Behind Office Doors

This pre-code film is not quite as daring as other precode Hollywood movies, but it holds up very well today and is quite enjoyable.

Mary Astor plays a receptionsit at a paper mill company. She has her eye on Robert Ames, a young salesman with the company. When the boss is forced to retire, Mary Astor pushes for Robert Ames to take the job, and when he does, Mary is promoted to being his secretary. She is secretly in love with him, only he never seems to notice. As he rises in the company Mary Astor is constantly by his side, giving good business advice as well as advice in his personal life. When Ames marries someone else, Astor is so upset he quits, and the company begins to fall apart.

Mary Astor, I feel, has never quite gotten her due in film history. She is a wonderful actress, and watching her in a film role, you are assured you will get a natural performance that will hold up as well as if it had been shot yesterday.

Robert Ames, a former stage actor, is quite good in the role. Ames died shortly after this film. His death was thought at first to have been caused by foul play, but it was determined he had died from too much drinking.

In days past BOD would have been called a 'woman's picture', since affairs of the heart occupy the storyline instead of action, mystery or suspense. Fortunately, actress Astor (Linden) turns in a nicely low-key turn as the under-appreciated power behind boss Duneen's company throne. She craves his affection instead of the compliments he occasionally provides her. Now he's planning to wed a high-society girl even though it's Linden's advice who's gotten him to the top. So what will become of her.

For me, a guy, the flick only has occasional interest as when character conflict comes to the top. Otherwise, the narrative's too talky and stage-bound, even though the gals do go through a number of gown changes on camera (Pre-Code, 1931). Too bad also that a more charismatic actor doesn't appear as Duneen. It's really hard to see how the savvy Linden could get so stuck on such a bland leading man that also weakens focal interest. Then too, the narrative staggers more than it unfolds, the director adding little or nothing. Anyway, I think a mild feminist under-current underlies key points of the plot, which, to me, is really the only reason to catch up with the uneven 82-minutes.

The trouble with these 'smart woman behind the scenes' movies from this era is that while they show a woman to be the brains behind a businessman, they also show the positions they're limited to, and generally happy with as long as there is a possible romantic angle. In this case it's Mary Astor in the role of a secretary helping out a salesman (Robert Ames) make big moves within his company for reasons which aren't all that obvious, since he's quite a bore, patting a woman on the butt at the water cooler and making it clear he plays around. She has a thing for him anyway though (argh!), which is all the more disappointing since she has such pluck and principles in spurning the advances of a wealthy man (Ricardo Cortez) who has lied to her about not being married, something her friends think she's crazy to do. She makes all of the key strategic decisions that get him to the top of the company, and yet like a dimwit he doesn't understand her value, and also hires other women into the company so he can have liaisons with them. Somehow (argh!) she still loves him.

Astor's a treat to watch but everything else is a rather unpleasant experience, and the film is rather creaky, both in pace and the quality of the visual print which survives. There are occasional funny moments in the banter, such as when she tells him of a big idea she has, and he comes over to her, grabs the cigarette out of her hand, smells it, and says "it isn't hashish." These are few and far between though, and the film lacks most of the old pre-Code crackle. Robert Ames died at 42 from his problems with alcohol a little less than five months after this film was released, so that's a point of interest I guess, but the only real reason to watch this would be for Astor. It's just too bad the script is so weak. I hated the ending too.

I tivo'd this on Turner Classic just because it was pre-code and sounded interesting. When I got around to watching, I noticed that the "critique" gave it one and a half stars on a four-star scale. I started watching with trepidation -- even old movies can be bad movies -- but I quickly got engaged in the story and Mary Astor's performance as the business brains behind a simple salesman's rise to success. Not a truly great movie -- too predictable -- but certainly better than advertised. And I would have liked to have seen more of Ricardo Cortez as the man who appreciates Mary but won't give up his wealthy wife. I'd recommend giving it a look just to appreciate Astor and what a long way we've come, baby.

In the grand tradition of stand-by-your-man films, Behind Office Doors promotes that glorious message of olden days. Mary Astor stars as a secretary in love with one of her co-workers, Robert Ames. Thanks to her intelligence and ambition, she manages to promote Robert up the corporate ladder. Mary remains his faithful secretary, while being in love with him, and Robert repays her by ignoring her and fooling around with other loose secretaries. Mary is a very good girl, in every sense of the word, and while this pre-Code drama is extremely naughty, she isn't. In one scene, Mary discusses the price of French lingerie with her fellow secretary, and in a later scene, she finds a price tag on the floor of Robert's bedroom. In the first scene, Mary attends a party and gets kissed during a game of Blind Man's Bluff, then questioned about how far she'll go during Truth. If you like pre-Code screenplays, add this one to your list.

Mary gives a very heartfelt performance in Behind Office Doors, and while the plot and what she goes through might seem melodramatic to a modern audience, in 1931, it was serious business to be a good girl and remain so. When Ricardo Cortez offers a standing invitation to take Mary to Atlantic City, the audience knows what that means. To a modern woman, it sounds like a fun fling that can be enjoyed without any change to her reputation, but in 1931, it could be life-ruining. I do wish the end of the movie was different, but everything leading up to it was entertaining, dramatic, well-written, and well-acted. Check this movie out if you've never seen a Mary Astor movie, or if you only think of her as Marmee in Little Women. She's the lead and the star, and she holds her own as an old-fashioned girl with strong morals and a loving heart.