Kay Francis plays Tina, one of a quartet of con artists led by William 'Stage' Boyd's disbarred physician Dr. Marcy. On the run after another failed confidence trick they hitch a train ride out of town and stumble upon a dying woman in a nearby compartment. The woman's last wish is to see her estranged son Phillip Beddows again after 14 years and, crucially she also happens to mention that he has recently inherited $10 million. Seeing an opportunity, Marcy uses the knowledge gleaned from her final utterances to set up Tina as the long lost mother in a plot to swindle the boy out of his fortune.
Right from the start we are in somewhat muddy waters as the general conceit of the plot already hinges on the audience suspending their disbelief on a number of key points. Most obviously, that the son, or indeed anyone in his close family or household would realise that the woman returning home bears no resemblance to the one that left. To make matters worse, once the impersonation begins there is no attempt to make 26 year old Kay Francis look remotely like a woman with a 17 year old child, (let alone the fact that the woman in question is played by 52 year old Julia Swayne Gordon). Surely a gang of experienced con artists would have at least thought to change up her make up? Admittedly a number of these details are addressed during the movie but Kay's youthful appearance stands out as an obvious flaw in their plan. However, as the film progresses, the number of implausible moments increases, and after a while it's best just to accept everything and move on.
Initially sceptical, and wanting out of the criminal life, Tina is convinced to do one last job and "Play the long lost Madonna". All she needs to do is "Be sweet, be poor and shed a few tears" and so she begins by sewing some holes into a dress and adding some motherly braids to her hair. Now looking at least 27 she reluctantly sets off to meet her long lost 'son' and find a way to get his newly acquired money. As luck would have it, and because this is the highest of melodrama, the son in question turns out to be blind (the result of a plane crash) and the only obstacle to her scam is the boy's family friend and lawyer, Grant Arnold. He has met the real Mrs Beddows but conveniently admits it was many years ago, his memory is vague and that all photos of her were destroyed when she left 14 years previously. Though highly implausible at outset, all the angles have now been covered and Tina is set to cash in. What could go wrong?
Reunited with her long lost son, Tina spends time in the gardens with him and they sing songs (badly) by the piano and he is so happy that he decides to give her a cheque for $50,000. Phillip's boyish enthusiasm for life despite his disability starts to thaw Tina's icy heart and before long a crisis of conscience emerges. Finally, Grant admits that Phillip is actually dying and, in true melodramatic form, that "any shock, no matter how slight might finish him", and so Tina's mind is made up - she will forego the money and stay with Phillip.
In the midst of this tragic situation returns Dr. Marcy posing as a physician and eager to get the fortune. He threatens to expose Tina if she doesn't get the money by the next morning. However, Phillip takes a turn for the worse and dies that night. Marcy returns and is outraged that Tina has let him down. Luckily Grant has been researching Marcy's crooked past and has called the police. Tina, tells him tearfully, "When I came here I believed in your code. I believed that life was a racket. It was a case of get mine first cause the world owed me what i could grab...I was to play on the feelings of a boy, a lonely boy aching for the love of a mother...that boy believed in me. For the first time in my life I learned the joy of giving, not taking".
Dr. Marcy escapes and later, Tina readies herself to leave. Out of nowhere, Grant asks if she would stay for him. Replying "Sometimes the blind can see so much clearly than we can", Tina decides to stay and start a new life with Grant.
Now, in the above summary, the plot seems to be as old as the hills, which it is. It has many classic elements of melodrama; a criminal with a conscience healed by love, a rediscovered family relationship (sort of), the constant threat of exposure by outside forces, tragic and sudden illness and death, inexplicable romance between characters to give a happy ending and many more. All of these are standard tropes seen in films right back to the earliest Biograph reels and the dramatic stage before that. Silent movies, for the entirety of their existence loved this type of high drama as it leant itself easily to its visual and emotional style to the point of it unfortunately becoming a cliché, both then and now. This love for torrid theatrical melodrama continued unabated with the coming of sound, and early talkies are littered with a seemingly endless supply of drawing room dramas, essentially filmed plays. Apart from being a way to get hit Broadway plays a showing in the provinces, these were easy to film, used limited sets, showed off the new technology of sound and provided a healthy dose of drama and romance for audiences.
