Runtime:
73 minutes
Directed
by: William A. Seiter
Starring:
Nancy Carroll, Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, Edward Woods, Lilian Bond
From:
Paramount
For a random 1932 movie, this was rather interesting:
I won't delve into the rabbit hole I went down recently to arrive at
this movie, but at times Amazon Video and sites of questionable legality
which I won't name here have real old movies available for rental that
aren't from Warner Brothers or MGM. Because of Turner Classic Movies and
services like Warner Archive, plenty of their back catalogue is easy to
track down; it's less so for other big studios. This movie (from
Paramount) happens to be available from Amazon Video, at the cost of
only 99 cents. That was appealing, along with the cast, premise, and the
cool poster being used at the moment here on Letterboxd.
This ended up being a Pre-Code delight. Nancy Carroll is Ruth, a virtuous lady who enjoys partying but is still “a good girl.” As she is pretty, she has plenty of potential suitors; one of them happens to be the amusingly named Romer Sheffield, a rich suave dude who naturally was played by Cary Grant; even back then he was quite suave. There is also Randolph Scott, playing another suitor who knew her from when they were kids but hadn't seen each other in years.
Someone else starts the scurrilous rumors that-Heavens to Betsy!-Ruth spent the night at bachelor Sheffield's place, starting small-town gossip which is The Telephone Game and the rumor spirals out of control-as it was simpler times back then, there goes her reputation. As I said this was Pre-Code, so there were some pretty frank moments and Ruth makes some interesting choices she wouldn't have been able to make in the Hays Code era. The racist moment in this movie could have been in any era... a minor character does a mock accent to a Japanese servant; at least that idiot was humiliated after the servant spoke English rather well.
A talented main cast definitely helped and it was a breezy watch, but the acerbic commentary about small-town life and how it can be rife with gossip and a woman's reputation can be ruined just from a misunderstanding... that helped make this better than expected. I should watch these random old films more often as besides knowing they won't be available for viewing forever for a litany of reasons, a random selection like this ended up being worthwhile so who knows how many gems are out there for me to discover.
This ended up being a Pre-Code delight. Nancy Carroll is Ruth, a virtuous lady who enjoys partying but is still “a good girl.” As she is pretty, she has plenty of potential suitors; one of them happens to be the amusingly named Romer Sheffield, a rich suave dude who naturally was played by Cary Grant; even back then he was quite suave. There is also Randolph Scott, playing another suitor who knew her from when they were kids but hadn't seen each other in years.
Someone else starts the scurrilous rumors that-Heavens to Betsy!-Ruth spent the night at bachelor Sheffield's place, starting small-town gossip which is The Telephone Game and the rumor spirals out of control-as it was simpler times back then, there goes her reputation. As I said this was Pre-Code, so there were some pretty frank moments and Ruth makes some interesting choices she wouldn't have been able to make in the Hays Code era. The racist moment in this movie could have been in any era... a minor character does a mock accent to a Japanese servant; at least that idiot was humiliated after the servant spoke English rather well.
A talented main cast definitely helped and it was a breezy watch, but the acerbic commentary about small-town life and how it can be rife with gossip and a woman's reputation can be ruined just from a misunderstanding... that helped make this better than expected. I should watch these random old films more often as besides knowing they won't be available for viewing forever for a litany of reasons, a random selection like this ended up being worthwhile so who knows how many gems are out there for me to discover.
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