Reviews

"Judge Priest" could've been a wonderful movie except for two things:

1.) Stepin Fetchit

2.) It praised the Confederacy

"Judge Priest" took place in Kentucky in 1890, a time not too far removed from the Civil War and even closer to the end of Reconstruction. Judge William Pitman Priest (Will Rogers) was a "liberal" judge in a small Kentucky town (or county). His liberality was established at the very beginning when he opted not to punish Jeff Poindexter (Stepin Fetchit), a slow, dimwitted Black man* on trial for stealing a chicken.

Until the end, the most dramatic issue was the budding romance between Priest's nephew, Jerome Priest (Tom Brown), and Ellie May Gillespie (Anita Louise).

The movie took a dramatic shift when Bob Gilis (David Landau) was put on trial for stabbing a coward named Flem (Frank Melton). Jerome Priest had to defend him, but that's not the important part. The important part is that a man named Rev. Ashby Brand (Henry B. Walthall) gave a moving testimony about Bob's bravery and character in respect to the Civil War and fighting for the Confederacy. The testimony Brand gave was so serious, detailed, and laudatory that you would've thought he was testifying about a man who helped good triumph over evil.

And that's when I had a stark change in attitude towards this movie. Can a person be brave even if they're fighting for slavery and oppression? Certainly he can, but that doesn't mean we extol it. The way Brand spoke about Confederate soldiers and the Confederacy, it was as if he were talking about soldiers of God. Like no finer men ever walked the Earth. I was tensing up with each passing second as Brand continued his nostalgic retelling of heroism replete with flashback footage and patriotic music playing. He even referred to the Confederate flag as "stars and bars."

Brand's testimony finished to a burst of excited shouting and applause. There was no doubt that Bob was to be acquitted, but IT WASN'T EVEN EVIDENCE!! Brand didn't provide a shred of testimony that could be considered evidence--and especially new evidence to reopen the case as it was. So, never mind the fact that Bob stabbed Flem out of self-defense (which he did), what was most important was that he was a good Confederate soldier!!!???

The movie ended with a grand parade marching down Main Street with Bob in the lead proudly holding the Confederate flag. It was a sight to behold. For some, it was a source of pride. For others, like me, it was a source of revulsion.

I've never seen anything like it. The closest thing I've ever seen to praising the Confederacy was "Dukes of Hazzard" when I was a kid. "Judge Priest" was a requiem for the Confederacy. I've never seen it held in such high esteem. I began to wonder had they thought they won the war or maybe the movie was set in an alternate universe in which the North was fighting for slavery while the South was fighting to free the slaves. With nothing to support the aforementioned scenarios the only conclusion is that they believed they were on the side of right and, more importantly, so did Hollywood.

So, instead of the movie being about a man who was adequately defended because he acted in self-defense, we got a movie about how great the Confederacy was. I simply cannot

*Stepin Fetchit was a stage name and his stage persona was always the same in every movie. He was a slow moving, slow speaking idiot. He never stood up straight, rather he was always slouching. He'd talk slowly with a little bit of a whine and mumble so badly you could barely understand most of what he said. His name became an insult among Black people in the '60s along with Uncle Tom.

Right after watching "Easy to Love" I went searching for the nearest Man in Black to have my memory erased. Then I thought, "First I must warn people," so I started angrily banging away on my keyboard just to let people know how abysmal this movie is.

The whole plot centers around adultery, which was a very common topic back then. There were always mistresses and lovers, especially among society folks. Even the most committed, monogamous, and dedicated married couples would fall victim to infidelity. "Easy to Love" decided to make it comedic.

Funny it was not.

Not only was this movie not funny, it simply wasn't good. John (Adolphe Menjou) was cheating on his wife, Carol (Genevieve Tobin), with Carol's best friend, Charlotte (Mary Astor). Meanwhile, John's best friend, Eric (Edward Everett Horton), was in love with his (John's) wife. Yeah, it sounds like a trashy soap opera or an episode of Jerry Springer.

John would hook up with Charlotte everyday; telling his wife he was playing polo. She got suspicious and hired a PI to tail him and see where he was really going. When she found out where he was going and who he was going to see, she decided to play a game instead of being an adult and confronting him with the information.

She pretended to be in love with Eric and, not so subtly, let it "slip" so that her husband would find out. It led to John hypocritically confronting Carol about the relationship that poor stupid Eric thought was real. The entire childish act went on until the inevitable end: they remained together and recommitted to one another.

I don't mind the overall message: couples should remain married. Hollywood has done that before. They did several movies reinforcing marriage over divorce even in the face of adultery. The problem is that most of them, if not all of them, treated the matter so trivially. The offended party would get upset, some type of rumblings would happen, then they'd stick together as if nothing ever happened; as if no trust was eroded.

Because "Easy to Love" was a comedy it really trivialized the adultery. John was lying to Carol DAILY and he was banging her best friend. Her idea of getting even was to make John jealous by claiming to be in a relationship with Eric. Not only was it a weak, feeble-minded attempt at revenge, it also clouded the issue. The issue was that John had a steady relationship with another woman and it was never addressed. She was too cowardly to address it, so she opted for some lame trick to bring it out into the open. Then, once the cat was out of the bag, she went on pretending to love Eric to keep the gag going instead of sitting down like adults and hashing it out.

John never apologized and he never explained himself. He and Carol simply complied with their daughter's wishes and remained together, presumably, eschewing the other would-be lovers in their life. To say the resolution was unsatisfying would be like saying that a thimble of water won't quench an elephant's thirst. But, unfortunately, this movie was in line with the sentiment at that time. Mistresses were expected, so long as they were kept hidden. John messed up by marrying a woman who still loved him and wanted his affection after nearly twenty years of marriage. Had she been a stale set piece, his inattention to her would've been ignored as well as his frequent games of "polo." But Carol still loved and adored him, so she was heartbroken to find out he was cheating. "Easy to Love" unequivocally failed to capture that heart break.

Carol was an anomaly. She was part of high society and she had been married many years, which means she should've expected her husband to have a mistress, and she should've had a lover of her own--or at least she should've chosen the willful ignorance route. The fact she didn't have a lover and she actually cared that her husband was cheating on her made her a rare breed, hence it made her a joke. It was laughable that such women like Carol existed which makes "Easy to Love" a sad movie.

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Movies like "The Lemon Drop Kid" are so bad they tire me out. I've gotten less exhausted running a 5k. It didn't help that Lee Tracy was the star. He's one of those funny types that you either like or you don't. I'm firmly in the "don't like" camp with regards to Lee Tracy, Jimmy Durante, Frank McHugh, and Jack Oakie. They all have a particular schtick that annoys me. Lee's thing is being a fast talker. Oh, they're alright as co-stars or smaller roles, but I don't like them as the lead actor.

Lee Tracy played the Lemon Drop Kid aka Wally Brooks, a conman and a thief. He had to split from Baltimore when he conned an old guy out of $100. He fled to a little town called Kibbsville where he found a sweet woman named Alice Deering (Helen Mack) and settled down. It would've been cute if it wasn't so revolting.

To start with, Wally forcibly kissed Alice when he was a guest at her home. They hadn't known each other ten minutes and he took it upon himself to kiss her. She did the respectable thing and slapped him, but still she was like every other woman in that her indignation stopped right after slapping him. In other words, there were no other repercussions: she didn't scold him or kick him out--just a simple slap which means "I'm a lady."

