Ladies in Love (1936)

“The trouble with us is all we talk about is love.”

            I am not a romantic girl at all. Sometimes I think about what it would be like to be totally in love with someone and have someone be totally in love with me. But those thoughts are usually thought of after I watch a romantic or rom com movie. The next day I am usually so busy thinking of just me with school and work the last thing I want to think about is that someone else in my life. At this moment in my life I cannot handle a boyfriend. Never mind all the drama that usually goes into having one! Two of my best friends have boyfriends. When we are all together they talk about their boyfriends. I do not mind though because I like their boyfriends and they are not the only thing they can talk about. I cannot imagine having friends that all they do is talk about their boyfriends more than I can imagine me having one right now. Thank god! In the 1936 film Ladies in Love all three friends can talk about is love.

            Susie Schmidt (Loretta Young) and Yoli Hayden (Constance Bennett) move into their new apartment. When they walk into the building they find their third roommate and their other friend Martha Kerenye (Janet Gaynor) has already made herself at home by taking a shower. Martha tells the girl an old superstition her gypsy nurse told her: they have to count all the corners in the room then sit down and make a wish. Susie and Yoli count eight and then sit down: Susie wants a hat shop like the one she used to work in and Yoli wants to marry a rich a husband. Martha in the bathroom counts four and wishes for a real home, a husband, and kids.

            One of Martha’s many odd jobs is taking care of experimental rabbits for a Dr. Rudi Imre (Don Ameche). On that particular day Martha was late to take care of the rabbit. Rudi is not too happy with her because the rabbits need to be on a strict schedule for their medicine. She tells him that she moved into a new place a little farther away so it took her extra time to get there. Rudi is upset with her and lets her go.

            At the apartment Yoli boyfriend John comes by with his friend Count Karl Lanyi (Tyrone Power). Susie opens the door and is immediately in love with Karl. Karl asks Yoli to take Susie to a party that night. Susie hears Karl ask Yoli about her going to the party. Yoli tells her that Karl is engaged to another woman already but that does not bother Susie too much. At the party Yoli’s friend Ben tells her he can see that Susie in love it is all over her face. He talks to Yoli about the night she met John. Ben had been talking to her before John walked in. Ben is upset that Yoli is upset about John going away. John and Yoli go to leave the party but happily decide to stay.

            The following day Martha goes to see Susie in the stage show she is in. Martha asks Susie if she knows any men she might be able to sell a tie to. Susie tries to introduce her friend to a magician named Sandor but the magician just brushes Martha off. Martha gets seated in spot very close to the stage. During one of his tricks Sandor calls Martha up on stage. She tries to sell him a tie not realizing she is in the act. Sandor tricks her about buying a tie and giving her money. After the show Sandor needs help getting his shirt off. He fired his help so Martha helps him. He needs a tie too. Martha makes a deal with Sandor to buy a tie for a smaller price and she can become his maid. That day Susie had told Karl she was in love with him. After the show Karl is backstage waiting to take her out to dinner.

            Meanwhile, Yoli and John are at his place. They see legs dangling on the arm of one of his chairs. When they go over a young girl is there. The girl’s name is Marie (Simone Simon) and she is kind of related to John by marriage. Marie tells them that she ran away from. Her mother was trying to make her do something she did not want to do. John is nervous about her staying there and what it might look like to people.

            Martha has been working for Sandor for three weeks. She bosses him around. She tells him to stop drinking and he gives her a bull story that he has a nervous disorder that makes his hand shake just to get her sympathy.

            Susie goes to Karl’s apartment. He is not there but she waits. She sees a note from his fiancé on the table. She reads the letter. The fiancé wrote that they can be married at the end of the week just like he wanted. Beyond crushed Susie leaves the apartment in a hurry.

            Martha goes to see Rudi. She tells him she is working for Sandor and Rudi gets a little jealous thinking she is in love with Sandor. She gets mad at him and leaves in a huff.

            That night Susie goes out with John and Yoli. She sees Karl walk into the club. A man who gossips sees Susie and talks to him about Karl. To avoid speaking to Karl she goes off with the man when Karl comes up to her.

            Rudi waited for Martha outside the theater. He apologizes to her and takes her out to dinner. He gets jealous of Sandor again when Martha mentions the magicians. Martha gets very upset with Rudi for analyzing her when he cannot analyze himself. She storms out of the restaurant.

