Sinners in the Sun

This 1932 pre-code Paramount Picture, based on a magazine story by Mildred Cram and directed by Alexander Hall, is best remembered today because it contains a bit of Cary Grant in one of the many stiff playboy roles he did before stardom. All in all, it's not much a story, entirely predictable, but as staged expertly by Hall the film does recreate visually the atmosphere of New York and Long Island society that Fitzgerald wrote about in The Great Gatsby a few years before. The actors are all particularly well-cast, down to the smallest part. (Look especially for a few moments with Anderson Lawler as a self-confessing gigolo.) Chester Morris (Boston Blackie) is for once throughly believable in a tough guy up from the streets role, but as usual it's Carole Lombard--she who could do no wrong--who steals the show and carries the picture. She's both lovely and touching and wears many a superb Travis Banton costume. A true star.

Remember all those Jean Harlow movies about poor girls wanting to marry rich fellows? If you liked them, check out Carole Lombard and Chester Morris in Sinners in the Sun. Ironically, the same year, Chester played the rich fellow in Jean Harlow's Red-Headed Woman. In this movie, he's a poor garage mechanic in love with Carole. He wants to get married, but she's afraid of a life of poverty. Given her background and growing up in the Great Depression, it's understandable.

Carole and Chester part ways in search of wealthy partners. Carole finds a married man who wants fun on the side, and Chester finds a wealthy woman who likes how he looks in a tuxedo. This pre-Code drama is a bit naughty, with see-through negligees and references to gigolos. Mostly, though, it's a tragedy about two people who think they'll be happier with money than with love. It's always a treat to see Carole in a drama, and Chester gives a great performance as he struggles with his pride. "Did you think I'd cry?" he asks, his voice breaking, when reunited with Carole after they've settled into other lives. If you like this one, check out Swing High, Swing Low.

DLM Warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, this movie might not be your friend. About 45 minutes in, and at 52 minutes in, the camera spins for about thirty seconds, and that will make you sick. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"

... because with a name like "Sinners in the Sun" I figured it was one of those precodes in a tropical locale with some mad doctor doing odd experiments. But then I read a summary and thought I'd give it a whirl.

It's basically about love and the Great Depression. Doris (Carole Lombard) is a model at a high end boutique. Jimmie (Chester Morris) is a mechanic. They are engaged, but Doris is afraid of poverty, on being dependent on whether some employer thinks you are worth keeping around, and a visit to her apartment and you see why. Doris and her entire extended family, including her grandparents and her underemployed brother and his wife are crammed into this small place, and there is constant bickering. Doris wants Jimmie to own his own garage and be his ow boss before they get married, and eventually this leads to a break-up because Jimmie thinks Doris would be settling for him.

After Jimmie and Doris part, Jimmie becomes the chauffeur and then the husband of an idle rich woman. Doris becomes the mistress of an idle rich married man. They both make these moves because of things they find out that the other has been doing in regards to the opposite sex. Will this whole thing work out? Watch and find out. This boils down to the saying that more than enough money may not make you happy, but less than enough can sure make you miserable. Except the film rather leaves out the second part of that maxim, maybe so Depression era audiences wouldn't get too introspective after seeing this.

It was unusual to see Allison Skipworth play Doris' mother - a kind of Marie Dressler role. She usually plays the older sophisticate. If she doesn't have money she ordinarily pretends that she does. And here she is an ordinary housewife, downtrodden and disheartened by life without ever actually coming out and saying so. Cary Grant makes a few appearances as a rich and unattached guy who'd like have Doris for himself.

One of the most interesting scenes in the film to me - Anderson Lawler in an uncredited role as gigolo to a woman old enough to be his mother. He has a heart to heart with Jimmie about how they are not so different, to Jimmie's horror.

A beautifully written and sometimes magnificently played serious movie. Chester Morris and Carole Lombard love each other, but she is terrified of the corrosive effects of the life of poverty that she foresees with Morris. So they break up and drift into lives as a kept woman and a gigolo.

The two are almost perfect in their roles; Chester Morris plays a character who is almost unable to phrase a clear thought and pulls it off beautifully, for a wonderful payoff scene. Miss Lombard only fails in one scene, towards the end, when she is contemplating suicide: I blame the heavy-handed direction of it rather than her performance. But the movie is riddled with wonderful performances: the always excellent Alison Skipworth as Lombard's supportive mother; Reginald Barlow as the father who gives her no chance; Adrienne Ames and Walter Byron as their likable seducers. Particularly good is Rita La Roy, an actress whom I have never noticed before, as a kept woman who kills herself -- alas, this was her best part in the movies, After her career faded out she sold yachts. Cary Grant is also present in a small role, in his second movie, but if you're not paying attention to the soundtrack you could easily miss him: his voice was far more distinctive than his good looks at this stage of his career.

There is a happy ending, but it feels forced. That is the one flaw in this movie. Otherwise it is well worth your time.

This is a highly predictable story, which makes for a half-interesting film. It is almost as if the first scene between the main characters was already announcing everything that will take place. Doris and Jimmy love each other but he thinks they can marry without money, while she does not - and she does not trust him to be ambitious enough. As happens in Hollywood and not that often in real life, they are both soon offered occasions to climb up many steps at once through encounters with do-nothing millionaires - though Jimmy gets the better lot of the two as he is asked to marry, while Doris is not and finds herself relegated to the role of a half-official mistress. But in fact this difference is not that important - it would not be a real spoiler to tell how it all ends as anybody can guess it easily. Let us just say - in an elevator, as this is one of the amusing ideas in a film which manages to have a few ones, and occasionally crisp dialogues. These are the only times when Carole Lombard, who moreover is most of the time covered by heavy make-up making her look cheap, can really shine her true self and her abilities; at other times the film makes attempts, artificially and rather unsuccessfully, at a more melodramatic tone and she is visibly less at ease.