Category: Romance

A Thousand Clowns (1965)

Stagey Broadway adaptation, a little too in love with its lead character’s rather tiresome whimsy

Director: Fred Coe

Cast: Jason Robards (Murray Burns), Barbara Harris (Dr Sandra Markowitz), Martin Balsam (Arnold Burns), Barry Gordon (Nick Burns), William Daniels (Albert Amundson), Gene Saks (Leo Herman ‘Chuckles the Chipmunk’)

Everyone has dreamed of leaving the rat race behind, but not many of us actually try it. But that’s the life mission of Murray Burns (Jason Robards), a former script writer for charmless TV entertainer Leo Herman (Gene Saks), who refuses to join the clowns carrying suitcases for a day on the New York treadmill. No, he’ll go where he pleases, when he pleases and live a life that means he’s a man not a chair! That’s under threat when social workers Albert Amundson (William Daniels) and Dr Sandra Markowitz (Barbara Harris) investigate whether this is the right environment for Murray to be the carer of his precocious nephew Nick (Barry Gordon). Will Murray listen to sense – and the entreaties of Sandra, who falls for him, and his brother Martin Arnold (Martin Balsam) – knuckle down and find a job?

Your level of enjoyment of A Thousand Clowns will probably really depend on whether you think Murray sounds like admirably free spirited or smackably smug. Many at the time probably inclined towards the latter. A Thousand Clowns had been a Broadway smash for playwright Herb Gardner, translating to the screen with nearly all the original cast (only Balsam and Harris were newbies) and Fred Coe returning to direct. It was singing the song for many in the 60s who rejected the 9-5 – although since many of its viewers became the Reaganites of the 80s perhaps they got over it.

It probably won’t surprise you to hear I inclined towards the latter view. Murray is the sort of man who can seem whimsically charming on film but would probably infuriate anyone who met him in real life (as anyone who has ever had neighbours who make a point of shouting ‘witty’ things in the street at all hours can attest). Bouncing around New York with his surrogate son in tow, spending the day waving at departing ships, cycling through parks or playing long imaginative games with unwitting passers-by, is the sort of roguish eccentricity that gets tired pretty quickly. Also, despite 426 performances on stage, on screen Robards feels too abrasive and confrontational an actor for a part that really needs lovable charm and innocence to work.

But then perhaps this is a sign of A Thousand Clowns wanting to have its cake and eat it. A big part of this film loves the bohemian free spirit, and apartment full of whimsical clutter and Murray’s refusal to be a cog in the world’s machine. But another part does acknowledge Murray feels like a man in the grip of a mid-life crisis, taking a love for independence and free-living to ridiculous extremes. Because the film wants to simultaneously suggest his way of living is both an admirable dream but also an irresponsible way to carry the burdens of parenthood. But suggest it softly, so that Murray’s (inevitable) return to a more conventional working life doesn’t feel like a downer.

Nick is the sort of precociously articulate and emotionally intelligent child who only exists in the world of fiction. Murray’s lifestyle isn’t particularly shown to have hampered Nick, played with feisty energy by Barry Gordon (whose bond with Robards after a year of working on stage together is clear), who is smart, confident and (in some ways) more grown up than his surrogate dad. The two alternate the roles of parent and child, with Nick at times urging Murray to knuckle down and find a job, and Murray trying to teach Nick (who he even allows to change his name at will, until he finds one he’s happy with – one of the film’s better gags) the value of thinking for yourself.

Against this, the film largely throws up a parade of strawman – none more straw than William Daniels (who makes a lot of some poor material) as the sort of pen-pushing, accountancy-minded social worker who is a fixture in dramas like this, seeing the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Even the more sympathetic Sandra is presented as a mildly negative force.

Starting a relationship with Murray, her first act is to start turning his bohemian apartment into the sort of bourgeois curtain-and-lace suburban nightmare Murray is running away from. There is the faint whiff of sexism, that this woman of course dreams of conventional homely life and is determined to pull down (however nicely) the happy-lads home. A feeling that’s not helped by Barbara Harris playing her as almost permanently on the edge of hysterical tears. Although both characters make valid points, their presentation is designed to make us side with the unconventional.

That continues with Murray’s old boss, a pompous, unpleasant egotist, well played by Gene Saks. Only Martin Balsam – who won an Oscar, largely for a well-delivered set-piece speech – is given any argument of merit around the cold hard reality of finding your place in the regular world. Mind you , it could be argued Murray has never actually had to work in the office grind. When he reluctantly heads out into the job market, literally the first offer he gets is as co-host of his own TV show(!) followed by a gig writing for a ratings-winning comedy show. I get it’s a bit more work than throwing confetti at a cruise ship, but we’re hardly talking soul-crushing drudgery here.

A Thousand Clowns pulls all this together into what feels at times an overlong two hours, nearly all of it set in Murray’s apartment. The film would have felt even more stage-bound without a late decision (which Herb Gardner sacrificed a share of his salary to pay for) to throw in a series of French nouveaux inspired montages of Robards, Gordon and Harris to jauntily crash around New York (soundtracked with a mix of band themes and jazz). But it can’t compensate for the rather mixed messages or the general feeling that it’s hard to sympathise with a judgemental man-child who refuses to do the sort of job most people would give an arm-and-leg for.

Wuthering Heights (1939)

Defining the public image of the novel, a sweeping romance that continues to win admirers

Director: William Wyler

Cast: Laurence Olivier (Heathcliff), Merle Oberon (Catherine Earnshaw), David Niven (Edgar Linton), Geraldine Fitzgerald (Isabella Linton), Flora Robson (Ellen Dean), Hugh Williams (Hindley Earnshaw), Donald Crisp (Dr Kenneth), Leo G Carroll (Joseph), Miles Mander (Mr Lockwood), Cecil Kellaway (Earnshaw), Cecil Humphreys (Judge Linton)

If there is a reason why Emily Brontë’s dark, Gothic revenge novel is now chiefly remembered as a sort of definitive Great Romance, it’s probably because of this movie. Wuthering Heights takes the bitter fury of the original novel and quite brilliantly boils it down into a frustrated, denied romance between two people who cannot be together rather than charting the self-destructive passion of two fundamentally selfish people. That caught on so much, nearly every adaptation that followed essentially copied this film, and many still dream of being swept up by Heathcliff.

Wuthering Heights achieves this by significantly hacking back Brontë’s novel. In fact, it pretty much only adapts half the book, scrapping all together the second volume charting the damaging impact on the characters children from their parents obsession. Instead, the focus is resolutely on the young orphan Heathcliff (Laurence Oliver), growing up in the home of the Earnshaws where is he hated by the jealous Hindley (Hugh Williams) but adored by Hindley’s sister Cathy (Merle Oberon). Humiliated once too often, and heartbroken after he mistakenly overhears Cathy feels he would be a disgrace as a husband compared to the wealthy Edgar Linton (David Niven), Heathcliff disappears. He returns, years later, wealthy and determined on revenge on those who wronged him while also claiming Cathy for his own.

This is the entrée to a romantic obsession Wyler’s film successfully dials up on a convincingly windswept reconstruction of the Yorkshire moors (actually California). It’s a film that works hard to smooth down its lead characters less sympathetic qualities – helped enormously by jettisoning that second half of the novel – and get us rooting for this lovestruck Romeo and Juliet, despite the obstacles put before them. Those obstacles are of course principally class-based, with the posh hats of Yorkshire (defined by David Niven’s suavely polite but relentlessly superior Linton) firmly glancing down their noses at Heathcliff’s tearaway qualities and poor background.