            Marie has run away from her boarding school. She confesses to him that ever since he had taken her out to lunch when she came sever years ago with her mother for vacation she has been in love with him. That is the reason she ran away from home. Marie manages to get John to marry him and take her to South America. John is truly happy around Marie.

            Sandor admits to Martha that he hired her because he was lonely and he was hoping she would fall in love with him. Martha does not love Sandor in any way. He kisses her and then says he thought he was losing his grip. Martha runs out of the apartment.

            Susie watches from a café Karl walking into a church with his bride to be married. At the apartment Susie drinks too much champagne. Martha shares in a bit of Susie’s misery and drinks some champagne as well. Susie is so depressed she puts sleeping syrup in her drink to kill herself. She put the glass down near Martha’s and Martha winds up picking Susie’s glass.

            Yoli goes to the train station to see John. She sees Marie going with him. Yoli walks off of the platform and Ben is there waiting for her. When Yoli comes home Rudi is there trying to keep Martha awake. Susie feels awful she cannot believe she just almost killed her best friend. Rudi comes to check on Martha and Sandor comes in at the same time. Sandor thinks Martha tried to kill herself because of him. She starts laughing and cannot stop when he says that. Rudi plays some game with Sandor to get him out of the apartment. Rudi tells Martha he got a real job and wants to marry her.

            The ladies move out of their apartment. Susie got her store thanks to some help from Yoli and Ben. Yoli marrying Ben who has really loved her. They all cannot believe all that has happened to them since they had moved into their apartment.

            The cast was fantastic. I loved seeing Janet Gaynor, Loretta Young, and Constance Bennett together. Gaynor was so adorable I could not take it. She looked and sounded like such a little kid she was perfect as Martha because Martha was in so many ways a dreamy little girl. Young was gorgeous and wonderful. I liked how Susie could not stop talking when they first moved in she was so excited. Bennett is a great actress. It seemed like she did not want to be making the film though. Maybe it was the character but it looked like Bennett was not giving the part her all. Don Ameche did not have his mustache and I could not believe how much more handsome he was without it! I loved him and Gaynor together they were so cute. Tyrone Power is actually listed in the credits as Tyrone Power, Jr. His father was an actor so I guess to distinguish the young from the old they put Jr. at the end. Not too long later they dropped the Jr. Power is not really in the film that much. This was mostly likely one of his very early films for Fox.

            Ladies in Love was a cute film. Although I am far from the romantic type I did like the story.  The story was good because Susie did not really get what she wanted. All the ladies had to go through heartbreak and silly things (in Martha's case) to get to where they wanted and what they wanted. Secretly sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be in love. For now I just live vicariously though film characters which is all I have time for right now! Haha. Ladies in Love is definitely worth watching especially if you like any of the cast members. 

A Letter To Three Wives (1949)

“She won't stay mad at him for long. She's too much in love. Pretty soon she'll be full of self-reproach. Ha ha! Women are so silly.”

            One of my favorite plot devices of storytelling is flashbacks especially in films. I love seeing what drove the people to their current situation. I just love knowing what is going on in a character’s head. A Letter to Three Wives is an interesting story mostly told through flashback. It centers around a woman who has connections to the husbands of the three wives.  

            Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain), Lora Mae Hollingsway (Linda Darnell), and Rita Phipps (Ann Sothern) and their husbands have been friends for years. One Saturday they are taking a boat trip to a camp ground volunteering for underprivileged children. Each woman is worried about their husbands going away or doing something out of their normal Saturday routine. They wonder about their husband’s activities but they are not necessarily worried until they are given a note at the dock. The letter is addressed to all three of them and is from their friend Addie Ross. In the letter Addie tells her friends that she is leaving town for good… and taking one of their husbands with her.

            On the boat each woman flashbacks to a time when Addie Ross was mentioned in their lives and their husbands were not too happy.

            Deborah remembers her first day in town. During the War she had served as a WAVE where she met her husband Brad. That night he wants her to come with him to a party at the country club. Deborah is nervous because she is from a small farm town and does not have a nice dress. She thinks she is going to embarrass herself in front of everyone. Rita and her husband George (Kirk Douglas) come to the house to go with Brad and Deborah to the party. Brad tells Rita that Deborah is a little nervous. Rita goes up to see Deborah and try to sort out her dress situation. Deborah accidentally cuts off the flower in the front of her dress and puts a hole in the dress. At the party Deborah drinks more than she is use to. She gets dizzy while dancing with Brad and has to run to the bathroom. To make the whole matter worse the flower of her dress comes unraveled and the hole is exposed. Rita helps Deborah fix herself out and return to the party. When Deborah looks for Brad she finds her husband outside on the balcony talking to Addie Ross. Before the War Brad and Addie were close having known each other since they were kids and most likely going to marry each other.    

