THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 32

 It pays to have subscriptions to arcane YouTube channels. They allow me to discover movies and TV shows that I would have otherwise missed, and you to learn about. Lucky you(?).

NIGHT WORLD (1932): Got an hour? Drop by Happy's Club on East 53rd Street, where owner Happy MacDonald is dealing with a bootlegger trying to muscle in on his territory. Club choreographer Klauss is having a little horizontal refreshment with Happy's wife Jill, who's trying to get her husband out of the way, permanently. Tough guy Ed Powell is putting the moves on showgirl Ruth Taylor. Ruth, immune to his "charms", is trying to nurse Michael Rand back to sobriety following the love-triangle murder of his father by his mother. And club doorman Tim Washington is waiting for word on the condition of his hospitalized wife. Make sure to duck when five people in a row are shot to death. Check, please!

How is it that a studio could release a 57-minute movie that packs more storylines than this year's lengthy Oscar-nominees combined, yet takes place in just one evening? Night World is kind of a prototype of the previously discussed Club Havana but with pre-code elements: sex, violence, bootleg booze, adultery, double-entendres, sexy showgirls in skimpy outfits under the tutelage of Busby Berkley, and a running gag involving a gay man. While the budding romance between Ruth and Michael is the main plot point, it's the other characters and situations that keep that Night World chugging along. I mean, what do you want to see, a couple of kids falling in love, or gangsters, guns, and slinky dancers in their dressing room?

Lead actors Lew Ayres and Mae Clarke are fine as Michael and Ruth, but it's the co-stars we've come to see. Fresh from his star-making turn in Frankenstein, Boris Karloff is no less threatening as Happy MacDonald, whose nickname and friendly smile don't disguise the violence lurking underneath. George Raft makes what he can of his brief appearance as the slick yet crude Ed Powell, one of his earliest credited roles. As Mike's shockingly cruel mother, Hedda Hopper gives us a taste of her future gossip columnist style. But it's black character actor Clarence Muse who, as in Black Moon, proves himself at least the equal of his white co-stars (and better than most), bringing humanity and wisdom to his role of Tim Washington, the club's philosophical doorman. Forget the lovebirds -- it's him you're rooting for. Yes, there's a lot going in Night World, all of it worth watching.

BONUS POINTS:  Night World's dizzying opening montage of Times Square theaters, streetwalkers, speakeasies and murderers is still an unexpectedly wild sequence. And look for a young Jack LaRue as a jittery gunman at the climax. 

HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT (1937): Good title, strange movie. Comedy! Romance! Drama! Murder! Cultural stereotypes, marital violence, disaster... Only an independent producer like Walter Wanger could have released something this schizophrenic; no studio would have understood it. I'm not sure any would today. 

While in Paris, shipping magnate and all-around nut Bruce Vail frames his estranged wife Irene's new lover, Paul Drummond, for a murder that he committed. Irene is forced return to New York with Bruce; Paul, still unidentified as the alleged murderer, gives chase along with his Chico Marx-style friend Cesare. Irene eventually crosses path with Paul, who, when finding out he's wanted for murder, does the noble thing and returns, with Irene, to Paris on a cruise ship built by Bruce. But midway through the voyage while sailing through a heavy fog in cold waters...

Forget it, you wouldn't believe it. In fact, everything in History is Made at Night is unbelievable, even by Hollywood standards. If it works at all it's because of Charles Boyer and Jean Arthur in the leads -- somehow you believe them even if everything else is ridiculous. Colin Clive is flat-out sociopathic as Bruce, throwing the movie even more off-balance whenever he's onscreen. His is a fascinating, unsetting performance; it's hard to tell if it's due to Frank Borzage's direction or Clive's real-life alcoholism (which killed him weeks after the movie's release). Today, many people name History is Made at Night as their favorite movie ever. Your mileage may vary. Mine sure did, but not enough to end the trip before it was over.

BONUS POINTS: Fourteen years later, History is Made at Night's producer Walter Wanger pulled the jealous husband routine himself by shooting the guy he suspected having an affair with his wife, actress Constance Bennett. 