Mind you, Cathy seems rather torn as well. Merle Oberon’s version of Brontë’s heroine swerves between longing for the fiery romance Heathcliff promises and the security and comfort in the Linton’s home. The film’s attempt to make Cathy more sympathetic than her literary roots, is to stress this tearing between her heart and her head. Ironically, this actually tends to make her slightly less sympathetic today. Oberon frequently has to yo-yo between different emotional states, as Cathy juggles her longings and desires. What Oberon most comfortably takes on is the wind-swept passion of Cathy, her wild lack of common-sense that can frequently tip into blistering, jealous bitterness. Clearly, her unhappiness at love denied is what the film wants us to focus on, but Oberon can’t quite capture the inner pain that drives these actions here, making Cathy feel more selfish then intended.

Similarly, Heathcliff’s considerable rough edges (his original ruthless, malevolent force) are sanded down (the jettisoning of the second half of the novel is even better for him) to become a Byronic romantic hero. It’s further helped that Olivier is excellent, able to deliver both the romantic middle-distance starring, but also giving a real emotional weight to the turmoil and vulnerability in Heathcliff. Olivier can stare down the disapproving posh-nobs with calm defiance but also be driven into distraught shame and pain when he feels Cathy’s contempt. Few actors could do haughty coldness and arrogance as well as Olivier, but would have also made Heathcliff seem like a little-boy-lost, out-of-his-depth with the emotions around him.

Much is made to make Heathcliff sympathetic, in contrast with other characters. Linton – and Donald Crisp’s dismissively smug doctor – treat him with haughty contempt and don’t hesitate to label him as a force of evil for his treatment of the drunken Hindley. Something we can’t blame him for, after we’ve seen the casual meanness of Hugh William’s pathetic drunk or his snivelling cowardice when finally challenged by Heathcliff. To be fair, the film presents Linton surprisingly sympathetically – he adores Cathy and treats his servants well, it’s only Heathcliff’s awkward outsider status that riles him, like Niven’s gentlemanliness can’t process a man who doesn’t fit.

Flora Robson’s Nelly Dean – in the novel a far more critical figure of – is here a sympathetic ally. Wuthering Heights re-frames the vital Heathcliff overhearing scene – that motivates his departure and grievance – not as Nelly allowing him to hear the worst, but instead an accident she feels too embarrassed to prevent. At every point, the audience are invited excuse Heathcliff – to the extent we don’t even feel bad when Isabella Linton (a very fine performance by Geraldine Fitzgerald) insists she be allowed to marry him, despite Heathcliff’s clear using of her to provoke jealousy in Cathy. Poor Isabella seems only dimly aware of how much Heathcliff only has eyes for Cathy – and for that matter that Cathy’s protestations of indifference are far from convincing – but so powerfully faithful are our lovers presented, for all their betrayals of each other, it’s hard to berate them.

Wuthering Heights is also helped a great deal in its romantic mission by Wyler’s superbly atmospheric direction and the wonderfully brooding photography by Gregg Toland. Brontëland here is a place of looming shadows, with a real sense of the windswept coldness of the moor contrasted with the blazing passions of the leads. Alfred Newman’s score is full of luscious, rich themes adding to this effect. Wyler’s direction is pacey and draws excellent performances from the cast, while his superb framing and cutting adds tension throughout. The idea of the moor as somewhere outside societies rules, where Cathy and Heathcliff can live out a fantasy of full equality and romance, comes across so powerfully it’s now nearly the defining image of the novel.

Nearly. But for its lasting impact, it’s hard not to disagree with producer Sam Goldwyn’s claim that, while Wyler directed Wuthering Heights, Goldwyn made it. It was Goldwyn who pushed the development of the script towards romance and passion away from obsession and revenge. And it was Goldwyn who insisted on the final shot, a ghostly image of Heathcliff and Cathy walking away into the mist (a pair of extras with their backs to us, as Olivier and Oberon had moved on to other projects) that has had more impact than any other in cementing the idea this novel was about a love so strong it outreached death. It’s a far cry from Brontë’s view of a destructive obsession that ruined lives for generations– but then that would never have sold as many tickets would it?

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

Lusciously shot epic, that feels more like an adventure romance film than the political work the novel was

Director: Sam Wood

Cast: Gary Cooper (Robert Jordan), Ingrid Bergman (Maria), Katina Paxinou (Pilar), Akim Tamiroff (Agustin), Arturo de Cordova (Agustin), Vladimir Sokoloff (Anselmo), Mikhail Rasumny (Rafael), Fortunio Bonanova (Fernando), Eric Feldary (Andres), Joseph Calleia (El Sordo)

“No man is an island entire of itself” is the opening of John Donne’s Meditation XVII in Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. That’s where the phrase “never seek to know for whom the bell tolls” comes from, and it lies at the heart of Hemingway’s Spanish Civil War novel, where he and hundreds of other like-minded individuals came together to (unsuccessfully) fight Fascism with self-sacrifice for the common good a calling card. After the novel became a hit, it’s not a surprise Hollywood came calling, moulding Hemingway into an expensively mounted blockbuster.

There was no question who would play the lead, stoic American Spanish lecturer and explosives expert Robert Jordan. After all, Gary Cooper was basically Hemingway’s model when he created the character. Ingrid Bergman beat off a string of competitors to play Maria, victim of Fascist assault, now living with partisans in the Spanish hills. Jordan joins these partisans, to blow a critical bridge. But the journey not only throws up romance for Robert and Maria but also troubles with guerilla leader Agustin (Akim Tamiroff), worried the mission will imperil what’s left of his people, and his wife Pilar (Katrina Paxinou) convinced the mission must be carried out.

Sam Wood, described as a near Fascist by Groucho Marx, seems an unlikely directorial choice for a film celebrating a group of Communist guerillas. But the Second World War makes for strange bedfellows. And, in any case, For Whom the Bell Tolls is less interested in politics than Hemingway. In fact, it practically bends over backwards to remove as many references about the political stakes as it can, re-crafting the book into much more of a men-on-a-mission romp, a tragedy-tinged Guns of the Navarone.

It’s a big-budget crowd pleaser, with a handsome, exotic setting beautifully shot by Ray Rennahan, who managed to make the Sierra Nevada mountains pass as the hills of Catalonia. Mix that with the tragic romance between Cooper and Bergman, in a series of beautifully-lit lingering shots, his reserved decency contrasted with her vulnerability and nerves. Interestingly, despite being hand-picked for the role, this is one of Cooper’s dullest performances, the neutered script removing many of the character’s doubts and fears. It’s only at the end, that Cooper is given any amount of real emotional depth to play with (even if it is via a rather forced voiceover), but otherwise Wood’s film crafts Cooper into the epitome of Fedora-wearing masculine toughness and stoic strength.

Ingrid Bergman fairs a little better as the Spanish lady who wins his heart. Unlike the rest of the cast playing Spaniards, Bergman isn’t caked in layers of brown make-up (something that looks particularly awful in Rennahan’s stylish filters), but the script plays up her character’s melodramatic elements. Bergman does her best to lend dramatic weight to this, but Wood’s film keeps pushing her towards tearful outbursts of fear at the possible loss of Jordan. For Whom the Bell Tolls makes a valiant effort at exploring Maria’s tragic background but shies away from the sexuality of the novel (it did after all coin the phrase “the earth moved”). It’s ironic Bergman was desperate to land this role, but now is best remembered for her other (Morocco-based) 1943 role.

