The Animal Kingdom (Edward H. Griffith, 1932)

Ann Harding, Leslie Howard, and Myrna Loy in The Animal Kingdom

Cast: Leslie Howard, Ann Harding, Myrna Loy, William Gargan, Neil Hamilton, Ilka Chase, Henry Stephenson, Leni Stengel, Don Dillaway. Screenplay: Horace Jackson, based on a play by Philip Barry. Cinematography: George J. Folsey. Art direction: Van Nest Polglase. Film editing: Daniel Mandell. Music: Max Steiner.

The odd, arch, talky The Animal Kingdom is based on one of Philip Barry's plays about rich people yearning to be free, like his Holiday and The Philadelphia Story, film versions of which were directed by George Cukor in 1938 and 1940 respectively. And here the connection among the films gets more intricate, for the director of The Animal Kingdom, Edward H. Griffith, had directed an earlier film version of Holiday in 1930, also starring Ann Harding, with a screenplay by Horace Jackson. And Cukor was an uncredited co-director on The Animal Kingdom. Moreover, the 1932 stage version had starred Leslie Howard, as well as William Gargan and Ilka Chase. So maybe everybody concerned with filming The Animal Kingdom was a little too close to the material, because the movie is a bit of a mess. The central love triangle -- Daisy Sage (Harding) is the former mistress of Tom Collier (Howard) who plans to marry Cecelia Henry (Myrna Loy) just as Daisy comes back into his life -- is clear enough, but the movie is cluttered with secondary characters whose function in the lives of the central characters is a bit obscure, as if their backstories were more interesting than what we actually see on the screen. Tom, for example, has a butler named Regan (William Gargan) who is an ex-boxer completely unsuited to his duties as butler, which causes tensions with Cecelia. What Tom and Regan's obligations to each other are based on remains unknown. Daisy similarly has a friend named Franc (Leni Stengel), who plays the cello and speaks with a German accent, attributes that are obvious but of no significance to the plot. Still, there are some bright lines and some nice pre-Code naughtiness like a reference by Tom to a brothel he used to visit in London, not to mention the fact that the film is quite open about the relationship between Tom and Daisy: At one point she refers to herself as "a foolish virgin... Oh, foolish anyway," which is the kind of line no American movie could get away with for several decades after the 1934 Production Code went into effect. But I think I might have enjoyed The Animal Kingdom more if I didn't think it was radically miscast, that Loy should have played the somewhat free-spirited Daisy and Harding the more conventional Cecelia. In fact, this was a breakthrough role for Loy, who had been typecast as sultry, often "Oriental" women. In The Animal Kingdom, Loy comes across as sexy and Harding as bland, which is the reverse of the way it should be. Their pairing shows why Loy became a major star and Harding began to fade out of films in the mid-1930s. But both deserved better than this comedy of manners that's more mannered than comic.

What Price Hollywood? (George Cukor, 1932)

Bradley Cooper is reportedly directing a remake of A Star Is Born in which he and Lady Gaga will take the roles played by Fredric March and Janet Gaynor in 1937, James Mason and Judy Garland in 1954, and Kris Kristofferson and Barbra Streisand in 1976. So maybe it's a good time to check out the ur-Star Is Born, What Price Hollywood?, that was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by George Cukor in 1932. The name is different but the plot's the same: A successful man in the entertainment business discovers a young woman whom he helps become a star, but as her career ascends, his personal problems send him into a tailspin.* The idea for the film is a natural in a Hollywood that had become increasingly conscious of its own myth, and many real-life analogs have been found in the history of the industry. Selznick commissioned Adela Rogers St. Johns, a former reporter for Photoplay and the Hearst newspapers, to write the story for the film, and various other hands turned it into a screenplay, though St. Johns and Jane Murfin claimed most of the credit when they were nominated for an Oscar for best original story. The film begins with a touch of screwball comedy when Max Carey (Lowell Sherman), an alcoholic director, encounters Mary Evans (Constance Bennett), a waitress at the Brown Derby looking for her chance to break into the movies. After some funny scenes involving Max's drunkenness and Mary's initial ineptness as an actress, the movie unfortunately begins to get serious. Though it's clear Mary really loves Max, when she becomes a big star she marries a society polo player, Lonny Borden (Neil Hamilton), after a somewhat cutesy courtship. But Borden is unhappy being "Mr. Mary Evans," and eventually storms out, though she's pregnant. Meanwhile, Max's decline continues, and after Mary rescues him from the drunk tank and promises to rehabilitate him, he shoots himself, thereby embroiling her in a headline-making scandal. But then Borden returns to apologize and all is well again. What keeps the film alive despite its clichés are the performances. Bennett is quite charming, and Sherman clearly models Max on John Barrymore, whom he knew well: He was married to Helene Costello, whose sister, Dolores, was Barrymore's third wife. The supporting cast includes Gregory Ratoff as the producer of Mary's films, Louise Beavers as (of course) her maid, and Eddie Anderson as Max's chauffeur -- five years before he became famous as Jack Benny's chauffeur, Rochester, on radio.  