FINDERS KEEPERS (1955): You can't expect any game show called Finders Keepers to possess a morsel of sophistication. But my God, my God, my God!  It's astonishing people actually carved 30 minutes out of their lives every week to watch dreck like this. If you wonder why its network, DuMont, eventually went out of business, look no further.

As with DuMont's other dreadful game show, the previously-discussed Auction-Aire, the New York-based Finders Keepers depends on the telephonic participants at their homes in the tri-state area, each of whom are certain that they will win the top prize: a piano, a new Westinghouse kitchen ("every woman's dream"), and a trip for two to Paris (combined worth: $3,000!).  "Girl Friday" Peggy O'Shea hides a tag somewhere on a set that resembles a living room and kitchen. The jolly house organist then plays a few bars of a song to provide a hint of the hiding place. The contestant at home then has to tell an audience member where to look, while also responding to the audience's cheering or silence. Then the home contestant has to identify a photo of a building to win the big prize. Otherwise, they get a tea set and a carton of Coca-Cola. Lower gift taxes to pay, I suppose.

Over-caffeinated host Fred Robbins really gets the thrills when introducing guest Richard Egan as tag hunter for one round. Egan, doing a pretty good job hiding his embarrassment, is almost as creepy here as he is in Hollywood Story. As he runs around the set trying to find the tag, you can almost hear him think, "This is what I have to do to plug my latest movie?" Airing only five months, Finders Keepers probably provided vital clues for Goodson-Todman Productions in creating hit game shows like To Tell the Truth, Password, and I've Got a Secret: Let celebrities be the contestants, have them play in person, and keep the damn thing simple! And for those who care, the "mystery" photo no one can identify is the Museum of the City of New York on Fifth Avenue. 

BONUS POINTS: One of the audience contestants is a nervous girl no older than ten. For her participation, she wins a dog. Her reaction signals that she already has a dog her parents hate, and this one will get tossed in the nearest alley.

THE INVISIBLE CITY (1961): Made for WCBS-TV, the Emmy-nominated The Invisible City is not a sci-fi cheapie -- it's a documentary cheapie. And it's about New York. Or, rather, the areas and people the average city dweller never saw or met in 1961, and still don't today. The captain of the Staten Island Ferry. A guy who washes the windows of the Chase Manhattan skyscraper. The lucky folks who live in the Turtle Bay area with their own private park. A seamstress still happily working at Bergdorf Goodman since forever. And it's a fascinating snapshot of not only of a city on the cusp of radical change, but of a style of non-fiction TV as forgotten as its subjects are today.

The narration, gently spoken by Eddie Albert, is the same style used in the intros to the then-current Naked City series -- prose poetry, lifting up rather than speaking down to the audience. The New Yorkers examined are the folks who keep the city humming -- or, like the Turtle Bay residents, provide us with insight to what life was like compared to growing up 30 or 40 years earlier. And you can see some of those changes. Older businessmen still wearing hats, as the up-and-comers go without. Middle-aged women donning white gloves, while their daughters prefer the casual look. Commuters reading the Times on paper rather than iPhones. And smokers. Lots of smokers.

Producer Warren Wallace interviews his subjects with respect and genuine interest. Filmed on black & white 16mm film in cramped quarters -- the window washer's wife is in her modest kitchen -- these sequences are simple and unglamorous, the voices echoey or competing with ambient sound. The music accompanying Albert's narration is very 1961, bordering on modern classical. Compare The Invisible City to today's scrubbed and scripted "reality" series, and weep for current TV viewers. Actually, don't bother. They wouldn't understand anything this good.

BONUS POINTS: The score is performed by the CBS Chamber Orchestra. Yes, there was a time when TV networks had such a thing.

                                                                ********************************

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "MOONRISE" (1948)

Three weeks after Danny Hawkins is born, his father is hung for murder. And as Danny grows up, the kids in town don't let him forget it, either, with spoiled rich punk Jerry Sykes being the worst of the bunch. Decades of psychological, verbal and physical abuse eventually bring Danny to the breaking killing point, when he repeatedly smashes a large rock into Jerry's rotten skull. 

