Bad Girl (1931-32)

The title character of Bad Girl, Dorothy Haley (played by Sally Eilers), isn’t truly a bad girl at all. She’s tough, certainly, but she’s living in a city (New York) and a time where she and all other women are constantly the target of men’s attention, mostly unwanted and often repugnant. She and her friend Edna Briggs (a tough-talking Minna Gombell) are models for a store, and we get to see them displaying bridal gowns in the opening sequence, only to face the stares and leers and harassment by the men who are watching them. It begs the question of why the men are looking at women’s bridal gowns, but perhaps that’s to demonstrate just how tough it was for a single woman in the early 1930s.

Dorothy and Edna like to have a good time, so they head off to Coney Island after a tough day on the job. The scenes there have a lovely documentary feel, and it’s always fun to see footage from those earlier times and learn how people enjoyed themselves. Dorothy would like to meet a nice guy, but she thinks every man is going to be problematic. When she meets Eddie (a terrific James Dunn), he turns down her advances initially but starts to warm up to her. He lets her know quickly, though, that he wants a serious relationship, not a so-called “good time girl.” Dorothy and Ednar aren’t really those kinds of women, but what’s wrong with them going out and having some fun after work? Oh, that’s right. It’s 1931. I momentarily forgot.

Eddie walks Dorothy home, but he’s rather critical of the tenement life she lives. The movie isn’t clear on this, but she likely has no other choice than to live with her terrible brother in their small apartment. The tenement dwellers waste no time in demonstrating the full range of human experience in just a few minutes. There’s been a death and a birth and even a couple fighting over the husband smelling of limburger. You know, it’s a regular place, in other words. Eddie and Dorothy start to see each other regularly, and you can sense that they’re probably heading for a more permanent relationship.

However, Dorothy is quite tough, and when Eddie is late for a date one night, she shows up at his place to find him caught up in his work repairing radios. She tells him off pretty directly, but he begs her to stay with him and talk. Just talk. The movie doesn’t show anything more than that, and people do sometimes talk into the late hours when they’re falling in love. Unfortunately, she’s worried that being out so late will ruin her reputation and likely upset her controlling brother. She’s right, naturally, even though her brother has been staying up late with his girlfriend, Dorothy’s co-worker Edna. So… hypocrisy, unsurprisingly, shows up early in the film.

The plot then asks us to accept a series of rather silly misunderstandings between Eddie and Dorothy. He asks her to marry him and then can’t be reached for a day or so. Her brother has kicked her out and she has gone to stay with Edna, who is a widow with a young son who seems oddly interested in talking to Dorothy while she’s still in bed. Dorothy tries to call Eddie, but he’s moved out of his old place and apparently lost his job. When he shows up, he explains that he’s found them a new home, one that’s a bit bigger and more appropriate for a couple. They marry, and their relationship crisis seems to have been averted—temporarily.

Eddie has always wanted to own his own radio store, and he finds a nice location just when Dorothy finds out she’s pregnant. She’s frightened because her own mother died giving birth to her, but she won’t tell him that she’s expecting, which I suppose makes sense to her and no one else, including Edna. She seems frustrated about where they live (because it’s going to be too small to raise a family), but he misinterprets her emotions as displeasure with how small their apartment is. She wants to go back to work to earn some money for the baby, but she doesn’t tell him the reason, and he says he doesn’t want her to work because he feels like the husband should pay for everything so that his wife can stay home. Again, what year is this? 1931? You could still live on one person’s salary then?

He takes the money that’s he’s saved to open his own store and buys a new apartment and lots of new furniture because he thought she wanted a new place. She’s upset that he spent his money when she was probably hoping that it could be used, in part, to pay for the baby. It’s really quite silly that they both somehow wind up thinking that neither one wants to have a baby when it should be apparent that both of them are very excited. They clearly love each other; they’re just horrible at communicating their feelings.

