Just some films from the 1930s, including a couple by Dorothy Arzner.

Devil and The Deep (1932), directed by Marion Gering. This film boasts Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton, and the inimitable Tallulah Bankhead. It also boasts a submarine that sinks to the bottom of the ocean (Oh wait, to the bottom of the deep blue sea); inside are a number of sailors, along with an axe-wielding Laughton and Ms. Bankhead and Cooper. Oh, and above water, the action takes place in some faraway exotic place where men dance and swing and night brings alluring goings-on. The plot hardly matters in this over-heated melodrama, but I can tell you this: Laughton as submarine commander Charles Sturm brings a lot of Sturm und Drang to his role of the jealous and psychotic husband, while Gary Cooper stands around wondering how he got here. As for Cary Grant, he appears for about 10 minutes and yet he receives third billing in the opening credits. Ms. Bankhead performs the abused wife well enough. As for the bit in the sunken submarine, this is noteworthy and engaging for being preposterous. The cinematography by Charles Lang is fine, but the sets and toy boat invite us to chuckle and we do. As a pre-code production, the film does offer us the following bit: a woman in a nightclub says to Diana (Bankhead), “You probably heard me say that I’d very much like to spank you!” In reply, Diana raises an eyebrow and says, “I should imagine that few things would give you greater pleasure.”

 

Hot Saturday (1932), directed by William A. Seiter. This pre-code outing from Paramount has Cary Grant as a rich playboy, Romer Sheffield, who has a summer home on the lake in a small community. He has his eye on local bank clerk, Ruth Brock (Nancy Carroll). So too does another bank employee, Connie Billop (Edward Woods). Then we have local boy returning home, Bill Fadden (Randolph Scott). Bill too has eyes for Ruth. When a local gal sees Ruth returning home in the middle of the night, driven by Romer’s chauffeur, the rumour mill begins working and soon Ruth is the bad girl of town and fired from her job. The film has one daring scene in a cave when Bill, who has found Ruth passed out in a ravine and soaking wet, carries Ruth to his cave (he is staying there for work as a geologist – or something like that) and undresses her while she sleeps. Another scene has Ruth wrestle the underwear off her sister Annie (Rose Coghlan). The film deals with risqué subjects. The actors are fine, Nancy Carroll reminding me of Claudette Colbert. Grady Sutton (someone I know as Og Oggilby from The Bank Dick - 1940) also turns up. The location shooting by cinematographer Arthur Todd is impressive. As pre-code films go, this one is pretty nifty.

 

Merrily We Go to Hell (1932), directed by Dorothy Arzner. When, at her wedding to Jerry (Frederic March), Joan (Sylvia Sidney) discovers the ring Jerry has placed on her finger is the end of a corkscrew, she should realize the mistake she has made. This is a film about alcoholism, patriarchy, money and inequality, and open marriage. This is strong stuff for 1932. Arzner brings a sure hand to her examination of posh living late in the prohibition era. The film’s credits play on a theatre marquee and the lights that dazzle on the edge of the marquee serve as the merry signal of Hell. Going to Hell merrily, the people we meet suffer from a system that demands success and success demands performing specific roles, roles that set out what each gender may or may not do. Both Jerry and Joan struggle of free themselves from societal constraints, and this struggle leaves them with little but each other. When they first meet, Jerry sings a wee ditty to Joan: “First she gave me gingerbread and then she gave me cake; and then she gave me crème de menthe for meeting her at the gate.” Joan gives Jerry gingerbread and cake, but he finds the crème de menthe himself and fails to meet her at the gate. For much of the film, Jerry is inebriated and he is usually late or does not appear at all. The portrait of marriage here is not bright and cheerful. Quite the opposite. Arzner, the only woman director in 1930s Hollywood, offers a devastating look at marriage. The acting is nuanced, sharp, and believable. This is as good as it gets in pre-code Hollywood.

 

Christopher Strong (1933), directed by Dorothy Arzner. Perhaps not the best of Arzner’s films, Christopher Strong nevertheless has some amazing moments. The most famous of these moments occurs when Katharine Hepburn as Lady Cynthia Darrington enters a room dressed as a moth. She moves toward Sir Christopher Strong (Colin Clive) like a moth to a flame. Sir Christopher is a politician and a happily married man with an adult daughter, Monica (Helen Chandler, also seen as Lucy in Browning’s Dracula). Cynthia and Christopher’s affair is what controls the narrative. Sir Christopher’s wife Elaine (Billie Burke – yes Glinda from Oz) remains steadfast if sorrowful at the wandering of her husband. Another amazing moment occurs when Cynthia and Christopher make love. The love scene takes place before our eyes, but in a remarkably delicate manner. The camera stays on Cynthia’s ringed finger while the lovers talk just off screen. For 1933, this was a daring scene. What most impresses, however, is Hepburn wearing her aviatrix clothes, her jodhpurs, her voluminous coat, her long buttoned gown, and so on. The story has to do with marriage, fidelity, infidelity, independence, and the vagaries of the human heart. Of course, Cynthia and Christopher’s love cannot end well. Echoes of Amelia Earhart. This was Hepburn’s second film and first as lead; she carries the film.