What becomes clear the longer you watch For Whom the Bell Tolls is, that for all the handsome visuals and rich scoring of Victor Young, Wood can’t find the sort of poetic, narrative depth the source material demands. Put frankly, the literary and political force of the novel feels lost to him. It’s hard not to compare this to the sort of thematic depth Lean found in the far-less-complex story of Bridge on the River Kwai. It’s telling that what Wood delivers makes Hemingway feel more like a high-brow Alistair MacLean novel. This doesn’t mean For Whom the Bell Tolls isn’t frequently enjoyable: but it does feel Wood mistakes length and sweep for complexity and depth.

The film’s complete shelving of politics plays into this. There are half-hearted attempts to understand where the guerillas are coming from, but its telling that when it comes to atrocities, more screen-time is given to the past excesses of the communists – hurling decent representatives of the old regime off cliffs to their death – rather than the ruthlessness of the fascist oppressors (even though Jordan starts the film shooting a wounded comrade rather than let him fall into the hands of the Francoists). But it’s very possible to watch For Whom the Bell Tolls and not be completely sure when exactly it is set, or what the issues are everyone is fighting about. Can that be what Hemingway had in mind when it came to the screen?

Instead, guerilla drama boils down to questions of guts and character. Akim Tamiroff (Oscar-nominated, like Cooper) gives a fine performance of ambiguous bluster as a guerilla leader who may be concerned about the lives of his men, or may just have completely lost his nerve. Tamiroff is magnificently larger-than-life, with a streak of low-cunning mixed with cowardice. Katrina Paxinou won an Oscar as his wife, the fiercely determined Pilar who deals out romantic device with the same hard-boiled grit that she plans military actions. The guerilla leadership sways between these two throughout, with just enough tension between where they will land.

But For Whom the Bell Tolls remains, at heart, a men-on-a-mission film – something that feels quite reductive considering the passion of where it comes from. Everyone seems to still believe they are actually making a literary statement. The strained sense of self-importance behind the film can make it wearing, and its telling it is at its most engaging and emotionally fulfilling when emersed in action, be that a desperate stand by a group of guerillas in the mountains or the final assault on the bridge, with the heavy cost that brings to the group.

There is another world where For Whom the Bell Tolls could have united its epic scale, military action, doomed romance, passionate humanism and boys-own adventure into something that really coherent and deep, the sort of intellectual epic David Lean would win truckloads of Oscars for 15 years later. But it feels instead torn between echoing the melodramatic sweep of Gone with the Wind with the bravo-filled heroism of Sergeant York. It can’t really square that circle, making it, like the Spanish Civil War, a doomed noble effort. An inadvertent political point, more impactful than any in the film.

The Man Who Laughs (1928)

Gothic romance, wrongly remembered as a proto-horror, also has a dark sexual undercurrent

Director: Paul Leni

Cast: Conrad Veidt (Gwynplaine), Mary Philbin (Dea), Olga Baclanova (Duchess Josiana), Josephine Cowell (Queen Anne), George Siegmann (Dr Hardquanonne), Brandon Hurst (Barkilphedro), Sam De Grasse (James II), Stuart Holmes (Lord Dirry-Moir), Cesare Gravina (Ursus)

The Man Who Laughs often gets remembered as a horror film, which seems a bit odd when you actually watch this Victor Hugo adaptation. It’s really a sort of melodrama romance with a touch of conspiracy-tinged action. What possibly cements it as a comedy is the Glasgow-smile of its lead character Gwynplaine, played by that legend of silent cinema monsters Conrad Viedt. (It went on to inspire the look of The Joker, further cementing the film as horror in minds). But, far from a monster, Gwynplaine is a sweet-vulnerable figure who has find himself at the centre of an atmospheric drama with lashes of shadow and Gothic German expressionism from its director Paul Leni.

Gwynplaine has his twisted smile after his face was mutilated as a child, a punishment for his executed father, stripped of his lordship by order of James II (Sam De Grasse). Years later, in the reign of Queen Anne (Josephine Cowell), Gwynplaine is the leading figure of a travelling band of players, famous as the Man Who Smiles. He’s in love with the blind Dea (Mary Philbin) but disgusted and ashamed of his own appearance, which prevents him declaring his love. But his ancestry is discovered, as his (unwanted) claim to the title now held by the nymphomaniac Duchess Josiana (Olga Baclanova), and he becomes the centre of a scheme for power by the sinister Barkilphedro (Brandon Hurst).

The Man Who Laughs main focus is the gentle romance between Gwynplaine and Bea, which becomes absorbed into a tragic story of creeping gothic power. Gwynplaine wants nothing more than to be left alone. He hates being the centre of his attention, only really comfortable when disguised under theatrical make-up or with the blind Dea. Even then, Gwynplaine refuses to let her touch his face so terrified is he that she will reject the twisted facial features that she will find below her hands. This is told with a gentle, sympathetic sweetness by Leni, who dials down the misty misery and darkness that casts its shadow over the rest of the film, to allow this romance to spread hope.

It’s far different from the gloomy, gothic foreboding that covers the rest of the film in its frequently shadow and mist filled frame. From its opening in the bedroom of King James – lined with stony carvings that look like they’ve been peeled off the wall of an ancient Minster – it throws us into a grizzly execution for Gwynplaine’s father, locked into a spike-lined Iron Lady with a stoic look on his face. The banishment of Gwynplaine, along with the bizarre cult who deformed him, on a rickity ship passes through a frozen coast-line, where the young boy is cast aside the moment the going gets tough. From there, we see streets filled with hints of violence under the mists. Brandon Hurst’s darkly twisted Barkilphedro is the sort of man who thinks nothing of dispatching a witness to the torture chamber or dragging a victim in the middle of the night to who-knows-where. Hurst is an unsettling stand-out here, playing a man with no sense of loyalty or honour, happy to lie and manipulate as well as slimly ingratiate himself to anyone in power.

The gloomy sense of danger that this world is filled with is captured superbly in Leni’s film, which is stuffed with atmospheric compositions that only stress the unsettling sense of peril lurking around every corner. It’s also a world filled with perverse sexual longing. It’s hard to imagine The Man Who Laughs having a whisper of existing a few years later under the Hays Code, such is the dark sexual current flowing beneath it. Frequently sexual desire rears its head, from the coded glances Queen Anne gives the missing chair of the Duchess, to the base desires that drag Gwynplaine from his bed one night to explore a beguiling offer from the Duchess.

The Duchess is the heart of the sexual darkness in the film, an allusive seductress we are introduced to lazing practically naked on a bed, attempting to seduce Barkilphedro to follow her whims with him perching at the end of her bed and allowed a peek of her (possibly non-existent) underwear. Not until Basic Instinct would another villainous of such rampant, unabashed sexuality hit the screen. The Duchess is as sexually excited by the thought of men fighting over her on the street (and its implied would be more than happy to satisfy any number of winners) as she is hornily fascinated by Gwynplaine’s unusual features. She is able to puppet along Stuart Holmes’ clueless Lord, who can barely tear his eyes from her even while he knows she is treating him like dirt. Her sensuality even runs the risk of seducing our hero, and her unabashed revelling in her sexuality feels light years ahead of its time.