However, the problem is that for a motion picture, a filmed stage play is not too interesting and not every director had the 'Lubitsch touch' to make such things sparkle with life. As a result a lot of early sound pictures, though often of historical and cultural interest are in fact dull as dishwater and awash with semi remembered secondary players getting to grips with talking pictures with varying levels of success. As a result, for a melodrama to stand out from the crowd and shine, a number of elements need to be in place.
Firstly it needs a plot that is bordering on the ridiculous, with situations and coincidences that are both obvious yet outrageous. The melodrama also needs lead actors that can pull off the material, with the ability to make audiences invest fully in the seriousness of the nonsense going on around them, and if possible wring every droplet of emotion out of the tortured words and scenes. Additionally, supporting actors need to be stoic and sincere, a calm inlet in the middle of a storm. If possible there needs to be at least one cast member who doesn't get any of the above memos and just freestyles a memorable and excessive performance. Add a director with just a smidgen of flair and you possibly have yourself a great example of high melodrama.
It's a difficult balance, especially for modern audiences, as the worst thing a classic movie can have is an audience laughing at it when it means to be serious. Yet at the other end of the spectrum, there is a fine line to be maintained between high melodrama and high camp. Those are two different things, but often audience hold a movie up as a 'camp classic' when it is not intended that way. We can always laugh with a movie, but laughing at it is unkind and unnecessary. The False Madonna is indeed silly, but it's never funny and contains a sincerity of its convictions at its heart that makes it something bigger than the sum of its parts.
Going back to my essential requirements, The False Madonna scores big with its plot. As if the 'criminal pretends to be the lost mother of a dying blind boy for his money' plot wasn't silly enough, the layers of ridiculousness pile up when the lead is a clearly too young for the part Kay Francis in all her finery. As discussed earlier, this essentially exposes the preposterousness of the story as absolutely no effort is made to make her look even a few years older. Strangely, her 17 year old 'son' is played by John Breedon, an actor a full year older than Kay Francis! Luckily he somewhat looks the part, but is clearly nowhere near his teenage years. These unusual casting decisions actually make the worn out plot that bit more interesting and the quick transitions from criminal enterprise to heart warming love with the addition of sudden tragic death become somewhat more memorable as a result.
However, the real cornerstone of the the whole movie is Kay Francis in a truly star making performance. Here, Kay was at the tail end of her contract with Paramount and on the cusp of her breakthrough move to Warner Bros. It was her first film as the top billed star and showed that she easily had the ability and aura to headline a movie. From her first scenes in the railroad car sitting in thoughtful silence while her criminal cohorts complain about their latest failed grift, we are drawn to her as a conflicted character. The fact that she looks so out of place with a cast of grotesques just highlights her plight, and shows how far she has been pushed to end up so numb to her lifestyle immediately invests the viewer in her dilemma. Kay Francis proves to be an incredibly subtle actress at this stage in her career; she never completely commands or dominates the screen but her furrowed brow and perpetually worried look draws the audience's attention and sympathy. It builds towards her closing speech - a beautifully orchestrated exercise in restrained hysteria that belongs in any Kay Francis highlight reel. It's the sort of lip trembling performance that she perfected at Warner Bros, but in The False Madonna it seems she already has a real understanding of her screen persona and its potential for pathos and tragedy.
William 'Stage' Boyd gives a suitably snarling performance as the amoral Dr. Marcy. His single minded pursuit of wealth by deception contrasts ably with Kay Francis' conflicted mindset. Although off screen scandal derailed the early promise of Boyd's career in talking pictures, he is supremely believable in the part. There's a great moment when he learns that he's not going to get hold of the boy's fortune and he just calmly asks to leave, mentally moving onto his next victim without conscience. Perhaps he could have been used as a more theatrically evil villain but with everything else going on in the story it probably would have been a bit too much. Instead he is a villain in a far more realistic and satisfying way, an eternal grifter.
