#andy divine

[mythcreant]

Atmospheric horror classic, very loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe’s tale, The Black Cat – starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi as old friends who become bitter enemies when one decides to sacrifice the other’s travel companion in a Satanic ritual – descended into madness on May 7, 1934.

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Man Wanted

No, it’s not the story of my life! William Dieterle’s MAN WANTED (1932, Criterion Channel, TCM) is a rather mild pre-Code film in that it only deals with infidelity and divorce. The cheating is all on the part of leading lady Kay Francis’ husband (Kenneth Thomson), while the Mrs. remains pure…at least relatively. The most radical thing about the film is its non-judgmental treatment of a woman running a major magazine. But it was probably still too risqué for reissue after 1935, which is a pity as it’s a charming, sexy little romantic comedy.

In her first film for Warner Bros., Francis is a magazine editor married to wealthy lay about Thomson. When her latest female secretary (Elizabeth Patterson) quits in the middle of dictation, visiting salesman David Manners, there to sell her a rowing machine, offers to step in for the evening. Francis is so impressed she hires him and eventually makes him her right-hand person. But though she’s married and he’s engaged — to an uncharacteristically bratty Una Merkel — they start falling for each other.

Francis was one smart actor. She didn’t announce she was leaving her first studio, Paramount, until she had finished her contract there (her colleague Ruth Chatterton left six months after announcing her own move to Warner’s, and Paramount stuck her in so many clinkers it killed her box-office appeal). She came to Warner’s a minor star but films like this and the terrific ‘30s gowns she got to wear helped make her the studio’s top leading lady into the mid-‘30s. Her role doesn’t make any great demands on her talents, but she gets to use those great dark eyes effectively when she realizes her husband’s cheating. And her timing is perfect. Her dialogue scenes with Manners and Thomson are a lesson in how to keep the ball in the air when the script gets talky.

There’s lots of good work in this relatively short (63 minutes) film. Manners is much livelier than in most of his more serious films, Andy Divine and Merkel provide broader comic relief, and Claire Dodd is smart enough to play her role as the other woman with a very light hand. This was only Dieterle’s third English-language film, and he handles it all gracefully. His biggest asset along with the stars is cinematographer Gregg Toland. They create two wonderful tracking shots, one at the start to establish how busy Frances’ offices are and another later moving down from the hotel room where Francis and Manners are working to the salon where her husband and his mistress are dancing. There’s also a shot of Manners sitting in a window at night and smoking that’s so beautiful it may make you want to take up that filthy habit.

Is there a gay subtext anywhere? There is for me. Divine and Manners work for a sporting goods company. Their boss (Manners’ DRACULA co-star Edward Van Sloan) informs them that the head of “500 Magazine” wants someone to come over that night to demonstrate their new rowing machine. Thinking it’s a man, Divine says he looks forward to stripping down to his underwear for the job. When he finds out the boss is a woman, he suddenly loses interest. He also has a habit of calling Manners, his roommate (nudge-nudge-wink-wink), “dearie” and “darling.” Some of the subtext is also a matter of hindsight. Manners has since been revealed to have been gay, so there’s an extra laugh when he tries to hold off Merkel with, “Who am I to be engaged to a woman?” I know the feeling.