4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.
Happy birthday to my pre-code role model, the amazing Clara Bow!
4 Shots From 4 Clara Bow Films
It (1927, dir by Clarence G. Badger)
Wings (1928, dir by William Wellman)
Dangerous Curves (1929, dir by Lothar Mendes)
Call Her Savage (1932, dir by John Francis Dillon)
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.
In the 1931 film Ladies’ Man, the always suave William Powell plays Jamie Darricott.
Jaimie may be suave but, when we first meet him, he’s faking it. He lives in a tiny broom closet in a grand hotel and he only has two suits to his name. The only thing that Jamie has going for him is that he’s charming and he’s handsome, in the way that only William Powell could be. He’s like a much sleazier and far less likable version of Nick Charles. Unfortunately, Jamie doesn’t have Nora Charles or Asta in his life. He just has one valet and a lot of ambition. It’s strange to see Powell play a bitter man but that’s what he does here.
Jamie starts spending time with the wealthy Mrs. Fendley (Olive Tell), despite the fact that she’s married to wealthy businessman Horace Fendley (Gilbert Emery). Jamie starts to move up in the world. He gets a much better room. He gets a few more suits of clothes. Soon, Jamie is also spending time with Mrs. Fendley’s daughter, the wild Rachel (Carole Lombard). Rachel doesn’t care if prohibition is the law of the land. She’s going to get as drunk as she wants every night. And Rachel doesn’t care if society judges her for sleeping over in another man’s room despite not being married to him. Rachel does what she wants! And I have to admit that, at first, I liked Rachel. She was a rebel and she made no apologies for her behavior and good for her! (It helped she was also played by Carole Lombard, who was just starting her career but already had a lively screen presence.) What’s interesting is that both Mrs. Fendley and Rachel seem to know that the other is seeing Jamie and they’re both pretty much okay with that. And since Jamie is getting paid by both of them, he’s okay with it too.
This might sound a bit racy for a 1931 film and I suppose it is. However, this is also a pre-code film. Before the Production Code was instituted, films always portrayed New York society as being filled with gigolos and people who got drunk at nightclubs. Pre-code films had the advantage of not only knowing what people wanted to see but also the freedom to give it to them. Ladies’ Man is pretty open, if not particularly explicit, in detailing how Jamie makes his money. And the message seems to be that no one can blame him. There’s a depression going on! Jamie has to do something to survive! At least he’s not killing people Jimmy Cagney or Paul Muni!
However, when Jamie meets and falls for the kindly Norma Page (Kay Francis), he starts to reconsider his lifestyle. And when Rachel finds out that Jamie is actually falling in love with Norma, she lets her father know about what’s going on. It all leads to a rather sudden and surprisingly dark ending. The film may have been pre-code but it was still a film from the era of DeMille and hence, all sinners had to be punished.
Seen today, Ladies’ Man is definitely a relic of a previous time. It was made early enough in the sound era that it’s obvious that some members of the cast were still learning how to act with sound. For a film with a 70-minute run time, it has a surprisingly large numbers of slow spots. This is not the film to use if you want to introduce someone to the wonders of the pre-code era. That said, I love William Powell and I love Carole Lombard. This film was made before their brief marriage and it’s nowhere near as fun as their later collaboration, My Man Godfrey. But it’s still enjoyable to see them together, bringing some much needed life to this scandalous tale.
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.
Happy birthday to my pre-code role model, the amazing Clara Bow!
4 Shots From 4 Clara Bow Films
It (1927, dir by Clarence G. Badger)
Wings (1928, dir by William Wellman)
Dangerous Curves (1929, dir by Lothar Mendes)
Call Her Savage (1932, dir by John Francis Dillon)
Through the Shattered Lens 