The misunderstandings just keep piling on. Again, none of them make Dorothy a “bad girl.” She just doesn’t communicate clearly with her husband, and he doesn’t communicate clearly with her, so they’re always talking and acting at cross purposes. (Does this mean he is also a “bad boy”?) She’s worried about the delivery and mentions this expensive society doctor who would perhaps be more helpful. Eddie starts taking up boxing matches for extra cash and goes to visit this fancy obstetrician and breaks down asking the doctor to help him and his wife. Dunn is particularly effective in this scene, and you can understand why the doctor agrees to take the case.

On the day that Dorothy is supposed to go to the hospital, Eddie takes another match, and it’s quite brutal. He’s left bruised and bandaged, and she is upset when he shows up at the hospital, thinking he didn’t want to be there to see his own son being born. He just can’t seem to say the right things, and neither can she. If it weren’t for Edna’s interference at times, they might have separated or divorced before they could have their happy reconciliation. It is a Hollywood movie, after all, so you expect them to figure out how each other feels at some point before “The End” appears on screen.

The film was adapted from a book that was apparently much more scandalous in terms of what happens to Dorothy. This version, however, seems relatively tame to me. Dorothy and Eddie don’t really do anything that would cause their reputations to tarnish, and most of the plot complications are easily fixable, you know, if they just talk to each other honestly. It is interesting to see the difficult situation that women of that time were in. It’s certainly a professionally made film with some solid performances by the leads and major supporting characters. I’m not just certain that I would consider it to be Best Picture material.

Oscar Wins: Best Director (Frank Borzage) and Best Writing/Adaptation

Other Oscar Nomination: Outstanding Production

The Champ (1931-32)

The Champ is the story of an alcoholic ex-heavyweight champion boxer and his young son. The son, Dink, is played by Jackie Cooper, one of the most talented child actors in the history of film, and the father, whose actual name is Andy Purcell but who is called "the Champ" throughout the film, is played by Wallace Beery, one of the most unlikely of movie stars. The key to this movie's success is the interaction between the two of them; they make what has since become a somewhat cliched premise into a touching examination of the ways that parents and children try to care for each other.

When the film begins, Andy and Dink are running, trying to keep in shape for whatever fight might be in the future. The Champ lost his boxing title several years earlier because of his drinking and gambling, and now he just can't seem to pull it together to make a comeback. Whenever he gets enough money to go back into training, he gets drunk instead. In fact, one of the early scenes in the film involves Dink and one of his young friends trying to sober the Champ up so that he can meet with some fight promoters. Needless to say, he's still too drunk to impress the promoters, and he loses a shot at a match. It’s heartbreaking to watch Cooper’s reaction in this sequence.

What's amazing about this scene, though, is what happens after the promoters leave the dingy room where the Champ and Dink live. Dink gets his father undressed and puts him to bed before he starts to get himself ready for a night's sleep. You get a clear sense that this scene has played itself out over and over, that Dink has at a very young age become more of a caretaker for his father than his father is for Dink. Beery's Champ cares for his son, certainly, but he doesn't seem to be very knowledgeable about how to care for a young boy properly. He makes a lot of promises that he will reform his ways, but he falls quickly back into the patterns of his bad behavior whenever the opportunity (and money) permit.

After the Champ purchases a racehorse for Dink, a promise he's made to the boy for years, they enter the horse (now dubbed the Little Champ) into a race, only to meet another racehorse owner named Linda and her husband Tony Carleton. It turns out that Linda is Dink's mother. She and the Champ divorced years earlier, but the Champ received custody of the boy. Linda, now married to a wealthy man and with another child, a daughter, wants to give Dink a better home. The Champ, sensing that he might not be the best father figure, decides after a night of drinking and gambling that leads to him being arrested that Dink should go with Linda. He even lies to the boy, saying that he doesn't want Dink hanging around him so much and eating too much food that they cannot afford. Cooper plays this scene particularly well, crying as he promises he will be a better son and companion, and both he and Beery are teary-eyed by the end of it.

