Behind the Make-Up

Sometimes you run across an old movie that really makes you stand up and take notice that there were some truly GREAT movies made in the 1930's. This is NOT one of those times.

In my unhealthy quest to see every available Fay Wray film (what a dish!), I picked this one up somewhere and was really disappointed in it. I won't go into the plot as others have explained that, but suffice to say William Powell steals the show as an Italian vaudeville performer. I know he is supposed to be the bad guy, but being William Powell, you know, the Thin Man, it's hard not to like the guy. The supposed good guy is so bland as to be unwatchable and the direction in this film is pretty bad. I'll give some leeway as this was done in 1930 and sound was still pretty new. But overall, this film just plods along with very little propelling it forward.

More to the point, Fay Wray looks horrible in the beginning of the film with a hair style that looks straight out of a 1990's revival of the Broadway show "Hair". She gets it together after hooking up with William Powell, though, and looks her delicious self the rest of the film. However, she has very few close ups and one of those is ruined by a stray shadow across her face. Sigh.....

Overall, I can't recommend this to anyone but die hard fans like me. I'm glad I saw it, but won't watch it again. I'd rather watch "The Most Dangerous Game" for the 100th time.

You might not believe it, but in this, William Powell is convincing as an Italian, and not just with an accent. He actually speaks a lot of Italian as well. It was a real shock. No ham acting, real acting. He plays an unscrupulous, self-pitying egotist named Gardoni who has failed on the vaudeville stage. On the verge of suicide, not having eaten for four days, he is saved by good guy Hal Skelly, a remarkably effective and likable actor who died four years later in a freak crash when a train hit the car he was travelling in, and he was only 43. That is why he is so little known, as he made few films. Powell repays Skelly's generosity by stealing part of his stage act and running off with it. When they meet up later, and Skelly forgives him, Powell repays that generosity by stealing his gal and marrying her within a day, then keeping Skelly on as a secondary stage partner. The gal is Fay Wray, four years before 'King Kong', sprightly lass that she was. She puts a lot of oomph into the part. The film is very good, solid and well made. Skelly had once been in a circus, and really knew how to ride bicycles in circles on a stage and stand them on end, as he does in the film. There is good support from the other actors. This film works.

Hap Brown (Hal Skelly) is doing fine when the film begins. His vaudeville act is working well. However, he meets a down and out fellow comic, Gardoni (William Powell) and insists on helping him. For his trouble, Gardoni eventually steals Hap's act and his girlfriend! However, Hap is a sap and just takes it...and continues a successful partnership with Gardoni. But, through the course of the film, Gardoni shows himself to be a sociopath--a man who uses everyone and soon begins cheating on his poor wife with Kitty (Kay Francis). What will come of this jerk or the super-nice guy Hap? It can't go on like this forever.

This film really could have used closed captioning, as William Powell's Italian accent was very, very thick and often difficult to understand. It' also surprising to hear this coming from the actor--as in his later films there wasn't a hint of any particular accent other than his own.

As far as the film itself goes, it's only okay. The biggest problems are Powell's accent (mentioned above) and that Hap was just too nice and too good a guy to be real in the least. Despite being constantly dumped on, he's always...ALWAYS sweet and nicer than nice....making the film a bit bland and unrealistic. Not terrible but not one of the better films of the era.

... because in the silent era Powell often played a villain, although often an inept one. Without the power of his voice, Powell looked the part of a villain. But then the sound era brought him new fame and prominence.

Real life clown Hal Skelly plays clown Hap Brown, who is doing OK in vaudeville. After a performance one night he sees a man leaning against a lamp post homeless and hungry. But he has to work very hard to get the man to come home with him because he is very proud. The man turns out to be European clown Gardoni (William Powell), who is not making it in America. Gardoni and Hap decide to partner up, but they lay an egg because Gardoni insists on doing their act with the more sophisticated European style entertainment rather than the "hokum" that Hap says that the audience wants. Gardoni just abandons Hap at that point without a word.

So Hap returns home and gets a job washing dishes, thanks to a friendly waitress, Marie (Fay Wray), who Hap falls for. Hap finds out that Gardoni has a new act mainly consisting of material that Hap taught him, and soon Gardoni has a new wife, who happens to be Marie.

So Gardoni is definitely not a nice guy, using everybody by hook or crook. But he needs neither hook nor crook to use Hap, who is just an affable doormat. I think that the film was trying to make out Hap as a nice guy, when a nice guy would be someone in disposition between Gardoni and Hap.

This might actually be a 5.5 versus a 6 out of 10, but I rounded up because there is not another film in which William Powell sports an Italian accent, and it is interesting to watch an actual American clown of the early twentieth century - Hal Skelly - at work. Kay Francis plays a gambling seductress with very short hair. She has the distinction of working with William Powell and Basil Rathbone in 1930 with both of them having an Italian accent in those films. But the film with Rathbone is "a notorious affair" indeed, with Rathbone's accent being particularly hilarious.

Hap (Hal Skelly) befriends an Italian performer, Gardoni (William Powell), after he finds him on the street. They are both unsuccessful vaudeville entertainers and decide to team up on stage. They flop and Gardoni disappears while Hap finds love with Marie (Fay Wray). Hap takes Marie to see a show where he discovers that Gardoni has stolen his act. Not only that, but he also steals his girl. Gardoni and Marie marry and Gardoni offers Hap a part in his show. Gardoni is successful until he gets involved with Kitty (Kay Francis)...........

The film is a dud. Hal Skelly is wooden and far too over-enthusiastic about everything so that he comes across as retarded. His willingness to go that extra mile for a stranger is ludicrous as is his obsession with the word "hokum". As for William Powell, although his Italian accent is passable, his dialogue is ridiculous at times - clearly scripted by an American, as words like "whimsy" and "pathos" do not flow naturally in conversation, especially when speaking a foreign language. Kay Francis isn't on the screen for long enough - I thought that she was the best of the cast. The story is set in the world of that ghastly creation - the clown - and it's not very good.