*As if there were any doubt, there's a clear link between What Price Hollywood? and at least the first A Star Is Born in that both were produced by Selznick. RKO, which released What Price Hollywood?, threatened to sue Selznick over the similarities, but decided against it. Selznick also asked Cukor to direct the 1937 film, but Cukor declined, so William A. Wellman took it on. But then Cukor went on to direct the 1954 Star Is Born. I don't think there's any direct connection between What Price Hollywood? and the 1976 version, produced by Streisand and Jon Peters and directed by Frank Pierson, but the lineage by then was obvious.

The Sin of Madelon Claudet (Edgar Selwyn, 1931)

Lewis Stone and Helen Hayes in The Sin of Madelon Claudet

If it weren't for her work in movies and on TV, Helen Hayes would probably be consigned to that limbo where celebrated stage actresses of the past like Sarah Siddons or Ellen Terry or Minnie Maddern Fiske reside. But Hayes won two Oscars -- one for this film and the other, 38 years later, for Airport (George Seaton, 1970) -- and is one of only four actresses who have won the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards in competitive categories -- the distinction known by the acronym EGOT.* The thing is, anyone who knows Hayes's work only from movies and TV may wonder why she is so famous. Neither The Sin of Madelon Claudet nor Airport (in which she plays a cute little old stowaway on a plane) nor her work on such TV series as The Snoop Sisters provides much of a clue as to why she was known as "The First Lady of the American Theater" and has a Broadway playhouse named after her. She spent the peak years of her career, from 1935 to 1956, primarily on stage, with only occasional films and TV appearances during that period. It was probably a wise move: She was already 30 when she followed her husband, Charles MacArthur, to Hollywood and made this film, her first talkie. (She had appeared in only a couple of silent films.) And while it won her the Oscar, and she followed it with a few more significant films, particularly Arrowsmith (John Ford, 1931) and A Farewell to Arms (Frank Borzage, 1932), it soon became clear to her that she was not cut out for film stardom. She was only five feet tall and although pleasant-looking, she was not especially pretty, and in a Hollywood that was looking for the next Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich, she was no glamour girl. She would have found herself competing with younger actresses like Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck for the plum dramatic parts. So it was back to Broadway and success. Even so, she made her reputation in old-fashioned plays that don't get revived much anymore, like Lawrence Housman's Victoria Regina, Anita Loos's Happy Birthday, and Jean Anouilh's Time Remembered. Although she did play Amanda in a revival of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, the revolution in theater that Williams helped bring about took place after she had gone into semi-retirement. As for Madelon Claudet, it's a creaky vehicle at best, based on a play by Edward Knoblock that MacArthur and an uncredited Ben Hecht helped whip into shape after it had been filmed under the title The Lullaby and previewed to a disastrous reception. Hayes had already gone on to work on Arrowsmith, and shooting the new material had to wait until she was through with that film. Even so, Hayes is not particularly convincing as a French farm girl who is left pregnant by a caddish American (Neil Hamilton) and becomes the mistress of a jewel thief posing as an Italian count (Lewis Stone). It's only later, when she goes to jail for ten years as the thief's accomplice, then turns to prostitution to earn the money to put her son (Robert Young), who thinks she's dead, through medical school, that Hayes demonstrates her skill at suffering and pathos.

*The others are Rita Moreno, Audrey Hepburn, and Whoopi Goldberg. Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli are sometimes included in the list, but Streisand's Tony and Minnelli's Grammy were honorary, not competitive, awards.