of East Lynne still in existence. It’s housed at the UCLA’s Instructional Media Lab but it can only be viewed by appointment. There are, however, a few bootleg copies on DVD. The picture is grainy. The sound is inconsistent. Even worse, the bootleg is missing the last 12 minutes of the film. Still, for those of us who don’t live near UCLA, that bootleg copy is the only convenient way to watch East Lynne.

That’s how I watched it. (I also looked up how the film ended so I know where the story eventually led, despite those missing 12 minutes.) Having now seen the film, I can now say that it makes even less sense that the film was nominated because it’s pretty bad. I can only imagine that it received its nomination as a result of Fox Film Corporation (which would later merge with 20th Century Pictures to be come 20th Century Fox) demanding that its employees vote for it.

Based on a Victorian novel that had already been filmed several times during the silent era, East Lynne tells the story of Lady Isabella (Ann Harding), a British noblewoman who marries a stuffy attorney named Robert Carlyle (Conrad Nagel). From the beginning it’s an awkward marriage. Isabella is sociable and popular and wants to enjoy life. Carlyle is a humorless jerk. Not even the fact that they live in a nice mansion called East Lynne provides much comfort.

When Isabella accepts a kiss from a cad named Captain William Levinson (Clive Brook), Isabella’s sister-in-law uses it to drive a wedge between Isabella and Carlyle. Carlyle, being a jerk, kicks Isabella out of the house and takes custody of their child. Now viewed as being a figure of scandal, Isabella goes abroad with Levinson. (Since this is a pre-code film, going abroad amounts to going to a then-racy show in Vienna.) However, through a series of improbable events, Levinson ends up dead and Isabella ends up very slowly going blind. However, Isabella is determined to see her child just once more before losing her sight so it’s up to her to convince a maid to sneak her back into East Lynne late at night….

And then the bootleg version of the film ends! Now, I did my research and I discovered — here’s your SPOILER ALERT — that the film apparently ends with a blind Isabella stumbling over a cliff and her husband realizing too late that maybe he was kind of a jerk. I’m kind of sorry that I didn’t get to see that. I may have to book a flight to UCLA.

Anyway, from what I did see, East Lynne is a creaky old film. This is one of those films where you can tell that the cast was still adjusting to the new sound era. Ann Harding’s screen presence is a bit too insubstantial to keep the film’s melodramatic story grounded and neither Conrad Nagel nor Clive Brook seem to be worth all of the trouble that Isabella goes through. Frank Lloyd’s direction is painfully slow and stagy, though things do pick up briefly when the action moves to Vienna. Worst of all, the film is pretty much on Carlyle’s side. He’s a jerk, the movie says, but Isabella should have made more of an effort to keep him happy. Welcome to 1931!

East Lynne lost the best picture race to Cimarron, which was another fairly forgettable film. Though there were plenty of good films to choose from in 1931, it doesn’t appear that the Academy nominated any of them. Of course, that wouldn’t be the last time that would happen.

Pre Code Confidential #19: Marlene Dietrich in SHANGHAI EXPRESS (Paramount 1932)

Posted on May 10, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

Marlene Dietrich is TCM’S Star of the Month for May, and “Shanghai Express” airs tonight at 12:00 midnight EST.

A train ride from Peking to Shanghai is fraught with danger and romance in Josef von Sternberg’s SHANGHAI EXPRESS, a whirlwind of a movie starring that Teutonic whirlwind herself, Marlene Dietrich. This was the fourth of their seven collaborations together, and their biggest hit, nominated for three Oscars and winning for Lee Garmes’s striking black and white cinematography.

The Director and his Muse

Dietrich became a huge sensation as the sultry seductress Lola Lola in Sternberg’s 1930 German film THE BLUE ANGEL, and the pair headed to America to work for Paramount. Marlene became the autocratic director’s muse, as he molded her screen image into a glamorous object of lust and desire. Sternberg’s Expressionistic painting of light and shadows, aided by Dietrich’s innate sexuality, turned the former chorus girl and cabaret…

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Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: Shanghai Express (dir by Josef von Sternberg)

Posted on February 11, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(With the Oscars scheduled to be awarded on March 4th, I have decided to review at least one Oscar-nominated film a day. These films could be nominees or they could be winners. They could be from this year’s Oscars or they could be a previous year’s nominee! We’ll see how things play out. Today, I take a look at the 1932 best picture nominee, Shanghai Express!)

Welcome to China, circa 1931. The country is beautiful, mysterious, and dangerous. Civil War has broken out and living in China means being caught between two equally brutal forces, the government and the Communists. Captain Doc Harvey (Clive Brook) is scheduled to ride the so-called Shangai Express, the train that will take him from Beiping to Shanghai. The Governor-General is ill and Doc Harvey is the only man in China who operate on him.

For Doc, it’s a matter of duty. However, soon after boarding, he discovers that he is traveling with the infamous Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich). Though Doc has never heard of her, everyone assures him that Shanghai Lily is one of the greatest courtesans in China. When Doc does finally meet her, he’s shocked to discover that Shanghai Lily is his former lover, Magdalen. Did his decision to break up with her lead to Magdalen becoming a courtesan?

“It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily,” she replies.

