Reviews

Although neither song in this featurette is memorable, any opportunity to see as well as hear Morse sing is worth the time spent, even though the yodeling and near-yodeling can be annoying. She had one of the most distinctive voices in popular songdom. Let it be noted here that in addition to this Vitaphone short, Morse made other shorts in 1930 for Paramount which as of this posting are NOT listed at IMDb but which are available in crummy copies on YouTube: A MILLION ME'S in which Morse sings the E.Y. Harburg/Jay Gorney composition "What Wouldn't I Do for That Man?" (equalling in her own way Helen Morgan's rendition), and SONG SERVICE in which she sings the long-forgotten "Just Another Dream Gone Wrong" (Harburg/Peter DeRose).

Although this is typical of the low-budget quickies that Warners churned out like hotcakes in the Thirties it offers Bette Davis in her most youthfully appealing "down-to-earth platinum blonde girl" phase. You can find the same character in THREE ON A MATCH, THE GIRL FROM 10TH AVENUE, THE PETRIFIED FOREST and others. She exudes an innocent but intelligent, unaffected femininity that seems to have evaporated by the time she hit her stride with JEZEBEL, so it's good that this phase of her career is preserved - if only to track her evolution as an actress. Note the energy and vitality she injects (perhaps effortlessly) into a supporting role as the girlfriend-wife, stealing every scene she's in - without relying on conventional beauty. It's kind of fun also to see how the scenarists managed to leap from one implausible, contrived plot development to the next - but that's a secondary matter because most of these films were beyond belief. The point was to make a moral point, not to be narratively convincing. The point here being: evil gangsters, beware of the authorities because they'll get you!

I thought this would be a talky bore with bland characters and unimaginative cinematic techniques, but I was delightfully surprised! It's very nicely photographed and lavishly mounted, with vivid characters, dramatic coloring and dollops of humor. And the script even takes time to discuss actual poetry. Two representative elements that leap out at you: the sensitive performance of Una O'Connor as Elizabeth Barrett's devoted maid who appears to float across a room in her full-length dress and totally avoids hamming it up as she did (to hilarious effect) in THE INVISIBLE MAN the previous year. And the second is a superbly trained dog who takes his own walks around the neighborhood and scratches at the door when he comes home, to be let in by the servants. On the downside, although the viewer is led to view Norma Shearer's character as a homely recluse who hasn't left her chamber for years and can barely walk, Norma looks from moment one as if she just emerged from the Metro beauty salon (which of course is the case!). You'd think they might have tried a bit to make her look the part, even if only lightening the lipstick a shade or two, or perhaps a touch of shadow under the cheekbones, but no - she is as radiant, glamorous and robust as she ever was in anything. But histrionically this is one of her best efforts. She manages to convey exhaustion and weakness, and only very occasionally lapses into her wheezing, semi-coherent upper register when emotionally overwrought. (Helen Hayes would have been ideal casting for this part.) Charles Laughton as the old grouch of a father is in real life about Shearer's age but his jowly countenance - with the help of a powdered wig and sideburns - help him to look older. He is always riveting, as other viewers have commented, but he (or the script?) fail to convincingly knit the two sides of his personality together. Fredric March as Robert Browning is adequate, not particularly poetic, but dashingly attractive. Interestingly, he resembles Shearer so strongly (especially in profile) that HE could have played her father if his hair had been powdered. And in real life he is two years older than Laughton! But why quibble - this is one of the more entertaining and literate of MGM's Depression-era extravaganzas. At the very least it's delicious eye candy.