The Caveman

Here's a movie that is better than I find it. Matt Moore is brilliant in his performance, simply by the uncomfortable way he wears his clothes. You can always tell when people in real life are in costume by the way they move and Matt Moore's character in this Pygmalion show is comfortable only in the opening sequence when, a virtual brute -- the Caveman of the title, a coal heaver who is enticed to Marie Prevost's Park Avenue apartment by a hundred dollar bill. Later on, in his finery, he is always stiff, and when he attempts to leave, he has forgotten how to wear his workmen's clothes. The film is well directed by Lewis Milestone at the beginning of his career.

I have issues with Myrna Loy. Miss Loy is absolutely gorgeous here and way too distracting as Marie Prevost's French maid; it's like watching Jetta Goudal in the silent version of THE GREEN GODDESS and wondering why anyone cares about Alice Joyce's sedate beauty. Here, why does anyone care about Miss Prevost when it's clear the reason why Myrna is so deft with a knife: she must need to fight 'em off constantly?

It is, however, Marie Prevost's performance that sets my teeth on edge: as a spoiled, bored, rich girl who decides to remodel Matt Moore, not in order to improve him, but because she wants something to prove her control of the world .... well, I've met people like that. Most of them are dead and the survivors tell me they don't understand why their kids don't understand how dangerous the real world is. I find 'em creepy and totally unsympathetic. And I find Miss Prevost's performance dead on and want to keep away from her and this movie. The last movie that affected me this way was Terry Gilliam's TIDELANDS.

So make of this movie what you will. Sometimes fiction is too much like the real world, but the ending is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Gelett Burgess is now remembered only for writing the four-line poem that begins "I never saw a purple cow", but in the early 20th century he was a popular author of nonsense verses and humour. His hit play "The Cave Man" was previously filmed in 1915; this remake (with a script by Darryl Zanuck) takes out most of Burgess's treacly whimsy (and changes the annoying names of several characters in Burgess's original play) but remains fairly funny, and is well-directed by Lewis Milestone.

"The Cave Man" is "Pygmalion" in reverse, or a comedy version of Eugene O'Neill's "The Hairy Ape". Myra Gaylord (Marie Prevost) is a wealthy dilettante. For a whim, she cuts a $100 bill in half and writes her address on one half. (There's an unfortunate close-up shot of a blatantly phony stage-money banknote, only vaguely resembling actual currency.) She drops this half-hundred out the window of her posh Park Avenue high-rise. The half-note is found by rough unshaven coalman Mike Smagg (well-played by brawny Matt Moore), who drives a horse-drawn coal wagon. Hoping to receive the other half of the $100 bill, he takes it back to its owner.

Intrigued by this raw material, Miss Gaylord decides to mould Smagg to her whims. She has him shaved and groomed, cleaned up and put into tailored clothes. Then she brings him to society functions, where of course he fails to impress her snooty friends. And Smagg hasn't been able to abandon his working-class past. There's one funny scene in which Matt Moore, faultlessly attired in evening dress, walks up Park Avenue past his former coal wagon. His horses recognise him and immediately start following him, pulling the wagon behind them.

Myrna Loy (whom I've always found annoying) is prettier than usual as the minx-like parlourmaid, and Hedda Hopper (the future gossip columnist) gives a good performance as a society beldame. This sort of humour dates rather badly. I'll rate "The Cave Man" 3 out of 10.