Love 'Em and Leave 'Em

This is the only chance I have had to see Louise Brooks practice her dancing, and I'm afraid it isn't up to much. If she could dance she wasn't going to give the audiences of this film the opportunity to find out.

This is a reasonable effort - so probably fairly typical for Frank Tuttle. It is a sister vs. sister story - inevitably one is good (Mame Walsh, played carefully by Evelyn Brent) and the other not so good, or rather very, very bad (Janie Walsh, played by Brooks). In between them is Bill Billingsley (an average Lawrence Gray, who had a speciality in heels and sharks).

I can't help but feel that Brent was cheated. She had struggled for several years to get top billing. She achieved it in this film, but hers is largely a thankless - indeed marginal - role. She was thought to be a little old for the part (she was nearing 30), and it must be said that with her flowing locks she could easily have stepped out of a daguerreotype, for all her beauty. Brooks, by contrast looks very modern, and she carries herself in a very 'contemporary' way. There is more than an emotional gulf between these two - and unfortunately Brent falls into it. Brooks steals the film - not by acting (her handling of her gambling problem and her indebtedness is somewhat underwhelming), but by being very, very sexy. Brent was, by contrast, to cripple her remaining years as a star by trying to hard to act the part of a great actress. Her work became ever more serious, and therefore (because her talent had its limits) more stilted, and therefore dated. Sad to say, hard work brought her diminishing returns. I'm not certain that Brooks knew what hard work was, whilst she remained an actress.

This film is elevated from the level of pedestrian drama by its supporting cast, notably Osgood Perkins (Anthony's father, and a first class actor) as the vulpine bookie, though he sometimes looks as though he has swallowed strichnine; also Arthur Donaldson (as a self-important floor manager of the department store where the three main players 'work'). This was a pleasant and undemanding seventy minutes.

Well, it's a movie with Louise Brooks, so we're supposed to talk about Louise Brooks. She plays a major supporting role as Evelyn Brent's sister, lifting the money from the dance fund for a flyer on the horses. Like most of her roles in this period, she sleepwalks through the part, at least until she gets to the dance. There she does a few seconds of a fast Charleston and smiles. Wham! Lord, the camera loves her. It's a masquerade party, so she's dressed like a showgirl, while all the other women wear long skirts. She always seems out of place in these roles. I spend my time looking at her and wondering why she isn't on a chorus line or some fat millionaire's arm. Ah, the joys of miscasting.

Evelyn Brent is wonderful, but she is only the star of the movie and she is certainly photographed to her benefit. Still, the difference in acting styles is absolutely clear: Miss Brent knows how to show her character's emotions on the screen, while Louise Brooks comes off as no more than a party girl.

The verse novel has now gone right out of fashion, but in the teens and twenties, it was quite a popular literary form. In fact, this piece by John Van Alstyne Weaver was so successful that both a play and a movie adaptation were always on the cards.

Despite an extremely negative review by Mordaunt Hall in "The New York Times", the movie was a big hit too—and no wonder! The screenplay cleverly showcases the charismatic Louise Brooks in a made-to-order role as a super-attractive bad girl, on the make for any male that crosses her path. The sultry, splendidly selfish Louise has no trouble stealing the picture, even though Evelyn Brent (playing her motherly sister) puts up a noble fight throughout.

Aside from Arthur Donaldson as the ebullient Schwartz, the other players are no match at all for Miss Brooks, although Osgood Perkins makes the most of his innings as a sneaky, rooming-house, would-be Romeo. Lawrence Gray comes across as a rather dull and impassive hero, but it really doesn't matter much as all the colorful lines and business are handed principally to Miss Brooks, with a few snippets to Brent (who does collar our attention in the final reel), Donaldson and Perkins.

Director Frank Tuttle has not only handled the proceedings with admirable pace and flair, but by his astute choice of camera angles cleverly disguises the fact that, as usual, he has nailed the camera to the floor. Production values, as might be expected from Paramount, are absolutely top-grade. The setting in a New York department store is brilliantly realized. In short, "Love 'Em and Leave 'Em" still comes over in 2008 as an unmitigated delight.