The women 1939 - It's all about men!

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IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: George Cukor
Main Cast: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Mary Boland, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine

"Based on the Clare Booth Luce play of the same name, this MGM comedy is famous for its all-female cast and deft direction by George Cukor. The themes explored in Clare Boothe Luce's play were so modern in 1939 that audiences found the film audaciously relevant, yet so timeless and universal that The Women could be successfully revived on Broadway in 2001, starring Jennifer Tilly, Kristen Johnston, and Cynthia Nixon. The film crackles with a sharp-toothed sarcasm even on a modern viewing. George Cukor's deft pacing and evident facility with actors (or, we should say, actresses) make The Women both a scathing and hilarious indictment of the institution of marriage. No less important, in fact probably more so, is the film's portrayal of the women's mercenary competitiveness. The ruthlessly casual deceptions they practice on each other are authenticated by the playwright's gender, as well as that of her adapters (Anita Loos and Jane Murfin). The Women recasts the discourse of high society as an exercise in the Darwinism of the animal kingdom, starting with an opening credits sequence that assigns an animal role to each character, from sly fox to gentle lamb. The opening shot says it all, as two dogs aggressively (and metaphorically) yap at each other as their pampered owners restrain them, all against a cacophony of background gossip. The women's ironic commentary on the regimen of exercise and beautification they must maintain to keep their men takes over from here, as does the rapid repartees and the almost incidental backstabbing. Casting the film entirely with women works beautifully, never straining the logic or staging, and the handful of leads each share the credit with Luce and Cukor for a fully realized farce on the warfare of feminine politics and societal advantage.
Snappy, witty dialogue, much of it courtesy of veteran screenwriter Anita Loos, helps send this film's humor over the top. So do the characterizations - Crawford is as venomous as they come, and this was Russell's first chance to show what she could do as a comedienne. And don't discount Shearer - her portrayal of good-girl Mary is never overpowered by these two far-flashier roles. Do keep an eye on the supporting players, though, especially Mary Boland as the Countess DeLage. The role was based on a cafe society dame of that era, the Countess DiFrasso, who had a wild affair with Gary Cooper; that romance is satirized here." - www.allmovie.com

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A free soul 1931 - Lionel Barrymore gives an Oscar winning acting lesson

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021885/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 6,7

Director: Clarence Brown
Main Cast: Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, Lionel Barrymore, James Gleason, Clark Gable

"In its day, A Free Soul was powerful stuff, and if the passing of time has diluted its impact, it still carries enough of a punch to make it worth catching today. An example of the kind of adult issues that pre-Code films often explored, Soul is daring for its portrayal of a single woman embroiled in what is clearly a sexual affair with a man; unfortunately, it dresses up this interesting situation in a melodramatic screenplay that never seems to know when to stop. This keeps Soul from being great drama - but it doesn't keep it from being quite entertaining. Clarence Brown provides highly appropriate direction; he embraces (and believes in) the melodrama without letting it get too far out of hand. Brown is blessed with a stellar cast, especially Norma Shearer. The actress is in excellent form and gives a very well modulated performance that allows her to pull out all the stops when appropriate, but also to underplay notably in several key moments. Lionel Barrymore's Oscar-winning performance is slightly more uneven - it's a bit mannered early on and always seems to be channeling Frank Morgan - but it's sensational in the climactic sequences, when it really matters. Clark Gable is a marvelous heel, and Leslie Howard appropriately noble and self-sacrificing. Despite its not inconsiderable flaws, A Free Soul makes for entertaining viewing." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/a-free-soul-v18556/

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Let us be gay 1930 - Old fashioned but interesting little comedy with Shearer and Dressler

Norma Shearer in Let Us Be Gay (1930)

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021060/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 6,6

Director: Robert Z. Leonard
Main Cast: Norma Shearer, Marie Dressler, Rod La Roque, Hedda Hopper, Raymond Hackett, Sally Eilers

