A Lost Lady

While not being totally enamoured by the film's title (called 'Courageous' in my country, 'The Lost Lady' known elsewhere would have been far more suitable, and a title that doesn't really gel properly with the plot summary), the subject intrigued enough. Also have liked what has been seen of Alfred E Green's films and Barbara Stanwyck was to me and many others one of the best actresses of the golden age and gave many great performances. It was interesting to see Frank Morgan in an against type role.

A large part of me however was rather disappointed in 'Courageous'. Considering Stanwyck and Morgan's calibre, it should have been a much better film. Is that saying that 'Courageous' is bad? Of course not. It is very well made and acted in particular and starts off great. It is just a shame that it gets increasingly silly and melodramatic too early and ends underwhelmingly, am aware that these are potential traps fallen into a good deal in films at that time but still.

'Courageous' has a lot of great things, starting with the great acting and some of the cast playing against type. This is not one of Stanwyck's tough roles and requires her to be a little more subtle and sensitive, her performance here is very sincere and controlled, nothing feeling overdone or false. Morgan's role here is a dramatic one and a change from his usual eccentric ones, he understates beautifully and has affecting chemistry with Stanwyck (particularly towards the end). Am more familiar with Ricardo Cortez in villainous roles, so it was again interesting to see an in comparison softer side and he manages to give an as sympathetic as he can edge to a character who isn't that really. Rafaela Ottiano does a nice job too in her role.

It as a film is very well made. Beautifully and stylishly shot, atmospherically lit in a sometimes eerie way and with sumptuous sets and costuming. The music doesn't feel intrusive or overused and adds to and not over-emphasises the atmosphere. Green's direction has a lot of striking parts visually and he makes the first half of the film engaging. As indicated, 'Courageous' starts off well.

So it was unfortunate that the rest of the film wasn't as good. The melodrama gets into overload in the middle and it is very overwrought melodrama at that. Especially in the soap operatic Stanwyck and Cortez scenes where one still can taste the increasingly bitter suds after watching, not because of them but the writing. The writing is very sudsy and sometimes quite silly in their scenes and the brief attempts at levity are not amusing or needed, Willie Fung just doesn't fit and more at odds with everything else.

And then there is the ending. Too abrupt and too pat (almost like forgetting that the middle act didn't happen), not to mention subdued. That it was subdued though is admittedly preferable to the film getting more increasingly melodramatic than it already was, but it just felt anaemic. The waste of Lyle Talbot in a prominent role in the source material criminally reduced to practically nothing is unforgivable, as a result he is completely forgettable.

Summarising, watchable definitely but for a crew of this calibre this could have been a lot better. 5/10

Lost Lady, A (1934)

** (out of 4)

By the numbers love story about a woman (Barbara Stanwyck) who turns very bitter and cold hearted after having a tragedy strike her life. One day she meets an elderly man (Frank Morgan) and he convinces her to marry him even though she warns that she can never love again. After the wedding however, the woman finds love with a younger man and must decide what to do next. Even at only 69-minutes this thing seems to run on and on. I guess the only real reason to see this film is due to the early performance by Stanwyck but she's not too good here. She's not bad but not good either since she's still learning the trade. Morgan steals the show but the screenplay doesn't allow him to do too much. Ricardo Cortez and Lyle Talbot have parts as well.

... and by that I mean this film is portraying PTSD 56 years before that is even a recognized phenomenon. In the case of veterans they would call it "shell shock", in the case of crime victims or witnesses to some other horrible incident they would just call it shock, and it really is realistically portrayed by Stanwyck, even though she doesn't really know that is what she is portraying.

Two days before her marriage, wealthy Marian (Barbara Stanwyck) is talking wedding talk to her fiancé, John Ormsby (Henry Kolker), and you can tell she is very much in love with the guy. They descend a staircase at a party and are met by a man. The man claims that Ormsby has been having an affair with his wife and produces the cigarette case Ormsby gave his wife as proof. It has his name on it and to add insult to injury it was a gift from Marian to Ormsby. The jealous husband shoots Ormsby dead right there on the staircase in front of Marian. Marian is in no danger because escape is not on the husband's mind, only murdering his wife's lover, and he has accomplished that.

The papers are full of the scandal, reporters hound Marian's front door, and fortunately she has a house of loyal servants to keep the interlopers out. The worst thing is Marian can't feel anything - she doesn't feel love, hate, hope, just a kind of nothingness. It is suggested that she spend some time in the Canadian Rockies. It is summer and she has always loved the place, however her mood does not improve. She still feels nothing.

