Redemption (1930)

“I love those I love and hate those I hate.”

            There  are several films in the early 1930s that were not too great for several reason: acting (which was still coming into a form since the actors now needed to talk), direction (cameras could now move… well to some degree), editing, and story. Several idols of the silent screen fell from grace during the early sound era. Some of them fell from their voices not being up to par with what the studios and the fans demanded. Some fell because their major popularity faded. No one suffered more from the fall from silent screen grace than John Gilbert. Unfortunately his fall came from his very home studio where they spread vicious lies about him because Gilbert did not want to cooperate. The films MGM gave Gilbert were below what any actor, let alone someone with Gilbert’s acting ability, should ever be given. Redemption was one of John Gilbert’s many completely unfortunate films that he was given so he could fail.

            A young woman named Lisa (Eleanor Boardman) has her fortune told by a gypsy in a gypsy camp. The fortunate teller reveals to Lisa that she will meet and marry a dark man. A man named Fedya (Gilbert) sees Lisa and goes to her to try to charm her. Lisa’s fiancée Victor comes over. Fedya and Victor know each other. Victor tells Lisa that Fedya is a good guy but he is very irresponsible.

            As the months pass Fedya and Lisa have been secretly seeing each other. Lisa breaks things off with Victor and marries Fedya. After a year of being married Fedya becomes restless. He begins to gamble and stay out until all hours of the night and morning. When their baby is born Lisa has Fedya promise to be good. He promises for the sake of their son. It is not long, though, until Fedya breaks his promise. He even makes a second promise and breaks that one as well. He gambles until he is bankrupt and has to sell the furniture. Lisa leaves her husband. Fedya had written her a letter that they should separate and she agreed but she still loves him. Lisa writes a letter to Fedya and has Victor take it to him. She tells Victor to tell Fedya she is waiting for him to come home.

            Fedya goes to a gypsy resort where he meets a gypsy girl named Masha (Renee Adoree). Victor tracks down Fedya to this resort and tells his friend that Lisa wants him to come home. Fedya says that he loves Lisa so much and that he wants Victor to marry her.

            Two months later Fedya is living in a cheap room. Masha is taking care of him. Her parents come to take her away. Fedya says he loves her like a sister. Masha loves Fedya more than a sister. Lisa comes during the argument. Fedya is upset she is there. Fedya tells Lisa he wants her to divorce him and marry Victor and forget him. Lisa loves him too much to let him go. Lisa goes home that night and tells Victor that seeing Masha with Fedya has let her move on from him.

            Fedya has a letter brought to Lisa and Victor. He wrote them that by the time they read their letters he will be gone. Lisa and Victor think Fedya has killed himself. Lisa has a meltdown. She yells at Victor to get away from here that Fedya was the only man she every loved.

            Fedya is not dead he went away with Masha. He reads in the paper that Lisa and Victor are to be married. Fedya talks to an old man in a bar that he had written Lisa a letter that he was going to kill himself. He was about to until Masha stopped him. She made it look like he drowned himself in a river. Another man overhears him and tells Fedya that he is going to blackmail Lisa and Victor to keep him quiet about what he has just heard. Fedya tracks the blackmailer down. The man calls for the police and rats on Fedya that he is defrauding the government pretending to be dead. Fedya is brought to jail. Lisa and Victor are brought before a judge with Fedya. To spare Lisa and Victor embarrassment Fedya takes a police officer’s gun and shoots himself.

            Let me just say that there was nothing wrong with John Gilbert’s voice or acting. Gilbert, like most actors and actresses of the time, was over dramatic in some scenes but for the most part he was fantastic. He was charming and handsome. MGM totally screwed him over. Eleanor Boardman was great. I enjoy her acting. It was sad to see her act with Gilbert who was being pushed to the ground when they were in Bardleys the Magnificent together and were amazing. Renee Adoree was only in the film for a short time. Her career suffered from sound because she was French and spoke English with a heavy accent.

            Redemption is not a very good film and it is not the fault of the acting. The story is sad, tragic and boring. No wonder the film did not do well audience were left feeling depressed. Redemption is not a film I highly recommend seeing unless you are a fan of John Gilbert or Renee Adoreee or Eleanor Boardman. 

