If this movie got better in the second half, I didn't find out about it. Loosely based on the "royal" Barrymores who reigned on Broadway in the early 20th century, Ina Claire, Henrietta Crosman, and Fredric March play an eccentric, dramatic family of actors and actresses. Having come from a theatrical background myself, my patience wore through pretty thin, since I've known people like that. I can't imagine how quickly a non-theater person would have turned the movie off.
Mary Brian is sick of her family's ups and downs, so she considers marrying her regular boyfriend instead of continuing a life onstage. Naturally, her family doesn't support her decision, because it threatens their own decisions. From what I saw, the actors were talking nonstop, as they often did in early talkies, losing their tempers at the drop of a hat, shouting about nothing, and being very theatrical. The only scene of any consequence that I saw was Fredric March's shower scene, because it would never have passed the Hays Code four years later-maybe that's why he was nominated for Best Actor for this movie! He plays a caricature of John Barrymore, and he has many conquests and drunken episodes that make his backstage life even more entertaining than his onstage personas. In one scene, he's entertaining his family with a lengthy gossip story, and during his monologue, he takes off his clothes. Clark Gable may have received all the hype about not wearing an undershirt in It Happened One Night, but Fredric March didn't wear one either in 1930. Only when he unbuttons his boxers does he sneak out of view from the camera, but the entire family gathers around the glass shower to continue to listen to his story, and the shower door frequently opens. . .
Besides that, the movie isn't very shocking, or interesting. But if you like loud early talkies like Bombshell, you'll probably really like it. I don't usually like that style.
Mary Brian is sick of her family's ups and downs, so she considers marrying her regular boyfriend instead of continuing a life onstage. Naturally, her family doesn't support her decision, because it threatens their own decisions. From what I saw, the actors were talking nonstop, as they often did in early talkies, losing their tempers at the drop of a hat, shouting about nothing, and being very theatrical. The only scene of any consequence that I saw was Fredric March's shower scene, because it would never have passed the Hays Code four years later-maybe that's why he was nominated for Best Actor for this movie! He plays a caricature of John Barrymore, and he has many conquests and drunken episodes that make his backstage life even more entertaining than his onstage personas. In one scene, he's entertaining his family with a lengthy gossip story, and during his monologue, he takes off his clothes. Clark Gable may have received all the hype about not wearing an undershirt in It Happened One Night, but Fredric March didn't wear one either in 1930. Only when he unbuttons his boxers does he sneak out of view from the camera, but the entire family gathers around the glass shower to continue to listen to his story, and the shower door frequently opens. . .
Besides that, the movie isn't very shocking, or interesting. But if you like loud early talkies like Bombshell, you'll probably really like it. I don't usually like that style.