After that interaction Alice got word from the town's phone operator that the police were looking for Wally. Alice decided to keep that information hidden. She'd only known the guy a few hours at most and she was protecting him from the law. She had no idea what he was wanted for, but she surmised that he couldn't be bad because he gave pa a ride home. Truthfully, all it was was small-town-girl-gets-breath-taken-away-by-big-city-guy.

Eventually it came time for the two to get married. Still, Alice didn't know Wally's past and, what's more, she didn't want to know. She wanted to be blissfully ignorant, leaving Wally a blank canvas for her to paint an imaginary picture upon of who she was in love with. Even when Lee tried to tell her, she shut him up, afraid that he'd ruin the ideal image of him she'd created in her head. This was a common occurrence of both men and women in 30's movies as if not knowing about a person makes the love purer. Personally, I think it's reckless and stupid. Furthermore, I don't think that you can say you truly love a person unless you know all there is to know about them. Otherwise you're in love with a fictional character. I say test your love and find out what there is to know. If you find out he's Ted Bundy and you still stick with him, then that's love.

The point of this banal romance was that Wally would have to go straight and live a square life in order to be with Alice, which meant that he would probably be met with the demons of his past life at some point to test his strength and commitment to Alice.

The two got married and six months later Alice was pregnant. As we all know, she would never say the word "pregnant" on screen. We have to use silly context clues to figure that out. Alice was such a child that after whispering her secret to her friend Maizie (Minna Gombell) she went and hid, too shy and embarrassed to tell her own husband. He found her ducking behind a cabinet like a guilty toddler where he had to kiss her to reassure her that everything was alright.

That was yet another trope of 30's movies I couldn't stand: women afraid to tell a man they were pregnant. And I don't mean that they were afraid to say the word pregnant (that was a cinematic no no) because they would use euphemisms like "I'm having a baby" or "you're going to be a father" or "our family is growing," etc. I mean that women were afraid as though the news would be too much for the man to bear and they dare not upset him or scare him off. Alice's case was even more extreme than most. Firstly, they were married, and what do married couples do but have kids? Secondly, it's a known fact that she had to have sex with him in order to get pregnant, so the fact that she was too shy to tell him she was having a baby is puzzling, and it portrays a false type of innocence like they still believed in storks. She looked like a frightened mouse at the prospect of telling Wally he knocked her up.

To further paint Alice as this innocent and fragile creature, she got sick during her pregnancy. It was almost ladylike and dainty for a woman to faint while pregnant (they fainted for everything). Alice not only fainted, but she contracted a life threatening illness as well. No, that wasn't normal, but it was necessary for the plot of this film.

The doctor told Wally that he'd have to take her to a specialist if he wanted to save her, which meant Wally would need money. And this is where his past revisited him. The only way Wally knew how to get real money was by hook or crook. He chose to rob his boss, Martin Potter (Clarence Wilson). It was all for naught because Alice died right after giving birth. While Wally was still grieving, the police arrested him for the Potter robbery. Just like that he'd lost his wife and his freedom.

A couple years passed and Wally was in prison being a bad inmate because he was angry at the world. The warden guessed correctly that a visit from his baby boy would liven him up and give him something to live for. Wally had nowhere to go but up. And that's what he did. He got out of prison on parole and found that Mr. Griggsby (Robert McWade)--the old man he conned back in Baltimore-- had not only dropped the charges against him but gifted him $4,900 ($5,000 less the $100 Wally stole), and reunited him with his son. I have to say, as much as the movie sucked to this point, I was happy to see Wally back with his son. I may have hated the movie, but I'm no black heart.

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"The Trumpet Blows" was an unexciting and flavorless movie. Of course, it didn't help to have George Raft starring in it. He's on my list with Gary Cooper and William Boyd as the biggest stiffs of the 1930's.

The movie took place in Mexico. Manuel Montes (George Raft) had just returned home after attending college in America. His older brother Pancho Montes (Adolphe Menjou) had goals for him. He wanted him to be a "gentleman" and marry into a good family. Manuel wanted to be a bullfighter and he had no interest in the woman his brother made arrangements for him to marry. Who Manuel did like was Chulita (Frances Drake) and he didn't know that his brother was madly in love with her.

That set up the two brothers after the same girl scenario. For two brothers or two friends in love with the same girl see "The Flying Fool" (1929), "Central Airport" (1933), or almost any movie with a love triangle.

Manuel moved a lot faster than Pancho and he wasn't going to let a thing like marriage be an impediment to him getting freaky with Chulita. After the two slept together Manuel found out that Pancho was in love with her. Manuel never divulged that he'd already deflowered Pancho's crush, he just left to become a bullfighter. He did the standard gentleman thing which is to go away when you are in direct competition with a better man for a woman's love. That's something else that you can see in a lot of movies from that era.

Eventually, Pancho discovered the romance between Manuel and Chulita and he cut them both off. They went their separate ways until Manuel was gored by a bull and fell into depression. Chulita wanted to save her man so she went to Pancho to ask for his help restoring Manuel to the man he once was.

It was all pretty lame. In the end they were all chummy with each other. Thank you and good night.

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It's quite interesting that an 80 minute movie could be tanked by one scene. "One Night of Love" wasn't quite tanked, but one scene did do considerable damage. The movie went on to recover from that damage, but I still think it's worth mentioning. It was a lame frame-up to make a man look like he was cheating. It's been done in so many movies and it always amazes me how well the frame-ups work. It's like the relationships were just waiting for a reason to be fragmented.

Giulio Monteverdi (Tullio Carminati) was an operatic maestro. If he took a student she was sure to be a success. He was tired of his current student, Lally (Mona Barrie), because she'd fallen in love with him and became difficult to teach. Love and teaching don't mix well. Where does the role of teacher end and lover begin? Monteverdi stated that his next pupil would be forbidden from falling in love with him--which is a telltale sign that she will.

Monteverdi's next pupil was an American woman named Mary Barrett who was in Italy for the express purpose of breaking into opera. She was performing at a cafe when Monteverdi discovered her. He took her under his wing and became her whole world much like John Barrymore did with Carole Lombard in "Twentieth Century." Monteverdi dictated her eating schedule, her sleeping schedule, her training, her social life, and everything in between. If she was to be a success, she was going to have to pay a heavy price.

The intense training worked and Mary aka Maria became a success, but Monteverdi remained strict with her and didn't allow her hardly any freedom. Although she complained bitterly about him and his training, and would openly declare she couldn't stand him, a small hint of admiration could be detected. At one point she was ready to quit when Monteverdi went on a date with his old student. This is when it became obvious she had feelings for Monteverdi; exactly what she wasn't supposed to do.

When Mary's ploys didn't keep Monteverdi from his date, she emphatically declared that she was done with the opera and that she was going to marry Bill Houston (Lyle Talbot), an American in Italy who was infatuated with Mary. She looked so resolved until Monteverdi coaxed her back onto the stage. He eventually had to admit that he loved her to get her to perform again. So, just like George Raft said he'd never do in "Bolero" when he fell in love with his dance partner Carole Lombard, Monteverdi had fallen in love with Mary, and she couldn't have been happier.

Which leads us to the weak and unimaginative frame-up scene.

Monteverdi was back at home preparing a romantic meal for Mary and himself when Lally barged in on him. Lally wanted to perform at the Metropolitan in New York and she wanted Monteverdi to make it happen.

He refused and he demanded she leave.

Lally wasn't leaving until she got what she wanted. She wanted to witness Monteverdi call the director of the Metropolitan and propose her for their newest addition. As she was arguing with Monteverdi, Mary walked in. Right then and there Lally put her arms around Monteverdi and said something to make it seem as though she was reciprocating his love and affection. Then, in the cliche manner it had become, Mary marched right past the two of them and started preparing to leave. She wouldn't listen to Monteverdi or give him a chance to clear up the misunderstanding; she walked out of his life, presumably forever.

