User Reviews

And what these women need is a cure from men! Three working girls face trouble from, not only their male customers, but the men introduced to them outside of work. One of the girls (Joyce Compton), convinced she will never be able to make ends meet, takes an offer to be an escort for out of town clients of one of her customers, which is actually a prostitution ring. When one of the clients makes an extortion complaint against her, she is arrested and must prove her innocence. Her roommate (Barbara Kent), determined to help her out of this jam, agrees to marry another one of her clients, a jovial older heavyset man who obviously only wants companionship and nothing else. Like Cole Porter's witty lyrics for "I Hate Men" in "Kiss Me Kate", "He'll stay at home at night and make no criticism. Though you may call it love, the doctors call it rheumatism". Will she go through this loveless marriage or turn to the man she really loves (John Harron) who could provide for her and take her out of her miserable existence?

This pre-code drama of the plights of young women in the depression is fast-moving and pretty racy. These young ladies are determined to hang onto their virtue, not willing to become "breakfast guests" for the lecherous men they encounter at their work. The only real sleaze-bag of the men is Wheeler Oakman as the "pimp", while Compton's one "client" is actually a quiet milquetoast who wasn't looking for the sleazy events that Oakman set him up for. Even the portly old man Kent is forced to grovel to in order to help Compton shows a sweetness and heart of gold under his seemingly lecherous persona. Character actor favorites Mischa Auer and Mary Gordon have small roles. Risqué dialog abound, this was also an early director credit for veteran Richard Thorpe who would slowly move from the B's all the way up to MGM.

Beautiful Barbara Kent started out as a bland ingénue, then was given the lead in "Lonesome" (1928) a film with similarities to "The Crowd" in it's depiction of ordinary people looking for happiness in a hustle and bustle world. Unfortunately it was made during the changeover to sound when everything was in flux - she became Harold Lloyd's leading lady in his first two sound films. She could have sunk but the early thirties saw her busiest period when she re-emerged as a "nice" leading lady - her role of Amelia to vixenish Myrna Loy as Becky Sharpe in "Vanity Fair" was typical. Joining her in "Beauty Parlour", which in plot resembled a very poor man's "Our Blushing Brides", was Joyce Compton. She usually didn't get main parts but her role as Joan (O.B.B's Dorothy Sebastian) was a good one. She and pal Sally (Kent) are manicurists in the hotel's beauty shop but whereas Sally spends the day fending off persistent romeos, Joan encourages them. Not so wise as Sally, she is sucked into an escort racket when she is dazzled by a client's lavish wallet display. His name is Freemont (Wheeler Oakman) who along with his wife has a racket going along the old "pick up a wealthy patron, slip him a mickey finn and when he wakes up in the morning he has some explaining to do" line. One drugged patron is different, he has already gone to the police and Joan is up to her ears in trouble. The Freemonts have skipped town and Joan is being held on $10,000 bail - what's a girl to do?? Call her equally poor friend Sally of course who has been playing a cat and mouse game with Jeffrey Colt (John Harron) who is wealthy and eager for matrimony. Sally has been giving him the air but now when she really needs him he is out of town - so she has to fall back on an elderly beauty parlour client who also wants to hear wedding bells!!!

Dorothy Reiver is Mrs. Freeman and no-one in the movie could compare to her in beauty. Like Kent, talkies proved no hurdle to her and she was in great demand in those early sound days. Her forte was vamps and molls and this movie gave her a small but showy part proving bad girls had more fun - until they were caught!!

By the humble standards of director Richard Thorpe, this is an amazing entry. It's superbly directed and tells us that Thorpe was actually a lousy director by choice, rather than accident. Mind you, James Mason did put me on the right track many years ago when he told me that he almost flubbed one of his lines in The Prisoner of Zenda and asked Thorpe to re-shoot the scene. To Mason's surprise, Thorpe refused and told Mason he was quite happy with the way the scene had been played, "But I can do better than that!" Mason argued. "Much better!" Thorpe then went into his saving-the-studio- money routine which both Mason and I thought was simply a put-down. Anyway, Mason told his fellow thespians and they all agreed to send the movie up by playing all their roles tongue-in-cheek. Thorpe not only made no attempt to stop them, he appeared not to notice. Anyway, Mason and I agreed that Thorpe was simply a hack who could tell no difference between good acting and bad. But this little film proves that we were way wrong. Thorpe was actually a very clever artisan who could not only elicit superb performances from his players but move the plot along briskly with bright camera movements, seductive close-ups and speedy delivery. In short, Beauty Parlor is essential viewing. The plot moves along briskly and the players, headed by Joyce Compton, Barbara Kent and frisky, overweight Albert Gran (who died in the same year this film was released), are all marvelous. This movie is available on a very good Alpha DVD.