However, Doc and Lily aren’t the only two people with their own personal drama taking place on the train. The train is full of passengers, all of whom have their secrets. Some of the secrets are minor. One woman spends most of the trip trying to keep anyone from discovering that she’s smuggled her dog onto the train. Other secrets are major. It is suspected that one of the passengers might be working for the rebels. And then there’s people like Sam Salt (Eugene Pallette), who is addicted to gambling and Eric (Gustav von Syffertitz), the opium dealer. Looking over it all is a Christian missionary (Lawrence Grant) who considers both Lily and her companion, Hui Fey (Anna May Wong), to be fallen women.

It’s not an easy journey, no matter how nice and romantic the train may be. If the express isn’t being stopped by government soldiers, it’s being hijacked by a warlord who not only wants to stop Doc from performing the operation but who also wants to take Lily back to his palace…

Shanghai Express is pre-code drama at its best. Director Josef von Sternberg delivers an ornate mix of opulence and melodrama, never shying away from the story’s more flamboyant possibilities. Marlene Dietrich, appearing in her fourth film for von Sternberg, gives a strong and unapologetic performance as Shanghai Lily. Just as Lily never apologizes for who she is, the film both refuses to judge her and condemns anyone who would try. The film’s sympathy is purely with Dietrich and Wong as they do what they must to survive in a world dominated by men who are either judgmental, brutish, or weak. (Within just a few years, the Hays Code would make it impossible for a film like Shanghai Express to be made by an American studio.) With one very important exception, the entire cast is strong, with Warner Oland and Eugene Pallette especially turning in strong support. The only exception is Clive Brook, who comes across as being a bit too dull to have ever won the the heart of Shanghai Lily.

Shanghai Express is not the best von Sternberg/Dietrich collaboration. That would be the brilliantly insane Scarlet Empress. However, it’s still a wonderfully entertaining melodrama. It was nominated for best picture but lost to another entertaining melodrama, Grand Hotel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3Qljls-FkI

Cleaning Out The DVR, Again #11: Cavalcade (dir by Frank Lloyd)

Posted on June 30, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, I’ve been cleaning out the DVR for the past week. Fortunately, I’m going to be off work for this upcoming week, which should give me a lot of extra film-watching time. That’s a good thing because I’ve got 36 movies that I’ve recorded on the DVR since Thursday and, over the past seven days, I’ve only watched 13 of them! That’s 23 movies to go and I hope to be finished by the end of the next week.

The 11th film that I found on my DVR was the 1933 film, Cavalcade. I recorded it off of FXM on April 3rd.

The main reason that I recorded Cavalcade was because it was the 6th film to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Now, I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting much from Cavalcade. It’s a film that many Oscar historians tend to list as being one of the lesser best picture winners. Cavalcade is often unfavorably compared to the films that it beat — movies like I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang, A Farewell To Arms, Little Women, and The Private Life of Henry VIII. Cavalcade was the first British to ever win the Best Picture and its victory is often cited as the beginning of the Academy’s love affair with British productions.

And really, Cavalcade couldn’t be more British if it tried. Based on a play by Noel Coward, Cavalcade follows two families through several decades in British history. One family is wealthy and is anchored by a patriarch who is knighted in the Boer War. The other family is lower middle class, anchored by a patriarch who starts out as a butler but who eventually manages to open up his own pub. Through the eyes of these two families, we view what, in the 1930s, was recent British history.

For modern viewers, it may be helpful to watch Cavalcade while consulting Wikipedia. For instance, the film starts with the two father figures preparing to leave to fight in the Boer War and I’m sorry to admit that I really wasn’t totally sure what that was. I had to look it up in order to discover that it was a war that the British fought in South Africa.

But you know what? That’s not really a complaint. I may not have known what the Boer War was before I started the film but that had changed by the time that I finished watching Cavalcade. Several times, I’ve mentioned on this blog how much I love history but watching Cavalcade made me realize that I still have more to learn. Even more importantly, it encouragds me to learn. That’s always a good thing.

Certain other historical events were more familiar. As soon as I saw the title card announcing that the date was 1914, I knew that I would soon be seeing a World War I montage. And, as terrible as World War I was (though, naturally, the film refers to it as being “the Great War,” and, for a few moments, I considered the fact that there was a time when nobody thought there would ever be a second world war), I was actually kind of happy for the montage because it got the characters out of the drawing room and out of the pub. Cavalcade is a very stagey film. Though there are a few attempts to open up the action, you’re always very aware that you’re essentially watching a filmed play.

Of course, the film’s best historic moment comes when a recently married couple goes on their honeymoon. We see them standing on the deck of a cruise ship, talking about how much they love each other and how wonderful life will be. They then step to the side and we see the name of the ship: RMS Titanic.

In many ways, those dismissive Oscar historians are correct about Cavalcade. It’s stagey and it’s old-fashioned and some of the performances are better than others. But, dammit, I liked Cavalcade. As the upper class couple, Diana Wynyward and Clive Brook made for a likable couple and they got to exchange some sweet-natured dialogue at the beginning and the end of the film. Add to that, it was a film about history and I love history.

Cavalcade is hardly a perfect film and it probably didn’t deserve to win best picture. But it’s still better than its reputation suggests.