Reviews

If Baxton is going to use a dispute between 2 of the squatters on his land to get rid of them, shouldn't he try to make it appear as if the two squatters shot each other? Maybe Baxton, like a lot of the criminals on this show, just isn't very smart.

Going along with it, did Baxton put his wife up to killing the other 2 squatters? Does he shoot his wife on purpose or by accident? It would have been better if he did do it by accident, but the confused script seems to imply that he did on purpose. So the theme of the lengths a woman will go to for someone she loves is overshadowed by what a monster Baxton is.

This show does have a nice scene between Matt and Kitty at the start where they are all smiles around each other.

This might have been a stronger film without the Ginger Rogers character, definitely a darker one.

The true star here is Marian Nixon, directed by her future husband William Seiter; they'd marry a year later in 1934. She gives a great performance, looking sexy and beautiful while keeping her shallow character believable. I didn't think she'd have it in her after seeing her as the good girl in "Winner Take All" (1932) and "After Tomorrow" (1932).

The movie seems to be mocking the upper class, showing that their values are not only different from average Americans, but are also shallow, and even downright evil. All this is embodied in the character Nixon plays. Nixon tries to be a wife to average Joe Joel McCrea, but she's can't quite do it; she constantly calls on good girl Rogers to bail her out. I love how her failure is reflected in her dress; from the front, she looks like an average housewife, dressed in a flower-printed frock; from the back, her true self comes out -- she's completely topless, wearing short black bottoms, a sight only to be found in a pre-code movie. It seems clear that her only attraction to McCrea in the first place was physical/sexual. At the end, not only does she fail as a wife, she doesn't even want to be a mother; she gets an abortion and returns to her old life. Perhaps the abortion is a metaphor for the lengths that that class as a whole will go to preserve their privileges and fun.

The movie flows better than the original. It also features quite a bevy of beauties in Virginia Bruce, Ann Dvorak, and Rita Johnson. All bring their A game to this B picture.

Rita Johnson made 3 B films with Walter Pidgeon in 1939. Their first film together, 6,000 Enemies, has Rita playing Pidgeon's put-upon love interest, unjustly imprisoned. After seeing her in that movie, where she acts all innocent, demure and heroic, this film was quite a revelation; she just smolders as a vamp, especially in the scene on the train.

Virginia Bruce made 2 B films with Pidgeon in 1939; I prefer this one to their other one together, Society Lawyer; the acting and story are better. Virigina Bruce was one of the most exquisite beauties of the era. She really shines here, giving one of her better acting performances.

Ann Dvorak steals the movie. She is here directed by her then husband. She really makes you feel her character, especially in the climatic courtroom scene. It was great to see her in a B film that actually showcased her talents. It's a shame she was relegated to B pictures by the late 30s; she could have done so much more.

This screwball comedy has a naughty little premise behind it. A man discovers he isn't legally married and decides not to tell his wife. He'd rather be with her as if she were his mistress and have sex without the benefit of marriage. He finds the idea to be thrilling and exciting. Why he does isn't addressed. Perhaps the idea of defying society's conventions, or maybe the idea of gaining more power over his wife; a man can easily dump a mistress at any time; a wife, there's a long, messy divorce to deal with. Also, there's the sexual element behind it too; presumably sex with a mistress is more thrilling than sex with a wife.

The wife finds out and dumps the husband for trying to turn her into that kind of woman. She dates his law partner, a true Southern gentleman who's entirely prim and proper and would never think of touching a woman before marriage. In the end, the wife finds their relationship unfulfilling, especially when he does not resort to violence to protect her honor. She dumps him and turns back to her hubby, a "real man." It's interesting that the movie ends with the husband getting exactly what he wants, sex with his wife before marriage. In effect, despite his wife's long protest, he wins; he now takes her as his mistress. This is a sex comedy where the man entirely gets his way; his sex dream is realized.

Questions this film asks: does one really have to wait for marriage to have sex? Is it better to have a wife or a mistress? The film also offers insight into the different social standards of the higher and lower class, especially in the scene at the upscale nightclub where Montgomery is embarrassed to be with low-brow Jack Carson and the two low-brow dames Carson brings with him.

Overall, the cast is good, though the three principles all show signs of premature aging. It's interesting to watch movies of the early 40s and see what's become of stars from the late 20s and early 30s. Some are still stars, like Montgomery and Lombard. Others are fading to character status like Gene Raymond. He's almost unrecognizable in dyed black hair as the type of character Ralph Bellamy plays so well in films like "The Awful Truth" and "His Girl Friday"; it's a far cry from Raymond's leading man days of the early 1930s. Saddest of all is to see what happened to another leading lady of the late 20s, Betty Compson. A star from the great 1928 film "The Docks of New York," she's truly unrecognizable here as the beat-up, low-class hag Gertie.

Norman Krasna's script is serviceable, with a number of truly funny lines and scenes, mostly avoiding the sort of cliché-riddled, unfunny, idiotic cuteness that makes the 1943 film "Princess O'Rourke" so intolerable, a film for which Krasna inexplicably won the Academy Award for best screenplay. The first half of the film is the best half, before the focus shifts to Lombard and the boring Raymond. Hitchcock is serviceable too, though anyone could have directed this film. Obviously, Hitch didn't have the gift of an Ernst Lubitsch when it came to sex comedies. Neither did anyone else, and at least Hitch here makes no pretense as to having the "Lubitsch touch," unlike Billy Wilder, who failed numerous times in trying to recreate it, in movies like "Sabrina"(1954). "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" does deal with some domestic themes that Hitch is particularly fond of though, namely the battle of the sexes and the husband getting his way in the end.

