As fair warning, spoilers may lay ahead! Private Lives is one of those Pre-Code films that is often neglected and overlooked, which is a shame. It defines so much of what Pre-Codes stand for and it absolutely would never be made, at least not in its entirety, after the Hays Code went into effect.
Based on a Noel Coward play, Irving Thalberg - - the film's producer and husband of Norma Shearer - - thought a movie adaptation would be good for MGM and the lead role would suit nicely for his wife. He sent a camera crew to New York to film the first act of the play (starring Coward and Gertrude Lawrence) so that the cast could see the excellent timing needed for laughs.
Unlucky newlywed #1
Norma was indeed cast and was joined by Robert Montgomery in the lead roles. Shearer and Montgomery had first appeared together in 1929's Their Own Desire. While the film didn't set the world on fire (although it did score Shearer an Academy Award nomination; she lost to herself in The Divorcee), the studio liked the pairing well enough to cast both in The Divorcee and Strangers May Kiss. Although Montgomery played a supporting role to Shearer in both films, they projected a strong and undeniable chemistry.
In Private Lives, they played former spouses who find themselves remarried to others and at the same Swiss hotel, with new spouses and on their respective honeymoons. So far, it sounds very much like the plot you'd find in one of the screwball comedies that would become so popular in the mid to late thirties. Private Lives veers, and veers a lot, from the screwball tract though.
Unlucky newlywed #2
First and foremost is that both Amanda (Shearer) and Elyot (Montgomery), upon meeting each other at the hotel, exchange a few barbs before realizing the flame is still there. They go in for a passionate kiss and then elect to run off together, abandoning their new marriages. They also choose not to inform their new spouses. And run off they do. Although we do see them sharing a room and bed with others, it's not long before Amanda and Elyot are on their own and shacked up in a room with Elyot saying "You know you adore being made love to," to Amanda. Racy stuff for the time, especially given that both Amanda are Elyot are married to others.
Secondly, Amanda and Elyot both admit to being physically abusive with the other. Amanda tells her husband Victor that yes, Elyot struck her but she hit him back and broke four gramophone records over his head. Elyot admits to having struck Amanda but rather than apologizing, he simply looks sheepish; he also says that certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs.
First it's love
It's crystal clear that they have a severely dysfunctional and abusive relationship. Where's a good therapist when you need one? As expected, they get into it once they are alone together - - Amanda breaks a record over Elyot's head and he slaps her, leading her to scream like mad and throw herself into the sofa and kick her feet. They call each other a "pig," a "bully," a "cad," a "slattern," a "fishwife." Like I said, after the summer of 1934, you would never see the likes of Private Lives. Amanda runs off to the bedroom, screaming like a banshee, and Elyot ends up sleeping in a chair. When morning breaks, we see the damage done to the room - - dawn isn't the only thing that's broken. Romeo and Juliet, these two aren't.
Then it's destruction
My first viewing of Private Lives, I thoroughly disliked the film. I found both Amanda and Elyot unlikable, a realization that pained me greatly because I adore Shearer and Montgomery. This is a different role for Shearer; she must have been given a lot of space by director Sidney Franklin because she goes for the scenery like a rabid dog in some scenes. She is normally more subtle and less hammy; if you don't believe me, watch the scene in the hotel room she and Elyot are in, just prior to their fight, when she applies her lipstick.
However, TCM being what it is and my stubborn streak being what it is, I gave the film another chance and upon my second viewing (and those thereafter), I found a certain charm to the movie. The chemistry between the two leads truly sells it but looking at it as a comedy, a pre-screwball comedy before there was such a thing, shines a new and improved light on it.
Both Reginald Denny, as Amanda's jilted husband Victor and Una Merkel as Elyot's jilted wife Sibyl are perfectly cast in their parts. Sure, Sibyl's a whiny thing but she's meant to be; the polar opposite of the cool and ready to brawl Amanda, Merkel delivers.