This part of the movie riled me up so much for two reasons:

1.) It's trite. It was overdone even by 1934. There were so many movies in which a third party intentionally caused a rift between two lovebirds. Sometimes it was out of jealousy, sometimes out of greed, sometimes for the good of one or both lovers, and in "Flirting with Danger" (1934) it was a joke. Most of the time the conflicts could've been cleared up in a matter of minutes.

2.) How is it that these romances burn so hot with love, yet they are extinguished with the slightest misunderstanding or miscommunication? When the writer wants a love to be strong, nothing will break it. Conversely, when it suits the plot, they make the relationships as fragile as a spider's web.

The entire scenario led Mary to the decision of going to New York to join the Metropolitan opera. Monteverdi didn't think she was ready, but he'd lost all sway over her once she saw Lally's arms wrapped around him.

Shortly before Mary was set to make her debut in New York it seemed as though she was going to go down in a ball of flames. She was all nerves and said that she could not go on. Should she fail to perform or perform well, it was surely to be the end of her operatic career. But, then, as if he heard her inner cries, Monteverdi was there just below the stage to be the calming influence she needed. She would go on to be a sensation. We don't know if she reunited with Monteverdi or not because the movie ended with her on stage receiving rousing applause. I like to think that they straightened things out, which is one of the little treasures of this movie: that the end is left to the viewer's imagination.

Despite the poor rating, I liked "One Night of Love." It was a little "Bolero," a little "Twentieth Century," and a little "Tonight or Never." Normally I don't like such concoctions, but for "One Night of Love" it worked. If you like opera singing, this movie has plenty of it. I'm not a fan, but I don't hate it either.

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Love triangles, high society, tortured lovers: all the stuff I hate wrapped up into one crappy movie.

"The Age of Innocence" is one of those mushy romances that romanticizes infidelity and selfish behavior in the name of love. The movie in which the man tells the woman that conformity is bad, doing what's right is cowardice, and casting aside social mores is freedom.

Newland Archer (John Boles) was engaged to May Welland (Julie Haydon) some time in the late 19th century when engagements lasted a year and people were more innocent. Or as Slick Rick put it: "Once upon a time not long ago when people wore pajamas and lived life slow. When laws were stern and justice stood and people were behavin' like they ought to, good."

That was the era, and Newland and May were so in love. They couldn't wait to tie the knot, but they had to wait because both of them were decent folks not looking to upset the apple cart.

Then along came a bogey. May had a cousin named Ellen (Irene Dunne) who was seeking a divorce from her husband. The way the women in her family spoke it was as if she was looking to have him murdered, divorce was such a no-no. Ellen was the black sheep of the family. She came from Europe where society was more liberal and her behavior reflected it.

Well, wouldn't you know it, Newland fell in love with her. She was such a woman, unlike his fiance who was beholden to familial fealty and social mores. As the slow soundtrack played Newland passionately told Ellen how her lifestyle was much better than that of high society Americans.

"When we say dignity, we mean fear of what others will say. When we say good taste, we mean glossing over the truth. When we say decency, we mean hypocrisy," he said, speaking from his limited scope.

Newland was from society where those words applied, but he spoke like it was a universal truth. And really, I don't believe he believed what was coming out of his mouth. The dude was in love by this point, he was liable to say anything. Things like, "nothing and no one in the world matters but you."

Get outta here with that. The sh-t people say when they're drooling over someone. It is so sappy and so hyperbolic. They're all trying to say how much they "love" the other person, but seeking new and inventive ways to say it. And Hollywood is trying convey a message: go after who/what you love. Don't be concerned about opinions, money, obstacles, and not even duties and responsibilities sometimes--just go after your love.

In the end Newland was a forlorn man because he had to let his love go. After making the mistake of marrying his fiance, he made the further mistake of getting her pregnant, so then he couldn't leave even if he wanted to, lest he be a real jackass. He opted to forgo his own happiness for duty, but you always got the distinct feeling that even that may not have been the right thing.

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"Waiter! Give me a plate of romance with syrup, and make it extra sappy."

"Here we are with a dish called blind date. I hope it suits your taste, it's the sappiest thing we have on the menu."

This was just another one of Hollywood's many lessons to us all, which is that blonde beauties can never be poor and loveless. They may be poor, but they definitely will have love, but by and large they will have both prosperity and love.

This sorry movie was yet another tortured beauty who has to choose between two men.

"Oh woe is me! No one has suffered as I am now. There are two great men I have to choose from and I don't know what to do!"

These movies are so pretentious and off-base because they make it seem as though no one in the world is as bad off or as tortured as the beautiful girl who has multiple suitors. And generally, one of the men plays the gentleman and gracefully steps aside for the sake of the woman's long term happiness.

Ann Sothern plays Kitty Taylor, a working girl from a poor family struggling to make ends meet. She is engaged to a working man named Bill Lowry (Paul Kelly) who is trying hard to build up his tow garage business. Like all working men in 1930s films, he is unromantic. For romance, you have to get a society man (i.e. Man with a lot of money). When Bill makes the fatal mistake of choosing to work and earn money over taking Kitty out for her birthday he essentially loses her. She hooked up on a blind date with a rich playboy named Bob Hartwell (Neil Hamilton) and Bill was no match for Bob. Bob put some smooth moves on Kitty, plus Bob had everything Bill didn't: he had money, charm, and time; all the things a woman could and would want from a man.

Caution! All working class men who have to put in many hours just to provide and many hours just to have some extra spending cash for their lady; rich boys with plenty of money, time, and charm are just waiting to take your women (for reference see "The Easiest Way," "Sinners in the Sun," "Skyscraper Souls," and others).

It wasn't even a fair fight. As much time and effort that Bill put in he lost kitty in a matter of one night. He couldn't compete with the charm and money of Bob Hartwell. Even if they tried to downplay the money angle, the money angle had everything to do with it. Without money, Bob Hartwell would not have had the time to spend with Kitty. Without money, Bob Hartwell would not have had his own driver to take he and Kitty on romantic drives. Without money, Bob couldn't have gotten Kitty a job where she could be near him. So even though the writers wrote it where Kitty truly loved Bob for himself, it was still money that allowed Bob to be Bob, and if Bill had the same amount of money that Bob had, he would've had the amount of time that Bob had to spend with Kitty as well, and he wouldn't have had to be working on Kitty's birthday.

That's one of the main reasons I can't even stomach movies like this because the message is always the same. And the 1930s had so many of these romances with society men and society women with nothing but time to play, and wine and dine, and romance. Every so often, like in "Blind Date," they would make it seem as though the society man or society woman was truly in love with the working class girl or the working class boy, when the truth is they were probably just curious and wanted to satisfy that curiosity.

So chalk this movie up to another crappy romance from the 30s where flowery talk, expensive lavish gifts, and plenty of recreational time to spend lusting over a woman wins over a guy who has limited resources and limited time to give to the woman he loves.

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What do we know about Hollywood and love? We actually know quite a bit; like love is stronger than anything, everyone has a true love, love can occur between people when they experience trauma together, and whoever the two most attractive people are on screen--they're the ones that will fall in love.

A gangster named Vincent Shelton (Edward Arnold) was released from prison to cheers and headlines. He had to let his fellow criminals down when he told them he was going straight. It's been done before (see "Picture Snatcher" (1933) or "The Little Giant" (1933)), but it's never easy.

