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CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!

Last night we watched our favorite George Arliss film, "The Working Man" (1933). This one not only has Arliss, but young Bette Davis (in her second film with Arliss, who more or less "discovered" her!), J. Farrell MacDonald, Hardie Albright, Theodore Newton, Gordon Westcott, and others.

This one is about a rather dysfunctional late 20's/early 30's wealthy family where the father dies and his flapper age children let the business slide, besides putting a head manager in place who now runs the company poorly so that it will fail and be taken over by a buy-out plan in which he's secretly involved. The business is a shoe business, and it's in direct competition with George Arliss' shoe company. Arliss has now let his nephew into the head managing job in his own shoe business, and this nephew thinks that George Arliss is too old to run the company. Arliss "takes a vacation"; however, the "vacation" is really a ruse where Arliss goes to the competition, becomes a "guardian" of the children - legally - and teaches them how to run a business, besides - all this while never letting on who he is. The "vacation" becomes extended, of course. Meanwhile, Arliss "cleans up" his competitor's business by getting rid of the creep manager who's trying to undermine it, and in the end begins ruining his own business as a result. In the end, there's love - between Bette Davis and the nephew in Arliss' business, played by Hardie Albright - and a merger between the two companies. Believe me, this is a simplistic description of events. The truth is, the show is didactic. Most people today would simply balk at watching a didactic show. Frankly, I think it's the best comedy that George Arliss ever made. He was famous for his historical portrayals of famous men, but he also made a series of rather didactic comedies that are nearly unlike any other films ever made in English. I love them all. Actually, they probably portray the 1920's stage as well as any films ever made, a lost section of historical performance that makes itself come alive again in these Arliss vehicles.

I not only highly recommend this, but for the viewer who wishes to see how Bette Davis became "discovered", this is the second of two (the other was "The Man Who Played God" (1932)) films she made where Arliss let her show her stuff, so to speak. These films have so much to offer to those willing to put themselves back into a period that is most unlike our own! Given that perspective, this will transport the viewer into another era and allow him/her to see a totally different kind of writing, acting, and format. There's just nothing out there today - at least in America - to compare to Arliss and his brand of film-making.

A couple of years ago Warner Archive Collection put out a three film Arliss collection to let viewers re-acquaint themselves with Arliss who died in 1946, and who is nearly forgotten today, although he won one of the first Oscars for Best Actor in 1929 for "Disraeli". In the set were three Arliss comedies, "Old English" (1930), "A Successful Calamity" (1932), and "The King's Vacation", but none of his portrayals of historical figures. This was a curiosity in and of itself! It doesn't do justice to the man. However, the fact that "Old English" was included was a great choice! "The King's Vacation" has a very young Dick Powell in it, so it has some kind of "modern" appeal. "A Successful Calamity" has Mary Astor in it, so ditto what I just said. I'd love to see a second set out with "Disraeli", "The Man Who Played God", and "The Working Man" in it. These were very successful vehicles for Arliss in their time. A set with both the silent and the sound "The Green Goddess" (1922/1930) would also be fascinating. Arliss needs to be re-discovered!!

"The Working Man" was doing so well. It was cruising along just perfectly fine, then they had to do something so trite, cliché, and pretty much sexist to almost make it crash and burn. Had I not seen a similar occurrence in so many movies of that era, what happened would've been a throw-aside. It would've been a simple footnote. But, because I've seen this so many times before I couldn't ignore it.

The movie stars George Arliss, Bette Davis, Theodore Newton, Hardie Albright, and Gordon Westcott. George Arliss plays John Reeves, a shoe magnate. He owned and operated Reeves Shoes, and he was very effective. His biggest competition was Hartland Shoes which was run by his respected nemesis. When Hartland died, Reeves easily took over the shoe market. It was so easy that he finally decided to give business a break and go fishing with his cousin Henry (J. Farrell MacDonald), while his nephew Benjamin Burnett (Hardie Albright) ran the show.

While fishing he met two of the Hartland kids: Jenny (Bette Davis) and Tommy (Theodore Newton). John Reeves saw this as an excellent opportunity to get some inside dope, and perhaps even buy out the Hartland shoe company so that he would be the only player in town.

He went along with the Hartland kids as a pal and got to see their home and their factory. When he finally got to see the condition of their factory, and more importantly, the spoiled, debaucherous, and ruinous path they were on, he actually had a soft spot for them, and wanted to protect them from financial ruin. What he did next was very novel and is what made the movie so good.

