The Crowd Roars (1932)

I hate race car driving. I cannot understand the lure of watching cars going round and round in a giant circle for god knows how many laps. I think I cannot stand NASCAR and all that racing stuff is because whenever it is on TV it usually interrupts a show I want to watch! Is race car driving considered a sport? To me that would be like saying cheerleading is a sport. Anyway, before I start saying what I really think about race car driving and cheerleading… The Crowd Roars is a film from 1932 about race car driving. Fortunately the cast was very good and the theme of race car driving did not annoy or bore me.

            Joe Greer (James Cagney) is a professional race car driver. He goes back to his small hometown for the first time in four years. His girlfriend Lee (Ann Dvorak) is not getting off the train with him. She is mad at Joe because she thinks he feels she is not good enough to meet his family. Joe’s younger brother Eddie (Eric Linden) meets him at the train station. Eddie wants to race just like his older brother. Eddie has built his own car and is a local racing champion. He wants to go with his brother next time Joe leaves town. Joe tells Eddie to stay out of racing it is a hard life

            Eddie convinces Joe to race with him at a local competition. It is neck and neck for a while but both brothers get run off the track and neither finishes the race. Later on Joe wires Lee to tell her he is extending his tour so he can teach Eddie how to race. Joe eventually goes back to Lee’s place. Instead of spending time with Lee he is always with his brother. He breaks things off with her because he wants to keep Eddie away from women and booze. Lee gets very upset she does want Joe to go. Her friend Ann (Joan Blondell) is not thrilled with Joe. Lee decides to teach Joe what it is like to lose someone he loves like. She has Ann go after Eddie. Lee’s plan to get back at Joe backfires. Ann finds she is falling in love with Eddie. Joe wants nothing to do with Eddie now that he is with Ann.

            Eddie beats Joe in his first race. The newspapers are talking how he is the next up and coming racer. After Joe drives drunk in a race and kills a man he cannot find a job anywhere and fades into obscurity. Lee decides to head out East and start over. She gets a job as a waitress at a racetrack. Joe is at the same racetrack looking for a job. They see each other and talk. Lee tells Joe that Eddie is still a shamed of him for driving drunk.

            Somehow Joe gets a job and gets to drive against Eddie. In the happy Hollywood ending Joe and Eddie make up.         

            The cast was excellent. I like seeing James Cagney with Joan Blondell. They always played tough characters and their tough characters together were fabulous. Ann Dvorak gave a great performance also. When I think of Pre-Code actresses Blondell and Dvorak are two of the greats that come to mind. Eric Linden is not one of my favorites. He just always seemed like a weird little boy.

            The Crowd Roars is a typical 1930s guy film with romance thrown in so the women would also come and see it. I guess the romance angle works it acts as a motivator for the characters. The Crowd Roars is good to see once mostly just for the cast unless you are into racing and want to see some pretty cool old racing footage. 

The Silver Cord (1933)

The Silver Cord is a film that made me shiver a bit when I watched it. Joel McCrea and Eric Linden’s characters David and Robert Phelps have the Oedipus complex to the max because of their over powering and overbearing mother Mrs. Phelps (Laura Hope Crews). They take Norma Bates’ “A Boy’s best friend is his mother” to a realistic level that is disturbing.

            David has been living in Heidelberg, Germany studying architecture with his wife Christina (Irene Dunne) who is a scientist. They both receive offers to work in New York so they move from Germany back home to the United States. Before they begin their new life in the city David wants to stop at his mother’s home since he has not seen her in months and for Christina to meet her.     

            The couple arrives at the mother’s house early and she is not home. Robert is home along with his fiancé Hester (Frances Dee). Hester is a very sweet girl who immediately takes a liking to Christina. As soon as Mrs. Phelps walks in the door all she does is yell for David. She will not let him get a word in and she completely ignores Christina and Hester. Right away we see that Mrs. Phelps is very controlling and possessive of her sons: she makes David and Christina sleep in separate rooms and once David begins to tell her of his and Christina’s plans to work and live in the city she gets upset. Mrs. Phelps is upset that David does not want to build a house on the land around her house and that Christina is a career woman. She also feels that Christina is taking her son away from her.

            As David and Hester show Christina to her room Mrs. Phelps and Robert are left alone. She convinces her youngest son that he should leave Hester cruelly putting into his head that she is pretty and has probably had several men before him and that she probably does not truly love him. When Robert tells Hester she has a nervous breakdown. She knows Mrs. Phelps put the idea into her head. She tells the woman how cruel she is and that whatever the old woman has said is not true. Hester really does love Robert but his mother will not let him see that. She wants to go to a hotel rather than stay the night in the house but Mrs. Phelps tells her she cannot to save face.

            Christina feels terrible for Hester. She tries to talk it over with David she tells him his mother is the one to blame but he will not hear the truth about his mother. Mrs. Phelps has her sons so attached to her and brainwashed they cannot see the truth. Since Christina is the only one that can think rationally she lets Mrs. Phelps have it. She tells the woman what she is doing to her sons and how her relationship is ruining hers with David. Christina stands up for Hester, the mother wants to tell everyone that the poor girl is insane but Christina will have none of that. David keeps sticking up for his mother instead of his wife so Christina and Hester walk out.

            As the two women leave Mrs. Phelps is more than delighted that her boys are staying with her. David thinks over what has happened and he realizes that he needs to be with his wife and leaves. The last scene is Mrs. Phelps holding Robert’s head in her arms telling him how he is a good boy for staying with her and how he is never to leave her.

            Goodness gracious I love my parents but not this much! I could never see how a girl could have an Electra complex or a boy can have an Oedipus complex it makes my head spin. My dad drives me nuts so bad thinking he is funny and just pushes my buttons to the breaking point that I could never imagine being obsessed with him. I just love how this mother’s obsession was shown as a bit of a taboo subject for a pre-code film. Mrs. Phelps was in a way very creepy with her obsession with her sons and her sons were in turn really weird with their love for their mother. I did not even know what this film was about until I started watching it otherwise possibly would have held off trying to find this (nah, who the hell am I kidding Irene Dunne, Frances Dee, and Joel McCrea are in the film there was NO holding me back from finding this!). It just drove me nuts how this woman had such a hold on her sons. I was so pissed with David that he would pick his mother over his own wife whom he was having a child with (yes they were having a baby I did not mention that in the review but that just totally put the mother over the edge). The mother gives an explanation as to why she coddled her boys it almost sounds like it is right but you just cannot forgive her for the way she has treated Hester and Christina she was so cruel to them.  

            Irene Dunne was always absolute perfection. This is by far her best pre-code film I have seen so far. No matter what film you see Dunne she just oozed professionalism and an ease in front of the camera, she just made acting look so easy. Her best scenes are when she told David the truth about his mother and when she told off Mrs. Phelps while keeping a cool head. As she was telling the mother off she kept her absolute cool she did not yell or go into a rage because she knew that none of that would help. Frances Dee was awesome; she almost gave Irene Dunne a run for her money. I can just gush about Dee all the time I adore her so much. I felt terrible when she had her breakdown after Robert told her that he was not marrying her, she was a bit over dramatic in the scene but still to me making Frances Dee up is like kicking a puppy. She was just so good at acting that you just believe she is the character just like Dunne. Now I love Joel McCrea but he really did not do anything for me. He was handsome as hell but he was not the stand out here. Eric Linden was PERFECT as the big momma’s boy because that is what he reminds me of, he just looks and sounds like a big gullible baby. Laura Hope Crews just dominated her scenes in a good way she was great. She is most famous for playing Aunt Pittypat in Gone with the Wind and she is the same character in this film- overbearing, childlike, and obnoxious. All I wanted to do in both films was smack her in the damn face! Crews played the role of the mother on the stage in 1929 and you can see she had that confidence and that knowledge of someone who has played the character before and knows how to handle it.

            Now when you read trivia or other reviews on The Silver Cord you read that this is the film where Joel McCrea and Frances Dee met. They have one quick scene together when David and Christina first come into the house. It was neat to see them together for that scene though knowing that this is where they met. McCrea and Dee married that year and remained married for fifty-seven years until he died. I read somewhere I believe on IDMB that Dee was dating Eric Linden at the time of the film but they broke it off, yeah, she definitely traded up she and McCrea were beautiful together.

            The Silver Cord is an excellent film. The entire cast lead by Irene Dunne was great. As I said at the beginning the story gives me the shivers and creeps me out a little but it was great. I love its pre-code aspects of a sort of taboo subject with the mother obsessing over her sons and a woman who could and wanted to balance having a family while having a career. There was a scene that showed how the times had greatly changed in a short time: Mrs. Phelps told Christina that when she was young women did not even think of working they were meant to stay in the home and take care of the family. I was so glued to The Silver Cord as I was watching it, the story and the acting just sucks you in.

The Silver Cord is currently available on Youtube. 

No Other Woman (1933)

I had a feeling with a title like No Other Woman this would be a weeping sort of a melodrama. It is not really weeping but kind of pathetic. Alright, maybe not pathetic but there is something that just did not and does not click right.

            The ever fabulous Irene Dunne plays a young woman named Anna. She lives in a town that centers around a steel factory. She dreams of a life bigger than what she has somewhere outside of the steel mill. She is in love with a man named Jim but when we see him ask propose she tells him no she does not want to be tied down to the steel mill. They marry anyway.

            All the while they are married Anna puts Jim’s paychecks away and also takes in boarders to earn some more cash. One night he gets really angry and storms out of the house with his paycheck intending to drink it all away. He does as he promised and comes home drunk with another woman who he says was his drinking buddy. Anna is worried about him staying awake until her husband gets home. She forgives him because she loves him and knows things have not been easy for him either.

            Anna’s young friend Joe has been developing a dye process that stays permanent to what it is supposed to dye. Anna wants Jim to get in on this dye because he is smart and good with managing things. They invest all their money in Joe’s invention and it pays off big time. In a few years they are wealthy beyond their dreams

            Jim goes to New York a lot and while there he gets lonely and starts seeing a woman named Margot. Everyone even back home knows Jim has been seeing another woman. Anna decides one day to go to New York for herself to see if the rumors are true. They are true and on top of everything Jim wants a divorce so he can marry Margot.

            Anna will not give Jim a divorce she says she still loves him and that one day he will want to come back to her. In anger Jim has his lawyer fabricate evidence and has “eyewitnesses” from their own staff testify that Anna was seeing other men while he was away. In the end Jim cannot take the lying and how hurt Anna is so he jumps up and yells that everything that has been said is false. For this he spends a year in jail.

            When Jim is released all his millions are gone to him as they are managed by Anna. He gets a job at his old steel mill.

            Al through the trial and everything Anna still loves him making Jim even feel more guilty when the whole thing is over.

            Almost all of the pre-codes, with the exception of Thirteen Women, that I have seen of Irene Dunne have not been to my liking. I have been reading a book on actresses and women’s roles during the pre-code era where the ladies were strong and independent and could do without their man. Anna was determined that is for sure but she was weak with love. That is what male characters were mostly like in pre-codes they were weak to a woman’s seductiveness. I think maybe my whole issue with it is that Anna was so in love with Jim that she just did not want to let him and she allowed herself to be dragged to court and splattered all over the courtroom. Dunne was nothing but brilliant she is was an incredible actress even in this not so great film. I am sure the film is only known today because of her.

            Eric Linden was that awe shucks kind, sweet and really soft character. I have only ever seen him in Big City Blues; he was not a very good actor. Charles Bickford was very hard to imagine as a leading man. He really did not do anything for me he was just there.

            Before this the only time I had ever seen Gwili Andre was in photographs by Cecil Beaton and Edward Steichen. I love both photographs they are gorgeous. She was not a bad actress at all unfortunately this role kept her from doing other films because people did not like her character. It is a real shame she was good and in a strange way very appealing and pretty.

            The courtroom scene is horrendous. Anna might as well not have had a lawyer the man barely defended her! The judge was an ass he was no help what so ever. I know this is an old film but still other films like A Free Soul had good courtroom scenes. This was terribly frustrating to sit through because we know the people are lying against the cheated wife and we know the husband is the one in the wrong.

            No Other Woman is not one of the greatest films but if you are a fan of Irene Dunne I say watch it because she was such a great actress but other than her skip it. No Other Woman is not available on DVD I recorded this through TCM. 

Big City Blues (1932)

Big City Blues is a good example of early classic cinema. The sound was not full of hissing and static (sure it has been cleaned up most likely but sometimes there are those films that still sound terrible) and the voice was clear, the direction by Mervyn LeRoy was excellent, and the plot was alright. The story is not too great but along the way there are some racy Pre-Code things going on underneath.

             A young man named Bud Reeves (Eric Linden) from Indiana has just come into money. He decides to go to New York City. The train station master lets Bud know that the city is really rough that when he went there as a young man he had jobs up and down all the boroughs. Bud is young and naïve but he sees the city as a great place full of opportunity and fun (who DOESN’T see that even today?). The station master and one of the workers makes a bet that Bud will be back in ten days.

            Bud has a cousin named Gibboney- Gibby for short. Gibby is a man about town with much money and much influence. In the lobby of the hotel that he is staying Bud is introduced by Gibby to two chorus girls one of them being Vida Fleet (Joan Blondell) who Bud takes an instant liking to. That night Gibby throws a little party in Bud’s hotel room. Vida is there along with some other people one of them being Shep Adkins (Humphrey Bogart). During the party a fight breaks out between Shep and another man. The lights go out during the fight but when the lights come on a girl named Jackie is found dead from being hit in the head with a glass bottle. Everyone runs even Gibby leaving Bud to take the blame.

            Now Bud is the prime suspect and he is on the run. Nobody is coming forward about the crime and the police are at all the stations, bus and train, keeping their eyes out for him.

            Eventually Bud is cleared and he goes back home after only seventy-two hours of leaving for New York City.

            The story was not too bad I think I would have liked it more if Eric Linden had not been the lead. His acting got on my nerves something fierce after a while. I know he was supposed to be an innocent guy naïve to big city life and partying but I did not like him at all. I found him more whiney and annoying than anything else. Joan Blondell and the rest of the cast was perfect. Blondell was a very good actress the more I see of her the more I enjoy her and the more she becomes to me the epitome of a Pre-Code actress. Humphrey Bogart had a very small part as Shep Adkins and he is not even credited. I liked him in his small scene you can tell he was on his way to becoming one of the best tough guys.

            There are several aspects of this film that make it a Pre-Code. At the party in Bud’s room a girl is reading a line from the lesbian themed book Well of Loneliness by Radclyff Hall. The book was heavily censored and caused a big sensation when it was released. Prohibition was still going on so Gibby had to get bootleg booze and several club scenes were speakeasies. At the end the real killer is found hanging in his closet after he killed himself. You do not the guy hanging in entirety you just seen his hands and feet, scenes like this would not be shown for a very long time in films after the Hayes Code was enforced.

            Big City Blues is not a bad Pre-Code but it definitely was not the best I have seen. I did like how Bud looked at New York City because so many millions of people look at it the same way: full of opportunity and new adventures and fun. I go to New York City all the time and every time I go it is so exciting. I guess if I lived there and really experienced it I would not feel that way and I would be let down much like Bud was … just without the murder charges. There are some points in the film that drag while others keep you entertained especially when Bud arrives and meets up with his cousin for the first time. Big City Blues is a good example of Pre-Code films in the 1930s and keeps up with Warner Bros’ reputation for releasing gritty films during the decade.