Well, he had it coming, especially since Jerry was going to kill him first. It's cold comfort for Danny, who wonders if he was cursed from birth, carrying the bad blood that led his father to the gallows, even as Jerry's ex-fiancée Gilly falls in love with him. 

Just keep repeating He had it coming.

While the townfolks are aware that Danny was the victim of Jerry's abuse, nobody suspects him. Even Sheriff Otis believes that Jerry's friend Ken killed him, considering there was a $2,000 debt between the two men. Only Danny's friend Mose, a philosophical older black man who lives on the outskirts of town in a cabin, figures out Danny is guilty, but refuses to turn him in. Danny, he believes, should do it himself in his own way, and his own time. 

Moonrise is often labeled as a film noir, usually by people who think all a movie takes to fit in that genre is crime and shadows. And while Moonrise has all these and more, it's more of a film melancolique, a somber study of what happens to a man after a lifetime of torment. (Just a warning to anybody who knows me.)

Ahh, carefree childhood memories...

Thanks to Frank Borzage's trademark sensitive direction, Moonrise is often artsy (in a good way) for a straightforward noir.  Being an independent production (released by Republic Pictures), the bizarre camera angles capturing Danny's terrible childhood memories are nothing you'd have found in a studio picture of the time. In fact, the camera itself becomes almost a key character as well throughout Moonrise, whether capturing Danny's paranoia, or his quiet, thoughtful discussions with Mose. 

Harry Morgan appears stunned that he doesn't
have to memorize one word of dialogue.

As Danny, Dane Clark is something of a revelation, at least for me, since I
associate his name strictly with the spoken words "And guest star" on TV shows in the 1970s. Clark is thoroughly convincing as a man capable of smashing Jerry's skull before coming to the aid of Billy, a slow-witted deaf-mute, who's mercilessly mocked by the now-grown-up kids who did the same to him years earlier. Yet only a day or two later, in an attempt to recover a vital piece of evidence linking him to the murder, Danny comes close to strangling Billy as well. (Yes, that's Harry Morgan as Billy, minus the bluster of his role of Col. Potter on M*A*S*H three decades later.)

Danny and Gilly share a romantic moment
in front of a spotlight in the middle of a swamp.

If there's a hole in Moonrise, it concerns Danny's relationship with Gilly, empathetically played by Gail Russell. Maybe a little too empathetically. A moment after reminding Danny she's engaged to Jerry (whom she doesn't realize has just been killed), she drives off with him and a couple of friends. Danny drives like a maniac down a dark road, hallucinating Jerry's image the whole way, before careening into through a guardrail and nearly killing them all. And what's the first thing she does when she opens her eyes? Kiss Danny! Geez, I did a lot less worse to girls in my day, and never got anything more than the stinkeye.

The sheriff tries not to look conspicuous as
he takes a spin behind Danny.

It's never, never made clear what Gilly sees in Danny. His manner bounces from manic to frightened to paranoid, with only brief moments of tenderness before going back to crazyville again.  She even sticks with him when, in a moment of derangement, he jumps off a Ferris wheel. What the heck does she see in this guy? 

Another problem modern audiences might have with Moonrise is the character of Mose, who today would be tagged with the unflattering "Magical Negro" label. His job is to help white people, whether it's leading them on raccoon hunts or, in Danny's case, to the path to salvation (i.e., confessing to the sheriff). As played by Rex Ingram, Mose has more smarts than anyone in town, offers good advice, and, of course, knows his place. (I'll avoid using the overused phrase "quiet dignity", so beloved by white writers.)

"I've got more brains than you, but I'm living in
this rundown shack. What's wrong with this
picture?"

Unfortunately, Mose also has what would today be considered an extraordinarily insensitive line of dialogue. Reminiscing about a hobo who was  arrested by the sheriff, Mose explains the guy was sentenced to 15 years "for making love to the constable's daughter, but she didn't want it." Mose admits the guy was guilty, but it was because "he was lonesome." 

