Bad Sister

 (1931)
Directed by Hobart Henley
Written by Raymond L. Schrock, Tom Reed, Edwin H. Knopf from a novel by Booth Tarkenton
Starring Conrad Nagel, Sidney Fox, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Zasu Pitts, Charles Winninger, Slim Summerville, David Durant
IMDB Entry

It's often fun to see the early efforts of big name movie stars. Bad Sister shows two of the best.

Marianne Madison (Sidney Fox) is the bad girl of the title, a wild young woman who is out for a good time. She sees several men, most notably, the physician Dr. Lindley (Conrad Nagel), who asks her to marry him. But she puts it off when the charming Valentine Corliss (Humphrey Bogart) comes to town, promising much. He says he's a businessman planning to build a factory in their town. He flatters Marianne's father (Charles Winninger) into investing, and he convinces others to join him as soon as he gets a letter from back East confirming Corliss's bona fides. Meanwhile, Marianne's sister Laura (Bette Davis) is secretly in love with Lindley. Corliss sweet talks Marianne into forging a letter from her father approving of the deal, and several businessmen invest. Then Corliss convinces Marianne to elope with him and quickly abandons her. It's discovered that he was a con man.

This was Bette Davis's film debut. She  hated her performance and thought at first it would kill her career before it started. The role is pretty bland and the production company criticized her "plain" appearance. Luckily, she kept working until she had a break with Of Human Bondage a few years later.

Bogart's role was his third. He makes a good villain; modern audiences can probably see his true colors early on, but he comes off as smooth and trustworthy, just like a con man has to be. 

This was also Sidney Fox's first film. She was the mistress of studio head Carl Laemmle Jr., which probably had something to do with her casting. However, she does a respectable job overall. Sadly, she only appeared in a handful of films after this and died in 1942 after an overdose of sleeping pills. Lead actor Conrad Nagle had started out in the silent days and continued to act regularly into the late 50s.

The great ZaSu Pitts provides comic relief as Minnie, the family's servant and cook and Charles Winninger and Slim Summerville also had long careers.

Hustle (TV)

 

(2004-2012)
Created by Tony Jordan
Starring Adrian Lester, Marc Warren, Robert Vaughn, Robert Glenister, Jaime Murray, Rob Jarvis
IMDB Entry

Confidence men can be fascinating. And the UK TV series Hustle shows them at their best.

It shows a group of people who are experts at the long con.* Mikey "Mickey Bricks" Stone (Adrian Lester) is the leader. Danny Blue (Marc Warren) is an expert on the short con** who wants to get in on the more lucrative long con. Albert Stroller (Robert Vaughn) is the roper/outside man, who entices the victim into the con, while the fixer, Ash Morgan (Robert Glenister), takes care of the technical aspects. Finally, Stacie Monroe (Jaime Murray) provides sex appeal as needed. There's also Eddie (Rob Jarvis), whose bar is a meeting place for the rest and who often ends up scammed by them -- though they do consider him family if anyone else tries it.

The gang goes after people who are greedy and unpleasant*** and Mickey has a rule against pulling a con against a decent person. He is the mastermind, planning every step and contingency.  Danny is more free form, brash and overconfident, making things up as they go along. Albert is smoother than silk and perfectly charming throughout.

The cons rarely go completely smoothly, and there are even cases where Mickey and the rest are conned themselves. What makes the show so interesting are the plot twists which you don't see coming,**** but which are perfectly set up. Sometimes a random scene turns out to be vital to the plot. The characters will also occasionally break the fourth wall to address the audience about some of the finer points of their plan.

It's currently on TubiTV.  Check it out.

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*There are several variations of these, the most famous example being in The Sting. The movie shows a real-life con -- the Wire -- that was used for many years and portrayed in the classic account of con men, Davide Maurer's The Big Con, The plot is based entirely on the description of the Wire in the book. Maurer sued over the similarities -- which were considerable -- but the screenwriter insists he wrote it on his own.

**Small-time cons like car sharping, 3-card monte, the badger game, the pigeon drop, or the Spanish prisoner. These take a mark for a quick, but usually small, score. Long cons can take people for thousands.

***One, for instance, kills a cat to buy up its owner's property.

****I remember seeing one and saying "They're not conning him! They're conning someone else!"

Roman Scandals

 (1933)
Directed by Frank Tuttle
Written by William Anthony McGuire, based on a story by William F. Kaufmann
Starring Eddie Cantor, Ruth Etting, Gloria Stuart, Edward Arnold, David Manners, Verree Teasdale, Willard Robinson
IMDB Entry

Eddie Cantor was a big film star of the early 1930s, best know for his big eyes.* And one of his biggest hits was Roman Scandals.

