Tips from the Classics in These Tough Economic Times by Katie Richardson

It’s a pretty tough time money-wise for a lot of people. Unemployment rates are rising, people are getting laid off and losing money left and right. Right now, we’re in recession. But there are a lot of people worried that we’ll soon be in a depression.

This, of course, would not be the first depression. The Great Depression in the 1930s was one of the bleakest times in history. But hey, it produced some great films. Especially some great films set during the Depression. So maybe we should take some tips from these movies on how to get through these rough times.

Tip #1: Find a rich man to keep you
See: Bed of Roses, The Easiest Way, Our Blushing Brides, Possessed
You’re down on your luck. You’re a girl living in a poor neighborhood, you either can’t find a job or you have a really crappy one. But you’re damn pretty, and with the right dress and hair, you could look damn classy.

And hey, here’s a handsome (hopefully) rich guy who likes you. Really likes you. You’re one of the lucky ones now. He like you so much he wants to set you up in a nice apartment so he doesn’t have to go to the bed part of town to see you. Of course he doesn’t want to marry you. He may already be married, or the idea of marriage just doesn’t interest him. But that’s probably a good thing. Why ruin something so simple with marriage?

Now you have a fancy apartment to yourself, an bottomless bank account, and you get to rub elbows with all of your man’s high class friends.

And hey, this is the 21st century. There are plenty of rich, powerful women, so it’s completely possible for a man to find himself a cushy situation like this.

Be careful, though. These situations don’t always end happily. Unfortunately for Constance Bennett in The Easiest Way, she lost the man she really loved when she couldn’t resist the life of luxery. And don’t go thinking this guy’s going to marry you. That idea turned out not too well for Anita Page in Our Blushing Brides.

Of course, you could get Joan Crawford-in-Possessed lucky, attract a handsome rich guy like Clark Gable, fall in love with him, and then have the good fortune of him falling in love with you.

Tip #2: Find a rich man (or woman) to marry you.
See: Red Headed Woman, Mannequin, Platinum Blond
You’re situation is probably pretty similar to the one above. However, finding a rich man to marry you might be a littler tougher than finding a rich man to keep you. Marrying a poor girl takes on some more social implications than just keeping her in a nice apartment and buying her stuff.

So you may have to resort to complete bitchery. Like Jean Harlow in Red Headed Woman. Easily one of the biggest bitches to ever hit the big screen, she did every single thing she had to do to get her rich boss to marry her. Even though he was already married.  Sure, the marriage was absolutely miserable, but she had all the money she wanted.

You may get lucky, though, and find a rich guy who’s just plain infatuated with you, like Joan Crawford found Spencer Tracy in Frank Borzage’s Mannequin. Sure, she didn’t love him at first. But there’s a lesson there in itself. Love will eventually grow.

Of course, it’s entirely possible for a man to marry a wealthy woman. It just doesn’t usually take much scheming. According to Platinum Blond, heiresses like to take on poor, unsophisticated men to see if they can change them. Just for fun. So all you boys have to do is be unsophisticated and put yourself in front of some rich chicks. But, seriously, if you’ve got someone as cute as Loretta Young already in love with you, save yourself the trouble.

Tip #3: Use sex in the workplace
See: Baby Face
The last two options were good options. But of course, you’re a modern woman. Maybe you don’t want to be married or kept. Maybe you’ll only feel complete if you’re working.

Yes, these days it is much, much easier to climb the corporate ladder for women than it was in the 1930s. But it’s still not the easiest thing in the world. Especially right now, when some people are having a hard time finding a job.

So if there’s any time when you shouldn’t feel ashamed to get on your back to get up the ladder, it’s now. You should always use what god gave you. And if he happened to give you some good looks and a fair amount of sex appeal, you should use it.

Just be careful. In Baby Face, Stanwyck got into a few sticky situations doing this very thing. Try to keep the amount of men with whom you exchange sexual favors to a minimum to avoid that.

Tip #4: Crime pays…. to a point
See: Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, Angels With Dirty Faces, Scarface
During the Depression, gangsters were almost treated as heroes in film (and even outside of it). Life was tough. The world, the country, fate, God… these things had taken everything from people. And the gangsters were the ones rebelling against that and taking it back. By any means possible. Sure, they were doing bad things. But they were getting the money they wanted. And in times like these, sometimes that seems like the most important thing.

Without fail, whether it’s Cagney in The Public Enemy and Angels With Dirty Faces, Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar, or Paul Muni in Scarface, things always go amazingly well for these guys for some time. They climb the ranks and live very comfortably.

So yeah, a life of crime is always going to be dangerous. But unlike the guys in these movies, be smart. Don’t want to much. Once you get to a certain point where you’re living comfortably, let it be. Don’t try to get any higher. And for the love of god, don’t try to take over the organization. That’s the kind of shit that gets you killed.

Tip #5: Turn to prostitution
See: Faitless, Anna Christie, Midnight Mary
Now things are seriously bad. You can’t find a job at all. And the idea of marrying or being kept by a rich man isn’t happening (maybe you just can’t find one, or maybe you’re so much in love with someone poor you can’t bring yourself to leave them). You have no choice. You must turn to prostitution.