In a set up you could see coming a mile away, a drunk rich kid named Stanton Casserly (Phillips Holmes) followed Vincent home from a club on Vince's first night of freedom. It was so out of the ordinary that I figured that A.) Stanton wasn't drunk, he was just pretending to be to get close to Vincent or B.) the writers were stretching their limited imagination in order to make a story.

It was B.

Stanton was legitimately drunk and he bizarrely followed a stranger home and even entered his house to sleep off his inebriation. It didn't make sense and it looked contrived, hence my enjoyment of the movie from then on was compromised.

I didn't know what kind of story would become of this event, but I knew one thing: he was going to fall in love with Vincent's daughter Francesca (Mary Carlisle). Just read the points I made about Hollywood and love at the beginning. Stanton and Francesca were the two most attractive people on screen.

As for how Stanton's drunken behavior unimaginatively created drama; it began with his mother and a newspaper article.

Stanton's mother, Elita Casserly (Marjorie Gateson), was set to marry a French con man named Pascal. Stanton tried his best to talk her out of it--he even showed her a telegram stating that he was a crook--but she made up her mind to sail to France and marry Pascal anyway.

Not long after Stanton's quarrel with his mother he saw Vincent's name, photo, and criminal history in the newspaper below an unrelated headline about kidnapping. That's when he came up with the idea that he'd pay Vincent to kidnap him and hold him for ransom. His mother would never leave while her baby was kidnapped, and she would pay handsomely for his safe return.

Stanton was taken to a remote cabin to hide out until Mrs. Casserly paid the ransom. Remember how I said that Stanton and Francesca had to fall in love? Guess who happened to be staying not too far from that remote cabin. Ah, yes. Francesca. She was staying with two old folks called Ma (Jane Darwell) and Pop (Spencer Charters). She met Stanton at a stream and you can guess the rest.

Even though I knew they would fall in love, I wasn't prepared for Francesca to be so deep in love after a few days that she'd risk her own life and safety for Stanton.

When Vincent's foes found out about his kidnapping scheme, they had plans to cut in on it themselves. There was no way they could've known about the kidnapping, but with one frayed string of evidence they were able to knit a full quilt. The deduction skills of people in the 30's was uncanny. Criminals and detectives alike only needed the smallest shred of tenuous evidence to figure things out when it was needed to advance the plot. As a result, they kidnapped Stanton and Francesca with plans to get the ransom money for themselves. They didn't know who Francesca was, but they knew who Stanton was.

Vincent found out where they were being held and arranged to see the two of them. He feigned not knowing who Francesca was so that he could get her to safety, but here is where the bafflingly deep love connection came into play.

"I won't leave without him," she said defiantly. "No. I'm in love with Stan."

Ugh! Stupid young girls frustrate me.

It's not like she's known this guy for years, or even months, and she knew nothing about him! She just found out that he roped her dad into a fake kidnapping plot and somehow that wasn't a red flag. Furthermore, it wasn't like she could do anything to help him. All she could do was die by his side, or be a hindrance because he'd have her to worry about.

Fran stayed in the cellar with Stan while her father cooked up a scheme that involved their kidnappers taking them to be married--and that's what they did.

Who writes this nonsense?

The movie ended with Stan and Fran happily married, Stan's mother sans Pascal, and Vince taking down his rivals even though it cost him his own life. If the story had been better written the ending would've been more appreciated. It wasn't and it wasn't.

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If there was one thing that most early movies suffered from, it is being too elementary. It wasn't that they followed a basic formula, because we have that today, it was that they made things too obvious: the lessons learned, what a person was feeling, if a person was lying or not, who was good, who was bad, who would be reformed, who would be punished, etc. Sure, there were some movies that did follow that pattern, but they were rare. For the most part things were didactically spelled out.

And the women they created. I've seen cardboard cutouts with more dimensions and individuality.

"The Defense Rests" stars Jack Holt as Matthew Mitchell, a lawyer for the guilty who never lost. He could get anyone and everyone off, and he did. He didn't even like his clients, but they paid well and they got him more publicity.

If Matthew was to be the hero though, he'd have to have a change of heart about the way he did business. As it was he was unethical, and an unethical lawyer couldn't be the protagonist.

In steps Joan Hayes, played by the weak-voiced Jean Arthur. She would be Matthew's moral compass.

Joan began her relationship with Mitchell as a sycophant. She practically worshiped Mitchell. She became a lawyer because of him and she wouldn't work for any lawyer but him. Mitchell wasn't in the market for new employees, but she was pretty and she gassed him up with enough flowery speech that he couldn't help but hire her.

Joan would find that the emperor had no clothes. The man she revered resorted to lies and cheap tricks to win his cases.

Say it ain't so.

She stuck with him out of some strange sense of loyalty, or maybe even love. She drew the line, though, when he agreed to represent Cooney (John Wray), a suspected kidnapper and child-killer. She tendered her resignation which Mitchell rejected. His rejection of her resignation was odd being that having someone so principled in his office could easily be his undoing.

The move would come back to haunt him. Joan went on a side quest to unravel a case Mitchell had recently won. Once she had enough evidence to bury her boss, she presented it to him. She stated that she would go to the DA with what she had and get him disbarred and/or arrested. Mitchell's response was pretty much, "bring it on!" He was cocky enough and good enough to withstand whatever some little rookie came at him with.

Joan's response was pitiful. She was so enamored with her idol that she broke down crying and stated that she'd have to go to jail with him if she turned him in. She was in such awe of him she surmised that she couldn't leave his side, even if she sent him to prison. Her behavior was nauseating.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Evans (Sarah Padden)--the mother of the boy who was killed--killed herself in Mitchell's office. She couldn't stand the thought of him getting her son's killer off, so she shot and killed herself in his office to either change his mind, or bring negative publicity down on him.

Mission accomplished.

Mitchell had a change of heart and figured out a way to have Cooney convicted without him throwing the case or stepping down. It was too blissful, especially for Joan Hayes. Her idol had turned out to be praiseworthy after all.

But there still remained that matter of the evidence she had regarding another case that could get him sent to prison.

No worries. Only two people could testify on that evidence: Gentry (Robert Gleckler) and Joan. As for Gentry, he'd been killed. As for Joan, she proposed to marry her celebrity crush which meant she couldn't testify against him. Everyone wins except the viewer.

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"Chained" was a very basic, run-of-the-mill romance. I think they thought that they could get away with such blandness just because Gable and Crawford starred in it.

Joan Crawford played Diane Lovering, a woman dating her boss, Richard Field (Otto Kruger), a married man. He wanted to marry her, and he would if his wife would grant him a divorce. When his wife flatly refused to grant him a divorce he told Diane that he was sorry it was over. Diane said that it didn't have to be. In other words: she would go on being his mistress.

Richard was a smart man. I guess him being older made all the difference. He told her not to make the decision right then, but to go away for a while to think, then come back with a decision.

The script just wrote itself from then on. I already guessed what was going to happen and sometimes I hate when I'm right.

My guess: she'd travel, fall in love despite her best efforts not to, become emotionally conflicted, then decide on the new love.

Just like all movies when a woman goes somewhere alone or is left alone by her significant other, Diane was swept off her feet by another man (for reference see "Man of the World" (1931), "Transgression" (1931), "It Happened One Night" (1934) and many others). How quickly the woman will fall in love with a new man all depends on how long she will be alone. If it's a day, she'll fall in love in hours; if it's a month, it'll take her days, etc.

Diane fell in love with Michael Bradley (Clark Gable).

Naturally.