Today's viewers would rightfully believe lonesome doesn't excuse rape. But having watched a lot of old movies, I know that the phrase "making love" used to mean simply sweet-talking a girl. The man in question was likely black, and the constable's daughter was definitely white. That would unjustly land him 15 years in stir. 

As with other movies that don't necessarily jibe with today's values, you either ride with Moonrise or you don't. I rode, primarily due to Frank Borzage's direction, making it both beautiful and often eerie throughout. Several  wonderful character actors lend a hand, too. In addition to the others previously mentioned, there's Allyn Joslyn as the surprisingly thoughtful sheriff, and, in the brief role as the despicable Jerry Sykes, 25 year-old Lloyd Bridges. (You'll never look at Sea Hunt the same way.)

Ethel doesn't appreciate being mistaken for
Dr. Gillespie.

Rounding out these all-stars are the ubiquitous Charles Lane as a bank examiner, and, as Danny's understanding grandmother, Ethel Barrymore, kind of looking like her brother Lionel in drag.

And only a freak like me would recognize Phil Brown as Elmer the hepcat soda jerk. Several years earlier, Brown played the psychokiller in the surprisingly gruesome Calling Dr. Gillespie, and, decades later, Luke Skywalker's uncle in Star Wars. Every actor should have a career with that kind of CV. Especially when it includes a movie as interesting as Moonrise.

                                                                 *************

THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 10

 Now that my wife has returned home after a week away at a retreat, my obscure movie marathon is winding up. So, until the next thrilling installment, here are four pictures to entertain or appall. But at least I finally saw them.

LILIOM (1930): In Budapest, humble servant girl Julie falls in love with vain carousel barker Liliom. Julie's devotion pleases him enough to quit his job, move in with her, avoid work, and knock her up. It must be love! When a robbery he's involved in goes wrong, Liliom kills himself. God's Chief Magistrate allows Liliom to visit his daughter for ten minutes after a spending a decade in hell. His eventual anonymous visit with the daughter doesn't go well, although Liliom returns to the afterlife happy that she heard her father was handsome. Yeesh!

Where to begin with an alleged love story where you hate the guy and don't respect the girl? Truly, I have no idea what the point of Liliom is. From the moment they meet, the jackass abuses Julie emotionally, psychologically, and (offscreen) physically --and she willingly keeps coming back for more! Apparently, she believes that Liliom isn't really a bad sort -- he acts the way he does because he's hurt inside. Even the great Lee Tracy, one of my faves, bothers me as the two-bit crook who indirectly causes Liliom's death. Come to think of it, every character in this movie bothers me.

I was drawn to Liliom having seen the 1934 version filmed in France and starring Charles Boyer. Maybe I enjoyed that one because it was a little more frank -- you can see he and Julie share a bedroom -- and Boyer's French dialogue made him at least sound charming. He's also a much better actor than Charles Farrell, who here sounds like Bert Wheeler. Farrell is also grating, irritating, and an all-around abhorrent fellow. Rose Hobart's Julie couldn't be more masochistic -- and, worse, pathetic.

And talk about the apple not falling far from the tree! When Liliom slaps his 10 year-old daughter, she describes it to her mother as feeling like a kiss! Julie understands, as she explains to the little girl, "It's possible for someone to beat you and beat you... and not hurt you at all." How the hell did Rodgers & Hammerstein turn this horror show into the much-loved musical Carousel? And more to the point, why? 

BONUS POINTS: The lush production reminded me of another Fox film, the 1928 silent classic Sunrise. And the arrival of the Heaven-bound train into Julie's living room to bring Liliom to the afterlife is as startling a special effect that could be seen in a movie this old, and wouldn't be nearly effective with today's CGI.

GIFT OF GAB (1934): 1930s comedies don't come much worse than Gift of Gab, a
70-minute exercise in tedium wrapped in futility, about the rise, fall, and redemption of egomaniacal radio announcer. It tries without success to be Universal Pictures' answer to the Paramount's Big Broadcast musicals, which featured popular radio and recording stars of the day in guest roles supporting the studio contract players in the lead roles.

