12.11.04
Movie Reviews: Meet the Baron, Blonde Venus, Sadie Thompson, The Most Dangerous Game

The racy comedies and dramas of the "Pre-code" era (before Hollywood enforced its self-censorship guidelines) are gaining a cult following amongst the 20-to-30 set. Four films of the era are reviewed this week.

Meet the Baron (1933)

In the early 1930’s MGM produced a weird crop of semi-musicals. This one has Jimmy Durante, Jack Pearl, ZaSu Pitts, Edna May Oliver and the Three Stooges. Durante and Pearl play valets to a famed big-game hunter, the Baron Munchausen. The Baron abandons them in the jungle, and when they are rescued, Pearl is mistaken for the Baron and Durante for his agent. They decide to continue the ruse so they can get paid for a speaking engagement at the (aptly named, all-girls) Cuddle College (located, of course, in Cuddle-on-Hudson, NY). Ribald highlights include:

- The infamous "Clean as a Whistle" dance number with an all-nude chorus, set in the dormitory shower room. (It was excerpted in "That's Entertainment III")

- Durante and Pearl simultaneously trying to seduce chambermaid ZaSu Pitts

- Upon the discovery of their ruse, Dean Edna May Oliver declaring "We've never had any trouble at this school!" and then in an aside "Well, only the sort of trouble you'd expect at an all-girl's school."

And who is credited producer on this project? MGM’s son-in-law-also-rises, David O. Selznick. It was a long road to Tara.

Blonde Venus (1932)

Marlene Dietrich plays a earnest young German woman who marries an American chemist (Edward Marshall),who through his own ineptitude gives himself radium poisoning. She gets a job singing in a nightclub to pay to send him to Europe, then allows herself to be "kept" by shady politician Cary Grant to pay for his treatments.

Personally, I find that most of the Dietrich Von Sternberg collaborations are ploddingly slow. This one picked up the pace a little bit, but has other problems. Marshall's character comes off as a whiner and an ingrate. Cary Grant is supposed to be a homewrecker- but's come on- it's Cary Grant. How can we be expected to root for the other guy? Dietrich skinny dips under the opening credits and does a number dressed in an ape suit.

Sadie Thompson (1928)

Gloria Swanson at the peak of her starpower as the prostitute on the lam who is reformed and then raped by a missionary while hiding out in the south seas. This was one of two versions of the story filmed before the clamp down of the Production Code in 1934- the second being Rain with Joan Crawford as Sadie.  In the first part of the movie Swanson gives a great comedic performance as a girl who is high-spirited to the point of being obnoxious- it's easy to see why the bluenoses hate her and the marines stationed at the local base love her. Unfortunately, the last reel is "lost" so the restored version uses stills, stock footage and intertitles to conclude the story; unfortunately the dramatic climax loses a lot of momentum.

The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

A year before they made King Kong, Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper made this breathlessly paced adaptation of Richard Connell’s short story about a shipwreck survivor who fights for his life as he’s hunted by an exiled Russian count.

When it comes to the Pre-code era, the amount of sex is the first thing most people notice- but films of the era were also startlingly violent as well. In the first 5 minutes of this one there is a brutal ship wreck (including a close-up shot of the boiler room crew being scalded to death), which is immediately followed by a bloody shark attack. Ah, the good old days…

Leslie Banks plays the villainous count, future Kong stars Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong play brother and sister, and Joel McCrea is the resourceful hero. (McCrea gives a surprisingly snappy and cheerful performance- at this point in his career he was mostly doing the strong, silent type roles that had been rejected by Gary Cooper.)

The movie comes in at a streamlined 63 minutes. It’s all action, and does not have an extraneous love story, despite the obvious chemistry between Wray and McCrea- they’re too busy trying to save their necks to fall in love.