He put on a full court press. He didn't go for mushy romance, he went for the fun angle ala Leonardo Di Caprio in "Titanic" or most poor men when they want to sweep a woman off her feet. You see, wealthy men go for wining, dining, and sweet words while working class men go for showing a woman how to have fun and how to really laugh.

As could be predicted, Diane was emotionally conflicted, but being with Mike felt right. Now she only needed to tell Richard. She decided that she'd go back to New York to tell him face to face.

Here is where I was able to correctly predict things again.

I figured that Richard had to be divorced by the time Diane got back because that would create a true quandary. If Richard was still married, Diane could leave him and feel OK about it. If Richard was divorced and free to marry Diane, well then she'd have an issue.

As I predicted, Richard was divorced. Diane was still going to break the news to him that she found someone else, but he wouldn't let her. He simply wouldn't let her speak and she ended up marrying him out of some sense of duty. We all know that anything done out of a sense of duty will not yield happiness like doing something out of love.

My next prediction was that she'd get a divorce and run away with Mike.

I was right, but it didn't go down the way I expected.

Mike came to New York and just so happened to run into Diane (wink wink). Mike was still single and in love a year later. Just seeing Mike brought all of Diane's suppressed feelings to the surface, but what was she to do?

She and Richard were scheduled to take a trip in the next day or two. Diane asked Richard if they could take their trip even earlier. It was the universal 1930's female signal for "I don't trust myself so let's get out of here" (for reference see "A Lost Lady" (1934), "He Was Her Man" (1934), "The Key" (1934) and others). If a woman says, "Please take me with you," or "Let's get away now," or "Please don't go," they all mean the same thing: there's a man lurking that I have feelings for and if I stay here any longer I will give in to those feelings.

I thought that Richard was going to do what every other husband or sweetheart has done--tell her that plans can't be changed--but he fooled me. I think he sensed what I sensed so he said "Sure, let's leave at dawn."

Well, dawn didn't come quick enough because Mike paid them both a visit before they could leave. He told Diane he was going to have it out with Richard for her. "The matter doesn't concern you," he told Diane like many men used to say back then. It was funny to see two men arguing or fighting over a woman and totally ignoring her wishes at the same time. But, just like every case, she remains a silent partner in her own affair.

Mike and Richard never got around to discussing Diane. Richard knew why Mike was there and he made every effort to avoid the discussion. He poured on the nice and courteous routine so thick that Mike would've felt like a heel if he broached the topic of stealing his wife. So, Mike decided to leave without saying a word.

After Mike was gone, Richard told Diane that he knew all about Mike. He knew that she had found someone when she came back by the way she was acting, but he dared not give her the opportunity to mention it. He was too afraid to hear the truth so he bumrushed her with a proposal and everything else at his disposal to make her forget about Mike and remember the thing they had. It worked, but he only had half a wife and he knew it. The other half belonged to Mike, hence Richard let her go.

How Diane eventually got back to Mike was a little more circuitous than I'd expected, but I definitely expected her to live happily ever after with Mike. So, even though they added a tiny wrinkle, this was still a standard 1930's romance.

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A few things need to be noted before reviewing this movie.

1.) This was a political movie.

2.) Shirley Temple had about five minutes of screen time.

3.) Stepin Fetchit had about five minutes of screen time.

A man named Lawrence Cromwell (Warner Baxter) was selected by the POTUS to be Secretary of Amusement, a new position created in order to help people forget about the Depression. Already that gave me pause. The government would much rather spend $100M to entertain people in hopes that they'd forget about being poor and jobless, instead of putting that money to programs that would remedy their poverty and joblessness. There was even a musical number in which all of these poor folks in hopeless situations were singing about how they're "laughin'" even in their state "so can you."

"I'm laughin' with a dozen kids that I have to feed. So if I can laugh while I'm in need, sister so can you."

Laughin' with a mortgage around my neck.

Laughin' while I'm in the snow and sleet pounding the pavement.

Laughin' in my sweat and grime.

And on and on until Aunt Jemima (yes, like the syrup), played by Tess Gardella, was singing about laughin' while in her bandana and servants' clothing.

Where's the face-palm emoji?

Here's the deal: I don't disagree with the message in principle, I just disagree with the chosen messenger (ie the government). I don't care to hear the government telling me don't worry and be happy, I'll go to Bobby McFerrin for that. I want the government to tell me how and when they will get the country out of its bad economic situation.

In this movie the government decided to try to distract people with amusement while they figured things out. The Secretary of Amusement, Cromwell, employed a bunch of assistant secretaries to find talent throughout the country. He hired Mary Adams (Madge Evans) to find child acts. You would think that that's how we got to see Shirley Temple, but no. Shirley Temple was tossed in the middle with James Dunn to do a song and dance number. Besides a scene she was in before her routine, that's all we saw of her.

We also saw Stepin Fetchit. There isn't a movie that he's in except it's discredited. Stepin Fetchit was such a degrading character persona. His real name was Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, but he went by Stepin Fetchit. His whole act was a whiny, slow, dimwitted man who personified some of the worst stereotypes about Black men. He's an embarrassment to watch.

I don't blame him. I don't blame him at all. He was just doing what society allowed him to do. I blame systemic racism for the Stepin Fetchits, Fred 'Snowflake' Toones, Oscar Smiths, blackface, and the mammies. They refused to see or portray Black people any other way.

So, while it was a downer that we only got to see about five minutes of Shirley Temple, it was a downer that we had to see any of Stepin Fetchit at all.

Had "Stand Up and Cheer" dispensed with government involvement in entertainment, gave us more Shirley Temple and no Stepin Fetchit, then the movie would've been so much better.

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Sometimes I think these movies intentionally try to annoy me. Even when they have a good thing going they'll do something to muck it all up just to get under my skin. "Red Haired Alibi" waited until the end to be irksome.

It began with a mercurial guy named Trent Travers (Theodore von Eltz) meeting and employing a woman named Lynn Monith (Merna Kennedy). A condition of her employment was that she had to mostly keep her mouth shut. Lynn didn't have sense enough to ask anymore questions, but I would think that any job requiring you to "keep your trap closed" is a job you shouldn't take. Lynn and I didn't have the same upbringing, so she took the well-paying job.

Predictably, the job landed her in hot water. Trent killed a rival named Morgan (John Vosper) then gave the gun to Lynn to throw away. He also wanted her to alibi him by telling the police that he was in Cleveland instead of in New York CIty where the murder took place. Lynn did all of that then skipped town. She was done with Trent and his criminal lifestyle.

She went to White Plains, NY where she met up with Bob Shelton (Grant Withers), a man she'd already crossed paths with before. Bob needed a nanny and Lynn needed a job; it was perfect. Bob got an attractive red-headed nanny, and his daughter Gloria (Shirley Temple) got a surrogate mother. Eventually, Bob and Lynn fell in love and got married. Things couldn't have been more perfect, but you knew that Trent would enter the picture again at some point.

Trent spotted Lynn days, weeks, or months after she had split from him. He saw her at the train station in New York City then followed her home. From this point on the movie was a sh-t show.

Trent demanded $10,000 from Lynn. He had been on the lam for a while now and was all out of dough. I figured that he'd threaten to tell her husband about her and that she'd be so afraid of him leaving her that she'd give Trent the money. It was a regular trick used back then, however lame. But that's not what happened. He made a vague threat which I couldn't interpret, but Lynn interpreted it as he was going to kill her husband. A scary threat, yes, but a stupid one too. Lynn was the only person who could definitively place Trent at the scene of the crime. She had been quiet up until this point, so why would he upset the apple cart? Lynn was holding all the cards.