The rest of the cast are uniformly solid, highlighted by a smooth and understated Conway Tearle deftly weaving through the household drama between the false mother and her son without giving away his hand until the right moment. Other notable players on screen include Marjorie Gateson and Charles D. Brown as a cynical, eternally bickering couple in the quartet of conmen and frequent Hal Roach supporting actress May Wallace expertly lending her motherly face to the role of Phillip's nurse. As usual from a movie of the early sound era, the mix of long time silent bit-parters and recent theatre recruits makes for a rich supporting cast of believable faces.
However, one member of the cast that needs to be mentioned is that of John Breeden, who plays the tragic blind teen Phillip Bellows. He suffers from the same problem as Kay Francis does in playing his supposed mother in that he is plainly too old for the role. Despite his youthful face and costuming he just isn't particularly good in the part, mainly due to the strange acting choices he makes. Age is always a weird thing in classic movies, where 20 year old men wear tweed and smoke pipes and teenagers look like they are in their 30s, and this is no different. Breeden acts with a breathless enthusiasm of a child and an unnerving intensity that makes him borderline creepy. Whatever news he is given, be it his lost mother's poverty or his own fragile health it is all received with the same toothy grin and unwavering puppy dog positivity. Unfortunately the script does him no favours either with dialogue such as "It's lots of fun to be able to give things!". In the end, Breeden being so hyperactively happy is one of the main factors that pushes the movie into the strata of High Melodrama, as his performance is so ridiculous and off tone, like a boy having the best day of his life as the plane he is on is crashing to its destruction. Just a very, very odd performance.
There's not a lot to be said about the direction by Stuart Walker, it's workmanlike and keeps the pace going nicely. Walker only had a brief career as a director before switching to being a producer, but his body of work is solid, with Werewolf of London perhaps being his best known film. Here it could be said that he does an excellent job making the most of such a preposterous script, but some of the performances could have done with more work from him, particularly in toning down John Breeden and perhaps ramping up an often overshadowed Conway Tearle. However, his handling of Phillip's death scene, left mostly in silence and with a static camera fixed on a bedroom doorway, the opening and closing of which cueing the audience in to the health of the ailing boy is sensitive and beautifully staged and probably the highlight of the whole film.
Whether The False Madonna can be considered a good film is entirely reliant on the viewer's personal tastes regarding dramatic styles. It's old fashioned even for 1931, the plot is ridiculous, the key casting is ridiculous and some of the acting choices are ridiculous. For some this would be enough to consign it to the bottom tier of early sound features, but for me the disparate and (have I mentioned?) ridiculous elements somehow come together to produce a hugely entertaining piece of pure unadulterated escapist fun. Holding together this patchwork of preposterousness is an emergent Kay Francis, finding solid feet as a headlining star and previewing a blueprint for the kind of high drama she would go on to be queen of at Warner Bros throughout most of the 1930s. It's also the sort of movie that is meant to be enjoyed when you need to forget all your everyday worries, just as it was meant to be back in 1931. Essentially it's an unmemorable, fairly average movie, but if you decide to buy into its sincerity and histrionics, there's no better way to spend your time than with Kay Francis and some High Melodrama.
Grand Central Murder (1942) – Memory really plays tricks with the passing of time. I saw this film on television about 15 years ago and loved it, especially liking Van Heflin’s sardonic, shambling plastic coat wearing detective. It seemed really sharply acted with an arch script full of witty one liners and a feisty dynamic between Heflin and his on screen wife Virginia Grey. Fast forward 15 years and I dusted off my old VHS copy and…well, like I said, memory plays tricks. It’s actually a pretty decent movie, though a bit too talky in parts (I kind of lost track of which character was which, never mind their motives). However, the one thing that really stands out is the performance of Van Heflin himself, which wasn’t quite as brilliant as I remembered but nonetheless earmarks him as an actor with a considerable screen presence. I first became aware of Heflin from watching a few of his early appearances (The Feminine Touch, Johnny Eager and Presenting Lily Mars to be precise) and I’ve always preferred him in this era. He’s really at ease with any genre but his weary, deadpan delivery in comedy really makes me laugh. Of course, he would later find a lot more success in serious drama, be they westerns or noirs but I think it was a missed opportunity to not try him in more comedic roles. Probably the latest one I’ve seen is B.F.’s Daughter, in which he slips very easily into the traditional romantic comedy style. As for Grand Central Murder, it’s not the B-grade Thin Man I remembered but it did give me time to consider the talents of its star.
