La mujer acusada

They didn't learn did they? The previous year Paramount made the utterly disjointed IF I HAD A MILLION with different directors making separate segments. This time it was different writers writing this film's nine different scenes...without seeing what the others had done! The result is like one of those improv shows where the audience shouts out what should happen next.

This crazy way of creating a script fortunately was at least weaved together by one single scriptwriter but each scene is so different in style it feels like we're watching different people with different personalities every ten minutes. Miraculously overseeing wordsmith Bayard Veiller and director Paul Sloane almost make it work....but not quite. There's one segment for example where Nancy Carroll is being taunted by her internal dialogue - we're hearing her thoughts. Quite interesting but you think you might have accidentally switched channels.

I'd love to know who wrote each part but it doesn't seem to be recorded anywhere. I think the reason for this is so that nobody would know who wrote that last chapter because nobody would want to claim responsibility for that. The first eight chapters kind of work together but that last scene is simply atrocious. Whoever wrote that should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves - they wouldn't want that publicised or they'd never work again. Unless you want to see how bad a mediocre film can get, switch this off after the mock courtroom scene, i promise you it will make more sense.

So, what's this about (as some of the writers clearly wondered)? Nancy Carroll kills a bad man and runs off with Cary Grant to escape the law. Depending on who's writing which bit, she's a strong/weak/ determined/sensitive/ neurotic young woman and he's a dashing sophisticated/naive/cynical/morally upstanding/morally corrupt lawyer. These two are actually both marvellous in almost making their impossible roles like real characters. Seriously, they really are good actors. They do actually make this pretty watchable.....apart from that last scene.

It's interesting to see this takes place on what was euphemistically called "a pleasure cruise." These were popular in the twenties and early thirties when you realise what they were. This was made at the end of 1932 before Prohibition was repealed so the scene when the stewards are knocking on everyone's door saying "The bar is open" was really significant: it meant that the ship had sailed into international waters so the three day bender was about to begin! Although this cruise ship seems very refined and genteel, that's more Paramount than reality. These hugely popular three-day pleasure cruises were more commonly known as Booze Cruses and were essentially floating speakeasies.

Presumably it was on such a cruse that the last scene was written.