But the lasting impact of The Man Who Laughs comes from its lead character, wonderfully embodied by Conrad Veidt in one of the legendary silent performances. Labouring under the facial disfigurement make-up – which left his face and mouth sore and exhausted – Veidt belays the restrictive nature of his make-up to offer a parade of expressions, variations on the same smile. Devotion, shame, joy, excitement, fear and hope play across his face so clearly that, even with the lower part of his mouth rigidly fixed, it’s always certain exactly what he is feeling. Presented to the House of Lords at the film’s end, Veidt is given a marvellous set-piece of moral force, berating the crowing bewigged courtiers who turn on him and vigorously asserting his right to choose. It’s a crowning moment of a subtle and moving performance.

And it makes Gwynplaine so sympathetic, it’s even more unusual that it’s been remembered as a horror, for all the film ends in a gothic chase and the brutally bloody intervention of a loyal but fierce wolf hound. Because The Man Who Laughs is, in the end, a hopeful and undeniably romantic testimony to how love can in fact conquer all, which for all its gothic gloom, leaves us sailing into a sunset relieved that the future promises all the best for our heroes.

Jezebel (1938)

A star turn helps to lift this bonkers melodrama into the realm of delicious entertainment

Director: William Wyler

Cast: Bette Davis (Julie Marsden), Henry Fonda (Preston Dillard), George Brent (Buck Cantrell), Donald Crisp (Dr Livingstone), Fay Bainter (Aunt Belle Massey), Margaret Lindsay (Amy Bradford Dillard), Richard Cromwell (Ted Dillard), Henry O’Neil (General Theophilius Bogardus), Spring Byrington (Mrs Kendrick), John Litel (Jean la Cour)

It’s pretty much the first line in any review about Jezebel so let’s start with it: rumour claims it largely exists as a consolation prize for Bette Davis after missing out on Scarlett O’Hara. It makes sense: Julie Marsden is a Southern Belle so similar to Scarlett they could almost be sisters. And Bette Davis is so wonderfully, passionately, brilliant playing her that, if it wasn’t for Vivien Leigh’s landmark performance, Jezebel could make you deeply regret Davis never got that role. But there is more to Jezebel than that, a handsomely filmed adaptation of a hit play by Owen Davis Snr, which predated Margaret Mitchell putting pen to paper. This is delicious, old-school, scandal-tinged Hollywood melodrama, with a star actor in a custom-made star role.

Julie Marsden is a fiery, independent-minded woman in 1850s New Orleans, convinced she can bend the world around her (and the wills of men) to her own whims. She’s engaged to strait-laced Pres Dillard (Henry Fonda), but flirts with playboy Buck Cantrell (George Brent) and won’t play by societies rules. So much so, she plans to attend the high-society Olympus Ball in a dress not of virgin white but Jezebel red. This goes down like a lead balloon; Pres effectively drops her in disgust at her wilful selfishness and a year later returns married to someone else. At which point Julie, a woman spurned, plans revenge even as yellow fever rips through the city.

Jezebel is a great big, melodramatic soap with a celluloid-burning turn by Davis (who won her second Oscar) at its heart. Davis dominates the film, a boundless force of charisma from the moment she sashays (late!) into her own party, whipping her dress up behind with a riding crop to when she departs the film, eyes full of genuine remorse, nursing a fever cart. She plays the role full of sinful flirtatiousness and playful certainty. No one will tell her what to do and where to go – from charging through a bank (captured in a beautiful tracking shot from Wyler) to drag Pres out for the day, to headstrongly ignoring all pleas to not wear her dress of choice, to holding court a year later in her own home planning revenge with burning, destructive glee.

It’s a portrait of bull-headed, feminine, self-destructive foolishness and pride that Davis would make her own, a marvellous star-turn that helps lift this otherwise rather silly melodrama with an inevitable message (this bull-headed floozy will learn the error of her head-strong ways) into something quite magic. That and the superlative richness of Wyler’s direction (and Gregg Toland’s sumptuous camera work), full of dynamic images, as well as a series of top-drawer performances from a strong cast.

Obviously, it’s hard not to spot that Jezebel lacks the scale and colour of Gone with the Wind (has any black-and-white film ever so openly revolved around colour as a source of drama?). But it has a lot of its dramatic energy, despite the fact you can sense its theatrical roots (it splits rather neatly into four acts, each set in a distinct location). Jezebel juggles its balls remarkably well, balancing a focus on Julie’s desire for attention and control with a fine portrait of two different men. George Brent, with a sly, self-satisfied grin as a Don Juan and Henry Fonda, prissy and stuffed-of-shirt (mouthing, at points, an awkward Southern accent) successfully making Pres profoundly wise, surprisingly weak despite his certainty, rigid and unpersuasive.

The pivotal ball-room sequence, and its build-up, works particularly marvellously. Despite Julie’s determination, its clear everyone around her feels it to be a terrible idea. Pres concedes to it with a grudging irritation and, once it becomes clear even to Julie it’s an appalling idea, forces Julie to be swallowed up in her public humiliation. After watching a parade of genteel ladies and gentlemen scurry away from her, as if in fear of catching her loose morals, Pres drags her to the dance floor (despite her pleas). Tracking back, Wyler shows the dance floor clear in moments, leaving just these two dancing alone (Pres even insists the band continues playing), cementing her humiliation. He’s made his point and, even though she slaps him later, even she knows he was right. Not that this will help either of them in the long run.

It’s part of the moral of the story, that sometimes women need a firm hand. (Sometimes literally so, as Donald Crisp’s grouchy Dr Livingston tells Pres). There has to be a punishment for Julie’s willingness to scheme, her constant placing of her own whims above everyone else and her inability to even consider that there might be dangerous consequences to her actions. It doesn’t wear us down though, because Davis is such a dynamic and forceful presence it’s hard not to rather like her. And then, of course, you sort of sympathise with her (even though she is awful and selfish) as a conga-like of damage and guilt leave her reeling before converting her into an ideal self-sacrificing woman.

Of course you watch Jezebel today and can hardly fail to notice that the greatest wickedness all these Southern gents and dames can possibly imagine is turning up at a ball in the wrong dress. Certainly not the slavery all around them. There is a parade of “yasum” slaves in Jezebel, all of them (like old retainer Cato) perfectly content in their lives of servitude. Pres may get a few loose critiques off about the South, but even those are focused on its economic and political short-sightedness: like everyone he’s paternally fond of his naïve property but wouldn’t imagine giving any of them freedom.

It’s another echo perhaps of Gone with the Wind and not a welcome one. Jezebel settles down for another genteel, Birth of a Nation myth of a sublime South doomed for being too noble. Not even the terror of yellow fever – and, at one point, the shooting of an infected man for fleeing his island ghetto – can get in the way of that feeling, that this way of life is not the problem, even if it does allow the odd bad apple like Julie to pop up.

That’s a more awkward political point, but it’s hard to imagine it crossing the mind of many at the time. And it doesn’t stop an enjoyment of Jezebel as a masterfully executed soap. Wyler’s direction is excellent, the filming wonderful and the actors firing on all cylinders. (Fay Bainter also won an Oscar for her fine performance as Julie’s horrified Aunt). Davis of course reigns supreme in the cinematic equivalent of an airport novel, a big, steamy, sex-fuelled melodrama with a handwringing ending of moral enlightenment delivered with such earnest, underplayed sensitivity by Davis and Wyler that it convinces. A big, brash, hugely enjoyable entertainment.

