Playing Around

Alice White is just shy of being engaged to dull but dependable William Bakewell when she's picked up by Chester Morris. She easily falls for his smooth manner, and his seemingly endless wealth. But that's not who he is at all.

Although director Mervyn Leroy keeps things moving at a slightly stodgy pace in the dialogue, and Miss White seems to be a nitwit, there are some nice points to this movie. For one, there are a few songs by Sam Stept and Bud Green -- and no, I don't think I've heard of them before either. Miss White sings "You Learn About Love Every Day", and it's a good song, with the tune reprised a couple of times. Another song, "That's The Lowdown on the Lowdown" is an okay piece, but it's given a fine performance by Carolynne Snowden. In addition, there's a fine moving shot with talking going on. Since this was finished and copyrighted in 1929, someone should have told the sound engineer Earl Sitar you couldn't do that, not in Hollywood. He was suitably punished by being uncredited, and being stuck in the B movies.

Although there's a lot to kvetch about here, the things that it does right outweigh those easily, particularly Morris' performance, clearly meant for a star build-up. With Richard Carlyle, Marion Byron, and George "Gabby" Hayes with his teeth in.

Alice Whites career as a star only lasted around 6 years.By the time she made this her style of dizzy blonde was going out of fashion,to be replaced by the more cynical gold digger type played by Joan Blondell.In this film she is romanced by patent hair Chester Morris who robs her fathers shop in his spare time.Alice is no great shakes as an actress but she is a great personality.

"Don't be an eggnog."

What can I say, this is a creaky old morality tale, but I'm a sucker for Alice White and that fact bumped up my review score. She plays a daddy's girl who's dating a stable guy (William Bakewell) she thinks is boring, as evidenced by him eyeing the expensive drinks menu at a nightclub and deciding the buttermilk is about all he can spring for. Despite taking place during the Prohibition era, beer is included in a list of non-alcoholic drinks and one gets the idea there are lot more on offer, but regardless, at $0.40 for the milk and with a cover charge of $1.50 a guest in 1930, which would come to $66 in 2025, he has a point. After she goes onstage on a whim to appear in a "pageant of the knees", where behind a curtain down to knee-level she and other young women strut around so that their legs can be judged (ooh la la), a playboy (Chester Morris) with a fancy car takes an interest in her. The trouble is, despite all his smooth talking, he's a phony, owing money all over town. She's of course smitten with him and his big, er, car, cooing "There's an automobile horn that's really got sex appeal."

It's obvious where this is going to go from there, but it was mildly surprising in how it got there, albeit contrived and poorly scripted. To be honest, it's kind of hard to really like the "good guy" as he's kind of a sap, and also because he quips "It's all right honey, women can't be expected to judge human nature like us men" when delivering the film's final judgment. There are other little bits that make up for that though, including Alice White singing "You Learn About Love Every Day" (obviously playing into the moral of the story), the agile Doris McMahon contorting herself in that early stage show, and Marion Byron as the savvy fast-talking co-worker. I also absolutely loved seeing Carolynne Snowden and her leggy dancing ensemble perform "That's the Lowdown on the Lowdown" near the end of the film. It's the women in this film that made it mildly enjoyable, despite its old-fashioned script.

Alice White stars as Sheba Miller, a girl who wants more out of life than her soda-jerk boyfriend (William Bakewell) can give her. After winning a leg contest at a nightclub called The Pirate Den, she catches the eye of smooth talker Chester Morris, and she starts dating him. Bakewell hilariously comments that Morris dresses "like all his clothes fit him." Morris also flashes money and drives a snappy roadster. All these things are dear to White's heart. But then there is a neat plot twist that changes everything.

White is adorable and gets to sing "You Learn About Love Every Day." It's her only song but the nightclub acts sing a few more, including "You're My Captain Kidd" and "That's the Lowdown on the Lowdown." By 1930 audiences were tired of backstage musicals so filmmakers moved the numbers out front, which made them more realistic.

Morris and Bakewell are good, and then there's Marion Byron as the jazzy phone operator in the office where White works. White and Byron had also starred together in Broadway BABIES. Maurice Black is good as Joe the Bartender who gets suckered by Morris. Richard Carlyle plays White's father. And in a humorous tenement bit, Nellie Nichols and Ann Brody play a pair of immigrant gossipers who hang out their windows and exchange news in fractured English.

PLAYING AROUND was one of five films White starred in in 1930. In 1931, she had her final starring role in THE NAUGHTY FLIRT.

Worth a look for Alice White and some snappy pre-Code dialog.

"Playing Around" was obviously intended as a silent movie (note the screen credit, "titles-- silent version.") But with the advent of sound, First National quickly converted it to an all-talking and sometimes singing-and-dancing thriller. When we meet sassy tenement girl Alice White, she's dating gormless William Bakewell whose height of ambition is a raise to $35 a week. Then she's smitten with playboy Chester Morris unaware that his only means of support is an occasional stick-up. His next robbery stretches the long arm of coincidence to the breaking point. But director Mervyn Leroy doesn't let anything as trivial as the plot detract from the over-the-top musical numbers. And the result is surprisingly entertaining, especially for a movie made in 1929 and released in 1930.