Of course we know from the start that neither Victor and Amanda nor Elyot and Sibyl are right for one another (mainly because Shearer and Montgomery are the stars) but the indicators start at their respective weddings. Sibyl, in her formal church wedding, looks absolutely terrified. Victor, in his less formal wedding at the French justice of the peace, is annoyed that children are making a ruckus, while Amanda laughs it off. In their honeymoon suites, Victor is shocked and embarrassed to find Amanda in her lingerie at the dressing table while Sibyl needs constant kisses and reassurances that Elyot loves her. Both of them bring up their new spouse's former partner ad nauseum. Sibyl even asks Elyot if Amanda is prettier than she and Elyot tells Sibyl that Amanda is! All this is within the first fifteen or so minutes of the movie.
Awkward . . .
My favorite scene, however, is when all four newlyweds are sitting around the table in the hotel room Elyot and Amanda have battered, having breakfast. That scene alone, with its comedic timing, is worth watching the picture for.
Private Lives would become the seventh most popular movie in the U.S. in 1931.
Interestingly and yet not surprisingly, Noel Coward disliked this film (as he disliked all Hollywood films adapted from his plays.) Also of interest is that Robert Montgomery claimed that Norma Shearer had one heck of a left hook and knocked him out cold during the fight scene. Don't mess with Norma!
Would I recommend Private Lives to viewers? Absolutely. It's heavier on the fighting than on the romance but you'll not see another Pre-Code like it. Heck, you may not see another film like it.
Warner Archives has Private Lives available; the film shows up on occasion on TCM's rotation.
Ah, how I love my Pre-Codes. There is nothing like them.
The little gem I am talking about today came out a year before my previously discussed film Downstairs but it's just as wild, woolly and fun. I'm talking about Night Nurse, a film that not only told the moviegoing public that oaths (Hippocratic or otherwise) are for sissies but gave us a kimono clad young Clark Gable. Thank you, movie gods.
She may have more than nursing in mind.
One of the amazing things, of which there are many, about Night Nurse is that this was strictly a B film. Barbara Stanwyck would hit it big beginning in 1932 but at the time this film came out, she hadn't yet achieved full prominence. Gable was still an unknown when this was filmed, although the release of A Free Soul in June of 1931 (two months ahead of Night Nurse) had built him a reputation and a growing female following.
As fair warning, spoilers lay ahead!
Night Nurse is about Lora Hart (Stanwyck), an idealistic young woman who is driven to be a nurse by compassion and a genuine desire to help people, lack of experience or education be damned. In what is a swift and nifty bit of exposition, in only a few sentences we get Lora's background. It's the scene in which she tries to get a job at the local hospital, only to be shot down by the bulldog HBIC, who tells us by way of reading over Lora's history that she nursed her sick, now deceased, mother, was unable to graduate high school due to her mother's illness and her grocer wrote her a letter of recommendation. I love this brief scene so much because so many movies and television shows today have forgotten how to do excellent (and subtle) exposition. Instead of light scenes like this, we are hit over the head with an anvil and smacked with a 2x4 by way of forced, unnatural and clunky dialogue. You know what I mean. No forensics tech or detective has to explain to another why they are doing what they are doing or have done (and in such technical terms) unless a camera is there. It's a clunky and painful way to exposit information. This scene is a perfect case study in how not to insult and potentially put the audience to sleep.
Anyhow, back to our film, Our heroine, with the oh-so-appropriate last name, is leaving the hospital, sans job, when she is plowed down by the resident neurosurgeon who likes what he sees and tells the bulldog, who is practically licking his feet, to find Lora a job, which she does. A gum smacking nurse called Maloney (played with absolute bravura by Joan Blondell) is assigned to show Lora the ropes and room with her. This is another thing we learn in Night Nurse - - nurse recruits not only work all the time (one day off a week), they live in what amounts to hospital dorms with check-ins and lights out at certain times. Maloney teaches Lora that interns are scum, that doctors never marry nurses (only interns do that) and nursing is a pretty dirty and often thankless job.
Lyon, Blondell and Stanwyck bonding over a bullet
While both ladies are assigned to the emergency clinic, Lora encounters a gunshot victim (Ben Lyon) she correctly deduces is a bootlegger (he's wearing a silk shirt after all.) She treats him without filing the required police report because he seems like a nice guy (even bootleggers can have a heart, no pun intended) and Maloney offers an assist. Morty is grateful and calls Lora his "pal." He sends her a bottle of rye as a thank you; when she graduates, he sends her an enormous (and kinda tacky) floral arrangement referencing "pal."