The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)

Laughton dominates in a dry, rather stately adaptation of the romance between the Brownings

Director: Sidney Franklin

Cast: Norma Shearer (Elizabeth Barrett), Fredric March (Robert Browning), Charles Laughton (Edward Moulton-Barrett), Maureen O’Sullivan (Henriette Barrett), Katharine Alexander (Arabel Barrett), Ralph Forbes (Captain Surtees Cook), Marion Clayton (Bella Hadley), Una O’Connor (Wilson), Leo G Carroll (Dr Ford-Waterlow)

The poet Elizabeth Barrett (Norma Shearer) is confined to her bed (she hasn’t stepped out of the room let alone gone downstairs or stood up in years) and in love with fellow poet Robert Browning (Fredric March), a love he returns with all the giddy enthusiasm of a schoolboy. But despite what you might think, that’s not the real drama in The Barretts of Wimpole Street and there are precious few emotional obstacles between these two. The real drama comes from Elizabeth’s relationship with her father, Edward Moulton-Barrett (Charles Laughton), a possessive control-freak with an unhealthy concern for his daughter who he wants to keep locked away so only he can possess her. Can Elizabeth escape her gilded prison?

Adapted from a highly thought-of Broadway hit, and about two of the most famous poets of the nineteenth century, it’s not a surprise Barretts of Wimpole Street was singled out as another perfect vehicle to cement Norma Shearer as the leading actress of her age. Despite her Oscar-nomination here, as is often the case with Shearer, when called upon to do ‘serious drama’, her mannered breathlessness can be a little trying. That quality is present throughout Barretts, her delivery crammed with heightened earnestness and dramatic intensity. But, there is a real commitment, and she gives a decent performance, capturing Elizabeth’s complex feelings towards her father and the fierceness of her determination – even if it’s a performance that always feels like she’s trying too hard to be taken seriously.

You can say much of the same thing about the rest of this, at times very stately, film, which wears its theatrical, single-set roots very heavily. Shot with a safely staid camera, that frames the action with little invention, it can feel slow and artificial. As with so many other films about writers, we also get little sense of what drives them. The only moment we touch on this is the first meeting between Browning and Elizabeth, with March’s Browning bounding around the room apologetically trying to explain his work while distracted with romantic attraction. For Elizabeth herself, other than settling at her desk once with pen in hand – Shearer cocking her head to the left with a wistful stare as she thinks carefully – you could quite easily forget she is a celebrated poet.

What is perhaps refreshing is how uncomplicated the romance element of the story is. There are no doubts at all about the affections, and no sense of compromise or danger that anything (other than her father) will come between them. March actually seems slightly lost on some level with how little there is to play with Browning: other than a giddy enthusiasm and romantic earnestness, he has almost nothing to do and is all but banished from the film’s most dramatic moments. There is an undeniable chemistry between him and Shearer, but so little stakes between them – and Browning remains largely a pleasant cipher – that it’s very hard to really find much interest in their scenes.

But then that’s because the drama is at home, and the ogre dominating the Barrett household. Franklin communicates the dread this figure holds over his children, even subconsciously, from the start: during the opening shots, we are shown repeated close-ups of Shearer grinning as each of her several siblings enter, culminating in a shot of fixed neutrality when her father enters. This domineering monster controls every inch of his children’s life, makes it clear that disobedience (like getting married) will be met by instant disinheritance and banishment from the family home. A home that is run entirely to his whims and personal tastes.

Who better to play this vile bully filled with fear and loneliness, than Charles Laughton? The film had to remove all references to Edward’s potentially incestuous interest in his daughter but, as Laughton so memorably said, the censors couldn’t ‘cut the glint in my eye’. And they felt fine leaving in dark implications that Barrett’s later children were not “born of love”. Laughton’s performance is towering, a ramrod stiff body of frustrated desires, whose instinct when he feels threatened is to lash out with cruel, verbal and physical violence. He thinks nothing of literally twisting the arms of his daughter Henriette (a very good Maureen O’Sullivan) to extract her confession of loving another man, just as he feels free to browbeat her into swearing on the bible to renounce him.

His creepy parental desire – at one point he sits with Elizabeth and earnestly desires her to stay with him, with all the intense longing of a lover – is palpable, his frustrated sexuality clear. There is a great scene where Marion Clayton’s lisping cousin Bella playfully sits on his lap and asks him to kiss her: Laughton grabs the back of her head for a full-on snog, then leaps instantly to his feet as if terrified that she will detect his obvious arousal. At another, he sweeps a tired Elizabeth into his arms like some sort of Rochester to carry her up to her bedroom.

This but scratches the surface of Laughton’s portrayal of suppressed desires. All of them are bottled up in an intense fear and vulnerability that Edward has of being abandoned – Laughton almost trembles with fear at the prospect of any of his children leaving. At great length with Elizabeth, he hammers away at her confidence, a torrent of passive aggressive words stressing her weakness and incapability to survive. It comes from a deep insecurity but, whenever we feel even a moment of sympathy for this psychologically damaged man, he reverts to bullying, shouting and a willingness to commit acts of petty, damaging cruelty.

Laughton’s superb performance (rightly he was immensely put-out not to be Oscar nominated) not only elevates the film (all its most memorable moments feature him) but also draws some of her best work out of Shearer, who raises her game to match him in their confrontation scenes. The drama of these sequences is the heart of a film that otherwise fails to bring much energy, despite some good performances (including Una O’Connor, giving one of her finest maids, full of exasperated, supportive patience). Away from Laughton, the film feels slight and slow. But with him, it’s a portrait of creepy possessiveness and misdirected desire. Even if, of course, no one could say that at the time.

Captain Blood (1935)

Errol Flynn buckles swashes in this stirring and exciting pirate adventure

Director: Michael Curtiz

Cast: Errol Flynn (Peter Blood), Olivia de Havilland (Arabella Bishop), Lionel Atwill (Colonel Bishop), Basil Rathbone (Lavasseur), Ross Alexander (Jeremy Pitt), Guy Kibbee (Hagthorpe), Henry Stephenson (Lord Willoughby), Robert Barrat (Wolverstone), Hobart Cavanagh (Dr Bronson), Donald Meek (Dr Whacker), Jessie Ralph (Mrs Barlow), Frank McGlynn Snr (Reverend Ogle), David Torrence (Andrew Baynes), J. Carrol Naish (Cabusac), George Hassell (Governor Steed), Halliwell Hobbes (Sunderland)

Dr Peter Blood (Errol Flynn) is having a bad day. Plucked from his bed to tend to a dying man by close friend Jeremy Pitt (Ross Alexander), he’s arrested. That’s because it’s 1685 and Jeremy and tat dying man are part of Monmouth’s ill-fated rebellion against James II. Blood, Pitt and many others are shipped to Jamaica and sold into slavery. Blood is purchased by the ambitious Colonel Bishop (Lionel Atwill), whose daughter Arabella (Olivia de Havilland) is strangely drawn to the proud slave. Blood struggles to find freedom for his friends, helped by his medical skills successfully treating the governor’s gout, until a fortunate Spanish attack gives them the chance to escape and set up a career as pirates – all while dreaming of one-day clearing their names.