"Let us be gay is an interesting little domestic comedy which features some tart dialogue (courtesy of celebrated screenwriter Frances Marion) & good performances. While perhaps a bit mawkish at times, this can probably be blamed on the difficulties with early sound technology which tended to limit action & movement.
Norma Shearer can be credited with appearing in this minor film, rather than using her undoubted clout as Irving Thalberg's spouse to insist upon only A-grade pictures. She is especially effective in her first few scenes, where dowdy flat makeup makes her almost unrecognizable. Her extreme transmogrification from goose to swan could only happen in Hollywood, but it's scarcely profitable to spend much time worrying about that.
Rod LaRocque doesn't come off too well as Shearer's adulterous husband. Quite popular during Silent days, the talkies were not especially kind to him and his career would suffer. Here his role is not in the least sympathetic and one has to wonder what masochistic impulse moves women to desire the cad so much.
Magnificent Marie Dressler is on hand as an eccentric Long Island dowager. As a great friend of Frances Marion, one can easily imagine that the part was written expressly for her. Full of cranks & crotchets, she is very humorous. However, the tremendous warmth & essential goodness which would very shortly make her Hollywood's biggest star are largely missing.
Among the supporting cast, Hedda Hopper scores as a slinky society serpent, as does Wilfred Noy playing a comic butler. Movie mavens will spot little Dickie Moore as Shearer's young son & elderly Mary Gordon as her housekeeper, both uncredited."

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The divorcee 1930 - Shearer is excellent in her Oscar-winning performance

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020827/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 6,9

Director: Robert Z. Leonard
Main Cast: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Chester Morris, Conrad Nagel, Mary Doran

"Norma Shearer earned an Academy Award for playing the not so gay divorcée in this pre-Code offering based, loosely, on Ex-Wife, a 1929 Ursula Parrott novel. Shearer is alternately delightfully wry and silly but her leading men, with the exception perhaps of a very young Robert Montgomery, make for less than exiting company, especially the charisma-deficient Conrad Nagel, who seems to have popped up in every other Hollywood drama of 1930." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-divorc%C3%A9e-v14078/

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Romeo and Juliet 1936 - Stars who could overcome their ages

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028203/?ref_=nv_sr_4
IMDB rating: 6,8

Director: George Cukor
Main Cast: Leslie Howard, Norma Shearer, John Barrymore, Edna May Oliver, Basil Rathbone, C. Aubrey Smith

"William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the classic story of two doomed lovers from rival clans, was a favorite subject of filmmakers throughout the 20th century, with more than a dozen different feature versions. One of the best was MGM's big-budget, glossy production of 1936, overseen by George Cukor, one of Hollywood's most respected directors. It was a pet project of producer Irving Thalberg, who cast his wife, Norma Shearer, as Juliet. Shearer, then 32, was too old for the part, as was 43-year-old Leslie Howard as Romeo (just two years later, he would play a crusty middle-aged professor in Pygmalion). Fredric March, Robert Donat, and Robert Montgomery reportedly all turned down the starring role before it was offered to Howard. But Howard and Shearer used mesmerizing acting to try to overcome the age problem, and Shearer was nominated for an Oscar, as was Basil Rathbone as Tybalt. John Barrymore also steals scenes with a riveting performance as Mercutio. Romeo and Juliet was also nominated for an Oscar as Best Picture, losing to The Great Ziegfeld." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/romeo-and-juliet-v42026/

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The Barretts of Wimpole Street 1934 - An appealing costume drama of Hollywood's golden age

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024865/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB ratings: 7,1

Director: Sidney Franklin
Main Cast: Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan

"No studio other than MGM would have dared to mount such a sumptuous production of Rudolph Besier's highly flowery and romanticized 1930 play about the clandestine courtship and eventual marriage of poets Elizabeth Barrett (Norma Shearer) and Robert Browning (Fredric March). And only MGM employed a producer with enough taste, patience and eye for details like Irving Thalberg, who quite fortuitously substituted his exquisite wife, Shearer, for the studio's original choice to play Elizabeth, the highly unsuitable Marion Davies. The result is a surprisingly entertaining and quite cinematic version of a rather static play, teeming with the kind of supporting performances that became the trademark of Thalberg's brief reign as Hollywood's wunderkind. Here is a very young Maureen O'Sullivan as Henrietta Browning, bubbling with teenaged enthusiasm in spite of her dreary existence; stage actress Marion Clayton as the fluttery, lisping cousin Bella; Ian Wolfe as Bella's foppish intended ('Come, come, dear pet!'); and the amazing Una O'Connor as Elizabeth's maid and confidante Wilson, all but levitating across a room in humble servility. And towering above them all is Charles Laughton's manipulative, nearly incestuous Edward Moulton-Barrett. Borrowed for the occasion from Paramount, Laughton is never allowed to indulge in his usual scenery-chewing and Barrett remains among the very best of his early Hollywood performances.
Director Sidney A. Franklin also helmed a remake of The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957); it was his last film." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-barretts-of-wimpole-street-v3998

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Smilin' through 1932 - A first class romance

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023488/
IMDB rating: 7,0

Director: Sidney Franklin
Main Cast: Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Leslie Howard

"Director Sidney Franklin originally adapted Jane Murfin and Jane Cowl's play Smilin' Through for the silver screen in a 1922 silent film starring Norma Talmadge and (the other) Harrison Ford. Remaking his own film, Franklin directed Norma Shearer in this 1932 talkie. With its message that true love redeems all and that nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of true love, Smilin' is clearly not interested in educating the intellect but in milking the emotions, and it does this beautifully. Yet at the same time, the films avoids being a shameless 'weepie'. Great credit for this is due Sidney Franklin's excellent direction. He clearly is committed to the material and allows the emotions to billow forth freely when appropriate; yet he also knows when to pull the reins in contrast and to create greater impact. Under lesser hands, the far-fetched story might seem ridiculous; in his, it feels just right, even as the viewer knows it's totally artificial. Sidney is also blessed with a superb cast, with a luminous Norma Shearer turning in one of her finest performances and a wonderful Fredric March demonstrating why he was one of the screen's finest actors in the 1930s and 1940s. Leslie Howard is hampered somewhat by some unconvincing 'age' make-up, but overall is quite effective.
Smilin' Through was once again adapted in a 1941 version directed by Frank Borzage and starring Jeanette MacDonald." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/smilin-through-v81978

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Private lives 1931 - Based upon one of Noel Coward's wittiest plays

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022279/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 7,0

Director: Sidney Franklin
Main Cast: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Reginald Denny, Una Merkel, Jean Hersholt

"A fairly faithful adaptation of the classic Noel Coward stage play (virtually all of the witticisms, notably 'Some women should be struck regularly - like gongs' are left intact, though we truly miss 'You're looking lovely in this damned moonlight').
In Amanda and Elyot, Coward created a pair of joined-at-the-erotic-hip twins; while there was nothing particularly bawdy about them on-stage, they were still rather too frank (and frankly amoral) to totally withstand the censor's shears on film. Fortunately, the filmmakers were sensitive and judicious in their cutting, with the result that most of the humor - and more importantly, the flavor - of the original remains. True, there's a little of the edge missing, but that has more to do with the actors than the adaptation. Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery are slightly too much the movie stars to play the parts with the total honesty that is called for, but their charm, timing, and bearing more than make up for this. Shearer, especially, understands the cadences of Coward's dialogue, but doesn't become enslaved to it. Reginald Denny has Victor's amusing insufferableness down pat, and Una Merkel is a winningly tiresome Sibyl.
The movie has been opened up from the stage play, sometimes to good effect, sometimes to little; however, the settings - especially the glorious Art Deco hotel - are noteworthy.
Private lives is played with such polish and expertise that we're willing to overlook the fact that only one of the four principals (Reginald Denny) is genuinely British." - http://www.allmovie.com/movie/private-lives-v39315

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