Faithless 1932 - Suffers from miscasting but very enjoyable

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IMDB rating: 6,8

Director: Harry Beaumont
Main Cast: Tallulah Bankhead, Robert Montgomery, Hugh Herbert

"Faithless was titled 'Tinfoil' during pre-production, which is perhaps a more apt description of this story about a calculating heiress who loses everything only to find her heart. Although never abandoning her husky mid-Atlantic speech pattern - Bankhead's desperate prostitute still says 'cahn't' - the grand dame's acting prowess stands her in good stead throughout and she remains believable to the very end. Robert Montgomery is his usual affable self, but comedian Hugh Herbert is surprisingly potent as Bankhead's nasty 'sugar daddy'. Faithless is pure soap opera, but as such it never fails to entertain.
Tallulah Bankhead made her name on the stage and came to Hollywood under contract to MGM. Faithless would be her last film until 1944's Lifeboat. Bankhead's particular style of acting was not effective on film, and it was probably because of the way she was cast. In Lifeboat, she's perfect - Hitchcock wanted 'the most oblique, incongruous person imaginable in such a situation'. Robert Montgomery plays one of depression's many unlucky - what jobs he gets, he loses because the companies close, and he's finally attacked on the job by employees who feel threatened. Through it all, he keeps his dignity and hope." - www.allmovie.com

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Dance fools, dance 1931 - Crawford and Gable sizzle!

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021778/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 5,9

Director: Harry Beaumont
Main Cast: Joan Crawford, Cliff Edwards, Lester Vail, William Bakewell, William Holden, Clark Gable, Natalie Moorehead

"This quick-moving and entertaining melodrama was MGM's answer to Little Caesar, The Public Enemy and Scarface, with a woman's angle added to make things a little different. As she did in many of her earlier films (both silent and sound), Crawford dances up a storm, proving herself as one of the best 'Jazz Babies' of the late 20's and early 30's. Star-to-be Clark Gable is billed way down in the credits, playing a brutish role that made him extremely unlikable, although his sexiness does show in his scenes with Crawford and the feisty Natalie Moorehead as his moll. In all of his future movies with the future 'Mommy Dearest', Gable softened his image and was more the lover rather than the brute man, even though he was still all man. Bakewell, who was a major player in the early 30's (usually cast as insensitive and selfish young men who cause their families a lot of heartache), was never really likable on screen, and in bit parts of the late 30's and 40's, this trait continued as well.
Well-written and excellently photographed, this is one of the films that assured Crawford stardom, making her a major threat to Norma Shearer. (Garbo would be in a category all her own.) There's a lot of pre-code innuendo, some great montages, and a memorable exchange between Natalie Moorehead and Gable involving a lit match."

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The Florodora girl 1930 - Davies shines in this nice period comedy

Marion Davies in The Florodora Girl (1930)

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020891/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
IMDB rating: 8,2

Director: Harry Beaumont
Main Cast: Marion Davies, Lawrence Gray, Ilka Chase, Vivien Oakland

"For nearly 20 years, no other actress in America was the recipient of so much effort to make her a big movie star than Marion Davies. As mistress of the powerful media mogul, William Randolph Hearst, Davies appeared in one lavish film production after another. Hearst's seemingly bottomless pockets spared no expense and Marion lived like a queen both on screen and off. (Their huge California mansion, now called Hearst Castle, crowned a coastal estate of unstinted extravagance, while the saltwater sequence for The Florodora girl was filmed in the waters in front of the enormous Santa Monica beach house Hearst built for her.)
Never one to put on airs, Davies won the hearts of her fans and the other Hollywood stars with her warm generosity and good spirits. On the screen Hearst preferred seeing her in heavy historical romances, but she much more enjoyed light comedy fare which better displayed her talents. Which is exactly what she does in The Florodora girl, getting to sing & dance a little, playing a member of the famed sextet, looking for love with the right boy but not willing to compromise her morals in the search. Davies had been a Ziegfeld Follies Girl before being carried off by Hearst; the film poses a few questions about love and success which must have given Marion something to ponder.
Lawrence Gray, an important MGM musical comedy star at the beginning of the Sound Era, does well in his role as the vivacious society boy who learns a few things about maturity while wooing Davies. He had partnered with Marion before, in Silent & Sound pictures, and they have a good on-screen chemistry.
MGM gave the film a nice feeling of the 1890's with its horseless carriages, puffed sleeve fashions and frequent songs. The early Technicolor with which the film closes is most pleasing to the eye."

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