Annie Oakley (1935) - I hate to sound like a broken record, but I also much prefer the early work of Barbara Stanwyck, just like I seem to prefer the early work of pretty much everyone when I think about it. She is feisty yet world weary, glamorous yet ordinary and all in a way that fits in perfectly with the ‘working girl trying to make a living’ ethos of Depression era film. By the time the late 30s rolled along, her performances if anything improved, but she became an altogether more confident and assured (and glamorous) film star. In the character of Annie Oakley, you can see elements of both these screen personas as she transforms from the ordinary girl with a talent for shooting to the well travelled superstar brimming with confidence. Despite the obvious lack of historical accuracy, it’s a very entertaining film and Stanwyck gives a memorable performance that almost succeeds in standing out from the spectacular trappings of the Buffalo Bill Wild West show around her. Luckily the movie is directed under the assured and watchful eye of George Stevens, who never lets the need for spectacle get in the way of the story. Despite all of this, what really made the film interesting for me was the presence of a number of the Hal Roach stock company in (very) small parts, I’d imagine due to the presence of Stevens, himself a Roach alumni. It must be strange to be a featured player in Laurel and Hardy films, creating characters that make millions laugh one day, only to find yourself playing uncredited bit parts the next. Both Charlie Hall and Walter Long appear in Annie Oakley fleetingly and are both effective in their roles (a drunk and an Indian hater respectively). It’s a subject I’m going to look at in more detail in a future blog but it’s just so odd that the likes of Charlie Hall, Walter Long, Mae Busch and James Finlayson didn’t thrive in mainstream features on the strength of their Roach performances (though to be fair, both Edgar Kennedy and Billy Gilbert did). In the end though, I’d like to think that they had the last laugh. Mae Busch may have been seen by mainstream Hollywood as a faded silent star past her best, but today her name and image is far better remembered that the majority of her contemporaries. I know that most actors are just happy to be working but it seems that with the benefit of hindsight, certain character actors like Hall and Long were definitely not used to their full potential.
Old Time Radio Highlights – I’ve been listening to a lot of Old Time Radio lately, in fact it has become a relaxing daily ritual. I listen to mostly comedy and a bit of drama and have sampled episodes of most of the well known shows. Rather than point to one particular show or episode this time I‘d like to recommend the joys of listening to Old Time Radio in general. I guess it’s difficult to imagine the hold that radio had on the public from the 1930s through to the mid 1950s when television finally became the norm but in listening to a run of shows, be they comedy, drama or serial you can really feel how the people on the radio managed to reach out and talk directly to the listening audience. In the few years I’ve been listening I have learned to call characters like Lum and Abner, Amos and Andy and many others my friends. I feel reassured by the voices of announcers like Don Wilson and Harry Von Zell and feel a comfortable glow each time I hear the theme music to my favourite shows. Of course, I’m taking a veritable crash course, listening to years worth of shows in a matter of weeks and months. I can only wonder what the cumulative effect of turning on the radio and listening to Jack Benny or Eddie Cantor each week over the course of 20 years or more.
It’s strange, but I often catch myself humming a long forgotten advertising jingle (Rinso is always a favourite) or when (for example) feeling ill, immediately think of a product that (I'd assume) no longer exists (e.g. Sal Hepatica – For the Smile of Health!). I genuinely do wonder how Lum and Abner are going to get out of their latest scrape and feel resentment at the way Squire Skimp treats them, like a follower of any daytime soap. What really makes me marvel is when I laugh at a topical joke from the 1940s and realise that it made me laugh more than a 2012 topical joke despite only really getting half the reference (Oh, that Mayor La Guardia and his baby kissing antics!). It underlines that I have spent a lot of time in the company of Eddie Cantor, Fred Allen, Jack Benny and the like and in a strange way they have become part of my family too. And don't get me started on catchphrases...