It’s all gist to the swashbuckling mill, in this rip-roaringly entertaining adventure, the first collaboration of Curtiz, Flynn, de Havilland and Rathbone, that would eventually lead to the genre-defining brilliance of The Adventures of Robin Hood. Flynn was essentially plucked from nowhere, taking the part after an asthma-suffering Robert Donat turned it down, coached (or bullied) through the performance by the relentless task-master Curtiz, opposite a de Havilland with less than a handful of credits to her name. Everything pretty much comes together in a celebration of old-school matinee thrills, with a star oozing charisma at its heart.

Because, say what you like about Flynn, if there is star quality they guy had it in spades. Whether that’s swinging by rope from ship to ship, staunchly standing against injustice against Judge Jeffries (shooting off a few cutting one-liners on Jefferies ill-health along the way), defiantly stating he will never be broken when tied to a pole for a lashing or delicately navigating a spikey love-hate relationship with the haughtily playful Arabella, you can’t take your eyes off him. Captain Blood’s dialogue is frequently slightly heightened, but Flynn’s ease with it (which he learned the hard way – Curtiz reshot several earlier sequences later when he had relaxed and got better) lets it sing, as he stands tall and talks of equality and justice.

Captain Blood is in many ways the perfect Flynn vehicle, setting the template for the roles the star would later triumph in: an egalitarian man of nobility and principle, who fights when he must, with determination and never bitterness. Captain Blood uses this to maximum effect, surrounding Flynn with a cast of seasoned pros virtually none of whom were taller than his shoulders (just to make him look even more heroic as he towers above them). This was the guy Hollywood had been waiting for since Douglas Fairbanks, a hale-fellow well-met slice of masculine charm and energy.

He triumphs in a film which is often wordier and plot-heavier than you think. It’s a credit to the relentless energy Curtiz bring to it, that you almost don’t notice it takes nearly an hour before piracy enters this pirate movie, almost half its run time dedicated to Blood’s struggles in Jamaica. It works because the character dynamics are very well-drawn. George Hassell’s slightly pathetic governor, constantly whining about his gout is as entertaining as the two useless doctors (Hobart Cavanagh and Donald Meek) easily bested by Blood’s practical brilliance. Curtiz is also able to lay-on the grim injustice of indentured servitude on Jamaica, embodied by a gigantic mill wheel the prisoners turn round and round, to the constant soundtrack of lashing (it has to be said, Captain Blood does feel a bit awkward, especially today, in its near complete absence of Black slaves).

But you can don’t feel any drag when sequences like Blood’s defiant trial in England or the carefully measured flirtation between him and de Havilland (full of intelligence and allure) is so well done. And then of course, when you get to the piratical antics, it’s well worth the wait. Flynn, as noted, was made for making principled speeches in the nominal role of rebel (these pirates solemnly swear, among other things, never to mistreat a woman). The naval battles – brilliantly assembled from a mix of miniatures, old footage from silent films and studio-bound sets – are quite gripping, full of exploding ships, cannon fire, boardings and frantically energetic sword fights.

That’s almost nothing to the location-shot, shoreline duel among the rocks between Flynn and Rathbone. Basil Rathbone was surely only cast for his ability to fight duels like this – his character, a French pirate captain, is so unnecessary to the plot and turns on Blood for such trivial reasons, it’s hard not to feel it’s been shoe-horned in to give the actor something to do before the swords come out. The duel is full of deathly cut and thrust, with its final shot of Rathbone lying in the sand, the turf washing over his face (it’s no spoiler to say that Hollywood’s finest fencer again loses) beautifully done.

Captain Blood is full of visual style and flair, Curtiz the master-craftsman showing us all how it’s done. The Rembrandt-inspired locations of Stuart England are filled with angular lighting and giant-cast shadows. The camerawork through the mix of studio sets and location footing seamlessly ties locations together. His management of the film perfectly marries the scale of the adventure set-pieces with the elements of character stories that run throughout. It’s a film that manages to be exciting and witty, rollicking adventure and light comedy.

It also helps that it has a host of leading Hollywood character players doing fabulous work. Lionel Atwill is full of pomposity, self-importance and casual, unthinking cruelty as the ambitious Colonel Bishop. Ross Alexander – who tragically died only a year after the film was released – has a fair degree of earnest charisma. Guy Kibbee is hugely entertaining as grouchy Hagthorpe, a stand-out in a parade of crewmen (Frank McGlynn, David Torrance, Forrester Harvey and J Carrol Naish) who fully embrace their concisely written characters. And, of course, Olivia de Havilland is romantic allure itself, determined and independent and more than a match for Flynn.

As is the way with this era of Hollywood, there are several period details that are all over the place (a street light outside Blood’s London home?), with things like coaches and de Havilland’s dresses parachuted in from several decades later. But these little details are almost by-the-by in a film as full of energy, entertainment and excitement as this, a swashbuckler that continues to thrill and delight almost 90 years on.

Hell’s Angels (1930)

Hughes magnificent folly has stunning scenes of aerial combat, among it’s more functional dialogue scenes

Director: Howard Hughes (& James Whale)

Cast: Ben Lyon (Monte Rutledge), James Hall (Roy Rutledge), Jean Harlow (Helen), John Darrow (Karl Armstedt), Lucien Prival (Baron von Kranz), Roy Wilson (Baldy Maloney)

There is an old line about Orson Welles calling a film set “the biggest train set a boy ever had”. A feeling no doubt shared by Howard Hughes, one of the wealthiest men in America, who loved pouring his fortune into his private passions: fast planes and big movies. So, why not throw the two of them together into Hell’s Angels, the film which he planned to use to scoop recent Best Picture winner Wings title as the greatest fighter-ace film ever made. To get there, money would be no object at all.

Which meant Hughes didn’t think twice of reshooting most of the film over again when sound took over Hollywood. After all, why not put more money in: he had already spent millions on assembling a personal army of world-war-one planes, all of them frequently kept waiting on the ground for days on end (pilots and film crew sitting around collecting pay cheques) while he waited for the clouds to be perfectly positioned to best demonstrate the speed the planes flew at. Since he was waiting, why not bring in James Whale to re-shoot all the dialogue scenes with all the actual talking?

Whale came on board, fresh from directing Journey’s End on Broadway (after his work was finished, Hell’s Angels release was so further delayed he had time to shoot a film of that too and release it before anyone outside Hughes’ office saw a frame of Hell’s Angels), Whale first insisted the script be re-written. Hughes was more than happy with that, since I doubt he really gave a damn about the very-loose story used to join together the bits with the planes in. The cast was kept the same, bar one change: original female lead Greta Nissen’s Norwegian accent was judged impenetrable, so Jean Harlow was bought in to slip into something a little more comfortable in her place.

Not that it mattered particularly. The story of Hell’s Angels is simplicity itself. Two Brit brothers (though neither them or Harlow make any attempt to change their accents) join the flying corp at the outbreak of war. One brother, Monte (Ben Lyon), is a selfish, care-free rogue. The other, Roy (James Hall) is so painfully noble and dutiful (he even fights duels on behalf of the cowardly Monte) he’s nearly an idiot. Roy loves Helen (Jean Harlow) but is utterly unaware that she is nymphomaniac vamp who will do it with anything in a uniform – including Monte. Monte thinks war is a fool’s crusade, Roy considers it well-worth dying for – attitudes that will lead to a clash when they both volunteer for what turns out to be a suicide mission behind enemy lines.

None of this is particularly a surprise and, despite Harlow’s charisma, none of the three leads particularly stand-out on the acting front (though James Hall makes a decent fist of Monte’s big speech on the suicidal futility of war). Each of these characters is fairly thin in any case, and none of their actions carry any real surprise factor at any point. Whale shoots the dialogue scenes with a breezy competence, doing his best with material that on paper would hardly be winning any plaudits.