Confession (1937)

I am not a huge fan of Kay Francis. I enjoy her acting she was not bad at all but there is something about her that I cannot enthusiastically like about her. In the films I have seen her in so far she always seems to just be there and look pretty. Her acting is not forceful and she was not funny or dramatic in a way that can grab my attention. With all this being said I must admit that I have a new admiration for Kay Francis after seeing her in Confession.

            A nightclub singer named Vera (Francis) sees a man at a table with a young girl. She faints and is taken to the back. The man named Michael Michailow (Basil Rathbone) noticed Vera and leaves in a hurry. As he is leaving Vera calls out to him and shoots him. The court questions why Vera would want to shoot a man she does not know and she will not confess. A man brings in a suitcase of evidence that Vera and Michael knew each other. Vera shouts out “no!” before the suitcase can be open. She wants her statement heard behind closed doors with the court cleared of everyone present. She says what she has to say may not be appropriate for people to hear. The judge grants her wish.

            Vera was performing with the opera Mazurka in Warsaw in 1912. Michael was the conductor for the opera. Vera was giving up her stage career for married life. Michael is upset she is getting married to another man. A few years later her husband Leonid is off fight in World War I and she is left alone with her daughter. Vera stays home all the time with her daughter. She is invited everywhere but never goes. The doctor tells her to go out and to stop worrying all the time. Vera goes out to a charity ball. Michael is there he sent her the invitation. A woman at the party name Zenia keeps giving Vera the eye. She is jealous of Michael paying attention to Vera.  

            They continue the party at Michael’s house. Zenis becomes furious with Michael and storms out. Vera has a lot to drink she wants to go home. Michael says he will take her but she is so drunk she has no idea what is going on. When she wakes up in the morning she is still at Michael’s place. Vera goes home. The maid judges her for staying out all night. Vera debates if she should tell her husband or not. She is so ashamed of herself she cannot look Leonid in the eye. Poor Leonid thinks she cannot look at him because of his missing arm. In the meantime Michael keeps sending her letters for them to meet. Zenia sees Vera walk into Michael’s apartment. All this time Vera believed it was Michael who was sending the letters when it has been Zenia driving her crazy. Zenia goes to Leonid about where he can find his wife. He sees Vera coming out of Michael’s place. Michael runs away so he will not have to testify in court. Leonid’s horror will not let him forgive Vera. He wants her to leave. According to the law Leonid will be the one who has sole custody of their daughter and Vera is to never see her again.

            In court Vera says she was in the hospital for months after the divorce. When she came out Leonid and the daughter were gone he changed his name and she took up singing in cabarets. She always held on to the hope that she would see her daughter again. Eventually Vera found out where Leonid and her daughter lived. Vera had gone to see her daughter Lisa. Leonid had remarried and led his daughter to believe that the women he married was her real mother. Vera just tells the woman that she used to know Leonid and his first wife and just wanted to see him again. Leonid had died years before.

            Vera tells the court she saw her daughter happy and that was good enough for her. The suitcase tells the truth that she is Lisa’s mother. She did not want that testimony to go public so Lisa would never know her real mother. When the people are allowed back in the prosecutor does not say what the circumstances were regarding them leaving and his changing his sentence. Instead of Vera receiving five years for murdering Michael she gets three because she was protecting a young girl.

            As I mentioned at the beginning I have a whole new admiration for Kay Francis after watching this film. She was fantastic. You can see her character’s heartbreak and love for her daughter. As I also mentioned in the films I have seen of Francis’s so far she seems to have always played the same characters. She was glamorous or tough or romantic. Here she looked like she had been put through the ringer like life had definitely not been kind to her. For an old Hollywood actress to let themselves not look glamorous to me too a lot of courage and was only done when an actress was very dedicated to their craft. Kay Francis seems to have given everything she had with her talent to this role and she just nailed it.