What Lynn should've done was flip the script and gave Trent an ultimatum. "Get out of this house. Leave me and my family alone, and I won't talk to the police," is what she should've said. Instead, she agreed to meet him and give him the $10,000.

She met Trent at a hotel in White Plains. Trent was feeling really good about himself, as though he was in the driver's seat. Instead of just wanting $10,000 to stay hidden, he wanted some of Lynn too. She meekly refused to entertain his fancies and she told him that she didn't even have the $10,000 either. She said she couldn't get that kind of money without arousing her husband's suspicions.

At this point Trent threatened to call the police.

"Huh? Why in the world would HE be calling the police?" is what you should be asking just as I was.

He said that he would tell the police that she handled the gun that killed Morgan.

Really!? Surely, he must be bluffing. Did he really plan to call the police and try to convince them that Lynn committed the murder? He may as well had handed himself over to the cops because that's what it would amount to.

Lynn should've seen this as either a bluff or a suicidal move on Trent's part, but instead she saw it as a legitimate threat to her freedom and/or marriage.

When Trent got on the phone (to the police oddly enough), Lynn pulled out a gun and shot him. Or so we thought. It turns out that she missed Trent at point blank range and some third party outside the window shot Trent in the back AT THE EXACT SAME TIME Lynn pulled the trigger.

The whole scenario was absurd. To begin with, Lynn should've gone to the police herself to protect her family. She should've at least used the threat of the police to back Trent off of her being that she was the only person who'd protected Trent's dumbass AND was the only one who could put him away. However, she went to meet with him anyway and decided that killing him was the only option. The writers made it so she shot AT him, but we were led to believe she shot him due to the highly improbable scenario which was her shooting at the EXACT same time as some mysterious figure off camera.

I didn't like it. I didn't like it one bit.

Trent was needed for drama, I get that, but sometimes writers try to be so clever that they look dumb in the process. In their efforts to be creative they overlook the simple things. If they were to run some of these ideas by an average person, a lot of times they'd see their mistakes. All they have to do is run the idea by an average Joe or Joanna and answer their questions. If the writer can't answer the simple questions, then rewrite it. If the writer can answer the questions, then put the answers in the script, but in a way that is seamless .

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I never thought I would hate a Shirley Temple movie so much. I was irrationally angry at this movie. I absolutely hated it from about the 45-minute mark on. It ceased to be entertaining and began to be rage bait.

Before a little over halfway through "Baby Take a Bow" everything was fine. Eddie Ellison (James Dunn) was released from Sing Sing, he married his sweetheart Kay (Claire Trevor), and he lived a straight life. Five years later he had a decent job, an apartment, and a little girl: Shirley Ellison (she just about always goes by Shirley with just the last name being different each movie). This was one of the rare movies where Shirley Temple had two parents.

Things were going so well for Eddie that his boss, Mr. Carson (Richard Tucker), told him that he could stop being a driver and work in his factory. The driving job would go to Eddie's pal Larry Scott (Ray Walker).

Eddie and Larry had two pending problems:

1.) Their association with Trigger Stone (Ralf Harolde).

2.) A detective named Welch (Alan Dinehart).

Eddie and Larry were no longer crooks so they didn't hang around Trigger anymore, however Trigger came to them when he was in a jam with some stolen property. It was a ridiculous insertion of drama like the writers were fresh out of ideas. Eddie and Larry shooed Trigger away, but that wasn't the last they'd see of him.

As for Welch, he couldn't be easily dismissed. He was a cop who had a hard on for Eddie because he wanted to marry Kay. Welch was just waiting for Eddie to make a mistake so that he could send him back to prison. When Trigger stole a pearl necklace from Mr. Carson, that gave Welch the chance he needed to ruin Eddie's life.

He went to Mr. Carson, informed him that Eddie and Larry were ex-cons, and informed him that he suspected the two of the theft. Welch proceeded to aggressively question the two in front of Mr. Carson which yielded nothing but Eddie and Larry's termination. Welch was convinced that Eddie and Larry were dirty, but he had no proof.

Then the movie fell off the rails. Stupidity and lack of ingenuity became the order of the day for "Baby Take a Bow." There were a series of absurdities that gradually sent me over the edge.

First; Trigger gave Shirley a stolen necklace to hold while she was on the street playing.

I have to say that Shirley's parents were waaaaaaaay to trusting and lax with Shirley's whereabouts. Several times she was by herself; on the stoop, buying ice cream, in the house, etc. I know it was the 1930's, but you can't tell me that back then they had that little concern for the safety of their five-year-old?

And this wasn't the first time Trigger approached Shirley while she was by herself. He was caught chatting with her before, when he asked Eddie to hold his hot merchandise. That should've been the last time as well. From then on my daughter wouldn't have been outside except under a watchful eye.

OK. This is just a small blip, nothing to get excited about. Sure, it is an absurd plot device, but let's see where it goes. He could've hid the necklace any number of places, but he chose to give it to a five-year-old girl. Make that make sense.

Second: Shirley put the pearls into her father's coat pocket.

After Trigger gave Shirley the pearls, she took the pearls upstairs to show her father. Eddie was busy looking through the want ads and had no time to pay attention to her. It was incompatible with the rest of the movie--the fact he couldn't give his daughter a moment of his time. Every other time she wanted his attention she easily got it, but now, when his attention is most needed, he couldn't give the girl five seconds of his time.

She wanted to play hide-and-seek with the pearls which, I suppose, a five-year-old girl could want to play. She put the pearls in Eddie's pocket without him noticing at all, and instructed him to find them. He was so engrossed in chatting with Larry that he didn't see his daughter, feel the pearls, or hear her tell him to find them-- which brings up another problem: what if something happened to her on the street? She had just come from outside where NO ONE was watching her. If he was that preoccupied, something could've happened to Shirley and he wouldn't have had a clue! As it was, a criminal pulled her aside and gave her stolen jewels without anyone noticing; what if he kidnapped her?

Now my blood was starting to percolate a bit. This was one more implausible thing stacked on another.

Third: Welch came into Eddie's home to search him and his place.

I know that felons have fewer rights, and maybe in New York they don't have a right to a warranted search. HOWEVER... They also don't have a right to not be intruded upon by a cop? A cop can just walk into a guy's house because he has a record??

And it didn't stop there. Besides searching through Eddie's private property, he was destroying stuff, and eating Eddie's food! Worst of all, he was questioning Shirley, a five-year-old, while Eddie was still in the living room.

That part is as much on Eddie as it is on Welch. I can't believe he didn't draw the line with a crooked cop questioning his little girl. It was a wonder if Eddie even knew where his daughter was at any given time.

Now I'm frothing at the mouth. I'm outraged. It's taking all my will power just to continue watching. It would be bearable if it was funny, but IT. WAS. NOT. FUNNY.

Fourth: Eddie can't think straight.

By the time Welch was questioning Shirley in HER ROOM behind a closed door, Eddie had discovered the pearls in his coat pocket. Instead of... I don't know... putting them back in his pocket, he freaked out and couldn't figure out what to do with them.

He eventually hid them in the coffee pot, which became a comedy because Welch helped himself to some coffee and Eddie was worried about them spilling out. He got a chance to remove them from the coffee pot and finally hid them in the carpet sweeper, which was then borrowed by the neighbor, who dumped the contents into the trash outside.

I was freaking out at this point. I wanted to insert sanity and rationality into this movie so badly, yet I sat there, powerless to do anything. I just sat with this impotent fury as I watched this movie devolve into something totally illogical.