But while the Big Broadcast films featured the likes of Burns & Allen, Cab Calloway, Bing Crosby, W.C. Fields, and Bob Hope, Gift of Gab stars Edmund Lowe, who, while a fine actor, was not necessarily a box office favorite by this time. As for the radio guest stars, they're basically the people who didn't make the final cut at Paramount:  second-tier radio announcer Tom Hanlon; annoying comedian Phil Baker (who resembles a sex criminal); and writer/raconteur/pompous ass Alexander Wolcott. The musical guests range from bonafide stars Ruth Etting, Ethel Waters, and crooner Gene Austin (who was by now losing ground to Crosby), to unknowns like the Downey Sisters and the Beale Street Boys.

Lost until fairly recently, Gift of Gab was legendary for featuring appearances by Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Once a print was discovered and the legend became real, it proved a disappointment, since the two horror stars, while appearing in the same scene, are never on screen together, and have three lines of dialogue between them. 

Their scene, a parody of murder mysteries, makes no sense since it's a visual sketch that's supposed to be on radio. But it also features Chester Morris in a nice self-parodic turn as a dumb detective. Everybody else in Gift of Gab is wasted. In fact, the best way to enjoy it is to be wasted.

BONUS POINTS: The leading lady is played by Gloria Stuart, the old lady from James Cameron's Titanic 63 years later, proving it's possible to survive a movie like Gift of Gab, and continue to entertain audiences at the end of the century.

THE 9TH GUEST (1934): Eight people  receive identical telegrams from an unknown host inviting them to a party thrown in their honor. Soon after they arrive, a mysterious voice comes over the living room radio warning them that each will die before the night is over; the penthouse is wired so nobody can leave. True to the voice's promise, at every hour a guest dies in a different way from the one before. Accusations fly throughout the night until the mystery is solved, with only two survivors able to live to tell the tale. Good luck getting the cops to believe any of it, though.

Depression-era audiences must have gotten a kick out of rich people behaving like maniacs and getting knocked off like teacups off a mantle in an earthquake. The 9th Guest (the title character being Death) is the kind of locked room -- make that locked penthouse -- mystery where it doesn't matter who the actors are. All that counts is that they suffer emotionally and physically for the benefit of ticket-buyers.

For the budget-conscious Columbia Pictures, The 9th Guest's art deco set is pretty sweet. And while the solution is pretty convoluted, you'll realize some of the clues were right there in front of you if you were paying attention. 

As for the cast, fans of this kind of movie will recognize many of the actors while not knowing their names. B-listers cost less, and the set likely took up most of the budget. 

BONUS POINTS: In a case of art deco taken one step beyond, the grandfather  clock is built into the living room wall. 

CLOSE-UP (1948): After covering a woman's fashion show in Madison Square, newsreel cameraman Phil Sparr discovers he also filmed a close-up of escaped Nazi war criminal Martin Beaumont. (And you thought David Hemmings had a scoop in Blow-Up!) Sparr is soon hunted down by Beaumont with the help of washed-up actor Joe Gibbons and two-timing doll Peggy Lake. Will Sparr live to film another newsreel -- or wind up on the cutting room floor? 

Close-Up would probably have a decent reputation if it looked, well, decent, rather than in its current washed-out, audio-challenged state. Location footage of Manhattan, including a genuinely exciting chase aboard the Staten Island Ferry and a climactic shootout along the East River jazz things up. You just kind of wish the newsreel folks were a little more careful when it comes to trusting guys who claim to be FBI agents without showing any ID.

As Phil Sparr, character actor Alan Baxter appears to be auditioning to be Gary Cooper's voice-over and an oak tree's stand-in. Borscht Belt comic Joey Faye, as Sparr's sidekick Roger, makes up for Baxter's stiffness by delivering every line as if he were onstage at Grossinger's. The best performance is given by Richard Kollmar, a Broadway actor and producer in his only movie appearance, as Beaumont, giving his character genuine menace without going overboard. Fun fact: Kollmar was married to columnist Dorothy Killgallen, with whom he starred in the daily radio talk show Breakfast with Dorothy and Dick, which opens itself to way too many interpretations. 

