The Hollywood Studios, Year-By-Year – Universal, 1933 – By Candlelight & The Kiss Before the Mirror

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Universal, 1933: Two little-known James Whale Pre-Codes that adopt divergent attitudes toward adulterous wives. First, treated as farce, in By Candlelight: Paul Lukas plays a butler who gets himself in trouble by masquerading as his playboy boss in order to have more refined erotic adventures. Then, treated as tragedy, in The Kiss Before the Mirror: Frank Morgan and Nancy Carroll get themselves in trouble by becoming fixated on their deceptive mirror images. Also discussed: Code censorship of ass-grabbing, Nils Asther’s persona, David Lynch’s Lost Highway, and how the Book of Job is a comedy.

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:       By Candlelight  

0h 31m 53s:       The Kiss Before the Mirror

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* Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule

* Find Elise’s latest film piece on Depression era film romance

*And Read lots of Elise’s Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

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“What’s Yr Take on Cassavetes?” – Le Tigre

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Special Subject: Barbara Stanwyck & Frank Capra – Ladies of Leisure (1930); The Miracle Woman (1931); Forbidden (1932); The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933) & Meet John Doe (1941)

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This week we’ve got a big one for you: the five films that Frank Capra and Barbara Stanwyck made together. Starting with LADIES OF LEISURE (1930), we interpret the Stanwyck character as the Capra stand-in, which leads to some interesting results. MEET JOHN DOE (1941) becomes LADIES OF LEISURE inverted (Stanwyck as artist, Cooper as model—but Stanwyck as stand-in either way); while MIRACLE WOMAN (1931) also foreshadows MEET JOHN DOE, this time with Stanwyck as Jane Doe. FORBIDDEN (1932) and BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN (1933) lie outside of this set of obsessions. The first is Capra doing a weepie with screwball lovers, not a very comfortable fit, while the newspaper setting and political intrigue point to future developments. The second is an interracial romance in which Stanwyck is, for once, the secondary figure, and General Yen is the near-obligatory Capra suicide. While expressing our astonishment at GENERAL YEN’s sophisticated critique of white supremacy, which is beyond the capacity of most Hollywood movies of the era, we forgot to issue a trigger warning for the racist doll in MIRACLE WOMAN. John Carson’s hobbies are uncool in more ways than one.

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:       Ladies of Leisure (1930)

0h 36m 41s:       The Miracle Woman (1931)

0h 52m 40s:       Forbidden (1932)

1h 06m 31s:       The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)

1h 53m 07s:       Meet John Doe (1941)

 

+++

* Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule

* Find Elise’s latest film piece on Depression era film romance

*And Read lots of Elise’s Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

Theme Music:

“What’s Yr Take on Cassavetes?” – Le Tigre

Check out this episode!

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The Hollywood Studios, Year-By-Year – RKO, 1933 – Morning Glory & Our Betters

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RKO 1933: We look at a movie starring one of the hottest female stars of the day, Constance Bennett, George Cukor’s Our Betters, and a movie starring an up-and-coming (and down, and up, and down again) RKO star, Katharine Hepburn, Lowell Sherman’s Morning Glory. Elise deems both Hepburn’s frantically vulnerable performance and Cukor’s unsentimental sex comedy “punk rock.” We decide that Our Betters is The Women without Norma Shearer’s plotline, and all the better for it. Spotted: Gilbert Roland as an hilariously laconic gigolo and Mary Duncan (Murnau’s City Girl, in a very different role) as a spoiled but skilled stage star.

 

Time Codes:

0h 01m 00s:       Morning Glory [dir: Lowell Sherman]

0h 47m 12s:       Our Betters [dir: George Cukor]

+++

* Check out our Complete Upcoming Episode Schedule

* Find Elise’s latest film piece on Depression era film romance

*And Read lots of Elise’s Writing at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Cléo, and Bright Lights.*

Follow us on Twitter at @therebuggy

Write to us at therebuggy@gmail.com

Theme Music:

“What’s Yr Take on Cassavetes?” – Le Tigre

Check out this episode!

Read Full Post »