In fact, the most interesting thing about these scenes is how much it seems to subvert expectations of a martial flag-waver. It’s natural to assume the cowardly brother will either redeem himself or shown to be completely in the wrong, while the noble brother will be vindicated. In fact, Hell’s Angels ends up having more than a little sympathy with Monte who, while undeniably “yellow” (he looks terrified after his first solo flight and its downhill from there), is also given a fair bit of sympathy when he rants about war being murder and patriotism being just a word. It’s hard not to feel he’s right after watching the insane uber-nationalism of the German zeppelin crew who willingly fling themselves to their death to lighten their ship with cries of “Kaiser and Reich!” on their lips.

Just as it’s hard not to think Roy’s blind-nobility makes him less of a hero and more of a clueless buffoon. How he misses that Helen (who, at one point, staggers out of a bush immediately followed by an officer straightening his uniform) is as shallow as a puddle and faithful as a cat in heat is a complete mystery. It’s hard not to see him as a duped cuckold, cluelessly waiting for Monte in their digs (unaware Monte and Helen are currently going at it), or insanely obsessed with honour as he nearly gets himself killed fighting a duel in Monte’s place. It’s not surprising that (as Monte says) war is “like being drunk – it brings out who you really are”. It makes Monte increasingly wild and selfish, and Roy increasingly mule-like his in rigid following of form.

This subliminal interest is the best spark you can take from the otherwise fairly turgid dialogue scenes. The real interest is those dog fight scenes. And they remain outstanding today. There was no question Hughes wasn’t going to direct those – and he directed them from the sky himself, calling the shots from a plane amongst the action. These sequences are all stunningly assembled and genuinely compelling in their sense of speed and danger. There is also a real visual beauty to them: in particular a shot of a German zeppelin emerging from blue tinged clouds is awe-inspiring. The epic sweep of tight formation planes, swooping closely between each other, tailing each other, bullets flying and pilots whizzing by is brilliant.

And the film doesn’t shirk on the horrors. Flames – whether they come from machine guns or from burning planes – are hand painted yellow to make the destruction stand out. The human impact on the pilots is brilliantly captured. During these battles, pilots will burn or die with blood streaming from their mouth. Panicked flyers will gulp back shots of whiskey midair, or scream in agony as their bullet riddled planes and bodies crash to the ground. Planes ram into each other in fiery explosions, or streak bullets across each other. That’s not to mention the horrifying madness of that German zeppelin crew stepping into the oblivion of a long fall, pushed towards their fate by their fanatically insane captain (who has already sacrificed/murdered sympathetic German Karl – an old college friend of Monte and Roy – to lighten the zeppelin).

The dog fight sequences are compelling and if the drama on the ground never quite reaches these heights, in a way that’s only to be expected. For all the quiet subversion – and it’s up to you how much you think Hughes noticed or cared about that – they are functional moments to carry us to the drama in the skies. That’s what Hell’s Angels does best – and few have done it better.

Love Me Tonight (1932)

Delightful semi-parody of Lubitsch, that’s one of the most enjoyable and brilliant films of the decade

Director: Rouben Mamoulian

Cast: Maurice Chevalier (Maurice), Jeanette MacDonald (Princess Jeanette), Charles Ruggles (Vicomte Gilbert de Varèze), Charles Butterworth (Comte de Savignac), Myrna Loy (Comtesse Valentine), C. Aubrey Smith (Duc d’Artelines), Elizabeth Patterson (First aunt), Ethel Griffies (Second aunt), Blanche Friderici (Third aunt)

It’s very easy to assume Love Me Tonight comes from Ernst Lubitsch’s masterful hands. It does seem to have every element of his classic “Touch”: mixing light comedy in refined, courtly circles with charming ear-worm ditties – not to mention the presence of Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald as an unlikely couple drawn (inevitably) together. It’s a surprise then that itwas directed by that overlooked master Rouben Mamoulian, intended as a parody of Lubitsch’s style. But it was so masterfully witty and well-delivered, that arguably became the greatest Lubitsch comedy ever.

It’s certainly one of the finest, funniest and most inventive musical comedies you’re going to see. Set in Paris at some point in the 1920s (despite which, only Chevalier has any trace of an accent), we meet Maurice (Chevalier), a plucky tailor with a dream, thrilled to land the big-spending Vicomte de Varèze (Charles Ruggles) as a client: and less thrilled to discover the Vicomte never pays his bills. Maurice rides post-haste to the Vicomte’s family manor, where the guilt-free Vicomte (worried his uncle (C. Aubrey Smith) will cut him off in disgrace) passes him off as a hidden royal, while he tries to raise money. Maurice falls in love with the Vicomte’s cousin, widowed Princess Jeanette (MacDonald), who at first can’t stand him, but soon discovers his charm.

Perhaps you should be tipped off this is a parody (of sorts) of vehicles the stars had made at least twice already with Lubitsch, that Love Me Tonight doesn’t even bother to change their names. But Love Me Tonight has a rich, cheeky script full of risque one-liners (tragically, some of the naughtiest stuff is lost forever after a post Hays Code recut) and it barrels along with an effortlessly smooth comic charm. Although the stars both found Mamoulian harder to work with than Lubitsch, these are two of their lightest, funniest most endearing performances, with Chevalier archly flirtatious while still a perfect gentleman and MacDonald austerely repressed with just a hint of excitement.

It’s a film stuffed with gloriously eccentric characters, with a top-of-the-line comic cast, all throwing themselves into top-of-the-line songs. Charles Ruggles is full of shameless, comic selfishness as the Vicomte who genuinely doesn’t understand why he should pay debts. C. Aubrey Smith shows more playfulness here (including a delightful moment where he dances in glee) than he did in his whole career of stiff-upper-lipped army officers. Charles Butterworth scowls and sulks superbly as MacDonald’s unwanted suitor. Elizabeth Patterson, Ethel Griffies and Blanche Friderici are great fun as a pack of easily-flustered maiden aunts (“Oh let me die!” one quietly mutters at a moment of risqué shock) who are one-third Macbeth’s witches, two thirds excited, yapping puppies. Perhaps best of all, Myrna Loy is a vampishly, sex-obsessed young woman making a pass at anything with a penis and a pulse.

Backed with a host of excellent songs – ‘Isn’t it Romantic’, ‘Mimi’, ‘Love Me Tonight’ and ‘The Son of a Gun is Nothing but a Tailor’ are first rate – the film is crammed with genuinely funny lines and marvellous moments of comic invention. From Maurice (shamelessly) mumbling the most risqué lines of ‘Lover’ (making his intentions all too clear) to a hilarious sequence where he derails a stag hunt by escorting the lucky animal to safety in a cottage, there is something to make you laugh almost every minute. Mamoulian directs with real zip and pace throughout, keeping the delightfully light confection gloriously whisked without ever letting it grow heavy.

That’s just scratching the surface of Mamoulian’s outstanding work. Disparaged as a director obsessed with innovation, it’s hard to see how anyone felt that was a negative when you see results as rich as this. Love Me Tonight is so full of brilliantly dynamic use of sound, visuals and editing, that I’m stunned it isn’t referenced more often as a landmark in Hollywood’s emerging understanding of what was possible. The fact it does all this, in fabulously enjoyable way, in gorgeously designed sets where charming actors effortlessly do their work is even better.