Eddie (Eddie Cantor) is a jack-of-all-trades living in the midwest city of  West Rome. Warren Finley Cooper (Willard Robinson) is a millionaire who runs the town by bribery, and who had a fixation on ancient Rome. Eddie stays in one of his museums and becomes an expert on Rome. When he crosses Cooper by stopping his attempt to tear down peoples' homes to build a jail, he is kicked out of town. As he walks away, he suddenly finds himself in ancient Rome. He is sold as a slave to Josephus (David Manners), who frees him and needs his help to rescue Princess Sylvia (Gloria Stuart). Eddie -- now called Oedepus -- runs afoul of the Emperor Valerius (Edward Arnold) and is appointed his food taster, a very risky job, since the Empress Agrippa (Verree Teasdale) keeps trying to poison her husband.

The plot is slight, mostly a vehicle for Cantor's jokes, some dated, others still funny. You can see this as his star turn and he makes the most of it.

One of the best known sequences is the musical number portraying a Roman slave auction. Choreographed by the great Busby Berkeley, it shows a group of woman chained and nude and looking very distressed. Their long blonde wigs keeps things PG rated and the woman -- billed as the Goldwyn Girls -- included future stars Lucille Ball** and Paulette Goddard. Another Berkeley touch was that a woman falls to her death at the end, presaging "Lullaby of Broadway."

Given the time, it's not surprising that there is a blackface number. This one, however, is relatively innocuous other than the makeup itself. Cantor doesn't attempt any of the demeaning mannerisms usually portrayed and it really wouldn't have been any different if he hadn't smeared on the makeup.

Edward Arnold had a long career, often playing heavies, but occasionally the hero. Gloria Stuart, a

The songs were written by the great but underappreciated team of Harry Warren and Al Dubin.

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*He often showed up in Warner Brothers cartoons

**Lucy has recounted that they actually were nude during the scene.

Behind Stone Walls

(1932)
Directed by Frank R. Strayer
Written by George B. Seitz
Starring Edward J. Nugent, Priscilla Dean, Robert Elliott, Ann Cristy, Robert Ellis
IMDB Entry 

I have been concentrating on pre-code films and film noir, primarily because there is a lot of good stuff out there if you seek it out. Behind Stone Walls is interesting because it had elements of both.

Esther Clay (Pricilla Dean) is married to the DA John Clay (Robert Elliott). She is also having an affair with his friend, fellow lawyer Jack Keene (Robert Elliott). When Keene breaks it off, Esther, enraged, shoots him. Her son Bob (Edward J. Nugent) comes upon the scene and goes to protect his mother. She escapes, but he is captured and charged with the crime. His father offers to resign as DA and take his case, but Bob refuses, so his father prosecutes and sends him to prison. Meanwhile, his girlfriend Peg Harper (Ann Cristy) in convinced of Bob's innocence and sets out to prove it.

The pre-code element is the outright acknowledgement of the adultery. It's portrayed without any hiding the fact. But it also fills the film noir penchant for portraying an evil, scheming woman.

Esther is short-tempered and definitely evil. She has no compunction in shooting Keene when he tells her it's over.  She doesn't care when her son*goes to prison for her crimes and has no compunction at trying to kill again.

The movie does not have the shadowy images that gave noir its name. It's also quite stagy; most of the scenes could easily work as a play. The pacing is also a bit slow. But the situation is a fascinating one. Bob refuses to rat out his mother, and the mother takes advantage of it all. She's even blackmailed by Keene's valet, who knows the truth. Esther is a prime example of a noir femme fatale.

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*Actually, her stepson, but Bob doesn't realize that, since she married his father when he was still an infant. This is used as an excuse to show why she has no motherly love for the boy.

Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland

by George Gamow 
(1939)

Twentieth Century physics became a little daunting to the layman, with with relativity and quantum theory and the Big Bang. George Gamow decided to make it a bit easier with his book, Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland.

He created Mr. Tompkins, a middle ages banker type who decides to attend a professors lectures on the newer concepts on physics of the age. The lecture is boring and Tompkins falls asleep and starts dreaming.

The dreams cover various topics. The professor is there to guide him by showing how things work. It starts out showing the expanding universe. The key is that the setup allows a minimum of lecture and shows the concept with concrete examples that are easy to grasp. Quantum theory is shown by the example of a pool room, where the balls move in quantum paths, so that they appear to be in multiple places as they move. 

Tomkins is not a deep character; he is there to ask questions that the professor can explain to him.Still there is some character development as Tompkins finally proposes to the professor's daughter.

My favorite were two chapters where the speed of light is only 10 mph. Cars and bicycles contract as they try to go faster, but when on a train, the telephone poles along the tracks get closer together. They also show how tune dilation works.

The book was a hit, and soon other volumes followed.