Bed of Roses

Incorrigible and beautiful Constance Bennett (as Lorry Evans) and her gin-loving pal Pert Kelton (as Minnie Brown) are released from prison on the same day. Dressed to the nines, the pair set out to seduce and rob wealthy men on the way to New Orleans. Ostensibly a prostitute, Ms. Bennett nonetheless avoids sex by getting her victims too drunk to perform. An old trick. En route, Bennett meets and falls literally and figuratively for tall, dark and handsome Joel McCrea (as Dan). After robbing Mr. McCrea, Bennett installs herself as well-kept mistress to wealthy publisher John Halliday (as Stephen "Steve" Paige). As the film progresses, Bennett and the cast realize what you knew all along, but Bennett's past and present could prevent her future happiness with McCrea…

****** Bed of Roses (6/29/33) Gregory La Cava ~ Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, Pert Kelton, John Halliday

Bed Of Roses is the fourth and final film that Joel McCrea and Constance Bennett did which certainly should qualify them as a screen team. Paired by RKO Pictures the two worked well together.

The fact that both Bennett and Pert Kelton are a pair of prostitutes recently released from prison qualifies this film as a before the Code classic. The picture is quite frank about what they do.

In fact they're back doing it as soon as they're released shows they haven't repented. But both are looking for some comfortable permanent arrangements. For Kelton she manages to rope a traveling salesman, but in that same dodge Bennett jumps off a Mississipi riverboat fleeing from the captain after she's caught rolling another of the salesman for his dough.

Where she's picked up by Joel McCrea who runs and lives on a cotton barge. Thanks, but no thanks says Bennett, she's after bigger game and lands it in the person of New Orleans millionaire John Halliday.

I won't say any more, you know how this will end. And remember this is before the Code went in place. The lack of the Code made motion pictures a lot more free with details, but the American movie-going public expected stories to go a certain way.

What might have been nice is a bit more of Pert Kelton, her scenes have some real bite to them, but Bennett and McCrea acquit themselves well here.

This is a superbly engrossing melodrama with a hard-hitting edge presented in an accessible, non-confrontational style.

Like a lot of early thirties pictures, the theme this deals with is the pitiful and frighteningly awful lack of opportunities young, poor women had back then. It's not as shocking as Loretta Young's SHE HAD TO SAY YES (actually an even better film) which left you with the jaw-dropping realisation of what times were really like but nevertheless it still destroys any false preconceptions that gold diggers or prostitutes did that out of choice.

In a challenging role, Constance makes her character difficult to like at the start. Her task is to try to get the get the audience on her side which she achieves effortlessly. She mainly played heiresses or glamorous romantic heroines so this was a bit of a departure for her but any worries that she'd not be able to convey a low-life, hard boiled amoral girl from the wrong side of the tracks were instantly dispelled. (She does a million times better at this than her sister did in the terrible ME AND MY GAL) I wonder if this character was a man would the audience be so easily swayed - but of course what made this person so unpleasant was specifically because she wasn't a man: she had had to survive in that brutal society in the only way she knew how.

Director Gregory la Cava never lets your attention slip for a minute, makes it lovely to look at and plays a lot with symbolism. It's interesting to compare how different Constance Bennett's character behaves depending on what sort of room she is in particularly in the prison cell or the ill-gotten opulent suite, her self-made prison cell.

Overall it's a fabulous insight into how life had to be lived in the early thirties. It's directed with energy and fun so although it's all serious stuff, it still feels funny. Constance Bennett is surprisingly brilliant, she gained her fame from her looks but this proves that she's wasn't just a pretty face. She carries this whole film herself so how good the rest of the cast are doesn't really matter - although you do get a little irritated by Pert Kelton's annoying Mae West impersonation.

Constance Bennett and pal Pat Kelton get out of prison and will do anything--ANYTHING--to get a man with cash. Bennett eventually falls in love with poor Joel McCrea--but will she be able to tell him about her past?

Nothing new story wise but some of the dialogue and situations are pretty frank for 1933. It's made quite clear that Bennett and Kelton have, and will, sleep with men for money. Also one woman is very obviously a kept woman. Very much a pre-Code film.

The dialogue is sharp, funny, fast and racy. All the acting is great--Bennett is just beautiful, McCrea is young, hunky and handsome and Kelton is hysterical doing a Mae West imitation.

Quick (67 minutes) and worth catching.

Snappy comedy drama. With all the biting dialogue and crusty dames, I kept thinking '30's Warner Bros. but it's RKO on a Warner's trip. Bennet and Kelton are a couple of hookers on probation looking for a way to get by. So guess what, Bennet meets sugar daddy Halliday who sets her up in comfort after initial misgivings (she probably applied her professional know-how). So it's now a bed of roses except that she can't get over cotton barge captain McCrea. Trouble is he's a straight shooter who might reject her if he finds out about her past. So what's she to do-- stay with sugar daddy or follow her heart and risk rejection. And will Kelton's presence help since she's a constant reminder.

All in all, it's a little gem, with sassy Kelton providing spark. Some of the lines are knee-slappers, like the guy who tells the girl he's a boll-weevil exterminator to which she replies, "I ain't done nothin' ". Mc Crea may get top male billing, but it's really Halliday getting the screentime. Note too how the screenplay finesses prostitution even though 1933 is still pre-Code. And that's along with cracks about Prohibition, which was about to end its 13-dry years. Anyway, thanks to the writers including underrated director La Cava, it's a nifty programmer of the sort old movie fans love to stumble across. I know I did.