A Lady to Love.

Review #2054: A Lady to Love.

Cast: 

Vilma Bánky (Lena Shultz), Edward G. Robinson (Tony), Robert Ames (Buck), Richard Carle (Postman), Lloyd Ingraham (Father McKee), Anderson Lawler (Doctor), Gum Chin (Ab Gee), Henry Armetta (Angelo), and George Davis (Giorgio) Produced and Directed by Victor Sjöström (#1327 - The Wind, #1731 - The Phantom Carriage, and #1771 - He Who Gets Slapped)

Review: 

Well, the foundation is tempting for this Pre-Code film. It is based on the 1924 play They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard. The play won him a Pulitzer Prize for Drama that year while the production ran on Broadway for nearly 200 performances that featured Richard Bennett, Pauline Lord, and Glenn Anders as the key stars. There has been various restaging of the play since, at least when one isn't busy trying to stage The Most Happy Fella, a musical first done in 1956 based on the Howard play. There are two other film adaptations of the play with The Secret Hour (1928) and They Knew What They Wanted (1940). Die Sehnsucht Jeder Frau, a German-language version of this film, was produced and directed by Sjöström with Robinson and Banky retained. This was the penultimate film appearance for its star in Banky, but The Rebel (1933) is obscure enough to not even have its own Wikipedia page, so keep that in mind when talking about Banky and her varying surviving films (which is just a bit over a half dozen, and her one previous effort in sound were sequences in This Is Heaven, which has yet to be found). As for Robinson, this was his third major appearance in a film after The Hole in the Wall (1929) and Outside the Law (1930). Lastly, let us talk about Victor Sjöström. This was the first sound film for the director, who you might already recognize from his silent classics such as The Phantom Carriage (1921) and The Wind (1928). He would go on to direct two further films: Father and Son (1930) and Under the Red Robe (1937) before he retired to back to his native Sweden to act within the theater again.

You may be a bit confused when it comes to this film on the idea that a director like Sjöström could be constrained so hard with the standards that come with making a sound film. Banky apparently left film not because of anything to do with her Hungarian accent but instead to focus on spending time with her new husband, whom she married a couple of years prior. I can only imagine that the result of this film probably did not help matters, and this isn't to say she has a bad time here (the accent is obviously fit for films). It just so happens that in a film with two actors playing folks with distinct roots (one Italian), Robinson chews the scenery away from everything. There is probably supposed to be some sort of tragedy within her being trapped within this triangle of affection, but maybe it actually fit better when packed for a stage rather than what is presented here, because it just seems hollow. Robinson can only carry so far when playing to the seats with whatever is meant to play in this blustery act that is spent two-ways: before and after he is put in bedrest (yes not only is it a film about a woman discovering her soon-to-be husband looks different from the picture, but she also first sees him after he suffers an injury where he broke both legs). Ames (who died the following year from "delirium tremens" at the age of 42) happens to be in the middle as the "American" in the middle of this certain triangle, but he might as well be playing a block of wood with his lack of drawing power, no matter how much they try to make the eventual wooing of Banky seem inevitable. By the time the actual resolution happens, one can only throw up their hands. The attempt at cultivating a romance that starts with deception (heh, let's get a mail-order bride by showing my handsome buddy) only results a long and winding road of middling meandering. The fact that the film seems bound to stay firmly in the same place you usually see things only results in a very drawn out 92-minute runtime. Asking oneself "how does one go from The Wind to this?" is not a promising statement when trying to assess the quality of a very average movie, and yet here we are. As a whole, since this is a movie you can only find online rather than home video, the best way to enjoy it is for those who like to seek out these kinds of things and hopefully enjoy what they see, because I can't call it anything other than just a bit too average. It has a future star and a future retired star to go with a director who had seen better days, so take that for what it is worth.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

In Old Arizona.

Review #1328: In Old Arizona.

Cast: 
Warner Baxter (The Cisco Kid), Edmund Lowe (Sergeant Mickey Dunn), Dorothy Burgess (Tonia Maria), Henry Armetta (Barber), James Bradbury Jr. (Soldier), Joe Brown (Bartender), Frank Campeau (Man Chasing Cisco), John Webb Dillion (Second Soldier), Alphonse Ethier (Sheriff), Jim Farley (Townsman), Pat Hartigan (Cowpuncher), and Soledad Jiménez (Tonita the Cook) Directed by Irving Cummings.

Review: 
In Old Arizona premiered on Christmas Day of 1928 (with general release to come in the following days) as a pioneer for Westerns and for talking films. It is the first major Western in sound, and it is the first talkie with outdoor scenes. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) had been the first film from Fox Film to use the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system (which it used for a synchronized music score and sound effects). Now it is used here to make something in line with other Westerns adapted from previous material. The film is adapted from O. Henry's 1907 short story "The Caballero's Way". In the original story, The Cisco Kid was a killer for sport, as opposed to the more sympathetic portrayals in adaptations, although this does keep the ending from the original. There had been two adaptations of the work in the previous decade, and there would be further films to follow with the character in the next three decades (with Baxter playing the role four more times) along with a radio and television series. Baxter had started his career as an extra in 1914, gradually finding bigger roles over the 1920s, such as Sheltered Daughters (1921). He had gained this role through a series of accidents befalling people cast for the lead role. Raoul Walsh was a noted actor who became a director in his own right (having directed noted films such as Regeneration in 1915 and The Thief of Bagdad in 1924), and he was slated to direct and star as the lead. However, when he was driving during production in the desert, a jackrabbit jumped into the windshield of his car, blinding his right eye because of the broken glass. Actor/stuntman Buddy Roosevelt was brought in next, but he withdrew before production could re-start due to a broken leg, so it fell to Baxter to portray the charismatic lead and stay in one piece (along with do a bit of singing), resulting in an Academy Award. In that sense, he does okay, playing with tinges of charisma in a role that seems a bit dated nowadays (imagine putting on a mustache and trying to pull off an accent when you're from Ohio). At least he sings okay, in the same way that I really don't go watching too many singing cowboys to really compare it to. Lowe isn't too much better, but at least his brashness is meant to come out as opposed to seeming awkward with a microphone strategically placed to get the sound out fine like others. Burgess maintains the standard of the mediocre love triangle going with no bumps, although it really isn't much of an interesting triangle with chemistry to keep following for 95 minutes. These are chumps we are dealing with here, but at least it knows to pair it down with a decent ending (as opposed to just a shoot-out) involving the old switching-your-clothes-and-letters trick. The locations certainly seem lovely, even if they don't exactly match the title, with shots being done in Utah and California (notably in parks, missions, and the Mojave Desert) that look fairly nice. Honestly, the film isn't terrible, but it seems a bit tedious when it comes to execution, where one could note better Westerns that came before it that didn't have sound (such as 3 Bad Men, for example) and then note the ones that would come after it for how they dealt with both sound and story. The 1920s had plenty of interesting winners for film, but this one falls right in the middle - not quite forgettable, but not quite remarkable either.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.