            The next flashback comes from Rita. Rita works writing radio programs for an advertising company. George is not thrilled with her job. She works until all hours of the night and as an English teacher does not think the type of writing she does is real literature with significant stories. One night Rita has her boss come to the house for dinner. She is in a frantic mood all day worrying about what their maid is going to cook and how the maid will talk. The doorbell rings. A delivery boy brings George a record. It is his birthday that day and Rita completely forgot. She feels terrible. The record is a classic recording from before the War. Addie got it for George. He is so happy with the record. Lora Mae and her husband Porter come over. Porter runs a store and Rita thought it would be good for him to come over to see if her boss could advertise his store. The night does not go as planned. Poor George gets his record broken by Rita’s boss when she excitedly wants to listen to her radio program. After the program George is furious with the boss and the program. He cannot understand why this show is so popular with its awful lifeless plot.

            The last flashback comes from Lora Mae. When she first started going out with Porter she was a salesgirl in his store. He had asked her out. Lora Mae saw her relationship with Porter as a way to get out of her poor life. She lived with her tough as nails Irish mother and younger sister. Lora Mae does her best to act like a lady and to get Porter to treat her as such. Porter though is not a typical man. He is rough and ignores (or maybe does not notice) Lora Mae’s playfulness and teasing. She goes to his house one night. She sees Addie’s photograph in a frame on his piano. Lora Mae tells Porter she wants her photograph on a piano in her own home. Porter tells her he is not the marrying type. With that Lora Mae breaks things off and goes home. On New Year’s Eve, Lora Mae is home by herself. Porter was supposed to go to Addie’s house for a party instead he went to Lora Mae to tell her he loves her and will marry her. Now their relationship is not very happy they hurl insults at each other constantly without either batting an eye.

            That night after their trip they have a party to go to at their club. Rita finds George home as does Lora Mae with Porter. Deborah goes home to the butler telling her that Brad will not be home that night. She thinks Brad has run away with Addie. That night at the party Porter tells George that he thinks Lora Mae does not love him. George lets him know that Lora Mae is crazy about him. Deborah thinking Brad has run away is a bad state. She gets up and announces her belief. Porter grabs her hand and tells her that he was the one who was going to run away with Addie Ross but he loves Lora Mae too much. He turns to Lora Mae and tells her that based on what she has heard with a witness standing by that she has grounds to divorce him. Lora Mae says she did not hear a thing and he gets up to dance with her.

            I liked Ann Sothern and Linda Darnell in their roles. Ann Sothern, up to this point, I have only ever seen her in her comedic roles in the Maisie series. I thought her dramatic acting was great she was very versatile. Linda Darnell I believe I have only seen her in one film before this and her role was small. She was perfect for her character. Lora Mae was a tough girl with a tough attitude and Darnell did a great job. Jeanne Crain I was not too thrilled of. Apparently 20^th Century Fox wanted Crain to play Eve Harrington in All About Eve but Joseph Mankiewicz said she was not much of an actress even though he liked her. I cannot blame him for saying Crain was not much of an actress. Compared to Sothern and Darnell, Crain was not that great. And if you are wondering who the voice of Addie Ross is… take a look on IMDB under the trivia section for the film.

            Vera Caspary, author of the book Laura in which the famous Film Noir is based off, wrote the screenplay for A Letter to Three Wives. It definitely has a touch of Caspary’s wit and intelligence. The story this film plays out very much like the film and book of Laura and I love both book and film version.

            A Letter to Three Wives is a good film. It is dark, dramatic, and, at times, humorous. The film won Best Director and Best Screenplay at the Academy Awards. It definitely deserved both. A Letter to Three Wives allows you to get into pretty much every character’s head and in turn the characters and the story stay in your head. This is definitely one of the best classic films I have seen and highly suggest seeing it.

 

Gold Rush Maisie (1940)

One of the hundreds of reasons why I love the Maisie series is how Maisie gets herself lost on a way to a gig, uses her resourcefulness, and helps people in the process. In Gold Rush Maisie the titular character is on her way to a gig driving through the desert in a Midwestern town. Well, the town is actually a ghost town. Maisie goes into the town and realizes no one is there.