Dink jumps off the train in San Diego, leaving Linda behind, and rejoins his father in Tijuana. The Champ agrees to fight the Mexican heavyweight boxing champion, for which he would receive $20,000 for a win. The fight is particularly brutal, one of the more punishing bouts depicted on film. However, the Champ knocks out the Mexican fighter and wins, only to faint on the way back to the dressing room. It's there that he dies after a tearful discussion with Dink. Cooper's cries of "I want the Champ! I want the Champ!" are pretty heartbreaking to watch. He had been nominated the year before as Best Actor for the film Skippy, the youngest (at age 9) person nominated for an acting Oscar at that time. Unsurprisingly, he's still the youngest person ever to be nominated for Best Actor. He deserved another nomination for his performance in The Champ, but the Academy had limited the number of nominees in the category that year to only three.

What stands out the most about this film, written by the legendary Frances Marion, who also won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay of 1931-1932, is the father-son relationship. Beery and Cooper were in a couple of movies together, and they have an easy rapport with each other. The film was remade in 1979 with Jon Voight as the father and Ricky Shroeder as the son; Faye Dunaway played the role of the wife who left the champ years earlier. It's an inferior version of the original. The Beery-Cooper version has far more heart than the remake, and it earns our sympathy for the characters in a far more honest fashion.

There's one other moment that struck me when watching The Champ. One of Dink's friends is a young African American boy named Jonah, played by Jesse Scott. This film was made during a time of Jim Crow laws and legal segregation, yet Jonah and Dink are great friends and everyone accepts this as being completely unremarkable. Even more astonishing is an interchange between Dink and his mother when they first meet at the racetrack. He introduces her to Jonah and points out that his friend is "colored." She smiles and replies that Jonah is "kind of a pretty color." I know that such dialogue as that would be seen as hopelessly racist nowadays, but that must have been a truly radical statement in 1931. Marion always had a way of infusing her scripts with a sense of social justice. It's one of the many reasons that her films like The Champ still seem just as watchable today.

I’d also like to mention that the cinematography on this film is first-rate. It’s just a beautiful black-and-white film from an era with lots of great filmmaking. The close-ups feature remarkable clarity, and the lighting emphasizes the emotions a character is feeling. The horse race sequence is well shot and well edited, and so is the climactic boxing match. The expressions on Beery’s face during that match are vividly captured. You don’t normally think of a movie like The Champ as being an exceptional example of cinematography, but there were so many talented people working in Hollywood during those years.

Oscar Wins: Best Actor (Wallace Beery) and Best Original Story

Other Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Production and Best Director (King Vidor)

Grand Hotel (1931-32)

Grand Hotel is one of the first all-star films, featuring lead performances from Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, and Lionel Barrymore. They all play guests at the Grand Hotel in Berlin, and their characters' lives keep connecting and disconnecting from each other throughout the movie. There are as many plot lines as there are main characters, yet each is relatively easy to follow. I suspect everyone who watches this film develops a particular fondness for one of the stories over the rest, and mine is certainly the one featuring John Barrymore.

John Barrymore never quite got the recognition for his acting ability that he deserved. His brother Lionel and his sister Ethel won Oscars for their film work, but John was never even nominated. Of all of the cast of Grand Hotel, I think his is the performance that most deserved recognition among this ensemble of actors. He plays a down-on-his-luck baron, a man who is so desperate for money that he stoops to some pretty reprehensible actions such as breaking and entering or even filching a wallet of money from a sick, dying friend. However, he's also a man with a conscience, the kind of guy who feels remorse and returns the wallet that he has stolen. He also doesn't go through with his theft of a pearl necklace from the great dancer played by Greta Garbo. Instead, he falls in love with her and "nurses" her back to happiness with his affections. I was more interested in what would happen to the Baron than any of the other characters in the film, and that's certainly a testament to Barrymore's talent. He was known for his profile, yet it's his face that I found to be his greatest asset. He's amazingly expressive.

