God's Gift to Women

Frank Fay was recruited from Broadway by Warner Brothers to be built up into one of their early talkie stars, starting with his emcee role on "Show of Shows" in 1929. Most people really hate the job he does there, but you have to understand that Fay is kidding the audience in that film and in every film he does from that point on for Warners. The problem is, the audience didn't understand this and just found Fay annoying. Two years later he was out of a job as his wife Barbara Stanwyck's star continued to rise.

I actually like most of Fay's other films because I can see what he is trying to do with the roles, although I think Warner Brothers did him wrong and set him up to fail by trying to make him out to be irresistible to women in several of his roles. In Matrimonial Bed this wasn't too distracting, but here it is just annoying. Surrounded by beautiful women - including Joan Blondell and Louise Brooks, Fay - as Toto, the Romeo of Paris - becomes enamored of Diane Churchill (Laura La Plante) after just a brief meeting and a single dance. Even more annoying, Diane falls for Toto, although she admits to her father she doesn't understand the attraction - that definitely gives her something in common with the audience.

There are many good comic bits and wise cracks in the film, but it just doesn't hold together well at all. The catfight towards the end is well known as the best thing about the film, with all of Toto's women showing up at once to nurse him back to health after they hear he is ill.

The sad thing is, you can tell Fay knows he is finished in films at this point. He looks thin and gaunt here compared to Matrimonial Bed made just a year earlier. The story is he began to drink heavily when he realized he wasn't going over with audiences, and his wife's success in Hollywood just made matters worse. It is rumored that "A Star is Born" was based on the Fay/Stanwyck marriage, and I wouldn't be surprised if that is true.

This one lacks any kind of coherence. Look at it as one long vaudeville act and you'll likely come away more satisfied.

During the 1920s, Frank Fay was the highest paid performer in vaudeville, the comedian from whom Jack Benny candidly admitted he lifted his on-stage style. By 1931 when "God's Gift to Women" was released, he had married Barbara Stanwyck and groomed her for stardom while his own career was rapidly declining. An arrogant drunk with a flair for alienating his fellow performers, Fay's downfall didn't get much sympathy though it purportedly inspired the movie, "A Star is Born." For more than a decade, he was the classic example of a "used-to-was" until the producers of the Broadway play, "Harvey," tapped him to play Elwood P. Dowd. It was among the most memorable stage performances I've ever seen, a classic of fey (sic) whimsy and superb comedy timing. Jimmy Stewart in the screen version, couldn't come close. Suddenly, a far less arrogant Frank Fay was enjoying the accolades that had eluded him since the late 1920s. Watch "God's Gift to Women," a stiff, stilted early pre-code romantic romp and you'll see both why Fay's career went downhill and conversely why he had the ideal vaguely befuddled style to play a man with a six foot tall rabbit as a pal.

"God's Gift to Women" is nowhere near a star turn for Louise Brooks. The movie belongs to Frank Fay, who was a popular Broadway star of light comedies at the time, and the first husband of Barbara Stanwyck. Casting the effeminate Fay as a Casanova was a stretch, but his delivery is quite funny in places. The plot line is pretty predictable stuff, but there's a sweet little twist in the final scenes.

Laura La Plante, a tall, rangy Missouri beauty, has the female lead. She successfully made the transfer from silents to talkies. La Plante is charming, and she is photographed to best advantage.

Tenth billing. This is what Hollywood did with Louise Brooks in the early 30s, even after she had made "Pandora's Box" and "Diary of a Lost Girl," the two German films which assured her immortality. But very few Americans had seen those movies at all in 1931, and those who had saw only heavily censored versions.

Very little has changed in Hollywood in the past nearly 80 years. Consider Adrien Brody, whose Oscar netted him Diet Coke commercials, and Halle Berry, whose Golden Boy landed her roles in screen gems such as "Gothika" and "Catwoman." Hollywood punished Louise Brooks for being an independent thinker. Yet she makes the most of her 4-5 minutes' screen time in "God's Gift to Women." As always, you simply can't take your eyes off her.

Plot? Who cares about the plot? Something about a guy with several attractive girlfriends, including the incendiary Louise Brooks and the magnetic Joan Blondell. We should all have this problem. ;>

The main action involves the classic situation of juggling three women in different bedrooms. We've all seen this a million times and always wished the juggling act would fail, the women would encounter each other, and a catfight would ensue. Guess what? This time it happens! It may not be a classic catfight, but the brawl between Louise, Joan and another attractive brunette is worth the price of admission.

This movie will appeal mainly to fans of Louise Brooks. Her part is relatively small and she appears sans her famous Dutch-bob hair helmet, thus revealing a rather high forehead. You will still be in love with her, guaranteed. The real irony here is that several other actresses appear with the hairstyle she made not only famous, but possibly immortal. The Louise Legion will also be interested in her voice acting. Her voice is fine, but the role gives her no real opportunity to display her ability. As we all know, things never really got better on that front, either.

So don't expect much out of this, just kick back and enjoy one of the great beauties of film history, the incredible Louise Brooks.

In this painfully drawn out bedroom farce, set in Paris, Frank Fay is miscast as the titular love object, a descendant of Don Juan, who is smitten with a young American in Paris (Laura LaPlante) but in order to win her must extricate himself from the tangled web of his long- term intrigues with a virtual harem of lovers (played by Joan Blondell, Margaret Livingston, a sadly underused Louise Brooks and others).

The set up is amusing and deftly staged by Michael Curtiz, but once the direction of the plot becomes clear it bogs down in long, boring and insultingly stupid gag sequences, one upon another, involving Fay's diagnosis with a potentially fatal illness; eventually the viewer can only long for this character's demise.

The fine lineup of female supporting players is wasted as are Charles Winninger as LaPlante's suspicious and protective father and Alan Mowbray as (what else?) the butler. Tyrrell Davis gets to wrap the whole thing up with a decadent chuckle, foreshadowing his even more unusual closing moment in "Our Betters" two years later.

Frank Fay's trademark casual banter works against him here because it only adds to the already sluggish pace.