Tarnished Lady

Before "Tarnished Lady" was a movie, it was a Broadway play. And, when you watch the movie, it sure LOOKS and SOUNDS like a play. This is not a compliment. No, the film is too stagy, the acting often seemed too mannered and the whole production comes off as very dated. As far as Pre-Code flicks go, you could do a lot better than this one.

Nancy (Tallulah Bankhead) is a society girl who is in love with one man but feels pressured to marry another because he's rich and her family would be set. However, following her marriage, Nancy is unhappy....and eventually tells her husband she's had enough. Now considering they'd only been married a short time and she spend most of it brooding and staring into space, she comes off as a bit of a jerk. However, her old beau has already found another woman and she must learn what it's like to be poor. What will come of all this? Watch the film...or just save yourself some time and read the Wikipedia page!

While Ms. Bankhead was a legendary Broadway performer, this film helps explain why she wasn't bigger in films. Her performance is pretty flat and the writing sure didn't help. Plus, being the Depression, caring about this lady is very tough. Think about it....she's miserable because she's rich and has a loving husband and she leaves him...not exactly a recipe for a likable character plus she just looks and acts like a zombie in much of her performance. She's supposed to be depressed....but not catatonic! Overall, very skippable and a film I hope never to see again...mostly because I didn't care about any of these folks!

Tallulah Bankhead loves writer Alexander Kirkland, but she and her mother, Elizabeth Patterson, are living on the edge; not that it stops them from living in a nice apartment or buying the latest fashions. It means they are waiting until Miss Patterson's sister dies and leaves them a lot of money. At her mother's insistence, Miss Bankhead marries Clive Brook, one of those masterful, self-made stuffed shirts. She's miserable, of course, and when her aunt dies, leaving most of her money to charity, but a competence to Miss Patterson, Miss Bankhead leaves her husband, only to find that Kirkland has already found consolation in the arms of another. It also happens to be the day the market crashed, leaving Brook dependent on his friends. Miss Bankhead decides to make her own way, because lower-class people can do it, and therefore she should have no trouble, while Mr. Brook is also too angry to seek her out.

It's one of those weepers that raise my hackle, and it offers a well-deserved sneer at its upper-class subjects; only Osgood Perkins comes off as a good guy. Miss Bankhead is too large for the movie screen, and Mr. Brook matches her, mostly by his studied immobility. I have no doubt that director George Cukor looked on it as an opportunity, but his unmanageable star defeats him and writer Donald Ogden Stewart.

The transition to sound was not easy for many actors and actresses but this was no problem for Tallulah Bankhead. She's fabulous, natural and totally mesmerising in this, turning a rather ordinary story into something compelling.

It's the ordinariness of the story which makes this so believable. OK, the characters are multi-millionaires living in a society which none of us ever knew but through natural acting and intelligent writing we believe what we're seeing. So often in films from this era, when the story revolves around the upper echelons of society, the characters are so unattached and remote from our own lives we can't relate to them. This is different; the characters are likeable.

Even Clive Brook, Mr Stiff Upper Lip himself who often comes across as cold, wooden and lifeless is someone we care about. He loses all his wealth in the Wall Street Crash but like most normal people, he just gets on with life - he doesn't become a gangster which some movies suggest was the only available choice! In addition to a realistic story and script, another reason this is better than average is because of director George Cukor. He admitted that when he made this, he really hadn't learned yet how to make pictures but even so, you can tell there's talent here.

What really makes this special is Tallulah. Perhaps you need to know a little bit about her to be enamoured by her? She was a fascinating young woman - one of London's "Bright Young Things." A hard drinking, chain smoking, drug using, sex obsessed wild child of the 1920s who hosted parties stark naked. But she was also campaigner for human rights and equality. Her reasons for going to Hollywood simple: to get enough money to pay off her massive gambling debts, to become rich and to have sex with Gary Cooper. All her goals were easily achieved.

In this, her very first talkie, she's a lot more subdued than in her other films and that adds to its authenticity and believability. She is also less of the explicit sex grenade which she played in her other films but nevertheless although she doesn't act provocatively or even dress in anything remotely sexy, she's naturally seductive. Both she and Cukor were very disappointed with this film and that led to some poor reviews slating her as not being suited to the movies but that was in the context of some very high expectations. This is neither a classic or an outstanding picture but it's so much better than a lot of lazy, copy-and-paste reviews suggest. It's not her best film but it's still a beautifully made, emotional and grown up melodrama.

Unfortunately, the film-going public was seeing the great Tallulah on screen for the first time with this charming comedy-drama -- and didn't take to her. Had they known what was to come ("The Cheat," "My Sin," "The Devil and the Deep") they would have realized that this was as good as it was going to get. And it's not bad at all. More significantly, Tallulah herself is MUCH better in this than in either "The Cheat" or "Devil," in both of which she looks most ill-suited to her profession, with bad posture and overdone expression. Here, though, she has great charm and, at times, intensity that seems quite genuine. George Cukor was responsible for this one, and his talent for film direction is immediately evident in this, his first solo flight after three assignments as co-director. An added attraction for me (though many are allergic to him) is Clive Brook, best known as Dietrich's "Shanghai Express" co-star. As in that film, Brook is extremely reserved, but, to my eye, quite appealingly so. A very likable film.