Meanwhile, Maloney has gotten a job as a day nurse to two children who were in the hospital for starvation; she arranges for Lora to be their night nurse. This is where she (and we) are introduced to the shady as hell Gable as Nick the chauffeur. Or should I say the "chauffeur," because it's obvious that Nick's duties do not end with parking the car. The children's mother, to whom he reportedly "works," is a worthless pile of permed hair, furs and liquor.
Yes, you are.
On her first night of employ, Lora is assaulted by a drunken associate of Mrs. Ritchey, the mother. She is saved from a possible rape by Nick, who pulls the drunk off her and gives him a wallop. Nick wants for her to treat the Missus; when Lora refuses to do so without a doctor present, Nick gives her a punch that knocks her out. Oh, and he does it while wearing a silky robe which makes it oh so hard to dislike him. Make no mistake, though, Nick is a bad guy.
Lora rightfully returns to the hospital to complain about this treatment, and report Dr. Ranger, the doctor assigned to treat the children, who is clearly on the take. Her kindly benefactor, Dr. Bell, tells her he cannot overstep his bounds with the sleazy Dr. Ranger and, as there is no evidence, nothing can be done but he does encourage Lora to return to the hornets' nest in order to gain evidence and, presumably, protect the children.
He's bad, I know he's bad . . .
This she does, because she is Stanwyck, after all, and everything goes down in a major way immediately. The oldest child is basically dying, the mother is drunk and Morty shows up to do business with Nick. Because Nick's a bad guy. He quickly figures out that Nick is the one that popped Lora and guards both Lora and the children's nanny while they treat the child and call for Dr. Bell, who arrives in time to give the child a blood transfusion with Lora's blood. Lora is going to press charges against Mrs. Ritchey, which will basically end her nursing career (as people apparently will no longer trust a nurse who is not down with negligence) but that's okay because she saved the children and she's got Morty, to boot (no pun intended.)
The film wraps up with Lora driving off into the sunset with Morty and his silk shirts and Morty informing her that she no longer needs to worry about Nick because Morty has friends. Or should I say "friends." Cut to an ambulance pulling into the hospital where Lora worked with the driver saying the stiff inside was "taken for a ride" and he wasn't a bootlegger because he was wearing a chauffeur's uniform. Dum dum DUM! Fade out.
Let's just start with the obvious, shall we? What was going on in the world that Lora would be told to go back to the private residence where she was attacked, assaulted and threatened? That's just crazy. And certainly no endorsement for the police.
As far as lack of endorsements go, I can't see movie audiences of the early 1930s watching Night Nurse and rushing out to join the medical field because it's not shown to be a bastion of morality here. At least one doctor is shown to be on the take, interns are depicted as slimy horndogs not to be trusted and the nurses are the bottom of the totem pole - - disrespected, tired and ultimately jaded. Even Lora, so optimistic and altruistic at the beginning of the film, seems hardened and wise to the world by the end (although we really can't blame her.)
Barbara Stanwyck, as always, is excellent here. She portrays Lora with stars in her eyes in the beginning but who, by the time she meets Morty in the emergency clinic, is able to trade quips and barbs with him, all while cleaning out his gunshot wound. I saw flashes of her upcoming role as Lily Powers in Baby Face when she was dealing with the drunkards as the night nurse. Watching her look with disgust at the children's mother while muttering "You mother . . . " is amazing. You know at least mentally another word follows "mother." It doesn't need to be said because Stanwyck's inflection is everything. I also love her "oh yeah?" retort before she hauls off and socks a drunk right in the kisser. This, my friends, is the essence of the Pre-Code.
Joan Blondell, as previously mentioned, plays Mahoney with bravura. How can you not love Joan? She's the wisecracking girlfriend we all have, need to have or want. She's no nonsense and brings Stanwyck's Lora back down to earth in the beginning. Sadly, while she is front and center during the first half of the film, she almost disappears during the second half; only in the forefront when she's relaying information to Stanwyck in her position as the day nurse. A shame, really.