Of course, the great thing about Old Time Radio is that it co-exists in the same world as the Golden Age of Hollywood and that your favourite actor is a mere guest starring role away from heart wrenching drama or self parodying comedy. Some movie stars seem to do more radio than others but pretty much everyone makes an appearance somewhere. What is more surprising is that the vast majority of the movie stars are adept at radio acting, a separate skill in itself and even more surprisingly, that they had the time! There are quite a few actors that I had overlooked in movies that have really impressed me with their abilities on radio. Herbert Marshall, for example is fantastic in drama and comedy and I really need to see some of his films to see if he's as good on screen.
I’d strongly encourage anyone with a love of classic Hollywood to pick up one of the inexpensive collections of OTR shows available on MP3. For me it enabled me to immerse myself deeper into the waters of Hollywood, and to get a fuller understanding of the fashions, gossip and news items of the day. Of course it helps that the shows themselves are hugely entertaining in their own right, with personalities and performances to treasure. Whether it’s Lux Radio Theater, Command Performance, The Jack Benny Program or Amos and Andy, it’s a fascinating window into a vanished era. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to smoke a Lucky, eat some Jell-O (in five delicious flavours) and help the war effort by buying some extra War Bonds…
Getting back to Dorothy Lee, she like many of her contemporary early sound stars faded somewhat as the 30s marched on and her vivacious, permanently peppy brand of song, dance, comedy and romance was lost to the world. For me, she is every bit as big a star as those who came after her. Watch any of her routines with Wheeler and Woolsey and you will see a brand of entertainment that you just want to wrap your arms around and hug! Cute as a button and with bags of talent, Dorothy Lee was a character that could only shine in the pre code era of exuberance and fun.
Movie highlights of the last few months –
Passion Flower (1930) – Well, not exactly a highlight but interesting nonetheless. This fairly creaky melodrama of infidelity has the usual story of a happily married man (Charles Bickford), lured from the arms of his loving wife (Kay Johnson) by a cruel temptress (Kay Francis). I was quite looking forward to this one but the presentation was so flat and lifeless, as director William de Mille frames everything with a static matter of fact view that gets virtually nothing out of its talented cast. The movie was a MGM production, and all it shows is that in many respects in 1930 they were lagging somewhat behind their competitors First National / Warners and Paramount in terms of making exciting and relevant dramatic pictures. Even Kay Francis, still in her home wrecker phase, doesn’t get the chance to enjoy the freedom of the pre code spirit. In comparison to the similar role from First National's A Notorious Affair earlier in the year, Miss Francis is a very restrained seductress. Another problem is that the leading man Charles Bickford just isn’t suited to the role. He’s too gruff to be a sympathetic leading man, and better suited to a more action-orientated scenario. Kay Johnson is fine but really doesn’t leave much of an impression. If nothing else, the film shows how much of a star Kay Francis was this early in her career. She looks striking (she’s immaculately dressed as usual) and though she doesn’t exactly steal her scenes (the direction is so sluggish that just making it through to the next scene is a victory for cast and viewer) but she’s plainly got more screen presence and charisma than any of the other main players. Even the usually excellent Lewis Stone is reduced to mere wallpaper, and the presence of Zasu Pitts as a morbidly depressed landlady isn’t as funny as it could be. Passion Flower is definitely worth seeing, but really only as a comparison to other more exciting films being made as the time, and for confirmation that in 1930, Kay Francis was one to watch.
