Wife vs. Secretary or Harlow vs. Loy

What a pleasure it was to see Wife vs. Secretary (1936) on my DVR.  Once again, THANK YOU to Turner Classic Movies for a great March full of Jean Harlow (1911 - 1937) movies, during Jean's 100th birthday month.

I must admit, up until this month, I had only seen her in the two Laurel and Hardy films she made in 1929, Double Whoopee and Bacon Grabbers.  She was also in City Lights (1931) the Chaplin classic, but was only an extra so I didn't notice her.

We started out by watching Bombshell (1933), an early starring feature with a very platinum blonde Harlow.  I believe it was typical of some early talkies to have too much dialog in a movie populated by a cast of former stage actors who project all the way to the back row of the theater.  Someone needed to tell them that the microphone was closer.  As a result, the movie is difficult to watch.  The talking is too fast, and combined with the colloquial way of speaking in the thirties, I couldn't easily follow the story.  To really understand this movie would take three viewings.

Then we watched Reckless (1935).  I figured two more years of sound experience, plus William Powell (1892 - 1984) would make this a better experience.  Harlow and Powell were lovers and I hoped there would be on screen chemistry.  It was another disappointment.  The script was beneath them both, and it became boring, but Harlow was beautiful and quite accomplished for only 24 years old.

We struck cinematic gold with Wife vs. Secretary.  The pairing of good friends Myrna Loy (1905 - 1993) and Jean Harlow (now with toned down, more natural blonde color), was perfect.  Clark Gable (1901 - 1960) got top billing because he was the King of the Movies, but his part could have been played by any leading man of the time.  All eyes were on Harlow and Loy.

In a Bit Part, we have James Stewart (1908 - 1997) as Harlow's boyfriend.  This was only Stewart's fifth film, but you could see his bright future in every scene he had.

I can't say enough about this film.  The story took you through all the emotions of the head of a publishing empire and his desire to succeed, his secretary who knows her help is needed by him, and his wife who only wants to give her love as he gives his to her.  Plus, the frustration of Harlow's boyfriend who thinks he may be losing her.  The fact is, everybody loves everybody else, but is Harlow just too much of a temptation for Gable?

There is no sex, because this was after the Hays Code.  Loy and Gable even have separate bedrooms.  But listen closely and you can hear the innuendos.  These were all sexy stars and they could deliver the message in body language plus a few words.

I was going to commit Wife vs. Secretary to VHS tape, but I think I'll order the DVD set instead.  (I really need to get that home theater PC I've been thinking about!)  Harlow was a star for a very short time.  I wonder what her future would have brought.  Would it have been filled with success in a long life like Bette Davis, or end in tragedy like Marilyn Monroe?  Kidney disease took Jean Harlow at just age 26, so we'll never know.

Night Nurse

I just received a wonderful collector's set from Turner Classic Movies, called Forbidden Hollywood.  My first purchase in the series is Volume 2, because I wanted to see Night Nurse (1931).  The other movies in this set are The Divorcee (1930), A Free Soul (1931), Three on a Match (1932), and Female (1933). 

The Forbidden Hollywood series includes movies that were released before the Hayes Code was enacted, and these are particularly risque.  It is a chance to see the raw side of such stars as Clark Gable, Norma Shearer, Humphrey Bogart and Joan Blondell, among others.

I chose Night Nurse to see some early Barbara Stanwyck, and I was not disappointed.  Stanwyck plays a young woman who wants to become a nurse.  After convincing the hospital to allow her to study, despite being a high school dropout, she gets her cap and is assigned to a private home to watch over two children.  Lovely Joan Blondell is another nurse in the story, who befriends Stanwyck.

She eventually finds out that the children have a large trust fund and they are being starved to death by an unscrupulous doctor, so the family can get the inheritance.  She sets out to blow the whistle on them.

The bad guy in this one is played by Clark Gable.  Here is one kicker...the good guy is a bootlegger that Stanwyck met at the drug store, and at the end of the movie he has Nick the chauffeur (played by Gable) rubbed out, and they have a good laugh over it!

Throughout the movie, Stanwyck keeps undressing so she can change into or out of her nursing uniform.  She is never completely naked, but the thought of showing her undergarments in 1931 must have been simply shocking! 

We also see quite a bit of drunken debauchery at the home of the children, plus some implied sex.  Not to mention the very thought of killing off the innocent heirs as the topic of a movie.

Just to mention some Bit Actor names, look for Ralf Harolde (1899 - 1974) as the bad doctor, Charles Winninger (1884 - 1969) as the good doctor, Vera Lewis (1873 - 1956) as the nurse manager, and Blanche Friderici (1878 - 1933) as the housekeeper.

The actors in the small parts of these early talkies have loads of wonderful experience that they bring to their work.  Vera Lewis has over 180 titles listed in her filmography including great silents like Intolerance (1916).  Of course you will remember Winninger as Washington Dimsdale in Destry Rides Again (1939). 

The early talkies may not be the best movies ever made and they were churned out in huge numbers, but they are enjoyable, supply us with a history lesson, and many of them are true classics.