David Newell | Through the Shattered Lens

The 1929 film, Dangerous Curves, takes place at the circus.

Larry Lee (Richard Arlen) is a tightrope walker and, when we first meet him, he’s a bit of a cad. He knows he’s the best and he knows that the crowds are specifically showing up to watch him risk his life on a nightly basis. Every woman at the circus is crushing on him but Larry hardly notices because he’s used to being desired. He’s in love with his tightrope-walking partner, Zara (Kay Francis). Everyone can tell that Zara is manipulative and not even loyal to her relationship with Larry. She wastes his money and Larry sometimes spends so much time thinking about her that it breaks his concentration on the tight rope.

Eventually, Larry discovers that Zara has been cheating on him! When Larry finds out about Zara and Tony (David Newell), he cannot get the image of them kissing out of his head. When he tries to walk across the tight rope, he loses his focus and, as the audience gasps, Larry falls to the ground below. (In an impressively-edited sequence, we see Larry falling from about five different angles before we finally see him hitting the ground.) Larry recovers but his confidence has been broken. Instead of returning to the circus, he just wants to drink and obsess on Zara and Tony.

Can bareback rider Patricia Delaney (Clara Bow) convince him to return to the circus? Can she give him the confidence to once again walk across the tightrope? Will Larry then teach Pat how do the tightrope act herself? Will Larry finally realize that Pat loves him and that he loves her? And how will Pat react when, after all she’s done for Larry, he suddenly decides that he wants to bring Zara back into the act?

Dangerous Curves is a mix of melodrama and romance, all taking place at the circus. It’s also a pre-code film, which means it’s a bit more honest about the relationships between the characters and Larry’s subsequent drinking problem than it would have been if the film had been made just a few years later. As a result, this is a melodrama with an edge. The members of the circus community are living on the fringes of polite society and they’ve built their own community, one that is based on their unique talents. Larry’s sin isn’t so much that he’s arrogant and tempermental. It’s that he doesn’t properly respect the community of which he’s a part. He thinks he’s above the rest of the circus. His fall from the high wire humbles him. His relationship with Patricia eventually redeems him.

That said, the main appeal of this film is that it features Clara Bow in one of her early sound-era performances. Bow became a star during the silent era but, unlike many of her contemporaries, she was able to make the transition to sound. I absolutely love Clara Bow and this film features one of her best performances. She’s determined and energetic and she plays the stereotypical “good” girl with just enough of a mischievous glint in her eye to make her compelling. She may be willing to help Larry get back on the tightrope and then subsequently learn how to walk the tightrope herself but she also shows that she’s not going to put up with him taking her for granted. As well, both Clara and Kay Francis get to wear a lot of cute outfits, which is always one of the pleasures of a pre-code film.

Dangerous Curves is worth watching for the chance to see Clara Bow at her best.

Released in 1929, at the dawn of the sound era, The Hole In The Wall tells the story of The Fox (Edward G. Robinson) and two women known as Madame Mysteria.

The Fox is a con artist, a veteran criminal who takes care of the people working for him. He may not be an upstanding citizen but he seems to truly care about his sidekick Goofy (Donald Meek) and his partner-in-crime, Madame Mysteria (Nellie Savage). Madame Mysteria is a fake psychic. She sits in a chair and does readings while The Fox sends her a series of electric shocks in morse code to let her know what she should say about each victim of their con. They’ve got a pretty good thing going until Madame Mysteria is killed in a train accident.

(Since this film is from 1929, the train accident is recreated with a miniature train that falls off a track in what appears to be a plastic city. Basically, it looks like a primitive YouTube video made by an enthusiastic toy train hobbyist. It may not be convincing but there’s something charming about just how cheap it all is.)

Shortly after Mysteria is killed, Jean Oliver (Claudette Colbert) wanders into The Fox’s shop. Jean is looking for a job and for revenge. As she explains it, she used to have a good job in a department store until her manager accused her of stealing. Though Jean was innocent, she still spent some time in jail. Her life was ruined. Now, she wants to be the new Madame Mysteria and she wants to kidnap the daughter of the woman who accused her. She doesn’t want to get any ransom or anything like that. Instead, she wants to raise the little girl to become a criminal. Fox and Goofy agree, which leads me to wonder if the Fox is really as clever as he thinks he is. Is Jean really the only person they could find to be the new Madame Mysteria? Surely they could find a Madame Mysteria who doesn’t demand they commit a major felony just for her services. Still, kidnap the little girl they do and strangely enough, she never seems to be upset over being taken from her parents. (Even more strangely, we don’t actually see or learn the details of how she was kidnapped. She just suddenly shows up at the Fox’s home.) Goofy becomes a babysitter and Jean becomes Madame Mysteria.

By an amazing coincidence, the reporter (boring David Newell) who decides to write a story on the amazing psychic Made Mysteria just happens to be Jean’s ex-boyfriend! While the Fox falls in love with Jean and the police search for the abducted child, Jean herself starts talking to the dead….

In many ways, The Hole In The Wall is typical of the melodramas that came out during the early sound era. The majority of the supporting actors are still adjusting to acting with sound and the action often feels rather stagey. That said, it’s an entertaining film, largely due to the performance of Claudette Colbert and Edward G. Robinson, both of whom were just starting their careers and on the cusp of stardom. This was Robinson’s first role as a gangster and he snarls with style while Colbert actually keeps the audience guessing at her motivations. The Hole In The Wall is definitely a film from a different era but, for a film that was made nearly 100 years ago, it holds up remarkably well.