Bed of Roses

This one's really a very good picture and upon watching it...I didn't feel like watching an old piece of a museum...no, no, on the very contrary, it's a lively, very well paced, cast & acted film, I'd even say it didn't seem dated to me. Surely Gregory LaCava (later responsible for Carole Lombard's 1936 "My Man Godfrey") did an excellent job with this picture.

I'd never seen before Pert Kelton, in her young days...and she's hot!, I found myself laughing loudly, after listening to her endless wisecracks, playing the heroine's (Constance Bennett) pal, world weary, self-assured, etc... her way of speaking reminded me of Mae West. Both Girls (Bennett & Kelton) impersonate a pair of streetwalkers or "easy women" who want to make it big & go places, after being released of prison.

Johnny Halliday is very good too, as the millionaire Bennett tries to "catch"... and Joel McCrea, is the usual good guy, ... but no so naive, honest man, for whom Connie Bennett falls . He plays very well opposite Bennett, 'cos they have lots of chemistry...well, that may be the reason why they were paired more times by RKO.

Look for Jane Darwell (uncredited) as the head of the women's prison from where Kelton & Bennett are released at the beginning of the movie and for Frankling Pangborn as a clerk... I'm even sure that I saw Louise Beavers (star of "Imitation of Life" (1934)), as one of the women that were released along with Bennett and Kelton.

You've got to watch this one, not only if you're fond of Pre-Code early talkies, but for plain fun.

I have watched many movies of the 1930's and I think I can make the following statement in clear conscience: the first 15 minutes of 1933's "Bed of Roses" is the dirtiest sequence of main stream film to grace the screen for the next 25 years! Wow, it is awesome. The great Constance Bennett, and her hooker partner Minnie, both just out of jail, need a ride to New Orleans. Minnie cozies up to a truck driver, asks for a ride, he says "what's your offer?" Then, a minute later, Bennett sidles up, and Minnie asks her, "can you drive?"! Implied yet relatively explicit is the suggestion that Minnie will be "paying off" the driver in the back of the truck! Wow! Then, once on the riverboat, the two girls are short of cash, so Minnie quite obviously whispers a rude offer into the steward's ear. He rejects the offer, but she doesn't mind - "nothing personal" she declaims. Judy Garland never behaved this way with Mickey Rooney over at MGM!

Folks, I am ever-grateful that the "Code" forced Hollywood to keep its movies very clean for 2 or 3 decades: the art of that period will never be surpassed again. But taking this path makes all those slightly naughty movies of the early 30's that much more fascinating and wonderful to see, like they got away with something, and we are the beneficiaries of that daring.

Another interesting decision the director makes is to take about 15 minutes worth of early action, which takes place on the Mississippi River, and have it all occur in a quite heavy fog. The hazy sheen in which the actors perform is noteworthy for how long this goes on for. Again, daring and interesting.

Constance Bennett is fantastically seductive, cynical, world-weary and manipulative. Joel McCrea is great being himself. And Samuel Hinds, one of my favorite minor character actors, with his perpetually silvery hair, is his usual fatherly best.

A great one from the early days, not to be missed, even if not one of the characters has a Louisiana accent.

A witty vehicle for the beautiful Constance Bennett, this has dialogue that seems to aspire to that of Noel Coward.

Bennett and the delightful Pert Kelton leave prison at the same time. (Later, Bennett refers to Kelton as her roommate from convent. One wonders if Patrick Dennis was inspired by this when he had Belle Poitrine describe her reform school friend Winnie as a friend from boarding school. This occurs in "Little Me," one of the most hilarious books ever written and surely, 40 years or more after its publication, a dead-on commentary on movie star autobiographies.) Bernnett finds herself a nice sugar daddy in John Halliday. He sets her up in some swank apartment, let me tell you! Alas, she meets Joel McCrea, here the owner of a fishing boat. He looks bony here -- but as gorgeous a man as ever graced the screen. His only equal was Gary Cooper around this time.

Bennett falls for him and is willing to dump her riches to take to the sea with him -- as who in his or her right mind would not have. These plans are thwarted by jealous Halliday. But after a Mardi Gras sequence that doesn't entirely work, all ends happily -- at least for our two beautiful stars.

This is a superbly engrossing melodrama with a hard-hitting edge presented in an accessible, non-confrontational style.

Like a lot of early thirties pictures, the theme this deals with is the pitiful and frighteningly awful lack of opportunities young, poor women had back then. It's not as shocking as Loretta Young's SHE HAD TO SAY YES (actually an even better film) which left you with the jaw-dropping realisation of what times were really like but nevertheless it still destroys any false preconceptions that gold diggers or prostitutes did that out of choice.

In a challenging role, Constance makes her character difficult to like at the start. Her task is to try to get the get the audience on her side which she achieves effortlessly. She mainly played heiresses or glamorous romantic heroines so this was a bit of a departure for her but any worries that she'd not be able to convey a low-life, hard boiled amoral girl from the wrong side of the tracks were instantly dispelled. (She does a million times better at this than her sister did in the terrible ME AND MY GAL) I wonder if this character was a man would the audience be so easily swayed - but of course what made this person so unpleasant was specifically because she wasn't a man: she had had to survive in that brutal society in the only way she knew how.

Director Gregory la Cava never lets your attention slip for a minute, makes it lovely to look at and plays a lot with symbolism. It's interesting to compare how different Constance Bennett's character behaves depending on what sort of room she is in particularly in the prison cell or the ill-gotten opulent suite, her self-made prison cell.

Overall it's a fabulous insight into how life had to be lived in the early thirties. It's directed with energy and fun so although it's all serious stuff, it still feels funny. Constance Bennett is surprisingly brilliant, she gained her fame from her looks but this proves that she's wasn't just a pretty face. She carries this whole film herself so how good the rest of the cast are doesn't really matter - although you do get a little irritated by Pert Kelton's annoying Mae West impersonation.

Constance Bennett and pal Pat Kelton get out of prison and will do anything--ANYTHING--to get a man with cash. Bennett eventually falls in love with poor Joel McCrea--but will she be able to tell him about her past?

Nothing new story wise but some of the dialogue and situations are pretty frank for 1933. It's made quite clear that Bennett and Kelton have, and will, sleep with men for money. Also one woman is very obviously a kept woman. Very much a pre-Code film.

The dialogue is sharp, funny, fast and racy. All the acting is great--Bennett is just beautiful, McCrea is young, hunky and handsome and Kelton is hysterical doing a Mae West imitation.

Quick (67 minutes) and worth catching.