LULU BELLE

George Montgomery and Dorothy Lamour

LULU BELLE (1948). Director: Leslie Fenton.

Around the turn of the century, new lawyer George Davis (George Montgomery) stops into a tavern to see a client and is mesmerized by the singer there, a lady named Lulu Belle (Dorothy Lamour). Before long he has ditched his practice and fiancee and taken off to New Orleans with her. Lulu Belle loves George, but she also loves money and the good life, and she gets involved with a boxer named Butch (Greg McClure), his wealthy manager, Mark Brady (Albert Dekker). and eventually a really rich married guy named Randolph (Otto Kruger) who brings her to New York where she becomes a Broadway star. The movie begins with a double-shooting, and then the main story is told in flashbacks narrated by George and then Lulu Belle's friend, Molly (Glenda Farrell). Dorothy Lamour is quite good in a role that seems more suited for Yvonne De Carlo, and George Montgomery, in a very winning performance, makes his character more sympathetic than he should be considering the way he ditched his loving girlfriend as well as some of his subsequent actions. Greg McClure [Sky Liner] has possibly his very best role as Butch, and is terrific, and both Dekker and Kruger [Woman Who Came Back] are as smooth and professional as ever. Both Glenda Farrell and Charlotte Wynters offer flavorful support, the latter in the role of Kruger's wife, and Addison Richards makes an effective police commissioner. There are gaps in the story that were presumably left on the cutting room floor but the movie is unusual in that it doesn't end with an expected clinch but has a more realistic wind-up. Director Leslie Fenton started out as an actor in such films as The Public Enemy. He was also Ann Dvorak's first husband. |The character of "Mark Brady" is most likely based on the real Diamond Jim Brady.

Watching Lulu Belle in the wake of the metoo# movement, one can easily see how it not only illustrates how some men can treat women like mere possessions for their sole pleasure, but the other side of the coin as well -- women who go after men for their own advantage, a sort of mutual exploitation.

Verdict: Absorbing romantic melodrama with good performances. ***.  

LADY KILLER

Cagney

LADY KILLER (1933). Director: Roy Del Ruth.

Fired from his job as usher, Dan Quigley (James Cagney) falls in with a gang of con artists who later take to robbing houses. Although Dan doesn't want anybody to get killed, the worst happens, and everyone takes it on the lam to California. There Dan becomes a movie extra, and then a star, until his old gang members show up to cause trouble. Lady Killer is another of those cheerfully amoral comedy-dramas with Cagney -- who is excellent -- playing another of his unpleasant if charismatic characters. The two ladies in his life are gang member Myra (Mae Clarke) and actress Lois (Margaret Lindsay of Dangerous); both women give very good performances, and Douglass.Dumbrille [A Life at Stake] is another cast stand-out as the leader of the gang. A repulsive scene has a bullying Cagney cornering a movie critic in a rest room and forcing him to literally eat his review. Cagney would probably have wanted it to be believed that Lady Killer is more or less his life story, but of course most of this is pure fiction, including the bit with the studio wanting to dump Quigley when news of his past leaks out (the studios tended to cover up for their assets). Dan doesn't turn on the gang because they're bad guys but because they threaten his livelihood, but the picture makes him out to be some kind of hero (not to mention he'd be in serious hot water even if he didn't kill anyone because he helped plan and execute the robberies). Still, this is fast, snappy and for the most part, fun, if morally questionable. One highlight is when the director insists Dan eat garlic before his love scene with poor Lois. Leslie Fenton is also in the cast. Clarke and Cagney were famously teamed in The Public Enemy two years earlier.

Verdict: Cagney is on top of his game even if the script is (literally) all over the lot. **1/2.

THE PUBLIC ENEMY

James Cagney and Jean Harlow

THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931). Director: William A. Wellman.

Tom Powers (James Cagney) and his pal, Matt (Edward Woods), grow up in a tough part of the city, and get in with a bad crowd. Tom becomes a gangster and killer during prohibition, earning the enmity of his brother, Mike (Donald Cook), who has little but contempt for him. Tom is such a creep that at one point he even shoots a horse! Tom and Matt work for Nails Nathan (Leslie Fenton) and Paddy Ryan (Robert Emmett O'Connor), and get involved with such "broads" as Gwen Allen (Jean Harlow), Mamie (Joan Blondell), Kitty (Mae Clarke), who gets a grapefruit in the face, and Nail's unnamed girlfriend (Dorothy Gee), who earns Tom's scorn by getting him drunk and going to bed with him. The Public Enemy is refreshingly frank and well-acted, with Cagney getting high marks, along with Fenton [The House of Secrets], O'Connor, and Beryl Mercer [Jane Eyre] as Ma Powers. Harlow was still considered a lousy actress this early in her career, but she's actually competent, if unexceptional, and her performance is satisfactory. Frankie Darro and "Junior" Coghlan (Frank Coghlan, Jr.) play Matt and Tom as boys and are both good. One of the best scenes is a dinner at the Powers house where ex-soldier Mike can no longer control his anger at his brother and bootleg beer goes flying, and the death of Putty Nose (Murray Kinnell of Charlie Chan in Paris) is also well-handled. That said, The Public Enemy has not really worn well with time -- especially when you take into account the many superior gangster films that came later --   but it still remains an interesting picture. The great final scene of the movie almost makes the whole movie! Handsome Edward Woods was supposed to play Tom Powers, the lead role, but it was given to Cagney instead,; he became a star and Wood's career eventually faded out after only 13 credits.