He had never introduced himself as John Reeves when he met the Hartland kids. He had always gone by John Walton. Because he wasn't known by the Hartland kids as John Reeves he convinced them to make him a trustee of the Hartland estate and a parental figure for both of them. His intentions were nothing but honorable. He wanted to cut off the spigot of flowing money and make the kids actually do something worthwhile so that they didn't burn through their fortune and become a drain on society in the process.

He was able to get the trustee position which put him directly in charge of their funds, and gave him access to their business as well. He took the job very seriously, and he went about rectifying both the children and Hartland Shoes.

John Reeves operated with brutal efficiency. He started by firing the general manager, who was a shyster named Fred Pettison (George Westcott). He then went about rousing his sales team to get them in the mood to make sales, he spent more ad dollars, and did everything necessary to make Hartland Shoes a better brand, and to give them a greater share of the market. So great was their eventual share that they were on the verge of totally sinking his own company, Reeves Shoes! He was more than happy to do it because it was now being run by his conceited nephew who thought his uncle should just retire.

This brings me to Jenny (Bette Davis) and what she wanted to do in order to help out. She made reference to the fact that many women were executives now and that perhaps she could be one. I shuttered at that statement because it was patently false, unless the definition of "many" has changed. Her idea was to go to Reeves Shoes, get a job there doing whatever she could so that she could see how they operated, and perhaps bring that knowledge back to her own family shoe company and help it.

When she got there, she was about to be summarily fired within the first two weeks because she was totally inept. But, because she was so beautiful, the man who was now running Reeves shoes, Benjamin Burnett (Hardie Albright), was too smitten with her to fire her.

Another woman who secured a job because of her looks.

The inevitable happened after that, and when I say inevitable, I mean the 1930s inevitable. She fell in love with him.

Now because she loved her boss--the boss at a rival shoe company no less--she became very bothered by the work Hartland Shoes, HER shoe company, was doing to eliminate Reeves Shoes. She was so bothered that she went back home to her brother and John Reeves (who she only knew as John Walton) to censure them about their vicious business practices and to stop their assault because she now loved Benjamin Burnett and she didn't want to see him falter.

It was such a disgusting display. Another woman whose heart interfered with her ability to conduct business.

I have seen it in too many other movies, mainly and most notably in the movie "Female" starring Ruth Chatterton where she had to give up her control in a car manufacturing company because she loved a man. And the movie "Dishonored" starring Marlene Dietrich where she helped an enemy of her country escape because she fell in love with him.

A woman cannot be business minded or be successful because her heart will always interfere. No woman can possibly help but fall in love with her boss or subordinate, which happens in too many movies to count, hence no woman should be in any kind of authoritative position at a company because she will be betrayed by her heart and make the wrong decision. It just sucks to see that a woman, yet again, couldn't do a job effectively because she fell in love.

Did that completely ruin the movie? No. Was it a big nuisance? Absolutely. I don't want to end on a bad note because overall it was a good movie, but it could've been excellent.

Free on Odnoklassniki.

George Arliss stars in this film as the owner of Reeves Shoes--one of the giants in the shoe industry. However, upon hearing that his closest rival, he's in a bit of a funk--without this competition, his job is a lot less satisfying! Additionally he's in a funk because his nephew, who is the #2 man at Reeves is a fat-head. The nephew is reasonably competent--but he's also a very conceited jerk who thinks the company's success is all due to him. By chance during his vacation Arliss meets the son and daughter of his deceased competitor and he's not at all pleased. Instead of caring about the business, all they care about is partying. So, on a lark, he assumes control of their company and uses it to battle, anonymously, against his nephew! This way he can teach the two party-goers about the value of hard work and he can teach his nephew some humility.

This is a very clever little comedy about the business world that works well due to a nice script and a lovely performance by Arliss--who just makes the picture glow. While Bette Davis is also in the film, it's an early role for her and she is competent but not much more. Apparently in real life she and Arliss grew very fond of each other and he taught her a lot about the acting craft--which makes sense since he was able to make his performance in this film look so effortless and charming.

By the way, if you like this sweet business comedy, try watching the even better 1941 film "The Devil and Miss Jones". It's also great fun and is one of the best comedies of the 1940s. The two films would make a nice double-feature.

