The Squall

The Squall (1929)

Runtime: 102 minutes

Directed by: Alexander Korda

Starring: Richard Tucker, Alice Joyce, Loretta Young, Myrna Loy, ZaSu Pitts

From: First National

This is a pretty obscure movie I saw last night. It's not great but at least it was watchable, if a little silly. I talk about this bunk below:

Here is a random movie that was played late last night on Turner Classic Movies. All this month, each Friday they will show plenty of Myrna Loy movies; I will see some of them. This one is pretty obscure but it sounded so odd, I wanted to check it out. Basically, Loy wears bronzer and is a Gypsy (not to use what the Romani people say is a slur against them. It's just an easy way to describe the type of character she played, as it was greatly stereotypical, including the accent she used) who ends up on a Hungarian farm during a squall (i.e. bad storm) and as she claimed she was mistreated, she was allowed to stay on that family farm... only to act like a vamp and thus cause a lot of trouble among the adult males who live and/or work there.

Things are cliché and some of the acting is rather not good. Yet it's still watchable. Some of the cast does well, including Loy (playing an ethnic character, as she often did early in her career), Alice Joyce, and Loretta Young. Plus, this is the only film I've seen where a guy sings to his horse as ducks quack LOUDLY in the background. There are several songs heard; I understand, as the talkie era was still new and people weren't used to hearing such things as the cinema.

While this is overlong and the play this was based on was probably better on stage, I at least can say that this is average. I can laugh that the title girl caused a lot of problems but it was mainly because the men were all horndogs and figuratively couldn't keep it in their pants. There's melodrama about broken relationships, stolen money, etc. The fact that the cast includes some other familiar faces (Alice Joyce, Loretta Young, ZaSu Pitts) does help make this hokum palpable.