Ben Lyon was well cast as the bootlegger with the heart of gold (and arm of lead.) He's attractive, without being pretty or over the top, and you can almost understand why Stanwyck's Lora would fall for him. I say almost because let's be honest. He's not a great guy. He's a bootlegger. He's legally a criminal. He has a dangerous job (he's been shot at least once that we know of) which means Lora will be in danger so long as she's with him. It's a fascinating choice that the writer of Night Nurse decided to make Lora's knight in shining armor a bootlegger rather than a rich playboy (Franchot Tone in Dancing Lady) or attorney (Franchot Tone in Midnight Mary; Franchot Tone in Sadie McKee.) Wow, Franchot Tone got around, didn't he? But I digress. We, as the audience, are supposed to be happy that Lora ends up with a bootlegger. Which is better than ending up with a toe tag or with the lascivious Nick who would either starve you, run you over with a car or pimp you out but still.
Gable's role as Nick is a supporting one and he is most definitely not seen on screen enough. Yeah, I'm a Gable fan. He's a terrible person but you can understand how he gets the ladies because damn if he isn't totally hot. He isn't confrontational with Lora from the first moment but he absolutely takes control and tells her how it's going to be. When he socks her, we are in no doubt as to how shady he is; when he's carrying her from the room, we are left wondering whether he's going to take her for a ride or give her a ride on the Gable Express. He dumps her on a sofa in her own room but he does stand by, watching her. Again, he's a bad guy but the sexual undertones . . . yowza.
As a major plot point in the film involves the attempted murder of children, Night Nurse is a gritty film. These children are the only two characters in the film who aren't jaundiced and cynical about life. The wealthy are presented as aimless drunkards who only care about money and the next party; the criminals are on the make; and some of the medical practitioners are little above the criminal element themselves.
That said, the film is insanely enjoyable and occurs in a relatively skimpy seventy-two minutes. But what a ride! Pop some popcorn, grab a drink and buckle up for an enjoyable Pre-Code experience.
Night Nurse is available on DVD through TCM Archives Forbidden Hollywood Collection and shows up on occasion in TCM's rotation.
For your enjoyment, here is a clip of the infamous "oh yeah?" and "You mother . . . " scene.
As a rabid Joan Crawford and Clark Gable fan, Laughing Sinners is required viewing; not because it's an exceptional film but because their chemistry is fantastic.
The plot line of Laughing Sinners is incredibly threadbare. Cabaret performer Ivy Stevens, played by Crawford, is having an affair with salesman Howard Palmer and worse, she's fallen in love with him. Worse because not only does he have the nickname "Howdy" but he has no intention of making an honest woman out of Ivy. When he dumps her after a particular heartfelt performance of "(What Can I Do) I Love That Man," Ivy decides to end it all by throwing herself off a bridge. Carl Loomis (Gable), a Salvation Army officer, saves her and convinces her to join the Army. A year later, she has redeemed herself and is happy so of course Howdy is going to reenter her life. She falls for his smooth speech and seems to be enticed to go back to the life of being the other woman (since Howdy is now married) before she realizes that Carl is the man for her.
This is pretty formulaic stuff and frankly, there's no problem with that. As unbelievable as the story may be, it's thoroughly enjoyable due to its short run time (a sparse 72 minutes) and the cinematic gold of Crawford and Gable.
John Mack Brown - what could have been
Initially the film was to have been made with John Mack Brown in the Loomis role. Who? you may be saying. Mr. Brown may have lacked the charisma of Clark Gable but he was a pretty popular actor back in the day. He had been a star football player at the University of Alabama, being inducted into the Hall of Fame and lauded by Pop Warner. His appearance on a Wheaties box led him to Hollywood and his good looks got him noticed around the studios and led to acting jobs, with MGM grooming him to be a major star. He had appeared with Crawford in Our Dancing Daughters and was probably better suited to the role here. In fact, the majority of the filming had already been completed with Brown and Crawford when Louis B. Mayer, recognizing the chemistry Gable had with Crawford onscreen in their first pairing (Dance, Fools, Dance the previous year) gave Brown the boot and scrapped the footage. Ouch. This would prove to be the end of Brown's career as a leading man in mainstream features; he would be relegated to cowboy B pictures, change his name to Johnny Mack Brown and have a forty year career.