THE WORKING MAN (1933) Warner Bros. (78 minutes)

The Working Man was Arliss' second to last film for Warners and his second with Bette Davis. This is another sparkling, fun comedy, fast-paced and fascinating. As with his prior film, The Millionaire, the premise of a busy corporation owner (here John Reeves of Reeves Shoes, in the latter James Alden of Alden Autos) taking a "vacation" from work and getting a new perspective on life, as well as dabbling incognito in the lives of others, works as a solid blueprint for the Arliss personality.

Although he primarily appeared in dramas, both historical and contemporary, Arliss' gift for comedy is his greatest asset in my opinion. Only six of his nineteen sound films register as comedies and they are every one a priceless gem. His timing, his vocal and facial expressions, all convey worlds of information to the audience a less gifted actor would have to force with exaggeration.

While on vacation, Reeves learns that the two children of his recently dead rival are gadabout, gay young things, reckless and senseless. Because of sentimentality (he was in love with the woman his rival married), he wheedles his way into the family, gains the children's trust, then as their new guardian, makes them tow the line, getting involved in the company and changing their irresponsible personal habits.

It is lots of fun, just as was The Millionaire, and Arliss is again having the time of his life pul in a dual role. For the first eleven minutes he has to sustain a fast-paced active irritation at his business situation and pulls it off without flagging. In support, Bette Davis is vibrant, energetic, full of life in a light romantic role. As her brother, the ruggedly handsome Theodore Newton (unknown to me) is a hoot and possesses perfect comic timing. He should have gone far.

A couple of bits of fun. At the end of The Millionaire, Arliss' character extols "the working man" which of course is the title of the current film. In this also the rival shoe companies are referred to as the Napoleon and the Wellington of foot wear. Arliss would later play Wellington in The Iron Duke.

All in all, a wonderful comedy that subtly teaches a lesson about responsibility and caring for others. Highly recommended.

As Bette Davis herself often confirmed, in the "George Arliss Unit" as it was called, director Adolfi was simply a tool in the hands of producer, George Arliss. Whilst Adolfi had some control over camera set-ups, it was Arliss himself who directed all the actors. Not only that but Arliss also functioned as an executive producer. He was not answerable to either Warner or Zanuck. Arliss was answerable only to himself. He functioned independently and was actively engaged in selecting what he would produce, whom he would cast and all other work from preliminary through to final.

So here's the team of George Arliss-John G. Adolfi back again. Mr. Adolfi lets Mr. Arliss have his head, which we don't mind because Mr. Arliss is a charismatic person who can carry a scene and make weak dialogue sound strong if nobody can. But unfortunately Mr. Adolfi also lets rotten players like J. Farrell MacDonald (and to a lesser extent Theodore Newton and Hardie Albright) chew up the scenery too. Bette Davis plays another youthful heiress in this one but Adolfi and Arliss obviously thought well of her ability because most of her scenes with the actor are filmed in long takes. Some reliable character actors like Gordon Westcott, Douglass Dumbrille and Edward Cooper (who plays a particularly opportunistic butler) are also present but it is Arliss's film and he makes the most of it, even though he does seem a trifle out of place in modern dress.

. . . embedded within THE WORKING MAN. After all, literary historians long have debated other flash-in-the-pan "one-hit wonders" lady writers who seemingly "come out of nowhere" to suddenly top best-seller lists without paying their dues as journeyman scribblers. (The consensus of expert wordsmith sleuths is that "Truman Capote" actually wrote TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, for instance, and that "Zane Grey" probably dashed off GONE WITH THE WIND on his 400-foot "fishing yacht.") Which brings us to THE WORKING MAN, and its template for 50 SHADES. This beta version of a manipulative mogul stars "Bette Davis"--famous for WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?--as "Jane Grey." Not unlike the matter of the "magnum opus" of the originally self-published business saga attributed to "Ms. James," WORKING MAN revolves around an older "John" showing naïve Jane the ropes, so to speak, in the Modern World of Making Money. Like 50 SHADES, "49 Shades" features tons of sexual innuendo and hints of impending incest (albeit once-removed). However, since WORKING MAN is a Black & White film, there is no "Red Room," and the ecclesiastic censors of the 1930s prevent "49 Shades" from approaching NC-17 territory as closely as does the later adaptation. On the plus side, "49 Shades" teaches viewers a lot more about John's shoe business than 50 SHADES has managed to do regarding Christian's publishing foray (despite having only a tiny fraction of that over-hyped trilogy's running time). The bottom line is that Ms. James only needed throw in a few whips to the plot of THE WORKING MAN to make her plagiarized story one shade darker.