On a long walk she falls down a hill and injures herself. She is found by Forrester (Frank Morgan), who is also on a walk. He carries her back to her house, comes to visit her, and at first when she realizes he feels a romantic attraction she gives him the brush off. But he is persistent and soon they are fast friends. He wants to marry her and she confesses she feels no love for him, but also tells him that she feels nothing for anybody. It comes time for Forrester to return to civilization and she realizes she does not want to lose him. He agrees to the marriage and says for love they will substitute honesty, and that will be enough for him.

They return to Chicago, and at first her PTSD keeps her from wanting to be around large numbers of people, but Forrester is gentle with her and soon she is able to take on the task of being hostess in their home. He builds a house for her in the country, and she is content, but still not in love. She busies herself with gardening in her new home, but with a beautiful young wife who is not in love, and a husband who is older and has to be away for weeks at a time sometimes, you know something bad is just going to drop from the sky in all of this. And it literally does just that - Ricardo Cortez, portraying the president of an aerospace corporation, crash lands during a test drive of one of his new designs on her garden and introduces himself by kissing her passionately. Cortez' character KNOWS she is married, is a guest at a party thrown by her husband, and yet the villain still pursues her. How will all of this work out? Watch and find out.

Everybody plays their part marvelously here. I haven't mentioned Frank Morgan, but he really was just more than the bumbling often ne'er do well that he often played over at MGM and this Warner's B film really does show off his talents. Seeing Rafaela Ottiano play Marian's caring servant seemed rather weird when I mainly remember her from The Devil Doll as the mad scientist, missing one leg and one arm and consumed with shrinking people...but I digress.

What is especially weird is that Marian has one servant that looks the part - somewhat stuffy - but whenever he opens his mouth he sounds like he should be in a gangster film. I'm not sure where that was coming from.

At any rate, I consider this one much better than its reputation, even if it was one of Warner's B efforts. Recommended.

When book author Willa Cather saw this film she immediately banned all adaptations of her work, screen or otherwise, and more than forty years passed before another was attempted. It is easy to see why once you compare her novel with this soapy love yarn -- there is practically no connection in story, or tone. I loved the cast in this picture and there were parts that moved even unsentimental me; it was nice to see Frank Morgan play a role so far from his most celebrated turn as the avuncular, but sexless Wizard of Oz. Here Morgan is a mature man that is used to holding his passions in check, but sets himself up in a situation that brings him disillusioned loneliness and self-doubt. Barbara Stanwyck is ravishing in every frame of the movie, and she has to be, as she's set up as being a girl so beautiful that no man can resist her. But then we have the scene with Barbara working in the garden in white high-heeled shoes and a bright, floral print dress and we begin to wonder -- "What's up with that?" Do we have to keep propping up this concept of her as perpetually dressed for a cocktail party in order reinforce this idea of her irresistible beauty? Lyle Talbot, God love him, puts his all into the minor part of Nial, and that's what got me interested in looking up Cather's book. Actually, Nial is the major character in the novel, so Talbot's reduced role is a demotion indeed. It can be an enjoyable picture if you concentrate on the performances and not worry about where the story is going; the pacing in the first half is swift, and builds interest. But if you look at it through the lens of somehow representing the work of Willa Cather, then this version of "A Lost Lady" falls flat on its ass. Apparently the now lost silent version was closer to its source.

Barbara Stanwyck is young and a lovely as a woman whose fiancée is killed by an angry husband just before their wedding. Embittered, she retreats to the mountains and finds healing in the affections of Frank Morgan, who plays a wealthy attorney who falls in love with her.

Stanwyck marries him, though explains to poor Frank that she doesn't love him. Their bedrooms, therefore, are across the hall from one another. With money, social standing, beauty, and being married, which makes her unattainable, Stanwyck soon finds the men are crawling out of the woodwork, including a very young Lyle Talbot and Ricardo Cortez, who lands his plane on her lawn.

Morgan and Stanwyck are excellent and give the story a very touching quality. One scene struck me as a little odd, censorship wise: At the beginning of the film, Morgan rescues Stanwyck from a fall. The next day, he walks by her house and pokes his head in her bedroom to see how she's doing. She's in bed, recovering. He's invited in. The maid leaves the bedroom and closes the door.

Either I'm getting too old or my sensibility is too modern, but I found this scene peculiar for 1934. I'd love to know how this got past the code since there was a big argument about "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." An unmarried woman, in her pajamas, entertaining a gentleman caller in her bedroom. Oh, well.