Hôtel du Nord (1938), directed by Marcel Carne. Opening with a dinner scene celebrating a first communion and ending with a street scene of dancing and music on Bastille Day, this film takes us into the lives of the people who live and work in the titular hotel. This hotel is situated by the

Canal St. Martin in Paris, although the whole film is shot on a set, a magnificent set. Between the opening and closing festivities, we have two young lovers who attempt suicide together, a woman of the streets who switches partners, her pimp who is chased by a couple of gangsters, the lock operator whose wife cheats on him, the two owners of the hotel, and an assortment of other members of the common people. These various people give us romance, tragedy, comedy, and the stuff of life lived well. Carne’s fluid camera and carefully nuanced lighting and thoughtful angles work to deliver the famous poetic realism. The film begins and ends with two lovers, yes the same two who attempted double suicide, seated on the same park bench giving the film a neatly circular construction. Among the cast are such luminaries as Arletty (playing Raymonde the street walker), Annabella (playing the young lover Renee), Jean-Pierre Aumont (the other young lover Pierre), and Louis Jouvet (playing the pimp Edmond). Jouvet’s performance is especially noteworthy as this callous low life manages to redeem himself finding love, an impossible love, but love nonetheless. This is a film not to be missed.

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), directed by Robert Florey. This is one of the first round of sound horror features by Universal Studios and the cinematographer is Karl Freund who served as lighting person on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The Caligari connection will let you know that Murders in the Rue Morgue looks good, as good as any of the more famous flicks from that studio such as Dracula and Frankenstein. In fact, the sets here just may be more impressive. The plot, loosely based on the Poe story, has demented Dr. Mirakle (Bela Lugosi) trying to find a woman whose blood is suitable for mating with Erik, the gorilla. Yes, you heard that right. Mirakle believes the mixing of human and ape blood will prove evolution. He also believes he communicates with Erik and that Erik desires a wife. The film has echoes of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and even King Kong. Most impressive to me is the good – or mad – doctor’s laboratory that looks as if it had been designed by Rube Goldberg. We also have a fellow named Leon Waycoff playing our young hero, Pierre Dupin. Waycoff later becomes the more recognizable Leon Ames. Charles Gemora (uncredited) plays Erik, and plays him convincingly. The film has style. For sure.

 

The Sphinx (1933), directed by Phil Rosen. This is a Monogram cheapie, but it manages to maintain interest. In short, we have a series of murders, a couple of which have witnesses who spoke with the murderer. Both witnesses identify the murderer as a wealthy philanthropist who happens to be a deaf mute. The mystery here is how this person who has medical doctors certify that he cannot speak because his vocal cords have been sliced can get away with the murders. He fools ace reporter Jerry Crane (Sheila Terry) who takes a shine to the accused but exonerated Mr. Breem (Lionel Atwill). Another reporter and Jerry’s boyfriend at the outset of things, Jack Burton (Theodore Newton), is convinced that the suave Mr. Breem is, in fact, the culprit. Along for the ride are familiar faces such as Paul Hurst, Hooper Atchley, Paul Fix, Ernie Adams, and a shaven and uncredited George ‘Gabby’ Hayes. This is one of Monogram’s better efforts. Efficient and quite well scripted.

 

The Crime of Dr. Crespi (1935), directed by John Auer. Based on the Edgar Allan Poe story, "The Premature Burial," The Crime of Dr. Crespi is a creepy study of obsession. Filmed with an eye for expressionistic lighting and angles, Dr. Crespi stars Erich von Stroheim as the titular doctor who has taken to drink as he obsesses over the loss of his loved Estelle Ross (Harriet Russell) to his rival, Dr. Stephen Ross (John Bohn). Fate allows him to exact a fiendish revenge on this rival, and Crespi arranges for Ross to be buried alive. Of course things do not work out as Crespi hopes. For one thing, another doctor, Dr. Thomas (Dwight Frye – yes Renfield in Dracula) discovers Crespi’s skullduggery. Thomas and another colleague dig up the buried Ross, and low and behold, Ross sits up, then walks about. Oh dear. Soon the walking dead confronts Crespi. You know what happens, don’t you. Perhaps not. The film ends on Crespi’s terms, although these terms are rather dire. All in all, this is a creepy, effective little film. Erich von Stroheim is a nasty piece of work, snapping and even yelling at the people he works with. The atmosphere here is impressive. Films like this demonstrate that the low budgets of Poverty Row need not be an impediment to quality flicks.

 

Condemned to Live (1935), directed by Frank R. Strayer. This low budget vampire flick aspires to the look and feel of Universal’s Dracula, but does not quite make it. What it has going for it is the presence of a sympathetic vampire. Professor Paul Kristan (Ralph Morgan) is a local hero for his good work among the poor of a village, wherever this village may be. Sadly, years ago his mother, while in deepest Africa for some reason, was bitten by a large bat while sojourning in a cave. The result is the strange affliction her son suffers when he is an adult. The stress of overwork produces terrible headaches, which in turn lead to a loss of consciousness during which Paul becomes a horrible vampire. We have something of a Jekyll and Hyde situation, although Paul does not know what happens when he blacks out. Of course, we have a young women, Marguerite Mane (Maxine Doyle), who is betrothed to the good professor. She will marry him out of admiration, despite being very much attracted to local boy David (Russell Gleason) who desires to marry her. And of course, as things transpire, the fiendish nature of the Professor nearly does poor Marguerite in. Through all this, the loyal servant, hunchback Zan (Mischa Auer), tried to protect his master, the good professor, even going so far as to falsely confess to murders of a few local people. The villagers assume Zan is the monster. Things work out as you might expect. The good professor is played by Ralph Morgan, brother of Frank Morgan (see The Wizard of Oz). The plot, then, has some novelty, but the sets and camera work are pedestrian, at best. The studio from which this film comes is Invincible Pictures. Invincible indeed.