The Squall

Some of the early talkies survived to become classics. 1929's "The Squall" is a classic all right, but not in the way it was intended. Melodramatic in story and acting, today it seems ludicrous, particularly the casting of Myrna Loy as Nubi, a seductive gypsy. Imagine Nora Charles breaking up a young couple and driving a young man to steal. Outrageous! However, as many people know, when Loy first came to Hollywood, she did quite a few of these exotic seductress roles.

Based on a play, "The Squall" concerns the aforementioned Gypsy who in the film is now in Hungary (Spain in the play) running away from her cruel master and inviting herself into the home of the Lajos family (Richard Tucker and Alice Joyce), basically by appearing at the door. One by one, Nubi seduces the men of the family and the farm talking her pidgin English ("Nubi not bad! Nubi do nothing wrong!") and dropping hints about nice presents. The son in the family, Paul (Carroll Nye) is engaged to the beautiful Irma (Loretta Young) and can't wait to marry her. He loses interest when he meets Nubi.

With the exception of the lovely Alice Joyce, Zasu Pitts as a woman who lives in the household and the stunningly beautiful Loretta Young, the acting is uniformly awful. Loy is stuck with the hallmarks of her character - bad English, whining and hysteria. With her darkened makeup, peasant getup and curly hair, she is not only beautiful but right out of the 1980s - quite modern, though Richard Tucker's putting the back of his hand on his forehead reminds us we're just emerging from the silents.

Robert Osborne on TCM commented that this film is one of his secret pleasures. While it is deliciously bad, it's not deliciously bad enough to sit through again. It's just bad - but a great example of how far we've come and, had someone not picked up on Myrna Loy's sense of humor, how limited her wonderful career might have been.

I must say that I watched this film unexpectedly and was quite surprised by the seductive performance of Myrna Loy. I had not seen her in her earlier works, only the later ones, such as "Love Crazy," "The Thin Man," and their later additions, such as "Another Thin Man." To think that she ended her career as the perfect wife and started it as the temptress or villain is hard to believe. The character Nubi was, well, a stereotyped role, but to my satisfaction, she played it with such conviction and beauty. Altogether i thought the plot was a easy one. Men get mixed up and love crazy for the beautiful temptress while leaving their true loves behind in hysteria. I suggest that people see this film because it is a true classic and worth it to see Myrna in her earlier work. :)

This movie has many things going against it. Among these are staginess, heavy-handed acting, a hackneyed "femme fatale" plot, and a stereotyped view of gypsies. And the story itself raises some questions. Would a family really keep a servant girl whose main duties seem to be turning off the lights at night, staying in her room, and seducing every male in sight? Did jewelry stores really stay open past midnight especially in early 20th century Hungary?

Yet from a cinematic history point of view, it is an interesting movie. It was one of the first starring features for then 23 year-old Myrna Loy who plays the gypsy girl and then 16 year-old Loretta Young who plays the neglected fiancee. It was also one of the first American efforts by director Alexander Korda, who would go on to later fame as a director and producer, and one of the twilight performances of silent screen star Alice Joyce.

The bottom line is: If you enjoy film history this might be worth watching, but if a good story and good acting are main concerns then take a pass on this one.

No one is going to mistake The Squall for a good movie, but it sure is a memorable one. Once you've witnessed Myrna Loy's performance as Nubi the hot-blooded gypsy girl you're not likely to forget the experience. When this film was made the exotically beautiful Miss Loy was still being cast as foreign vixens, often Asian and usually sinister. She's certainly an eyeful here. It appears that her skin was darkened and her hair was curled. In most scenes she's barefoot and wearing little more than a skirt and a loose-fitting peasant blouse, while in one scene she wears nothing but a patterned towel. I'm focusing on Miss Loy's appearance because she is by far the best if not the only reason to tune in to this antiquated early talkie and to stick with it. You sure won't be held by the dialog, which is hopeless. In one typical passage, Nubi gazes out the window at the departing caravan and waxes poetic: "Always the gypsies, they sing. Weird and sad. When the big sun have breath of fire that burn, and when the pale moon look from behind cloud and breathe air cold as death, they sing." Poetic, or what? Lovers of purple prose will have a field day. I can't help but wonder, however, if in her later years Miss Loy preferred to forget her involvement with this project.