East Side of Heaven (1939) – Lately, I’ve begun to better understand what a huge ‘king of all media’ figure Bing Crosby was in the 30’s and beyond. I think these days, his influence on modern society (and especially music) is largely overlooked. Indeed, Bing Crosby the movie star is almost taken for granted – Christmas musicals, Road pictures, singing priests and little else. There certainly seems to be more to his acting career than that, but a lot like Elvis Presley in the 60s he was also guilty of churning out films to meet the demand of his public. Recently I was listening to a Lux Radio Theater from 1937 where Crosby is announced for the following week to rapturous applause and female squeals (the only other person I’ve heard get a reaction when announced was Jean Harlow, possibly due to the rarity value of her appearing on the air). You just don’t associate Bing Crosby with teenage screams, but in the pre Sinatra age his singing must have hit the spot. Anyway, this particular Crosby movie of the month features none other that Joan Blondell and is actually rather good. Crosby plays a singing (obviously) taxi driver who finds himself with a baby to look after and a whole lot of trouble (you can basically fill in the gaps of the plot yourself – it involved lots of baby hiding, a confused girlfriend and a kidnapping). The big surprise is how good Crosby and Blondell work as a team in their one and only film together (incidentally, in the aforementioned Lux episode - 'She Loves Me Not' broadcast November 8th 1937 fact fans - , Joan Blondell was also Crosby’s co star and they share the same chemistry on radio). In fact, it’s almost like old times for Joan, who by 1939 was winding down as a featured star. Of course, with Bing being the main draw, she was never to have the chance of a great screen partnership (luckily Dick Powell was still around to supply that) but there is definitely a rapport between the two stars, though possibly five years too late…
My Life with Caroline (1941) – Ronald Colman gets to show his exquisite comic timing once again in this unjustly neglected farce. Colman plays a long suffering husband who, to keep his marriage intact lets his flighty wife (Anna Lee) think she is having an affair. In fact, Colman is actually pulling the strings by manipulating his wife and her new beau (Reginald Gardiner) in order to wreck the affair and send her running back to him. As is usual with these sorts of films, the plot is somewhat more complicated than my brief description would allow. Interestingly, it’s mainly told by flashback, with Colman looking straight into the camera and talking to the viewer whilst recounting the story. This gives an odd sense of whimsy to a tale that played wrong could look to be in dubious taste. Although the film has an excellent cast (dependable types like Charles Winninger and Gilbert Roland), and a great director in Lewis Milestone (there’s some wonderful camera work, including a long tracking shot through a ski lodge at the start that’s very impressive) it’s Ronald Colman who holds it all together buy somehow making his character sympathetic and funny rather than manipulative and cold. I have no idea why it’s not a better known movie other than the fact that Ronald Colman is largely out of favour these days. I guess I’ll just have to sing his praises until more people notice!
Old Time Radio Highlight – This time I haven’t been listening to much Hollywood related radio but I need to mention the show that has really helped to get me through some tough times (and they made some films so it’s kind of relevant) – Lum and Abner. At first when I listened to the show I was confused by the characters and didn’t really find them very funny but as I made my way through each of the 15 minute episodes I slowly realized why the characters were so beloved. Like Amos n’ Andy they used the short episode time and daily frequency to build up a whole world of living characters engaging in their own soap like dramas. With Lum and Abner, because so many of the episodes still exist, I have started to really get the sense of them living in a real community (sadly the gripping comic soap opera of Amos n’ Andy is a little more difficult to follow due to the lack of existing shows) where the rural humour is gentle and subtle. In time, the characters have slowly come into focus, so that now I really do feel (like millions of listeners all those years ago) that they are my “ old friends down in Pine Ridge”. It’s difficult to fully explain their appeal, but listening to them has a soothing, calming effect on the soul, like slipping off into a dream. I find myself walking down the road or out shopping and quietly worrying if Lum is going to manage to convince the townsfolk that he’s innocent of whatever disaster has befallen him this week. I think that’s quite impressive for a radio show about a way of life half way across the world and separated by over 70 years. In Lum and Abner, Chester Lauck and Norris Goff created two truly universal and gentle characters that continue to make me very happy. I’m currently up to 1942 right now and although there is another decade to go, I will miss my two friends when I get to the end of the shows.
That’s all for now, as I draw a line under my past misfortune and get back to the business of watching movies. I have a huge backlog so I better get started. Thank you to anyone who has followed this blog up until now or even taken the time to occasionally read it, and I hope I can give you something worth reading in the months to come. Until next time... 
Off the top of my head, my personal Kay Francis highlights include:
