Petticoat Fever (1936)

“You don’t suppose his feverish condition is due to his being wonky over women?”

            Like pretty much all the screwball comedies to come out of the 1930s Petticoat Fever has a man falling head over heels for a woman he has just met and for a while the woman keeps her distance until the man becomes irresistible but by the time she comes around to the man something or someone such as another comes and gets in the way. The only difference with this film is the main character has a very good reason for chasing after a woman he has just met.

            Ever since his ex-fiancée left him two years ago Dascom Dinsmore (Robert Montgomery) has been living in Labrador, Alaska surrounded all year by freezing cold snow and wicked winds. He makes his living as a wireless operator with the only other human contact he makes besides the natives is a crewmember of a ship that he messages a game of checkers with. The one thing Dascom desperately misses is women.  Sure there are female Eskimos but he dreams of gorgeous English women.

            Luck comes in for Dascom when a plane carrying a very pretty English lady crashes in the tundra after running out of gas. The pretty lady’s name is Irene Campion (Myrna Loy). Unfortunately she was traveling with her fiancé Sir James Felton. As soon Irene walks through the door Dascom is love struck he keeps pestering her and looking at her and anxiously waiting on her hand and foot. At first Irene is a bit peeved but eventually she just realizes that Dascom is harmless since he has not seen a woman in so long a time.

            Sir James is not at all thrilled with Dascom constantly following Irene around like a love sick little boy. He tries to bribe an Eskimo to take him and Irene to a mission to marry them and then they can be off but that plan goes to nothing since the Eskimos are in with Dascom with trying to keep Irene with him. Irene becomes very smitten with Dascom and at one point agrees to stay with him and leave Sir James. But in comes the complication when Dascom’s ex- fiancée walks in telling him she is madly in love with him still.

            I am sure you can imagine the ending since this is a screwball/romantic comedy and Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy were the stars.

            I did enjoy Myrna Loy and Robert Montgomery in the film but there were times that I felt there was very little chemistry between them. Loy could have chemistry with a pole if she had to she knew how to mold her acting styles to the actor she was with: she was sophisticated with William Powell and tough with Clark Gable. Robert Montgomery was both sophisticated and very silly and times it seemed Loy did not know what to do. Both of them handled their own characters and each other’s characters with great delicacy. Without their delicacy they could have made brought their characters over the top. Montgomery no matter what the comedic situation called for always brought his characters to the point of going over the top but never went there, he was always very well controlled and this worked perfectly in the film.

            Reginald Owen was a panic as Sir James. His character could have come off as annoying but he was perfect. You just laugh at his annoyance over Dascom the whole time.

            They had two very cute scenes together: Irene needed to go to the plane to get her jewelry so Dascom takes her. He notices a polar bear outside but he casually tells her to the point where she does not believe it until she sees it for herself. She jumps into his arms and every time she moves from them he scratches the roof making it seem as if the polar bear was trying to get in. The other scene is when Sir James tells Irene to keep his gun pointed at Dascom while he goes and gets their bags so they can leave. The whole time she is pointing the gun at him he cutely tells her that he loves her and makes her laugh and then of course they kiss (the kiss was not sexy but adorable because they were just adorable people).

            One of the many things I love about 1930s screwball comedies is how the dialogue keeps you on your toes. One of the best lines comes from Myrna Loy because it is a line that only she could deliver without batting an eye that is funny and sarcastic: “I always wanted to irritate an Eskimo.” Just imagine Myrna Loy saying this line and you will think it is funny. I cannot remember the situation that prompted her character to say that but I was just laughing. Robert Montgomery had me laughing when Sir James told him not to make a peep or he would shoot him in the knee and he responds by saying peep.

            Petticoat Fever is a funny film. I really enjoyed how the plot of boy chases girl was not set in some nightclub or around a rich crowd but out in the middle of nowhere where nerves and every emotion can be tested.

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. 

Men in White (1934)

The plot to Men in White is an over seventy-year old precursor to the entire structural plot of Grey’s Anatomy. Clark Gable is the 1930s McDreamy only he is an intern and his Meredith Grey happens to be a nurse and his Addison Montgomery is his not so very understanding social registered fiancée Laura Hudson played by a pre-perfect wife Myrna Loy.