Close-Up, then, provides plenty of reasons for a nostalgic 75-minute viewing, not the least of which is that it reminds you of a time when Nazis were still frowned upon, instead of something to aspire to. 

BONUS POINTS: Character actor Sid Melton in a truly funny scene as a cab driver being questioned by the police. Delivering a ridiculous monologue in one long take, Melton steals the movie without breaking a sweat. If he had to do more than one take, it was the fault of the director.

                                                                **********

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "GREEN LIGHT" (1937)

One of the more irritating bromides of our time is "Everything happens for a reason." This is spoken by people who would otherwise find it impossible to accept the unfair, awful, horrendous events that happen to them or the world in general; a deliberate denial of reality in order to prevent a swan dive off the nearest bridge. It's also the basis of Green Light, Errol Flynn's third starring American movie, and the first that didn't involve buckles being swashed.

Flynn plays Dr. Newell Paige -- only in movies (and the forgotten books they're based upon) do sawbones have names like Newell Paige -- who willingly takes the fall for Dr. Endicott, an older surgeon, when a patient dies during an operation. So you know this is definitely a work of fiction, right? 

"I love you too, baby. Let's just
keep your mother out of it."

The unfortunate patient's daughter, Phyllis Dexter, falls in love with Paige until he she finds out that he's supposedly the guy who killed her mother. Some offspring might thank such a guy, but apparently she grew up in a normal family. Deciding that it's time to find a more noble calling, Paige joins a former colleague in Montana in trying to find a cure for spotted fever, where he puts his life at risk by allowing himself to be bitten by a poisonous tic in order to test a new serum. As if just moving to Montana isn't sacrifice enough.

While Flynn pays close attention, director Borzage
demonstrates how to ask a dying patient for her
group number.

All this would be pure soap opera -- is pure soap opera -- but director Frank Borzage, a master at enveloping such stories with a mystical glow, keeps the suds percolating at a low simmer. He apparently ran through several pounds of gauze for the camera lens, for nearly every shot appears to be taking place in a romantic dream. Flynn's first appearance in particular must have set women's hearts swooning, seeing that he is unearthly handsome and ungodly charismatic. (My
wife was immune to his charms in Green Light, sensing the predator underneath.  I'm better at hiding that kind of thing.)

He's got a 104-fever -- let the guy rest, for
Chrissakes!

Borzage's touch never falters, even as Dr. Paige comes down with spotted fever. While he lies in bed for a week, his fever rising and respiratory condition worsening, Paige's face glistens with near-holy perspiration. His hair remains in place, complete with a boyish curl on his forehead. Not a hint of stubble grows on his face.  Damn, why don't I look this good when I've a 104-degree fever? In no time, Phyllis and seemingly half Paige's former hospital staff are at his bedside, leaving one to wonder who's running the show back home. 

It won't surprise you to learn that everything works out in the end. Phyllis learns through Endicott himself that Paige had nothing to do with her mother's death. When Paige recovers, he and Phyllis get the hell out of Dodge, and, instead hopping into the nearest sack, go to church. You gotta be kidding me.

Dean Harcourt consoles Phyllis over her
mother and that hideous hat.

In keeping with Green Light's spirituality, Sir Cedric Hardwicke plays Dean Harcourt, the story's God stand-in, a theologian whose weekly radio broadcasts provided great comfort for Phyllis' mother. He also winds up being the go-to guy for all the main characters, his gentle philosophical advice boiling down to, "Don't ask, don't tell. Now go home and think about it." He's also what we used to call back in the day a cripple, and, like all cripples in old movies, is more psychologically-whole than anyone else. Even if he is, like I said, a cripple.

And she looks better in profile than either
of them.