            Off in the distance she notices a ranch with the lights on. Maisie goes up to the house for some help but the owner a cranky young man named Bill Anders (Lee Bowman) tries to turn her away at first. But, Maisie being Maisie, sweet talks her way in for the night. Bill softens up a bit and tries to hit on Maisie since she is most likely the only woman he has been around in a very long time. When Maisie puts a stop to his pursuits Bill is furious with her again. The following morning Maisie tries to be nice and cook breakfast but Bill yells at her that he had breakfast hours before and she wasted their food. Bill manages to get Maisie’s car working to some extent but it does not go too far forcing her to walk and hitchhike the many miles into town.

            The first thing Maisie does is try to explain to the owner at the club she was supposed to work at that she ran into car trouble and had to walk all the way into town. The owner tells Maisie she is too late and besides the customers like the Hawaiian girl who dances. Downtrodden, Maisie heads to a small diner for dinner. When she enters she hears the owner and a local talk about the gold rush that has hit at the outskirts of town. It is actually happening in that old ghost town near Bill’s house (by this time Maisie has been away from the house for two days). As Maisie is eating a young girl named Jubie comes in asking the owner to warm up a bottle for her little sister. The owner does not want but after Maisie gives the guy her best attitude he relents. Jubie is very thankful to Maisie and really likes her.

            Maisie has to try to hike it back to Bill’s house to get her car. As she is walking the car Jubie is in with her family passes her. Jubie tells her father to stop the car that Maisie is the one who helped her out in the diner. Jubie’s parents Bert and Sarah are very happy to give Maisie a lift. They are all very sweet to her. Bert tells Maisie that they are headed to the gold rush to make their fortune. They want a better life for their children they do not want to have to travel around looking for work anymore. Jubie’s younger brother wants chocolate and food. Jubie wants a nice dress like Maisie’s. Sarah takes out their small amount of food and hands out small portions to the children. Maisie feels terrible seeing this she cannot believe these poor people have to live the way they do.

            When they arrive at the once called ghost town there are thousands of people there. Maisie goes to the grocer’s to pick up a few cans of food and other supplies for the family with her last few dollars. The family is beyond thrilled that they can eat a decent meal. They cannot find a spot to settle down and rest. They would have to pay five dollars to do so. Maisie comes up with the idea to settle on a piece of Bill’s land since he has a well nearby. Also Maisie knows that Bill will not bother her about anything since she is a little too much for him. Bert has Maisie become his partner and go in on whatever gold they can find.

            One night it rains and the tent Maisie has been sleeping under with the family becomes drenched. She has everyone run over the Bill’s house. He does not want them coming into his quiet house he hates that so many people have come over by his property. Yet again, Maisie wins out and Sarah and the children take the guest bedroom. Bill gives a shivering cold Maisie something to drink. She does not really drink alcohol because it makes her all funny but Bill tells her to drink up so she will not get a cold. As she drinks Bill’s cocktail they get to talking and the more Maisie drink the more her talking gets slurred and the sillier she sounds. Finally she gets up and lays down on a couch.

            Sometime later Maisie and Bert strike gold. They are all as happy as can be. Unfortunately their luck is not so good. An inspector from the federal government comes in to look at the claimed gold from all the people in town. The inspector finds the gold to be worthless. Everyone is disappointed.

            Maisie goes to back to Bill’s house with Bert and the family. Bert notices Bill has decent soil for planting. This gives Maisie the idea to get Bill to give Bert a job on the farm so the family does not have to move around anymore. Maisie gives Bill a good talking to, or more aptly, a good yelling at for being a selfish man for turning people away when he can provide them with work and a place to stay. Bill has a change of heart and gives Bert a job.

            Maisie has to leave to get back to Arizona to the agency that sent her out into the middle of nowhere in the first place. The family is upset to see her go after all she did for them. Since they will be staying put Bert gives Maisie the family car. Before she leaves she promises Jubie she will write to her.

            Gold Rush Maisie was really cute. I love how Maisie sticks to her guns and does not let anyone bully her out of her convictions. I also love how Maisie has such a big heart and just rolls with the obstacles that come her way. She makes the most out of everything she encounters. This entry in the series is interesting because it is one of very few Hollywood films to have been made at the time that deals with the topic of the Depression out in the Midwest. Maybe because the Maisie films were considered B-movies rather than glitzy A-movies MGM figured they could get away with the topic. Whatever MGM’s though process was Gold Rush Maisie was down to earth and tough as nails.