Fifth: Eddie allowed his daughter to be alone with a criminal and she had access to sharp objects.

Trigger made his way back to Eddie's place looking for his stolen pearls. Trigger had Eddie at gunpoint and was asking for the pearls. Shirley was God-knows-where at this time. Eddie was able to get the drop on Trigger and tie him up. He then left him in the apartment while he went out to find Larry.

Why did he need to find Larry? Who the hell knows, but get this; Shirley comes back home from her latest adventure to find Trigger tied up on the floor.

"Are you playing the game too?" she asked, because having a grown man tied up on the kitchen floor is totally normal in her world.

"Of course I am... now go on and find something to cut me loose," Trigger answered.

Now I'm yelling, "Go ahead Shirley, cut him loose! I'm sure you can find a good chainsaw because clearly your parents don't care what you do and who you're with!"

First she grabbed a saw.

A SAW!!!!

This five-year-old was able to readily get a saw! I have adult kids and I don't think they could tell you where a saw is!! Why? Because I don't keep saws lying around that's why.

When the thief saw the saw he told her to get a knife, and she EASILY found a knife; and not just any knife. She found Norman Bates' knife that he used to carve up Marian Crane in the movie "Psycho."

Shirley then went on to deftly cut Trigger free which gave him the opportunity to escape and use her as a hostage/shield.

Of course, everything turned out fine. Eddie knocked out Trigger and grabbed his daughter while the police rushed in to make the arrest. On top of that, Eddie was assured that he'd get his job back, Shirley was told she'd get the $5,000 reward for finding the necklace, and Welch was told he was never to bother Eddie ever again. It was a happy ending, but I was already too far gone. I couldn't stomach the sequence of events. The last fifteen minutes was me barely holding on just so I could finish. But what upsets me the most is that they made me hate a Shirley Temple movie. Not cool.

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"Crime Without Passion" was a movie with a wonderful plot. If only the movie had one major character I liked then it would've been so much better. Lee Gentry, Carmen Brown, and Katy Costello all ranged from despicable to forgettable.

Lee Gentry (played by Claude Rains) was the main character. He was a Clarence Darrow type attorney. Like Darrow he gave long-winded closing arguments, he won cases that were sure losers, and he even referred to himself as the "Champion of the Damned." Clarence Darrow was known as the "Attorney for the Damned." Also like Darrow, Gentry's weakness was women. He wasn't satisfied with just one.

The two women in Gentry's life were Carmen Brown (played by Margo) and Katy Costello (played by Whitney Bourne). Katy told Gentry that he'd better cut off his relationship with Carmen or she was walking. Gentry was such a coward and a user that he couldn't simply break up with Carmen, he had to conjure up an entire scenario to make it seem like he was leaving her because she was seeing another man.

Carmen was the type of woman who was not easy to get rid of, and the perception was that Gentry was the reason. He loved to talk and his lawyer mind was so sharp he could convince her that night was day and day was night. So, even though Carmen was miserable when she was with Gentry, she also couldn't do without him.

Gentry thought he had made a clean break from Carmen until she called him and threatened to kill herself. He went over to her place to presumably stop her, but he only further inflamed her. Then, in movie fashion, there was a fight for a gun and Carmen was shot. Gentry wiped down everything and began formulating an alibi. From that point on he was in full self-preservation mode. Gentry went from being in control of everything and everyone to being out of control.

I liked the storyline and how the events unfolded in "Crime Without Passion," I just didn't like Gentry, and he dominated the film. He was so pompous, underhanded, and insulting that I just wanted to punch a hole in his face. Yeah, he may have gotten his just desserts in the end, but I still had to suffer through too much of him for too long.

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After two very good Shirley Temple starred movies, I've come across a dud. I always thought that Shirley Temple could do no wrong. I believed that there was no script she couldn't bring to life, and no movie that she couldn't shine in. I hate to say that "Now and Forever" produced a script that even the adorable Shirley Temple couldn't save. It was more adult themed than the other two I watched and far more sappy.

"Now and Forever" starred Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, and Shirley Temple. I think Gary Cooper is a stiff, but Carole Lombard and Shirley Temple are more than enough to sneak a Gary Cooper by unnoticed.

Gary Cooper played Jerry Day, a small-time hustler who did small cons and grifts just to get by. Accompanying him was his wife, Toni Day (Carole Lombard). The two had spent three years together bouncing from place to place, staying ahead of bill collectors and the law.

Unbeknownst to Toni, Jerry had a daughter: Penelope 'Penny' Day (Shirley Temple). Her mother had passed away and she lived with Jerry's ex-inlaws. Jerry saw the opportunity to cash in on his estranged daughter. He would allow his BIL, James Higginson (Gilbert Emery), to adopt Penny for $75,000. Toni didn't like that idea at all, but Jerry was going to go forward with it anyway until he spent a little time with Penny. There was no way he could give up someone so tiny and cute, so he decided that he'd raise her.

With a small child in the mix Toni wanted Jerry to go straight. It wouldn't be fair to Penny for him to be lying, cheating, and stealing while raising a daughter. He generally kept that promise until things got too tight. With that he decided to steal Mrs. Crane's (Charlotte Granville) necklace to fence it. Jerry hadn't planned on stealing Mrs. Crane's necklace, the opportunity just presented itself.

She was throwing a party for Penny at her mansion when Jerry saw the expensive jewelry just laying on her dresser. When he took it he hid the necklace in Penny's teddy bear. Mrs. Crane noticed the necklace was missing at some point during the party and phoned the police. When the police came over to search all of Mrs. Crane's guests (even the children), they found nothing.

It was at this point that the movie became overly sappy.

Jerry was putting Penny to bed for the night when she said that if she were the detective she would simply ask, "Mr. Day, did you steal the necklace? And you must answer."

Jerry just gave an, "Oh," as in "Wow. That's pretty forward."

Penny replied with, "Well?" to show that she was really questioning him.

"Well what dear?" Jerry asked, hoping that she wasn't wanting a real answer to her question.

"Well. You must answer. Did you steal that necklace?" Penny doubled down, not letting the matter go. At this point I thought the writers were really pushing it for a six-year-old's behavior.

"No, I didn't steal it," Jerry answered shakily.

"Honor bright?" Penny asked.

"Honor bright" was a term she got from her late mother that amounted to a deep oath or promise. If the questioner believed that the answerer may not have been telling the truth, then "honor bright" was a way to ascertain that.

"Ha ha. You're a funny one," Jerry answered evasively and began to walk out. He didn't want to be pinned down with "honor bright," and if he was getting up to leave, then she, as a child, should recognize that the conversation was over.

Not so this child.

"No! You must answer! That's the whole point!" Penny snapped.

Now she was deadly serious. Far more serious than any six-year-old should be about a matter unless she really believed her father stole the necklace. If she did believe he may have stolen the necklace it brings up another matter: why would she believe such a thing? Jerry hadn't done anything to give her the impression he was a thief. I can't imagine suspecting my mom or dad of stealing something so valuable when I was five or six, especially when there were so many other people in the house who could've stolen it.

Once more she asked, "Honor bright?" to which Jerry responded, "Honor bright," thereby satisfying the junior detective.

Later, after Jerry left, Penny found the necklace in her teddy bear and she was devastated. She was so utterly crushed she cried all night and into the next morning. She was inconsolable and I couldn't help but think, "Really!? You're bawling your eyes out that much because you believe your dad lied to you about a necklace? You really just jumped from totally believing your dad to disbelieving him that quickly?" It was so sappy. I tend to give Shirley Temple a lot of leeway with her characters' behavior because she's so adorable, but I couldn't this time.