By my wife's contention, the best performance was given by Green Light's other God stand-in, Sylvia, Dr. Paige's Irish Setter. Showing more emotion than Paige's love interest, Phyllis (played by Anita Louise), Sylvia takes direction better, and possesses nicer hair to boot. She's also the only one in the movie who gives Flynn a run for his money in the looks department. By the end of the movie, you'll believe a dog can look soulful on cue.

I collect movie posters from the U.S., but I'd make
an exception for this bizarre French one-sheet.

Being something of a sucker for both Errol Flynn and old movies with a spiritual bent, I admit to enjoying Green Light more than most audiences today probably would. As with Keeper of the Bees, made two years earlier, there's a certain delicacy afoot that doesn't fly in today's cynical times. 

It's also a chance to see the 27 year-old Flynn in one of his rare, low-key, modern-dress roles, proving that there was more to him just pirates, swordsmen and cowboys. He may be fully aware of his seductive qualities, but that makes guys like me enjoy him all the more. Flynn is everything we'd like to think we are, only we know we never will be. When he's almost dying in Green Light, he not only looks like a saint, he consoles everyone around him with a debonair accent. I can't even catch a cold without collapsing on the couch and moaning like an asthmatic ghost. I don't think my wife would mind if I had a little of Flynn's charm.

                                                 ***********************
To read about the equally-unusual Keeper of the Bees, go here.

Green Light's original preview. It's an "x-ray of unquestioning love." Today, it would be an MRI:

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "BAD GIRL" (1931)

More than adultery, boredom or installing the toilet paper roll so that it goes under instead of over, miscommunication is the number one disruptor of marriages. It's remarkable how often spouses can hold increasingly-edgy conversations without realizing what the hell the other is really talking about. And when I say "spouses," I'm referring to my own marriage.

That miscommunication is the entire premise behind Bad Girl, right down to the title. One of this blog's rare Oscar-winners (for direction and writing) Bad Girl promised the usual sexy pre-code elements: risque chatter, cigarettes, bathtub gin, a token gay character, violence and, if I was lucky, a reference to reefer or happy dust. It was a promise broken.

DOT: "I love when you call me insulting names."
EDDIE: "Thanks, jerkwad."

Instead, it tells the story of Dot (Sally Eilers), a New York working girl who's sick of men hitting on her. So when Eddie (James Dunn), a radio repairman, doesn't give her a tumble, she falls in love with him. (Already, it sounds like a Jennifer Aniston/Vince Vaughn rom-com.) A hard-boiled kind of a guy, Eddie can't bring himself to say anything resembling "I love you." In fact, two of his cuter nicknames for Dot are "Stupid" and "Unconscious." I'm not convinced my wife would have appreciated those terms of endearment when we started dating, but that's further proof of how women have changed over the years.

I've only got eyes for that cool radio
in the rear.

Either Dot can see through his exterior or she's yearning for a sadomasochistic relationship, because after making love for the first time, she accepts his marriage proposal. This doesn't go over well with her brother, who calls her "a tramp," and is convinced that this is "one of those rush marriages." That's the kind of pre-code stuff I was waiting for! It took a while, but now I was looking forward to plenty of despair, adultery, and all the other pleasures of cinematic marriages.

Dot obviously doesn't remember
that boxers in old movies always
 wear a bandage over their eyebrow.

I was to be sadly disappointed. These two crazy kids are in love -- but not enough to have a simple, honest conversation. Dot's pregnant, but can't tell him. He thinks she wants to move out of their one-room flat, so he blows his savings -- which he was going to use to open his own radio repair shop -- on a fancy apartment for them. She thinks he doesn't want a child, so she pretends to feel likewise, leading him to pretend likewise. To pay for the doctor, Eddie takes up boxing for extra money, but doesn't want to tell Dot, so she thinks he's out carousing with the boys. Then when the kid is finally born, Eddie pretends not to care because he thinks Dot doesn't care, so she gets depressed...

