DVD Review: TCM's Forbidden Hollywood, Vol. 3
An overview of Other Men's Women, The Purchase Price, Frisco Jenny
Apr 28, 2009
The four-disc set focuses on lesser-known pictures by director-screenwriter William Wellman. "While some of his pictures are remembered individually," notes narrator Alec Baldwin in one of the release's documentaries, "his body of work as a whole has been largely forgotten."
William Wellman a Forgotten Giant
Wellman's pictures are among the best to come out of the Hollywood studio system, including the first-ever Best Picture Oscar winner Wings, The Public Enemy, the original A Star is Born, Nothing Sacred, The Ox-Bow Incident, The Story of G.I. Joe and others.
That Wellman's name isn't as instantly recognizable as, say, Hitchcock, Ford or Walsh is a sad fact. But the diversity of movies in Wellman's portfolio is astonishing -- and that's especially evident in this TCM package.
All six films in the set were released between 1930 and '33. All are brief -- running around 70 minutes each. The prints are clear and crisp, with sound quality ranging from fair to excellent.
Pre-Code Films Known For Sexual Innuendo
While none is really a classic, each offers an intriguing window into the early years of the Great Depression. Some are even prescient in the way they present themes and arguments once again potent in these current perilous times.
There's also a sexual component in most of these pre-Code pictures -- often in tellingly suggestive moments -- that vanished when the industry buckled to increasing federal pressure and clamped down on screen sex starting in 1934.
And the films present Wellman's stock company of performers turning up in picture after picture. People like Charley Grapewin -- later Uncle Henry in The Wizard of Oz -- and character actor Grant Mitchell.
We also see leading lady Loretta Young twice, along with several supporting actors whose names you may not know but whose faces are instantly recognizable.
Other Men's Women Features James Cagney in Just His Third Film
Leading off the set is a curio, Other Men's Women, from 1930. As hard-drinking train engineer Bill White, the uncharismatic Grant Withers -- later a fixture in many westerns and a favorite of director John Ford -- falls in love with Lily, played by the gorgeous, intelligent Mary Astor in a thankless role. That the knockout Lily would be married to Bill's equally dull best friend Jack, played by the always colorless Regis Toomey, is absurd enough.
What makes the film worth seeing is its fourth-billed player, James Cagney, whose nascent kinetic energy is fascinating to see in this, just his third film. A year later, Wellman would insist on Cagney for the lead in The Public Enemy, which made the New York hoofer a superstar.
Cagney's old pal from Broadway, seventh-billed Joan Blondell, plays Bill's erstwhile girlfriend, and it's just as fascinating to watch her trademark sassy, tough screen persona develop right before our eyes.
Sexy, Smart Barbara Stanwyck Co-Stars in The Purchase Price
The Purchase Price, from 1932, spotlights tough-but-tender Barbara Stanwyck in a prototypical role as the sassy, self-possessed torch singer Joan Gordon. She's the kept woman of hood Eddie Fields, the ridiculously miscast Lyle Talbot. There's plenty of sexual innuendo here -- including an hilarious moment involving a train ride and a woman eating a banana.
But the story itself is a bit fantastic. It's hard to believe big city girl Stanwyck could ever fall for bumpkin-farmer George Brent, into whose arms she falls while desperately trying to escape Talbot's clutches. It's even harder to accept the usually urbane Brent as a North Dakota farmer.
Stanwyck gets to parade around in sexy lingerie, and while the plot points are creaky and silly, the pace is swift and the story wraps quickly on a sweet note, thanks to Stanwyck's inherent likability and ability to sell a screen story.
Ruth Chatterton Stars in Tale of Prostitution, Murder
Also from 1932 is Frisco Jenny, starring former Broadway diva Ruth Chatterton in a silly, soapy, self-sacrificing role comparable to the one she'd played three years earlier in Madame X.
Here, she's a notorious San Francisco madame who ends up on trial for murder, prosecuted by the crusading young D.A. -- played by Donald Cook, another Wellman favorite -- who just happens to be her illegitimate son. (Naturally, he doesn't know it, and she intends to keep it that way.)
Ever-suave Louis Calhern is Jenny's longtime partner in crime. And Helen Jerome Eddy, a white actress, plays a Chinese woman, complete with the ridiculous "slant-eyed" makeup and stereotypical "accent" that probably insulted every Asian ever to see the movie.
In a small role as Jenny's early-years beau is James Murray, the ill-fated actor whose promising career as a leading man began with The Crowd but whose life was derailed by depression and alcoholism. He would commit suicide just four years later.
The film is awash with sex -- Jenny gets pregnant before she can marry and later pimps party girls for local pols and swells. Look for Wellman himself as a reporter whose one line is, "No, ya dope, not Henry Ford -- Tom Ford!"
In Part Two of this review's three installments, a look at the three other features in the set: Midnight Mary, Heroes For Sale and Wild Boys of the Road. Part Three deals with the boxed set's special features.
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