            Dr. George Ferguson (Gable) is a promising intern. He is very passionate about medicine and helping people. His great believe and defender is an old doctor named Hochberg. The doctor is an old family friend of George’s fiancée Laura (Loy) and when Laura and her father talk down about George being busy all the time and possibly opening a practice to have time Hochberg angrily defends George’s passion and drive. George saves the life of a young girl after an older doctor gave her too much insulin. The young nurse helping him, Barbara, is in awe of what he did and they find they are both very passionate about helping people.

            Laura is upset with George for having to stay the night at the hospital again and for not being able to go out that night with her. Even when he calls her telling her he is free she is angry and shoots him down. That night Barbara goes down to the doctor’s quarters where their rooms are so she can get the notes for a test George said he had. They are lonely and they kiss. George runs out the door to check on his patients but Barbara stays behind and waits for him.

            On the day of the rehearsals for their wedding, a man from the hospital is sent to find George to let him know that he is needed at the hospital for an emergency. When they get there Hochberg lets George know that the patient is Barbara and that something is terribly wrong with her. George knows what is wrong and he is upset that she never came to him. Hochberg asks Laura if she is ready for a (figurative) slap in the face. He takes her to the operating room to see what George does and to learn how Barbara’s situation is related to George. In the OR Barbara tells George that she loves him.

            George feels incredibly guilty. He tells Hochberg that he plans to marry the nurse since she has no family and nowhere to go. He is willing to throw everything to open up a practice or even give up medicine all together. Laura will not talk to him nor will she even face him when she is in his presence. She is upset that he never had time for her but had time for Barbara. Hochberg takes Laura back to the hospital where Barbara wants to talk to her. The nurse explains what happened that night. Laura forgives George but they both know that his work is what matters most to him.

            Although I used to watch Grey’s Anatomy (used to… the show got a little bit too much for me) I am not a big fan of hospital dramas either on TV or the big screen. But of course Men in White being a Clark Gable and Myrna Loy film I had to see it. I have to say that this was not a bad medical drama. What makes it not boring or over dramatic is the cast, not one of them was miscast or overacted. This is where I can see how women adored Clark Gable because I did. His character was so nice and sympathetic and Gable just nailed it he played the character perfectly. This was before Gable became the macho man of Gone with the Wind and It Happened One Night. The more I see of his films earlier films and his films with Myrna Loy the more I see him as a great dramatic actor and just a great actor in general. I am not a fan of his macho man roles but when he played a character like George with a lot of heart and emotion I enjoy him. Myrna Loy was still at the stage in her career where she was playing spoiled rich women who just want what they want. Her character could have been outrageously annoying and completely unsympathetic if she had not been in the role. In the end Laura sees that she was wrong but instead of dwelling on it she accepts what has happened and knows she has to move on even though she loves George which in turn makes her sympathetic. As I say a every time I write about a Myrna Loy film she never overacted and that is what makes her unsympathetic characters more bearable to sit through, if there was another actress in the role she would have been too over dramatic and seemed too spoiled. I love Gable and Loy's chemistry. They were close friends outside the studio and in all their films they made their friendship/outside chemistry comes through.

            Jean Hersholt was great at Dr. Hochberg. I liked the character, he wanted George to further his medical knowledge and work with him and he also knew that Laura was getting in the way so he helped both of them realize that although they did love each other they could never work.

            When Men in White was first released there were some parts that had to be taken out. Even though Barbara’s abortion is only suggested and the romance between nurse and doctor is hinted at The Legion of Decency deemed it unfit to be shown to the public and those parts were frequently cut out. Geez The Legion of Decency would have a heart attack if they ever watched Grey’s Anatomy! My favorite “risqué” part of the film is when the man from the hospital knock on George’s door and Laura says to him “Wipe your lips off it looks you’ve been eating jam”… obviously they were doing some kissing before the guy interrupted.

            The Art Deco sets created by Cedric Gibbons were perfect. Art Deco is a very symmetrical style of architecture and decoration that can often seem too cold and uniform but the style was perfect for a hospital. The whole hospital was made to look very sterile and uniform and cold. The white staircase and the operating room are perfect example of the Art Deco style.

            Adrian designed Myrna Loy’s gowns. She looked fantastic and for once it seemed that Adrian did not go over the top with his designs (I find he did that a lot with some of the films he costumed).

             Men in White is a very good melodrama. Everything about the film works perfectly.