Our Joan with Marjorie Rambeau
This film was Gable's seventh - - SEVENTH - - of 1931. And he would appear in a total of fourteen. Madness. But it also tells you how incredibly popular he got, incredibly quickly. He does what he can with the part of Carl Loomis, who seems nearly too good to be true. Would he really have spent a year with Ivy and never put the moves on her? (With that chemistry, I'm thinking not!) Even though it's not one of his better roles, Gable sizzles on the screen. You simply cannot take your eyes off him and I'm not speaking just because of how he looks in that Salvation Army uniform (and he looks good.) Laughing Sinners is a clear indicator that Clark Gable possessed the magic to make one a superstar.
Neil Hamilton as the sleazy Howdy does a fine job. Howdy does remind me, to a degree, of Alan, the character he played in Strangers May Kiss, released a month prior to this film. Alan doesn't seem to be as intentionally sleazy as Howdy (and also isn't saddled with a patently ridiculous nickname.) Hamilton was a good, solid actor and he was solid here. He has strong chemistry with Crawford, which makes the viewer understand (at least at the beginning) why she fell for him.
Marjorie Rambeau makes a fun and funny Ruby, a dancing friend of Ivy's. Interestingly, Rambeau also appeared in the aforementioned Strangers May Kiss with Neil Hamilton and she would share the screen again with Joan Crawford twenty-two years later in Torch Song . . . in which she played Joan's mother! Seriously, folks, you cannot make this up.
Who should she choose?
The real star of the film, of course, is Our Joan. The viewer gets to see her dancing a few numbers, as well as sing. Her singing isn't bad and you can definitely hear the future strong and enunciated voice of the Joan Crawford of the 1940s and 1950s. She turns in a fine performance as the devil-may-care cabaret girl before turning to a reformed Salvation Army employee. Her tone and voice itself changes as well as her demeanor. On a purely shallow note, she looks stunning (perhaps because of her affair with Gable which reportedly either started or was progressing during this film.)
The movie was produced in February of 1931 and released at the end of May, also in 1931. They did not mess around in those days, did they? It made MGM a tidy profit ($156,000, which is about $2.5 million in today's dollars) and led to further film pairings of Crawford and Gable.
Laughing Sinners is available on DVD and it pops up every now and again on TCM's schedule.
Let's talk about this dress for just a moment. It's a Chanel (but of course) and La Swanson wore it for the film Tonight or Never in 1931. I love the halter like bodice with the keyhole front design. And the winged sleeves! When did that go out of style? Tragic. Glamorous Gloria wears the hell out of it - - of course, Ms. Swanson wore the hell out of everything she ever deigned to put on.
Here is another shot of this lovely dress. We are dealing with black and white stills but I'm guessing this dress was also a very stylish black. You simply cannot go wrong with a black dress, can you? Gloria knows it too. Just look at her expression; girlfriend knows she's a badass. Anyone who actually marries a Marquis can absolutely get away with that.
As this was in 1931, Art Deco was all the rage. Love, love, LOVE Art Deco. The fireplace is stunning. I love the inlaid design and the rounded edges. Do you see the ornate iron work of the grate? Check out the paneled mirrored wall in the second snap. Work it, Gloria. Nothing quite like a perfume bottle with an atomizer.
One thing that you may overlook but is simply fab is the door behind Ms. Swanson. No simple trim for this lady. Those Deco lines do her justice. And check out the design on the actual door. People in the 30s knew how to live. I think we need to bring those designs back.
However, TCM being what it is and my stubborn streak being what it is, I gave the film another chance and upon my second viewing (and those thereafter), I found a certain charm to the movie. The chemistry between the two leads truly sells it but looking at it as a comedy, a pre-screwball comedy before there was such a thing, shines a new and improved light on it.