The invention is right there from the opening frames. Taking a theatrical technique he had used on Broadway in Porgy and Bess, Mamoulian opens the film on the street of Paris. One-by-one the citizens emerge to go about their daily business – sweeping streets, cobbling shoes, beating carpets, washing windows – the cacophony building up into a rhythmic beat that leads us into the opening number. It’s superbly done, so simple but so far ahead of the imaginings of other directors at the time, it smacks a smile on your face.

It continues with the masterful delivery of the ‘Isn’t it Romantic’ song. Starting with Chevalier singing the song (off-the-cuff) in his tailor shop, it’s picked up (in turn) and then travels across the country, via a customer, taxi driver, composer in the taxi, platoon of soldiers, fiddler in the country and finally winds its way under Jeanette’s window for MacDonald to sing. With an effect both natural and brilliantly artificial, the two stars are linked together by one song without even meeting. Again, it’s simple but perfect.

Love Me Tonight is crammed with superb moments like this that take the breath way. At a shocking reveal, a ceramic urn smashes on the ground – but the sound is replaced by a dynamite blast, reflecting the impact the reveal has had. A superb split screen gives the appearance of Chevalier and MacDonald in bed together (they are of course in different beds dreaming of each other). When Chevalier is given the crazed horse Solitary to ride at the hunt (so called, as the horse always come home alone) Mamoulian uses sped-up-film to masterful effect. He then balances this with artfully slow-motion footage, when the hunt ‘tip toes’ away from the resting stag – he even uses reverse film for a stunt to show Chevalier leaping onto the back of MacDonald’s horse. A final horse-train chase sequence wouldn’t like out of place in an action thriller, in its brilliant use of composition and editing to suggest speed and dynamism.

There is barely a frame in Love Me Tonight that doesn’t have a stroke of theatrical or cinematic genius. But these never overwhelm the story or unbalance it. Even without noticing the superb nature of the film’s construction, you could still love every minute of its humour, charm and romance – not to mention the effortless likeability of everyone involved. Love Me Tonight may have began as a parody of a familiar genre, but it’s also possibly the greatest example of the genre in existence, mastering the Lubitsch touch so well, it turns out it didn’t need Lubitsch at all. One of the best films of the 1930s.

Bad Girl (1931)

Somewhat mistitled film, which is really a sort of dramedy of misunderstandings

Director: Frank Borzage

Cast: Sally Eilers (Dorothy Haley), James Dunn (Eddie Collins), Minna Gombell (Edna Driggs), Claude King (Dr Burgess)

Boy meets girl, they fall in love – what could go wrong? Quite a lot it turns out. Dorothy (Sally Eilers) works in a department store and enjoys nights out with best friend Edna (Minna Gombell). On one such trip she a man she meets is annoyed by her ukulele playing (who can blame him) and then doubles down on his crime by not flirting with her. But she’s fascinated by Eddie Collins (James Dunn) and, before they know it, they are into a whirl-wind marriage. Within months, both are convinced the other believes they have made a terrible mistake and want out.

Despite its salacious title – and the look of its poster – today Moderately Cheeky Girl would be a better title than Bad Girl. A better title than either would really be A Dramedy of Errors. Because that’s really what it’s about: two slightly naïve, decent people terrified that the other feels trapped. It’s the sort of gentle melodrama where the entire plot would fall apart in thirty seconds flat if either spoke honestly to the other. Instead, mistakes and misunderstandings are (often wilfully) allowed to continue, as they conceal things or allow misunderstandings to continue out of social embarrassment.

As such, it’s hard not to think Bad Girl as being both rather slight and silly. It just about manages to counteract this by its careful pacing and the sweet earnestness of the performances by Sally Eilers and James Dunn, counter-balanced by the sparky comic sharpness of Minna Gombell. Between them, these three just about keep Borzage’s sentimental translation (of a far spicey book) going. But, rather like the characters dilemmas, if you stop to think about it, it’s strikingly artificial.

Most of the many misunderstandings revolve around Dorothy’s pregnancy. This pregnancy itself is practically the last vestige of ‘bad’ left in the film: it’s very heavily implied this baby has its roots in a spicey piece of pre-marital sex shortly after they met. (Borzage rather artfully communicates this with a slow pan from a middle-of-the-night shot of a bed to the two lovers hugging – fully clothed – in a chair the other side of the room). But it serves as a jumping off point for paranoid misunderstandings, rooted in Dorothy’s fears that (like her mother) she’s destined to die in childbirth.

First, Dorothy is too panicked to admit she’s pregnant (worried that Eddie will disappear over the horizon the second he finds out he’s destined to be a dad). So she speaks about needing to find her own job, leading to Eddie blowing his entire life savings on setting them up in a fully furnished flat to reassure her she doesn’t need to work. This calamitous decision ends at a stroke both Eddie’s dream of setting up his own business and burns through their reserves for the incoming infant. As such, when Dorothy sweats over needing the finest doctor, Eddie is reduced to (secretly) throwing himself into being beaten to a pulp in a prize fighting ring and then literally begging the doctor to work for free to help her – all while allowing her to believe he doesn’t really give a toss.

The film’s love of melodrama is never clearer than when Dorothy greets the bruised, late-night returning Eddie with a weary contemptuous assumption he’s been out on the piss and Eddie doesn’t even try to correct her. Neither does she question how they can suddenly afford the best doctor in town, nor does Eddie attempt to inform her. In a series of misunderstandings stemming from neither talking honestly to each other at all, Eddie remains convinced Dorothy can’t bear the thought of a child while Dorothy believes Eddie feels she and the child have ruined his life.

How much you run with this sort of stuff, rather depends how much you can lose yourself in a drama where you might be dying for someone to knock some sense into these tyros. Minna Gombell’s Edna seems best suited to do this but, partly due to not wanting to stick in her nose too far, partly because she almost can’t believe these two can be so blind, she doesn’t. Fortunately, James Dunn finds a great deal of little-boy-lost charm in the try-hard but quietly anxious Eddie, while Sally Eilers Dorothy has a winning quality of sounding more worldly than she actually is.

The misunderstandings comprehensively outweigh the “badness” which looks incredibly tame today. She likes to flirt, looks for dates out on the town and doesn’t mind seeing a boy late at night – what a temptress! In fact, if anything, the way poor Dorothy and Edna constantly fall back on a parade of invented prize-fighting husbands and protective grandfathers to fend off the unwanted attentions of lascivious bosses and customers makes them feel rather sympathetic.

Borzage won an Oscar for his direction, which feels slightly surprising today considering the light melodrama of the script (like a puff of air) and the fairly comfortable mid-shot most of the film is shot in. There are some flashes of invention – the film’s opening is a neat misdirect, with Dorothy kitted out in wedding attire for what turns out to be a fashion parade at her department store; there is a neatly shot toboggan ride – but largely Borzage’s main achievement here is not making it seem totally ridiculous. The drama around Eddie’s investment in a top notch apartment they can’t afford actually carries a fair bit of impact – helped by the shocked horror of Eilers when its unveiled in front of a room of their friends – and the film’s final, slightly ridiculous reveal of the truth manages to just about work even though it’s the most swiftly contrived thing you can imagine.

Bad Girl is an entertaining enough little melodramatic semi-comedy of misunderstandings, that powers through with its genuine earnestness and rather winning sweetness. It may not be anything particularly special or striking, but it slides past with a crowd-pleasing ease.