Like so many early talkies this one was an adaptation of a Broadway success. The stage version opened at the 48th Street Theatre in November of 1926 and ran for over a year. The play provoked a famous episode involving the humorist and theater critic Robert Benchley, who had a well-known aversion to characters who spoke in thick dialect or pidgin English. According to a much-repeated anecdote Mr. Benchley squirmed uncomfortably through the opening portion of this show. The Spanish village setting (which became a village in Hungary for the movie, for some reason) gave the actors license to practice accents with varying degrees of success, but Benchley's patience reached its limit when, during a family dinner sequence, a door burst open and an actress dressed as a gypsy girl dashed into the room shouting "Help! Help! He keel me!" She then threw herself at the feet of the mistress of the household and exclaimed "Me Nubi! Me good girl! Me stay here!" At that point Mr. Benchley rose and announced to his companion: "Me Bobby. Me bad boy. Me go now," and left the theater.

The film version offers numerous examples of unintended humor but never approaches Benchley's level of wit. The melodramatic plot concerns the Lajos family: father Josef, mother Maria, and son Paul, a student at the nearby college. We would consider this prosperous family "upper-middle class" as they are landowners with servants and all the comforts of life, but their comfortable existence is abruptly thrown into turmoil when a gypsy caravan arrives in the village and their home is invaded by, yes, Nubi the nubile gypsy girl. She arrives at their door during the storm of the title-- symbolizing stormy emotions, I daresay. The girl is fleeing an abusive relationship and begs for sanctuary. After considering the matter the Lajos family agrees to hide her from her angry lover, who shows up shortly afterward but is turned away. Nubi becomes a servant in the household. Kindness motivated the family's decision to take her in, but soon enough that conniving little Nubi pays them back by seducing every able-bodied male in the vicinity, starting with the Lajos' servant Peter, then working her way up to son Paul. Nubi breaks up Paul's relationship with his fiancé Irma (played by Loretta Young, still a teenager), causes him to flunk out of school, and then prompts him to buy jewelry for her by stealing the savings of the family's maid Lena (ZaSu Pitts). Lena, for her part, is still mourning the loss of her own fiancé Peter, seduced and tossed aside by Nubi when she turned her attentions to Paul. Ultimately Nubi sets her sights on the patriarch Josef, and I suppose if the running time had been longer she also would've gone after Uncle Dani, Maria, the village priest and God knows who else.

I guess it goes without saying that a scenario like this one easily lends itself to parody, but even so during its first half The Squall exerts the undeniable fascination of a daytime soap: we watch, hypnotized, as the Bad Girl works her spell on the men-folk and wreaks havoc like an irresistible force of nature, almost like-- a storm! Ah-ha, another metaphor! But as the plot machinations grind onward the campy fun fades. During the later scenes we see less of Nubi as the focus switches to the dysfunctional dynamics of the Lajos family, and frankly after a while these people get to be a real drag. The son in particular behaves like an absolute heel, yet the parents never acknowledge this or face up to their own shortcomings; everything, we're told, is the fault of Nubi, that no-good tramp.

The men of the cast are dull. Aside from Miss Loy the only actress who rises to the occasion is ZaSu Pitts, terrific as usual. The mother of the Lajos household is played by Alice Joyce, a longtime silent star who seemed out of her element with speaking roles, and who retired soon after this. Loretta Young's fresh prettiness provides a nice contrast to Nubi's dusky allure, but her line readings are so awkward it's kind of endearing. No, there's only one reason to watch this flick, and that's Nubi herself. I can't think of another actress who could've played this silly role and managed to come off half as well. I'm not an objective observer, however. I have a desperate crush on Myrna Loy and will watch her in anything, even The Squall.

Nubi (Myrna Loy) is Gypsy Girl. Me crazy in love with Nubi. Me cheat for Nubi. Me steal for Nubi. Me give up family for Nubi. Me ruin my reputation for Nubi.

Only problem is every man in village love Nubi. Nubi so beautiful, every man love Nubi. Every woman jealous of Nubi. Me can't think of any other actresses when Nubi on screen. Not even think of Zazu Pitts or Loretta Young.

Can Nubi help it if every man love Nubi and fight over Nubi. Everybody love Nubi. Nubi love nobody . Poor Nubi. Poor Gypsy girl. Poor movie, but Myrna Loy is wonderfully sensual in this painfully slow morality tale of Eve causing a squall in the Hungarian Garden of Eden.