STREET OF CHANCE (1930)

Debonaire & ironic, perfect in any mode, mood or genre (comedy, period drama, romance, even villainy in his early silents), William Powell is now mostly remembered for the 13 films he made at M-G-M with Myrna Loy (‘34 - ‘47), nearly half of those Nick & Nora/THIN MAN pics.  Less celebrated are the six with his other major screen partner, Kay Francis at Paramount & then Warners.  The two sets actually have similar batting averages (and best of the lot team Francis*), but crucially, the first four with Francis are Early Talkies, which can be slow, stiff, technically challenged, something of an acquired taste.  Well, here’s a chance to acquire it.  A superior example of its kind, reasonably lively direction from John Cromwell, plenty of Pre-Code Paramount sophistication, in a milieu familiar from Damon Runyon’s GUYS AND DOLLS with Powell as a combo Nathan Detroit/Sky Masterson.  But no Musical Comedy, this one leaning toward dead serious underworld melodrama.  Powell’s ‘Natural’ Davis, real name James Marsden, a bond trader whose wife (Kay Francis) is done waiting for him to quit the gambling racket.  And he would, but finds he’s stuck for one more epic match when cocky kid brother Regis Toomey comes to town (with new wife Jean Arthur), eager to take on this ‘Natural’ Davis character, unaware it’s his very own big brother.  Yikes!  Can Powell take him to the cleaners and get the gambling bug permanently out of his system?  Even if someone has to die trying?  The final game, after thousands of variations, still damn suspenseful.  And the film not afraid to let the ‘wrong’ people lose.  Watch Cromwell on a wild tracking shot that moves all around Francis’s apartment; so pleased at pulling off this technically tricky shot he repeats it near the end.   A properly restored edition would make this an even easier sell.

DOUBLE/LINK:  *That’d be the heavenly romance of ONE WAY PASSAGE/’32.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/02/one-way-passage-1932.html