A few days ago, I was fortunate enough to see Marion Davies in The Floradora Girl, a precode delight made a year before Five and Ten, a film full of zippy verve and romance, the kind of thing that Marion was really good at, getting into scrapes and hobnobbing with fellow chorus girls to figure out how to land a man.
This film also deals with how to land a man, but the man in this film is Leslie Howard, who seems ill-matched for the puckish quality of fun and frolic that shows Marion at her best; the pair comes close a few times to becoming more than puppets dealing with a slow-paced script, but the seems to be little real passion or give and take between them, instead a sort of scripted mooning that often brings the thing to a halt.
Among other things, the script deals with the problems of the nouveau-riche attempting to establish themselves into established society, and as a sidelight, the insensitivity of Marion's father, one of the most successful businessmen in New York, (played by Richard Bennet, so memorable some ten years later in Orson Welles' Magnificent Ambersons) losing his wife from inattention as well as alienating a son by insisting the kid become part of the new family empire, regardless of interest. Douglass Montgomery, listed in the film as "Kent Douglas," moons and mopes through most of the picture as an unmoored zombie, with a final scene that is ultimately just the opposite of its intention.
Five and Ten is not a bona-fide stinker, but much of it is a chore, and though it's always fascinating to watch Marion Davies try various character hats on, somebody forgot to give her a script not so gloomy and stage-bound and one more suited to her considerable skills as a comedienne.
This film also deals with how to land a man, but the man in this film is Leslie Howard, who seems ill-matched for the puckish quality of fun and frolic that shows Marion at her best; the pair comes close a few times to becoming more than puppets dealing with a slow-paced script, but the seems to be little real passion or give and take between them, instead a sort of scripted mooning that often brings the thing to a halt.
Among other things, the script deals with the problems of the nouveau-riche attempting to establish themselves into established society, and as a sidelight, the insensitivity of Marion's father, one of the most successful businessmen in New York, (played by Richard Bennet, so memorable some ten years later in Orson Welles' Magnificent Ambersons) losing his wife from inattention as well as alienating a son by insisting the kid become part of the new family empire, regardless of interest. Douglass Montgomery, listed in the film as "Kent Douglas," moons and mopes through most of the picture as an unmoored zombie, with a final scene that is ultimately just the opposite of its intention.
Five and Ten is not a bona-fide stinker, but much of it is a chore, and though it's always fascinating to watch Marion Davies try various character hats on, somebody forgot to give her a script not so gloomy and stage-bound and one more suited to her considerable skills as a comedienne.