Wharf Angel

"Wharf Angel" is a movie about Stokers, seamen who stoke the boilers on ships and the brutish lives the live. In between voyages they hang around in dive bars and drink too much, carouse, fight and often pass out on the floor. This one is called "Mother Bright's", on the Barbary Coast near San Francisco. When in port, "Turk" (Victor McLaglen) holds court and is also the star of the picture. One night Como (Preston Foster), on the run from the police, ducks in and finds a hiding place in a room upstairs; the tenant is Toy (Dorothy Dell), a prostitute with the proverbial heart of gold. Almost simultaneously, Como and Turk fall in love with her, and therein hangs the tale.

Too bad the tale is not as interesting as the players or the sets. The film is held together by the force of the actors, especially Dorothy Dell, who gives a superlative performance. It is all the more remarkable when you consider she was only 19 at the time. McLaglen is his usual overpowering self and Foster, minus trademark mustache, looks almost boyish. The director is set designer William Cameron Menzies, who doesn't have much of a chance due to the tepid story, but creates an atmospheric dive setting for the cast that is very realistic - it looks and feels extremely authentic. That said, there's not much else to recommend this picture. It's been done before and since, and better.

There's been a riot in San Francisco and the cops are looking to arrest Preston Foster for murder. He didn't do it, but waterfront dive owner Alison Skipworth hates the cops, so she sends him up to b-girl Dorothy Dell's room until things cool down. They talk, and Foster's youthful idealism makes her realize she can leave this life. Skipworth sends Foster out as a stoker to China, and he promises to come back for Dell. While on the black gang, he makes friends with Victor Maclaglen, and they become best of friends, talking to each other of the girl waiting for them.... not realizing both of them are talking about Dell.

It's a terrific Pre-Code, made just before the window closed. If Paramount offered the glossiest of settings, here's proof they could offer the sleaziest, especially under the co-direction of William Cameron Menzies, who spent most of his film career as a set designer, and knew how to use Vic Milner's camera for great pictures. Add in some great performances, including Maclaglen doing an early variation on Gypo from THE INFORMER and a great script, and you have a fine performance.

It's astonishing that Miss Dell is so good. This was her first movie. She was 19 when it was released, and her movements seem like someone who has been a major star in silents.

She would only make two more movies, alas. On June 8, 1934, she left a party in the company of Dr. Carl Wagner, who drove. The car left the highway, bounced off a palm tree and hit a boulder, killing her instantly.

Political activist Como Murphy (Preston Foster), on the run from a murder rap, ducks into Mother Bright's (Alison Skipworth) waterfront saloon on the infamous Barbary Coast and forms a fast friendship with Turk (Victor McLaglen), a stoker on a ship bound for Shanghai. When the cops close in, Como's directed upstairs where he stumbles into Toy's room (a sexy Dorothy Dell) and he spends the night there. The next day, he leaves a note for Toy promising to return and signs on with Turk's ship but on shore leave in the Orient, Como learns the gal Turk carries a torch for is none other than Toy. Como doesn't tell Turk he knows Toy and when their ship docks in Frisco, both men make a bee line for Ma Bright's where their romantic triangle comes to a deadly head...

Paramount's burly brawler Victor McLaglen had been playing variations on the "love & friendship" shtick ever since WHAT PRICE GLORY? back in '26 and handsome Preston Foster makes a good romantic opponent for him here. Paramount's back lot Frisco, all fog and shadow, was put over with a bit of panache by director William Cameron Menzies, who'd go on to greater fame as one of Hollywood's premiere set designers. Released just before the Production Code crackdown, it's obvious how Dorothy Dell earns her living at Mother Bright's and there's lots of snappy patter, too, such as "No tow-headed jane is gonna make a monkey out of me!" and Dell actually tells McLaglen to "flock off" at one point. The alluring Dottie also warbles a wistful blues ballad and a lean and lanky Mischa Auer makes the most of his role as shifty shipmate Sadik, replete with an earring and a turncoat temper.

Things were going great guns for nineteen year-old Dorothy Dell at the time; the former "Miss New Orleans" and "Miss Universe of 1930" was plucked from the Ziegfield Follies by Paramount and groomed as its answer to Fox's Alice Faye. Dorothy had just made her mark in the Shirley Temple starrer, Little Miss Marker, and it looked like she had arrived when it all came to a sudden, tragic end on June 8, 1934. Returning from a party in the Altadena hills, Dottie and her date were killed in a car crash; their automobile went over an embankment, hit a telephone pole, and rammed into a boulder. Dorothy was killed instantly and her escort died a few hours later. Engaged to another at the time of her death, Dell was also romantically involved with crooner Russ Columbo who, along with Rudy Vallee and Bing Crosby, was making multitudes of female fans swoon as his velvety voice wafted over the airwaves.

Great, atmospheric images, strong cast, literate dialogue - even if there is too much of it - and we still end up with a dreary movie.

Cameron Menzies was the movies' greatest designer but his attempts to direct all went belly up on him - outside THINGS TO COME, where Kordar had control.

This one looks for a while as if it will be the exception, with it's opening in Alison Skipworth's fog bound Barbary Coast dive, running to out of true walls and a clientèle of floozies and boozy sailors, into which radical on the run Foster bursts, with David Landau's bobbies on his trail.

There's curiosity value in seeing one of the few sympathetic depictions of a communist in a Hollywood movie and watching McLaglan doing a try out for THE INFORMER but the romance and buddy plots are drab and interest only picks up occasionally for atmospheric material like the pier at night or the shovels fight in the stoke hold, where Menzies' hand is evident.

At 65 minutes, this film seems to have the narrative substance of the fog that surrounds the San Francisco waterfront where a prostitute named Toy (Dorothy Dell) meets a man named Como, accused of murder (Preston Foster). It's love at first sight. But he must flee the cops and so ships out to China with thuggish Victor McLaglen who has eyes for Toy as well. When they return months later, Toy has gone straight in preparation for Como and is waiting for the freighter. But what to do about McLaglen? Interesting if familiar storyline is sparked by a good performance by McLaglen as Turk, who beneath his rough exterior lurks a rough heart. Foster is excellent as the malcontent who spouts political slogans against the world's injustices. Dell, in her feature debut, is also excellent as the gold-hearted tramp who tries everything in an effort to go straight. The scene where she sings in a saloon while the men throw insults and coins at her is a killer.

The sleazy bar is called "Mother Bright's" and Mother is played by the wondrous Alison Skipworth, a tough customer who's ready to fight for love. Co-stars include Mischa Auer, James Burke, Frank Sheridan, and David Landau as the cop. Among the horde of saloon girls are Alice Lake and Grace Bradley.

This was the first of Dell's three films made in 1934. The others are LITTLE MISS MARKER and SHOOT THE WORKS. She would have been a big star, but was killed in a car crash. She was 19 years old.