Tag Archives: Jessie Arnold

Love On The Shattered Lens: Hot Saturday (dir by William A. Seiter)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1932 and featuring Cary Grant in his first leading role, Hot Saturday is a film about gossip and love.

Ruth Brock (Nancy Carroll) is a young bank teller living in a small town.  It’s the type of town where everyone knows everyone else.  For instance, everyone knows that every man in town wants to date Ruth but that Ruth, for her part, is not in any hurry to settle down and get married.  She’s having too much fun going to dances, drinking with her friends, and enjoying life.  Everyone knows that playboy Romer Sheffield (Cary Grant) is interested in Ruth but then again, Romer appears to be interested in everyone.  Romer has scandalized the town by allowing a woman named Camille (Rita LaRoy) to live at his mansion.

Ruth has a date with one of her coworkers, Conny Billop (Edward Woods), but, when Conny refuses to take no for an answer, she gets away from him and ends up at Romer’s estate.  Ruth and Romer spend the night together, just talking.  Still, thanks to Conny and Eva (Lillian Bond), the daughter of Ruth’s boss, the whole town is soon convinced that Ruth is Romer’s lover.  The town is so scandalized that Ruth even loses her job.

Fortunately, Bill Fadden (Randolph Scott) has returned to town.  Bill is a geologist.  He grew up in town, with Ruth.  He’s spent the last seven years on a surveying expedition but now he’s back and he wants to marry Ruth.  How lucky is Ruth?  She not only has two good men in love with her but one of them looks like Cary Grant and the other one looks like Randolph Scott!  However, when Bill hears the rumors, will he continue to love her or will he be yet another person who gives in to the curse of small town gossip?

Hot Saturday is a film that truly took me by surprise.  It’s a pre-code film and it’s one that has all of the usual tropes that one usually associates with the pre-code era.  Everyone’s obsessed with sex.  There’s a lot of kissing.  There’s a lot of drinking.  There’s an emphasis on legs and lingerie.  There’s even a scene where Ruth gets into a wrestling match with her younger sister when she discovers that her sister has taken her new panties.  I’m one of four sisters so I could certainly relate but it’s still not the sort of thing that one necessarily expects to find in a film from the 1930s.  But that’s one reason why I love the Pre-Code era.  Allowed to police itself, pre-code Hollywood made films that were more realistic and open about their subject matter than the films made under the production code but which also still had their own unique innocence to them.  Hot Saturday has an ending that would have never been allowed during the Code era, one that is, dare I say it, rather empowering.

But, beyond all that, Hot Saturday is an intelligently written film that strikes a good balance between drama and character-driven comedy.  Nancy Carroll is beautiful and likable in the lead role.  Cary Grant and Randolph Scott are both as handsome and charming as can be.  Hot Saturday is both a look at the reality and dangers of small town gossip and a touching love story.  I enjoyed it.

Lawless Empire (1945, directed by Vernon Keays)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

For years, outlaws have controlled the frontier town of Dusty Gulch but now their power is threatened by the homesteaders who are moving into the area.  Led by the crusading Rev. Tex Harding, the homesteaders are being progress and reform to the frontier.

Duke (Ethan Laidlaw) and his gang have launched a campaign of intimidation against the new arrivals.  Luckily, the Durango Kid (Charles Starrett) rides into town to protect the homesteaders.  Duke’s boss, businessman Blaze Howard (John Calvert), decides that the town needs a sheriff to go after the Kid.  Blaze offers the job to newcomer Steve Ranson, not realizing that Steve is not only the Durango Kid but also the brother of the former sheriff, who was murdered by Blaze’s men.

Lawless Empire is one of the few Durango Kid films not to feature Smiley Burnette as Durango’s sidekick.  Instead, Durango rides into town with Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys and, while Willis does perform a song or two, there’s still considerable less singing than in the films that featured Burnette.  The role of comic relief is provided by Dub Taylor in the role of Cannonball.  Cannonball gets a job sweeping up Blaze’s saloon and he feeds whatever information he learns back to Durango.  When Blaze figures out what’s going on, he deliberately supplies Cannonball with bad information but it doesn’t make any difference.  The Durango Kid is always one step ahead of the bad guys.

Lawless Empire is a little more serious than the other Durango Kid films.  Steve is not only trying to clean up the town but he’s also seeking to avenge his brother so there’s not as much room for as much comedy as usual.  Lawless Empire does have all of the usual gunfights and horse chases and the film gets off to an exciting start with Durango making his first appearance with his gun already drawn so that he can disarm Duke and his men.  Even without Smiley around to help him out, Durango brings law to a lawless empire.

 

 

The Hard Hombre (1931, directed by Otto Brower)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this short and comedic western, Hoot Gibson plays a cowboy who is so mild-mannered that his nickname is Peaceful.  William “Peaceful” Patton is such a pacifist that he’s even named after the first Quaker, William Penn.  When the movie starts, a group of cowboys are shooting at each other from opposite sides of a ravine.  Patton rides into the middle of the fight and tells them to put down their guns and settle things peacefully.  Everyone ignores him.

Patton has gotten a job in a neighboring town, working on the ranch of Senora Martini (Lina Basquette).  Leaving behind his beloved mother (Jessie Arnold), Patton heads to the Martini ranch and he discovers that everyone is scared to death of him.  That’s because Patton looks just like a notorious outlaw known as The Hard Hombre.  The Hard Hombre has killed a man for every year that he’s been alive.  Realizing that he can use this to bring peace to the town and to help Senora Martini get her cattle back from rival rancher Joe Barlowe (G. Raymond Nye), Patton pretends to be the Hard Hombre.

Soon, everyone in town is getting along and Senora Martini has fallen in love with the man that she thinks is the Hard Hombre.  But then, the Hard Hombre actually does show up in town!  Even worse, Peaceful’s mother also shows up and wants to know why everyone thinks her son is a killer!

With a 64 minute running time, this low-budget programmer isn’t bad.  It pokes fun at every western cliché, showing that even in the early days of Hollywood, the conventions of the western were already set in stone.  The film gets a surprising amount of comedic mileage from people acting scared of the mild-looking and acting Hoot Gibson.  Gibson was one of the earliest western stars, playing heroes who used their wits and who rarely carried a gun.  Appearing in a film for a poverty row studio was a step down for Gibson but his casting still pays off in That Hard Hombre and he gives a good performance as a cowboy who just wants everyone to get along and to make his mother proud.