            Confession is a remake of a German film of the same title. Apparently the director made the film shot for shot of the original. There are two scenes that stand out as being completely different from the way American directors filmed scenes. When Lisa kisses Michael in her house she looks up at a ceiling fan she closes her eyes and sees it again. I loved it, if you have seen German Expressionist films you will most likely understand why I liked it so much. Confession is a fantastic film. I enjoyed it from beginning to end. It held my attention and my heart broke for Kay Francis’s character. Unfortunately Confession is not available on DVD or through Youtube. I was able to see the film through TCM. If the channel airs Confession again absolutely watch it.

This Man is Mine (1934)

As soon as I saw the title This Man is Mine I knew it was going to be a Pre-Code women’s picture. I should not have expected anything different from an Irene Dunne film in the early thirties these were the types of films she made at the beginning of her film career. The film was a big mess of a melodrama but it was not as bad as it could have been.

            Tony (Dunne) and Jim Dunlap (Ralph Bellamy) are happily married. Their friend Bee comes over. Bee does not understand how Tony is happy in her married life. Tony responds it is because she loves Jim very much.

            An old scandal is brought up. Jim’s ex-girlfriend Francesca is getting a divorce and coming back to town. Francesca stays with Bee and her husband Judd. Bee seems to not even be able to stand her the moment she walks in the door. The only reason Francesca is staying with Bee is because she is Judd’s sister. Tony was supposed to go over to Bee’s house for lunch but she calls with the excuse that her son is not feeling well.

            Tony and Jim goes to Bee’s house some time later for dinner. Francesca wants to talk to Jim and everyone watches them off in another part of the room. They all know that Francesca still loves Jim. Francesca gets Jim alone like she wanted. She tries to gain his sympathy she wants him to stop hating her for what happened. He gets her to stop talking by kissing her. Everyone goes to Tony’s house. Jim tells them he and Francesca will meet them at the house. They never show up to the house. Bee is the only one who stays behind to be with Tony. Bee knows that Francesca will keep going after men then move on. Tony tells Bee that with Francesca around Jim cannot sleep. Jim and Francesca eventually make it to the house just as Bee and Tony are going upstairs. While his wife is upstairs Jim tells his ex-girlfriend that he still loves her. Judd walks in the room as they are kissing. Francesca acts as if nothing is wrong. Judd is furious with her.

            The next day Tony asks Jim if he is still in love with Francesca. He says yes. She says she has been living with Francesca’s ghost for a long time. He wants her to give him a divorce. Tony will not but she makes a deal with him that if he still loves Francesca in six months from now he can have the divorce. She still has hope that Jim will stay with her.

            Francesca finds out the guy Marty she brought home has money and a yacht. Marty almost got her to leave with him until Tony sees them kiss. Tony figures Marty was brought to the house to make Jim jealous. Francesca puts on an act in front of Jim that Marty hurt her. Hearing this Jim is ready to run away with her he wants to force Tony’s hand in the divorce.

            Tony makes Jim look foolish in front of Francesca by saying she wants to get a divorce in New York City so their scandal and name will be pulled into the papers. She also tells Francesca that she will sue her for one million dollars just to drag everything out to embarrass the family Francesca comes back saying she will deny everything that is said about her to make Tony look bad too. Jim gets furious with Francesca and slaps her. She bites him and he punches her knocking her to the floor.

            Jim wants to talk to Tony about their son he does not want a fuss with the divorce for their son’s sake. Tony is more upset about the whole thing because her mother was the same way as Francesca was with men. Francesca comes over one afternoon. She tells Tony to drop the divorce. Tony knows Francesca is scared for herself. Tony will not back out of it. Francesca married Marty to get out of the mess.

            Needless to say the ending is predictable with Tony and Jim getting back together.

            I am so used to seeing Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy together in The Awful Truth where they are both really funny and silly that it was weird seeing them act together in a drama. They were both very good actors and extremely underrated.

            This Man is Mine would have fallen to pieces and been terrible and boring had it not been for Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy in the leads. Since they were such good actors who never got overdramatic they worked and made the film better than it should have been. It is one of those old films that is a Melodrama with a capital “M”. This Man is Mine is not available on Youtube or DVD I caught the film on TCM some time ago. If the station airs it again sit through it just for Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy