Two New Films
Viewed by Henri Duvernois
Le Bataillon des sans-amour [Battalion of the Unloved]
(The Mayor of Hell)
I was greatly moved by this film. The dreadful existence of some delinquent children, I believe, can never be shown enough. And it is not blindly optimistic to declare most of them capable of reform. During my research for a novel, I discussed this subject with the man most qualified to do so, the head of instruction at the Petite Roquette [a Paris prison for boys 7-20]. He told me flat out:
“Eight out of ten, at least, if they are treated kindly, intelligently, gently, are capable of becoming splendid fellows. And I myself would not hesitate to have them associate with my own children. If you write a book on this subject, your surest inspiration will be pity.”
He told me this at a time when France did not yet have a juvenile court, and where judges, broken-hearted—more than once I saw tears in their eyes—were obliged to condemn a poor tubercular starveling of twelve, guilty only of vagrancy and not the slightest crime.
The effect of these films on the public is healthy. There are still too many martyred children—as recent news items show—but there are, above all, unrecognized, too many unfortunate children. Their sad stories do not always end in suicide, like the poor little Rozentweig child, victim of brutish imbeciles [a minor cause célèbre of 1933: Sonia Rozensweig, 13, a refugee Polish Jew, drowned herself after an encounter involving herself, a 7-year-old brother or cousin, and a local shopkeeper, which ended in the police station; leftwing and rightwing papers gave widely divergent accounts of the affair], or the baby slowly tortured by an appalling stepmother. Children are beaten. Children are, morally, abandoned. I was struck by these lines, during the courtroom scene of the film: “I’m sick of supporting him!” says one father, to which the boy replies, “When did you ever support me?”
The battalion of the unloved, then, is made up of young vagabonds left to the streets by the carelessness or poverty of their parents. A director may, through his careful reproduction of life, make a work of art at art’s finest: the sensitive transposition of truth. So it is here. The actors are between twelve and fifteen years old. Each, by his physical appearance, voice, costume, is a chapter of a novel. Here is the snitch, the traitor, who steals and pillages but can and will sell out his comrades. Here is the leader, quick to deal out chastisement, bolder and more energetic than the others, more dangerous too, in whose generous nature his good and bad instincts are at war. A kind word, a caress may save him. But one must divine his heart and pierce his tough shell to reach it. There is the hate-filled one, who would love with the same fervor if he were given the chance; the fat kid, greedy and lazy; the pickaninny who follows the gang because he’s hungry; the sickly boy who wants to have a little fun before he dies.
The whole gang is condemned to reform school. The latter is directed by one Thompson, whom the film’s authors have perhaps made too starkly a villain. There are (and, above all, there have been) a good many of these civil servants who, without being monsters of cruelty like Thompson, even while undeviatingly pursuing their duty—what they believe is their duty—have produced equally deplorable results.
But there must be a counterforce: Dorothy, the reform school’s nurse. She is not satisfied merely to take care of the boys when they are ill. She wants them to be better treated and better fed. Her smile and her blondeness perform the miracle. An inspector is named, an insouciant young man placed there by crooked politicians. For love of Dorothy, he no longer smiles and approves. He furloughs the savage director and takes his place. Surprise! The mess hall’s foul gruel is replaced by bacon and eggs and cream cakes. The boys are made responsible for organizing themselves; they name one judge, another chief of police, etc. There is laughter and song in what once was hell. But the director returns. By a rather too neat coincidence, Gargan, the inspector, is charged with murder. The other triumphs. Once again the school is a prison. A little TB case, confined to an icy cell, dies of cold. The boys revolt, a torch-bearing mob. Terrified, the director jumps off a roof and falls to his death. Gargan, found innocent, returns. Order is restored and Gargan will marry Dorothy.
The film is full of exquisite details. One, especially poignant, bowled me over. This was not the death of the little TB case, admirably handled though it was. It was the moment when Jimmy, the gang leader, while being upbraided, takes a sheet of paper and a pencil and, in a few strokes, makes a lovely sketch. If someone takes an interest in him, flatters him with a few compliments, he might become a great artist. If he is treated roughly, he will surely become a criminal… The agonizing question of vocation is raised here. And a detail like this honors and illuminates a film.
This film is marvelously interpreted by the boys, headed by Frankie Darrow as Jimmy, very well by Madge Evans and James Cagney as the nurse and the inspector, and with great sensitivity by Arthur Byron as the kindly judge.
La Porte des rêves [The Door of Dreams]
(The Keyhole)
The Keyhole tells the story of the beautiful Anne, wife of Maurice, her former partner in a dance act. Believing herself divorced, she has married a rich older man, Schuyler Brooks. But the divorce was not finalized. Maurice takes advantage of the situation, blackmailing his ex-wife by threatening to reveal the truth. He makes her meet with him, extorts large sums, tears her jewels from her.
Terrified, Anne asks her own sister-in-law for help. Maurice must be gotten out of New York. He is a foreigner; they will arrange that his return visa be refused. Anne claims she is going to Cuba. Maurice will follow her there and she will be rid of him.
Brooks thinks she is traveling because she is weary of her luxurious but dull conjugal existence and seeks an adventure. He hires a handsome private detective, Davis, to seduce her and become her lover. When he has done so, he is to telephone the husband, who will fly to Cuba and take the couple in flagrante. But Anne falls truly in love with the detective, and he falls in love with her. He saves her from an ambush arranged by Maurice. When Brooks, alerted by his sister, arrives to take Anne back, the ex-husband flees, falls off a balcony, and is killed. Brooks opens the door. Anne is in Davis’s arms, passionately kissing him. The jealous husband has gotten what he paid for…
Of course, any plot summary is derisive for a film of this type, whose worth lies in its dramatic sweep and the talent of its interpreters. The action is here only to serve the actors and give a pretext for ingenious images, marvelously coordinated. There is no question of psychology. In any event, to disarm criticism, the actors in The Keyhole make the heroine a former dancer, accustomed to a certain liberty and who may thus, over the course of a cruise, swayed by sweet music, the sea, and the starry sky, let herself be beguiled by a mere detective, private though he be.
But what delighted me and must be set apart is, in the role of Dot, a little blonde tart, the charming Glenda Farrell. We have already seen her in certain supporting roles where she struck us by her intelligence and acuteness of observation. Glenda Farrell belongs to that small number of actresses who produce true literary creations, through the amused tenderness with which they realize a character who would be, with another, insignificant and purposeless. She was from head to toe the cruise ship charmer who shares her takings with the barman, chooses lonely and naïve men, and drops them when she sees that the game is not worth the candle. More and more, talking pictures will use and showcase talents of this sort. And it is among them that directors must seek future stars, rather than among the immobile beauties, vamps or victims, inherited from the late silent cinema.
Such a reproach is not addressed to Kay Francis, who has magnetism and authority and, above all, that invaluable advantage for a cinema artist: a ravishing and sensitive shape to the mouth. I do not have the space here to develop this argument, but the mouth is of capital importance in film—more so even than the eyes—and not for the final kiss alone. Smile, emotion, irony, fear, radiant youth and sudden aging, it expresses everything. Take, for example, in France, the mouth of Gaby Morlay and, in America, that of Irene Dunne. If so many actresses disappoint us with their monotony, it is above all because nature has refused them this power of expression.
Henry Kolker has naturalness and ease. He establishes the character of a deceived husband and saves it from convention. Finally, the rhythm of the film is excellent and its technique fully mastered, meaning that it does not intrude and serves the story without overwhelming it.
Translated by Phoebe Green
First published in Pour Vous magazine
NUMERO. 259
2 NOV. 1933