Get the picture? Like, there would be no picture if, just once, Dot and Eddie just took five minutes to ask each other, "What's going on?" instead of acting on wildly specious speculation? By the time they come to their senses (after wrongly believing their baby had died), I was hoping, Well, maybe now their new found happiness will be disrupted by

Wipe those smiles off your faces!

real tragedy. Like, say, when riding home in a cab from the hospital they'd get into an accident and the kid really bites the dust. And their marriage falls apart and Dot finally becomes that titular bad girl by going the streetwalker route, leading to her to die of consumption in Eddie's arms when he finds her coughing up blood in a back alley on the West Side. Now we've got a movie!

That's not the way things work out, though. What Dot and Eddie experience instead is a realization of their true feelings for each other, followed by a kiss, a fadeout, and two or three minutes of the restored post-credit exit music under a black screen. Oh man. What a washout of a movie.

Frank and Oscar

Well, no, not really. Thanks to Frank Borzage's sympathetic direction and Edwin J. Burke's snappy dialogue, Bad Girl rises to a level that a similar movie could never achieve. Borzage, at the time one of Fox Studio's great directors and an expert at romantic dramas, makes you care about Dot and Eddie despite the absurdity of their situation. They're not stupid, just victims of their own battered personalities: Dot, by not knowing how to trust men, and Eddie, by knowing nothing but unhappy couples and families. A fine scene during their first date shows them in Dot's tenement hallway, interrupted by a middle-aged couple arguing off-screen and, a moment later, an older woman facing a death in the family. Borzage allows each of these mini-dramas play out in single takes, never laying on the action too thick, allowing Eddie to remember why he's preferred to live a solitary life -- even if deep down he would rather be with a good woman.

Dot, too, has always been single, spurning men's advances with icy putdowns. As she tells her friend Edna, "When they deliver baloney to my door, I always give them a receipt."  Yet upon meeting Eddie -- and voicing her complaints about amorous men -- he dishes it out in a nastily amusing comeback:

You tell her, Eddie!

If you don't want them to flirt with you, whaddaya dressed like that for? You wear those clothes for what? To show off the curves of your body. Look at the dress -- what's it cut so low for? Yeah, so some guy can get an eyeful. And your dress is deliberately made to blow up over your knees. Listen, sister -- if you don't want guys to salute ya, take down your flag.

That's better than Hamlet's soliloquy. I mean, don't you wish you talked that way?

"Let's put up a sliding board into
the East River while we're at it!"

Little unspoken touches elevate Bad Girl from the silly melodrama it could have been. Eddie's radio is old even in 1931, visual proof that he's saving his money. The sink in Dot and Eddie's first apartment is in the living room. The rooftop of Dot and Eddie's new apartment features a realistic view of the Queensboro Bridge. Dot, by the way, believes the roof would be a wonderful place for children to play. Upper East Side mothers today would self-righteously disagree.

Might a different cast made a difference in Bad Girl? It's difficult to say. While quite the looker, Sally Eilers' personality pales beside, say, that of Bette Davis, who was getting her start in Hollywood about the same time. James Dunn lacks the depth of, say, James Cagney or Lee Tracy, either of whom could have done more with the same

Take it from them:
men are no damn good.

character, if not the script itself. 

Only Minna Gombel, who could best be described as a proto-Eve Arden, commands a level of realism as Dot's blunt pal Edna, upping Eilers' game in their scenes together. One of Bad Girl's best moments consists of the two reminiscing about the unreliable men they've known, leading to a laughing/crying jag that would probably strike a note of uncomfortable realism for more than a few women today. (Unless I wasn't paying attention, Edna's relationship with the little boy she lives with was never explained. Is he her brother? Illegitimate son? The director's nephew?)

And yet... the sheer likeability of Sally Eilers and James Dunn cannot be denied. Yes, their characters' self-defeating behavior is often annoying, at times disturbing. But they're not bad people, just a couple of souls so battered by life that, even when they fall in love, withdrawal is the only way they can deal with one other. As with the title Bad Girl itself, Dot and Eddie are selling themselves one way while disguising the reality that lies beneath. You know, the way humans often do. 

But damn, I sure wanted to see that bad girl I was promised.

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If you've never heard of the above-mentioned Lee Tracy, you might want to read about two of his more interesting movies by clicking here and here.