At his peak playing bashful heroes in ‘20s silents, Richard Barthelmess remained enough of a draw to front a series of issue-oriented Early Talkies. Most were stories of moral decline, often without any last-minute/cop-out salvation. Here, he’s a gentlemanly southern reporter moved up north. New to big city ways, but shedding naivety with every assignment, he gets badly worked over by the mob after reporting on an illegal gambling club. Wising up fast, he goes in on a blackmail scam with rising crime boss Clark Gable, grabbing pay-outs from gangsters to keep news out of the paper. While back in the newsroom, he still only has eyes for ‘agony’ columnist Fay Wray, but is now in too deep to get out. Especially when Regis Toomey, a rival in news & love, gets a scoop on a major story Barthelmess already took 100 thou to suppress. Good stuff, but the Early Talkie execution is just deadly, with slo-mo pacing punctured only by the very young, very modern Gable. Wearing a ridiculous homburg, he already has that distinctive vocal rhythm, picking up his cues twice as fast as anyone else. Sound engineers at the time encouraged double beats between cues, Gable instinctively ignored their advice. Director John Francis Dillon, who died young in 1934, never did. (Note our poster, a book cover from the novelization.)
DOUBLE-BILL: Back @ M-G-M for his next pic, Gable was bumped up from thug to reporter in George W. Hill’s THE SECRET 6/’31. Sixth billed, he all but takes over the pic in the second half, even getting the final curtain shot. OR: Barthelmess as a WWI vet fighting drug addiction in William Welman’s fascinating (and less antique) HEROES FOR SALE/’33. (See below)
READ ALL ABOUT IT: Mick LaSalle examines Barthelmess as actor & social provocateur in his fascinating, if overstated, DANGEROUS MEN: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man.
No comments:
Post a Comment