Verdict: Cagney holds the attention. *** out of 4.

ANN DVORAK: HOLLYWOOD'S FORGOTTEN REBEL

ANN DVORAK: HOLLYWOOD'S FORGOTTEN REBEL. Christina Rice. University Press of Kentucky; 2013.

Like many of us, Christina Rice first discovered Ann Dvorak in a videocassette of Three on a Match decades after the film had been released, and became a fan, intrigued by the reasons why this talented actress didn't have a much bigger career. Biographies written by fans can often be superficial love-fests, but Ms. Rice has avoided that trap by not only doing solid research, having access to personal letters, but by recognizing that Dvorak could sometimes be her own worst enemy. Dvorak took on Warner Brothers in court before Bette Davis did; the trouble was, Bette Davis was Bette Davis and Ms. Dvorak was nowhere in that league of fame and clout. She was poised for potential stardom when she got married [to first husband, actor-director Leslie Fenton of The House of Secrets and Pardon My Past] and simply took off for a several months-long honeymoon all over the world and never quite got back in the studio's good graces. She had ambition but it was at war with a certain need for independence which was frequently stymied by her marriages, all three of which had definite difficulties, to put it mildly. Rice not only examines Dvorak's film roles thoroughly, but absorbingly details her personal life, such as when she followed British Fenton overseas during WW2 out of devotion to him, but afterward found she'd outgrown him; her troubled relationship with her mother, who'd appeared in silent pictures but was long forgotten; and her on-again off-again third marriage to Nick Wade which played out in Hawaii and elsewhere; not to mention her austere final days when she worked on various abortive projects to no avail. Dvorak gave some fine performances throughout the years, with a particularly excellent portrayal in A Life of Her Own; she also appeared in such films as Scarface, The Strange Love of Molly Louvain, Gangs of New York, Flame of Barbary Coast, The Private Affairs of Bel Ami and The Walls of Jericho, among many others. The book is enriched with some great personal photos as well.

Verdict: Excellent biography of an actress forgotten by all but old film buffs. ***1/2.

THE HOUSE OF SECRETS

THE HOUSE OF SECRETS (1936). Director: Roland D. Reed.

Barry Wilding (Leslie Fenton) performs an act of chivalry for a young lady, Julie (Muriel Evans), on shipboard, but the woman refuses to divulge her identity or ever see him again. When Barry learns that he's inherited his uncle's estate, Hawk's Nest, and 10,000 pounds, he goes to the house and is thrown off the property by two men while Julie watches from the shadows. Barry and his detective friend, Tom Starr (Sidney Blackmer), are convinced that crooks have taken over Hawk's Nest, but the truth is much more idiotic. When the "secret" is revealed, you can't understand why everyone couldn't have simply told Barry what was going on and avoided all the angst. There are secret passages, a hidden basement, and a fairly exciting climax when everyone is nearly wiped out by poison gas. As a leading man, Fenton wasn't handsome by Hollywood standards, but he was adept and had authority and charisma. Evans and the others are fine, and Blackmer is, as usual, notable in the role of the detective.

Verdict: Barely acceptable hokum but it strangely holds the attention and has some suspense. **1/2.

PARDON MY PAST

PARDON MY PAST (1945). Director: Leslie Fenton.

Just out of the Army, Eddie York (Fred MacMurray, pictured) just wants to open a mink farm with his pal Chuck (William Demarest), but he's mistaken for the wealthy Francis Pemberton, whom he resembles, by a bookie (Akim Tamiroff), whom the latter owes $12,000. This leads to Eddie winding up at Pemberton's estate, where he's mistaken for his lookalike and learns that the real man is pretty much a stinker. In the meantime, Joan (Marguerite Chapman), who looks after Pemberton's little girl, finds herself drawn to a man who seems strangely different -- and much improved -- from the way he was before (Eddie also falls for Joan). Rita Johnson shows up as Pemberton's ex-wife Mary, and Harry Davenport is fun as always as wily Grandpa Pemberton. MacMurray is as amiable and adept as ever in this picture but while there's some fun in wondering what will happen when Eddie and Francis finally meet, the sad truth is that Pardon My Past isn't especially funny, and the sentimental moments don't make up for it. NOTE: The film takes place in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, MacMurray's beloved hometown (although he was actually born in Illinois).

Verdict: Not bad, just blah. **.