The rest of the cast is good too. Garbo plays Grusinskaya, the dancer who has lost her love of performing because she has no love in her life. I like her best here after she falls in love with the Baron; there's a giddiness to her performance that's quite intoxicating. Beery plays a very hot-tempered industrialist who has to make one last deal or else he will face bankruptcy. He's his usual solid self (although I always tend to prefer him in more comedic parts). He’s also the one member of the cast trying to do a German accent; I’m not sure it works effectively, but kudos to him for trying. Crawford plays the secretary Beery hires to help keep records of the deal; of course, he falls in love with her and plans to take her with him to England for a clandestine relationship. Crawford is also very strong here, smart and very wise to the ways that things tend to operate. I once read a review of the film Chicago that described Catherine Zeta-Jones as being the kind of actress whose desperation to be a star was as visible on the screen as Joan Crawford's. It was an interesting comment, but in watching Grand Hotel, I can certainly see what the reviewer meant. Crawford attempts to make herself the most interesting person in any scene she's in, whether through her posture or her facial expressions or whatever other means she has available. She certainly has a hunger to be the center of attention.

The one performance I didn't particularly like is Lionel Barrymore's. He plays a dying clerk at Beery's company. He's come to Berlin to indulge himself; he wants to enjoy what little time he has left before he dies. Unfortunately, he seems to be playing to a theatrical audience rather than a film one; his performance is almost too big and broad for the screen to contain it. His brother John is much more subdued and, therefore, much more effective. Lionel's Kringelein is teeth-grindingly excessive at times. It is a pleasure to watch the two brothers when they are together, but such scenes only serve to underscore just how much better a film actor John was.

One of the minor characters, Dr. Otternschlag (played by the formidable Lewis Stone with half of his face scarred, a constant if subtle reminder of World War I), says of the Grand Hotel: "Always the same. People coming. People going. Nothing happens." Of course, we see a great deal happen during the course of the film, but perhaps because the end of the film so clearly mirrors the beginning, we're meant to see that no matter what happens, the hotel and Berlin and the rest of life continue on as if nothing ever happens. It's a pretty bleak outlook, frankly, particularly given how much time and attention have been given to the lives of these individuals.

Grand Hotel holds the dubious distinction of having been nominated in only the category of Outstanding Production and winning. No other aspect of the film – not its acting nor its production design nor its cinematography – was nominated. It’s certainly surprising that it won the big award with no other recognition.  The production design, in particular, is quite spectacular. There’s a circular desk in the lobby of the hotel, and it’s there that we meet each of the characters who will be the focus of the movie. The hotel and its room are all very Art Deco and beautiful. I’d also point to Garbo’s costumes as deserving of a nomination, but the category of Best Costume Design wasn’t a part of the ceremony yet.

The film’s camera work is also dazzling at times. We begin the film with an overhead shot of telephone operators at the hotel, setting up the idea that carries throughout the film that the hotel is very busy and lots of things are actually happening, despite what the doctor says. There are also shots from the floor where all of the major characters are staying that look down on the street and on the lobby. They are pretty spectacular views.

This movie is certainly entertaining and deserves credit for its ability to juggle the stars and their various storylines, but it isn't particularly challenging. I enjoyed it, certainly, but I can't imagine that there weren't other films that year that contributed more to the art of film. I suspect this is one of the examples of how the studios influenced voting very early in the history of the Academy Awards. Perhaps Louis B. Mayer felt it as MGM's turn to get a Best Picture Award, and he had an all-star cast to support him.

One last side note: Jean Hersholt plays one of the men behind the front desk of the hotel. His character has a wife in labor over several days, apparently one of the longest labors in the history of pregnancy. I had never seen, at least not knowingly, a performance by the man for whom the Academy's Humanitarian Award is named. He's good here, but perhaps he will and should be better remembered for his work creating the Motion Picture Relief Fund, which still provides assistance to retired members of the motion picture community. I'm going to try to keep an eye out for him from now on.

Oscar Win: Outstanding Production