Coming a year after Rebecca (1940), this film pales in comparison, particularly in the art direction and production design. If they wanted to do a film with a similarity to Rebecca, just without the budget, the least they could have done was to keep the story daring. The original idea behind it, of a female murder victim telling her story, of how, "before the fact," she started to become dimly aware that her husband wanted to kill her, and that at the end, she was even complicit in it, is interesting. It's unfortunate the producers didn't stick with this original idea all the way to the end. Instead, the woman is not murdered and her husband is never a murderer!

As told on screen, the story has several holes, with the motivation of the characters not being fully explained. For instance, Joan Fontaine's character is supposedly so in love with Grant's; why then does she assume so quickly that Grant will resort to murdering his best friend? Sure, he's lied, cheated and stole, but murder? What benefit does murdering his friend give him? Apparently none, since soon after the deed, Fontaine finds out that Grant needs more money and is trying to borrow from her life insurance policy; she then assumes he will kill her! Overall, Fontaine's character and performance are less believable here than in Rebecca.

The main problem with the film is the casting of Cary Grant. Through the mid-40s, Grant was known for taking a number of odd roles, roles that were different from his usual screen persona, in an attempt not to be typecast. Sometimes, like in Gunga Din, he succeeded. Others, like in The Talk of the Town, he was merely all right. And still others, he didn't succeed at all. Suspicion falls into this latter category. Grant plays the dark side too broadly. He gives an almost bipolar or manic depressive performance. For the moments where he's supposed to be happy and charming, he's the typical Cary Grant; for when he's supposed to be mean and dangerous, it's obvious he's mean and dangerous; he just clams up and gives an evil eye. A little more subtlety would have helped. Perhaps still have him be charming while being mean and murderous?

But another problem was audience acceptance. Audiences probably wouldn't have accepted seeing Cary Grant as a mean murderer. The producers were fully aware of this; hence the compromised solution of making Grant innocent in the end.

Thus, with Grant, the film just wasn't allowed to fully realize its potential or original idea. The producers felt the audience wouldn't accept it, and they were probably right. Perhaps with a different actor in the role, say Ray Milland or Fredric March, the audience would have been more willing and perhaps the producers wouldn't have changed the ending of the film, or maybe they would at least have left it ambiguous as to whether Johnnie was a murderer and as to whether or not he did kill his wife. This would have been much more interesting than what we got.

While Marion Nixon is OK playing the lead role, she's kind of doing a Janet Gaynor impersonation. Perhaps the movie would have been even stronger with the genuine article. But again Nixon is good; my previous experience with her was seeing her in the Cagney film "Winner Takes All" (1932), where she's a blonde.

The film is good, highlighted with a striking performance by the great Minna Gombell as Nixon's mother. The film is beautifully lit, especially during the scene where Farrell and Nixon playfully wrestle and end up on top of each other; the lighting just oozes sex; definitely a Borzage touch.

The film broaches the idea of pre-marital sex (going away together for a "holiday" as Nixon euphemistically puts it), but like most other pre-code movies, firmly supports the traditional morality of waiting until marriage. But perhaps the victory is in even broaching the subject at all.

Janet Gaynor goes against type in this one, playing an unsympathetic character who's completely self-absorbed. Her character has the hots for another man, but for some reason still ends up marrying Charles Farrell. She then spends the rest of the movie nudging and nagging him to get rich so she can live her dream of traveling the world, and when he seems to fail, doubts and undercuts him.

The crux of the film is a sequence involving preparation for a dinner for Farrell's business associate and then the dinner itself. The film is based on a stage play of which presumably this was the main act. During it, Farrell & Gaynor's characters squabble amongst themselves, whining and complaining about everything, giving a most unglamorous impression of what it's like to be married after the first year, when the honeymoon's over. Also appearing in this scene is the fun Minna Gombell as the wise-cracking wife of Farrell's business associate. The scene also features a white actress in black-face portraying a slow maid, Leila Bennett, who was Loretta Young's friend in the Cagney vehicle "Taxi!" (1932).

A different type of role for Gaynor, and the squabbling, unsympathetic portrait of a year old marriage, make this an interesting movie. The only thing missing is a comeuppance for Gaynor's character; despite being a bitch, she still gets to live happily ever after!

"The Man with Two Faces" is a film that takes the Svengali legend and adds a twist to it in the form of the avenging brother of the entranced girl. It showcases Edward G. Robinson, who is excellent, as an actor who impersonates another man in order to rid his sister of her deadbeat, Svengali-like husband, played by Louis Calhern. Calhern is also showcased and is less successful in his portrayal, giving a performance with little charisma or magnetism, making it hard to believe that a woman like Mary Astor would be drawn to him like a mindless lap dog.

Everyone else in the cast is wasted, including Ricardo Cortez, who might have been a better choice for the deadbeat husband than Calhern. Especially wasted are the two leading women in the film, Mary Astor and Mae Clark. They're given such demeaning roles, with so little screen time, it's a wonder they ever accepted them. Astor is Robinson's sister, a woman whose husband turns her into an extreme, overdone version of Trilby. She dutifully obeys him no matter his demeaning demand. Astor plays it like an automaton; she's emotionless, numb, blank, almost in a trance, probably what got her through this. Pretty Mae Clark plays Robinson's girlfriend, an extraneous character who is ignored, ridiculed, beaten, and keeps coming back for more.

This film suffers from an almost terminal lack of humor and an unwise concentration on Calhern and his character. Having Robinson be a sympathetic murderer who poisons and stabs his victim and almost gets away with it is interesting though. (Too bad he didn't. One wonders, though, if he's such a genius how he could end up leaving his fake mustache behind inside a Gideon Bible!) And the make-up on Robinson when he's impersonating a French businessman is excellent; you can hardly tell it's him. All in all, a 6/10.