Sure, it’s probably the least dignified thing on this list. But when you’re desperate, you’re desperate. You gotta eat. You gotta keep a roof over your head. And maybe like Tallulah Bankhead in Faithless, you have to find some way to pay for your husband’s medication. She got lucky, though. When husband Robert Montgomery found out that she was a prostitute, he was moved by her sacrifice.

Tip #6: Split a nice apartment with some pals
See: Ladies In Love, Beauty For Sale, The Greeks Had a Word For Them, Our Blushing Brides
Probably the easiest option so far. You’re single, you don’t have a lot of money. But you do have two good friends who are in the same situation. So how much easier would it be on all of you to split an apartment!

This can be done just for necessity’s sake, as it was for Joan Crawford, Anita Page, and Dorothy Sebastian in Our Blushing Brides, and Madge Evans, Una Merkel, and Florine McKinney in Beauty For Sale.

But you can also do the three way split in a fancier way. It might require a bit more money, but getting a nicer apartment in a better part of town with three friends could be a bit of a confidence booster, which is always needed in times like these. In Ladies in Love and The Greeks Had a Word For Them, three single ladies (Constance Bennett, Janet Gaynor, and Loretta Young in Ladies, Madge Evans, Joan Blondell, and Ina Claire in Greeks) split nice aparments in nice neighborhoods to make themselves look classier and like they have more money, presumable to attract wealthy men.

Tip #7: Embrace your poverty and realize that love is ultimately what matters
See: Bad Girl, Man’s Castle
Yes, times are indeed tough for you. But they’re tough for most people.

Not everyone loves the idea of trying to find a rich person to take care of them, or turning to crime, or getting on their backs. So they just accepts their circumstances. And sometimes they’re really lucky, because they might have love in their life.

Tenement life blows, obviously. But if you have a husband or wife that you love very much, and a baby on the way, like Sally Eilers and James Dunn in Bad Girl, that becomes more important than everything else, even if there are some bumps along the way.

Even worse than tenement life was life in the Hoovervilles, where families lived in little more than tiny shacks. No matter how bad a living situation might be, look on the bright side like Loretta Young in Man’s Castle does. At least she has a place to live. Add to that the fact that she’s in a (somewhat complicated, admittedly) relationship with Spencer Tracy. Life is difficult, but Borzage films the movie almost like a fairy tale. Their love is so powerful, it can make a little shack seem like a castle.

There you go. Seven tips from the classics on how to get through these tough times.

I’d love it to here any tips you guys can come up with from watching 1930s films!

By Katie Richardson

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Three Men on a Horse by John Greco

Year: 1936

Director: Mervyn LeRoy

Cast: Frank McHugh, Sam Levene, Joan Blondell, Alan Jenkins

Warner Brothers made series of gangster comedies in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Best known are A Slight Case of Murder and Larceny Inc. both starring Edward G. Robinson. Three Men on a Horse falls into this same sub-genre. Originally a play co-written by George Abbott that ran on Broadway for close to two years with Frank McHugh and Sam Levene originating the same roles they perform in the movie.

Erwin Trowbridge (Frank McHugh) is a loser. A henpecked husband who writes greeting cards sayings for a living, works for a company where he is grossly underpaid and treated like dirt. His home life is not much better, a ditz for a wife and brother in law who constantly berates him for not making money. You see Erwin bets on the ponies, and he always wins. Only he doesn’t bet for money. Never for money, that would be cheating. According to Patsy (Sam Levene) a Damon Runyon type gambler, Erwin is a poet. Patsy also sees Erwin as the goldmine he and his pals have been waiting for. Along with Levene, Allen Jenkins and Teddy Hart are the gamblers who kidnap Erwin with a plan to make them a fortune. Joan Blondell, using her Brooklyn accent to its best advantage, is Mabel, Patsy’s girlfriend. Eddie Rochester Anderson and Alan Hale are also on board as employees at the hotel where the gamblers are keeping Erwin while he comes up with the winning horses. The film was directed by Mervlyn LeRoy though there is no director’s credit given in the film. Three Men on a Horse is a pleasant humorous film filled enough laughs to satisfy even though it is somewhat dated at times. Nice performances by everyone in the cast.

It looks like Warner’s took their “B” team and gave them their own game to play and they came away a winner.

By John Greco

 

Union Depot by John Greco

Year: 1932

Director: Alfred E. Green

Cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. , Joan Blondell, Guy Kibbee, Alan Hale, George Rosener

Chick (Fairbanks) and Scraps (Kibbee) are two hobos just released from the hoosegow for vagrancy. They need money to eat and make their way to Union Depot where Chick manages to get some clean clothes and money off a drunk who leaves his luggage in the men’s room. While at the station he also sees Ruth (Joan Blondell), an out of work chorus girl who’s broke and needs $64 to get to Salt Lake City for her next job and to get away from a sexual predator. Hungry and broke she accepts Chick’s invitation to go to a hotel room next to the station where he buys her a meal. Thinking she is a prostitute he is looking for repayment with some female companionship. When he thinks she’s refusing to put Chick smacks Ruth (a 1932 review in Time magazine points out that this may have been prompted by recent screen activities of James Cagney and Clark Gable). He soon realizes that Ruth is not really a prostitute, just broke and desperate. Underneath, Chick is really a good guy and agrees to help her get to Salt Lake City.