When she told Toni why she was crying, Toni took the wrap for the necklace being in the teddy bear, but it was clear now what Jerry had to do. He had to get the necklace back. At this point he had to get it back to save his relationship with Toni who was going to leave him for lying; his relationship with Penny was now safe since she believed that Toni was the thief.

Naturally, he got the necklace back and all was right with the world, but the whole thing left me disappointed. The writers really forced this one. It was a good message and all that, but I've seen afterschool specials with more tact and less sap. Shirley Temple still reigns as the cutest kid, but they didn't do her any favors with this script.

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"Woman in the Dark" was too much like "Straight is the Way" (1934) and it was too contrived. For reference, in "Straight is the Way," Franchot Tone played an ex-con who had to mind his P's and Q's to keep from going back to prison, except trouble found him. The main progenitor of the trouble was a woman (played by Gladys George).

In "Woman in the Dark," John Bradley (Ralph Bellamy) is an ex-con who served time for manslaughter. He had punched a man who fell and hit his head and died. He was advised to keep his anger in check and stay out of fights if he wanted to avoid being a recidivist.

He traveled back to Denton, N. Y., a small city where he could largely stay away from problems. But, as expected, problems found him.

The first problem was the sheriff's daughter Helen Grant (Nell O'Day). She was a bothersome young woman who had a crush on John. Just her being there was a problem for him because the sheriff was sure to be on his butt if he knew his daughter was with him.

The second problem was Louise Loring (Fay Wray). She stumbled to his doorstep in the middle of a storm bringing her drama with her. Her drama came in the form of Tony Robson (Melvyn Douglas), a rich playboy of nebulous means but considerable influence. He wanted Louise back and he would play dirty to get her back.

Louise was not quite a prostitute, but far from a wife--to borrow from the clean version of the rap song "Dopeman" by NWA. Louise was pretty much bought and paid for by Robson so she had to be his woman. She didn't want to be, but he tricked her into taking large sums of money from him which meant that she was indebted to him.

Now Louise was in John's home trying to flee Robson. It couldn't have been a worse situation for John. He had openly stated that women were nothing but trouble. His first prison stint was due to Helen and his chivalry. He had a jaded outlook on women--which was a sure sign that he was going to fall in love with one.

When Tony Robson and his underling, Conroy (Reed Brown Jr.), came to John's place (the second time), Conroy shot Louise's dog which was trying to protect her. The dog was merely barking, it hadn't lunged at anyone.

I think we can all agree that a warrantless dog killer is a bad guy. Well, John slugged Conroy as payment for his deed.

This is where it got a little too contrived.

Conroy, after being punched by John, fell and hit his head on the brick fireplace. My thoughts were, "You can't be serious. AGAIN!" First of all, deaths in that manner were common in the 30's. I know I've seen at least a few other movies in which a guy was punched, fell, hit his head and died. I can only think of "The Life of Jimmy Dolan" (1933), but I know I've seen it in other movies as well.

Second of all, what are the chances that John would kill TWO people by punching them? It was too coincidental.

In this case Conroy didn't die, but the next time we saw him he was bandaged up and near death. John's newest nemesis, Robson (the guy who wanted Louise), swore a warrant out for John Bradley's arrest to get rid of him. So, just like that, after being home only a day or two, John was a fugitive. How he was going to be cleared of this crime was all that was pending.

Everything ended neatly enough. John and Louise became romantically involved although we were spared the oaths of undying love after one night of knowing each other. Louise then did what she had to do to absolve John of any wrongdoing (including going back to Robson which caused the classic misunderstanding scene). That led everyone back to Robson's place where they found a conscious Conroy who told the cops that it was Robson who'd tried to kill him, not John. Even with the happy ending, I didn't find the movie compelling enough to care. Fay Wray just didn't do it for me, and nor did Ralph Bellamy for that matter. This movie lacked any life or pizzazz. Everyone went through the motions and said their lines then the movie ended.

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"Lady by Choice" stars two fabulous females from the early-30's--May Robson and Carole Lombard--however they couldn't quite save this one. The movie was on one story arc then jumped the tracks to another arc which ended with the woman-forgoing-wealth-to-prove-she-loves-the-man cliche.

It began as a feel good story. An old drunkard named Patricia Patterson (May Robson) was sent to an old folks home to keep her and society safe from her drunkenness. She would enter the life of Alabam Lee (Carole Lombard) when Alabam adopted Patty as a publicity stunt. Everyone has heard of adults adopting children, but who ever heard of adults adopting parents? It was shaping up to be a heartwarming story of two women being there for each other and providing the other with what she didn't have--a mother for Alabam and a daughter for Patty.

Then they introduced a romance.

A romance, regardless of how tender, sweet, and loveable, was going to ruin the movie. What I thought was going to be more like "Whom the Gods Destroy" in which a man helps his son without telling him he's his father, wound up being more like a common romance of that era. I wasn't expecting it to be about Patty being Alabam's real mom, I was just hoping that the two could be instrumental in each other's lives without it detouring to a romance. In other words; "Whom the Gods Destroy" was about a man helping his son achieve his dreams without the introduction of a love interest, while "Lady by Choice" was about a woman initially helping her assumed daughter try to achieve a dream, but then morphed into the woman (Patty) helping her assumed daughter get the man she loved as though that were a more appropriate dream.

Alabam had gone broke and needed money. She tried to do it Patty's way by working hard at becoming a legitimate entertainer and not an erotic dancer, but she couldn't make it. She dared not go back to her crooked manager, Kendall (Arthur Hohl), and she wasn't going to act or shake a tail feather for the money. She was going to find a wealthy man to dig gold from. For that she eyed Johnny Mills (Roger Pryor), a nice lawyer who treated Patty like she was his own mother.

Alabam had Johnny wrapped around her little finger. Eventually, as was expected, she had a change of heart. She legitimately fell in love with Johnny and wanted to marry him, however there were forces that wanted to keep them apart. Johnny's mother and Patty wanted to keep the gold digging Alabam away from Johnny. What they didn't know was that Alabam was truly in love with Johnny, but the ball to separate them had already been put in motion. The two women had gotten Judge Daly (Walter Connolly) involved. He had a suspended sentence on Alabam in his back pocket that he could wield over her to get her to leave Johnny alone.

The trite thing I didn't like about this romance was something they did a lot back then. For a woman to show she's truly good and that she's truly in love she has to forgo any wealth. That means she has to opt to marry the man even if he is or is going to be broke (e.g. Cut off from his inheritance or allowance, lost his job, stock market crash, etc.) or she has to return any gifts she may have received from another man. Both actions prove she's in love and worthy of marriage and happiness. It's a tired play that 1930's Hollywood kept rerunning.

Essentially the woman has to torture herself to prove her worth. It doesn't matter how myopic, narrow minded, naive, pollyanna, or misguided the man may be, everything falls on the woman. She has to prove her worth. The guy could've been pursuing her like a bloodhound, but somehow it will always turn around to her having to prove that she's worthy of his love.

One of the most common methods is for her to prove that she doesn't want his wealth (or even her own wealth in some cases) because that seems to have been the biggest knock on women of that era. I've seen it in "The Easiest Way," "The Girl from Missouri," "Gambling Lady," "Shopworn," "You Can't Buy Everything," and so many other movies. They all involved women twisting themselves into knots to prove they weren't gold diggers. In all cases the light would be seen and the two would be brought harmoniously together. If you've seen it once you've seen it a thousand times. It sucked to see "Lady By Choice" turn into the same kind of movie.

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