In a series of incidents involving pickpockets, counterfeiters and just plain fate Chick finds himself in the possession of a violin case full of counterfeit money, though he does not know it is counterfeit at the time. He buys Ruth a couple of dresses and the ticket to Salt Lake City with the funny money. The store clerk where Ruth purchased her dresses realizes the money is phony and calls the police who quickly arrest Ruth and Chick. Chick tells the police how he came by the money finding a check stub in a discarded wallet. The wallet had been tossed by a pickpocket after stealing it from one of the counterfeiters. Eventually after a shooting, a chase through the train yards and more misunderstandings by the law, Chick and Ruth are both cleared and the counterfeiters caught. Ruth boards the train for Salt Lake City as Chick, broke again, waves to her goodbye.

The ending is a nice touch. In most movies the couple would have fell in love and lived happily ever after. Here, they meet and depart with no artificial happy ending. All this plays out in real time.

The film is entertaining and is helped by good performances, especially by Fairbanks, Blondell and Frank McHugh. Joan Blondell is always a pleasure to watch and is as sexy as she has ever been on screen.

Union Depot benefits from it pre-code openness and it is amazing what got past the censors, prostitution, sexual perversion, and attempted rape. Articles discussing Warner Brothers pre-code films hardly, if ever, mention Union Depot which is a shame. Director Alfred Green keeps the film moving at a nice pace and at approximately 75 minutes is a nice trip.

Oh, did I mention that Joan Blondell is in this picture?

By John Greco

 

DVD Review: Forbidden Hollywood vol. 2

Films In This Collection

• Night Nurse
• Three on a Match
• The Divorcee
• A Free Soul
• Female

Special Features

• Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin, and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood
• Audio Commentaries on Night Nurse and The Divorcee
• Theatrical trailers for Night Nurse, Three on a Match, and Night Nurse

Warner Bros. is doing classic film fans a great favor by releasing these rather rare pre-code gems on DVD for the first time. In 2006 they release the first volume, which featured the films Red Headed Woman, Baby Face, and Waterloo Bridge. While that volume was certainly a treat, and featured three excellent films (especially the beautiful Waterloo Bridge, which needs to be seen by everyone), special features were sparse and it didn’t feel like a very complete collection.

The second volume, however, is a real treat for any pre-code fan. Not only does it contain five of the absolute most essential film from the era, it also has commentaries and an in-depth documentary that really helps to create the entire pre-code experience for this set.

Vol. 2 features two Norma Shearer films, The Divorcee and A Free Soul. Shearer was considered the queen of the pre-code era, and these two films are the most important of her early 1930s career. The Divorcee is considered an extremely important and racy film, but there seems to be no escape from the values of the time, and in the end the themes of female empowerment are undercut by the double standard the film tries so hard to fight against. A Free Soul, however, is a fascinating and sensual film with Norma Shearer as a good girl gone bad and Clark Gable as a sexually charge gangster. Shearer and Gable were always a good pair, and they sizzle together in this wonderful pre-code which won Lionel Barrymore an Oscar.

Three on a Match may be the most important film of the era, simply as a non-stop example of all the rules filmmakers could break in the early 1930s. Before release, several minutes were cut from the film, so that it just became scene after scene of pre-code debauchery. Drug use, child abuse, sex outside of marriage, violence. While Three on a Match isn’t a particularly good film – it’s very dreary and plodding – it’s essential to watch as a great example of pre-code. And Ann Dvorak gives an absolutely phenomenal performance, possibly her very best.

Night Nurse is another film that seems to be just a huge collection of pre-code moments, though it’s certainly a better film than Three on a Match. It’s a film about a plot to starve children to death, and along the way feature violence against women, leading ladies in various states of undress, a consistently drunken mother, and a charming and completely likable bootlegger as the leading man. But unlike Three on a Match, its story is interesting and its very well paced. Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell make a very fun team.

Female is probably my favorite film on the set. Ruth Chatterton, a very underappreciated actress from the era, gives an excellent and extremely sexual performance as a CEO who likes to make her employees her boy toys. Chatterton was an older woman – she was 40 years old when this movie was released – and she used that wonderful fact to separate herself from her contemporaries. Her grace and maturity are unmatched. She’s sexy and she’s smart. Watching her seduce her latest man is some of the most fun a pre-code film has to offer. No man could resist the lovely Ruth Chatterton. She was in charge, in the board room and in the bedroom.

The special features on the set really help in giving the viewer an even deeper understanding of the films and politics of the pre-code era. The documentary Thou Shalt Not is fascinating, and features some great clips and pieces of some of the best movies of the era. The commentaries on Night Nurse and The Divorcee are both in depth and enthusiastic, done by people who are both knowledgeable of the era and who clearly love the films.

Forbidden Hollywood vol. 2 is simply one of the very best DVD sets to come out in a very long time. If you’re a classic film fan, it’s a must have.

By Katie Richardson