"MY WEAKNESS" - delightful pre-code discovery at Film Forum

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 10:22am

MY WEAKNESS, a totally forgotten 1933 Fox musical, had a rare screening in a pristine new 35mm print (possibly its first in town since its debut at Radio City Music Hall) at Film Forum yesterday as part of its excellent FOX BEFORE THE CODE series.

Fox films of this period, especially its musicals, are wildly variable in quality, but MY WEAKNESS, starring German import Lilian Harvey, Lew Ayres, Harry Langdon, Charles Butterworth, Henry Travers and Sid Silvers, is unexpectedly beguiling and sexy. Narrated by an droll cupid (Langdon with wings, surrounded by cotton-batting clouds) it's a bubble of a Cinderella story regarding a frumpy maid (Harvey) who is made-over to be a glamorous gold-digger by Ayres, who hopes to get his straightlaced millionaire stamp-collecting vegetarian cousin (Butterworth) to propose to her to win a bet with his brassiere magnate uncle (Travers). This being a pre-code film, there are lots of bra jokes ("Our brassieres cover both hemispheres!" "You don't take an interest in the family business!" "Oh yes, I do! I specialize in hands-on inspections!" "Ladies, brassieres will be half-off on Tuesday!" ) and a lot of cheesecake - Harvey gets man-trapping advice from a harem of Ayres girlfriends in a locker-room, which gives director David Butler an ample oppertunity to show pretty girls in sheer and scanty underwear.

There are not many musical numbers (the score is by Richard Whiting, Leo Robin and Buddy deSylva) but aside from an 'only okay' fashion show number called "How Do I Look"(that seems to have been trimmed before release), the other two numbers are delightful: "Gather Lip Rouge While You May" sung by Harvey to a bemused Butterworth right before she nabs him by unwrapping a carrot from her purse: "Would you like a carrot? They're my weakness!" and "You Can Be Had - Be Careful!" imaginitively and whimsically staged by Butler in Harvey's dressing roon. As she and Ayres kiss ("I want to see if you've learned what another girl can't teach you"), the knick-nacks, Art Deco figurines and Rodin's "The Thinker" come to life (via stop-motion animation seen in such 1960s TV specials as "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer") and musically comment on the action. Even Fan magazine covers of Will Rogers, Janet Gaynor, Warner Baxter and Clara Bow join in to sing. As historian Richard Barrios notes: "After another year or so, with generic constriction and the imposition of the Production Code, such cherishable moments would be largely gone...Though (the number) was singled out for special notice, MY WEAKNESS fared indifferently...In the year of Ruby Keeler, Lilian Harvey could not fit in."

Two other points of interest:

1) Watching Harvey do some very funny awkward winsome girl-cute-shtick, one was very aware of Barrios comments that the actress "often crossed the line from the charmingly elfin to the tiresomely fey...and was not unfailingly photogenic" yet somehow one forgives her - much like Kristin Chenoweth, whom Harvey seems to be uncannily, eerily channelling in MY WEAKNESS. One could so easily see Kristin filling Lilian Harvey's slippers in a remake (not that it would ever be done, but it's a cute thought).

2) In one scene, the dumpy Harvey tried to convince a skeptical Ayres that she's attractive to men and "they look at me all the time! I'll show you." She walks down a lane in a park while Ayres follows her and sure enough, men do stop, smile and stare. Ayres catches up to her, the camera swings around...and Harvey is making funny contorted faces at the men, her eyes popping and tounge sticking out.
This scene was cribbed (almost line for line) fifteen years later by Charles Walters for Judy Garland and Fred Astaire in EASTER PARADE (194!

(there is only one more showing of MY WEAKNESS at Film Forum this afternoon at 2:45)
1933 New York Times Review of MY WEAKNESS

[Kringas]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 10:25am

Ah, sounds like fun. I love movies from the pre-code era.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 10:42am

Pre-code flicks are a blast! So much wild entertainment in an hour!
Check out NIGHT NURSE with a baby-faced Barbara Stanwyck and everyone's favorite sassy sidekick Joan Blondell...Stanwyck has a great scene where she hauls back and punches a dysfunctional mommy out cold and then stands over her sneering "You MOTHER!" And she's the heroine!!

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 11:00am

I just heard about NIGHT NURSE from a friend last night, BostalBoy! It sounds like a scream - But with Stanwyck and Blondell, how can it anything else but fabulous?!

Have you seen BLOOD MONEY with Judith Anderson, George Bancroft and sweet little Frances Dee (as a Park Ave deb with a yen for mascochism)?

"I want a man to be my master. One who'd lead me around in a collar and leash!"

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 11:10am

The pre-morality code films are really quite startling for their....well, lack of morality. You just don't see black and white films with actors that look like that behaving in such a tough, unsentimental way. NIGHT NURSE is deliciously brutal!

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 11:16am

Sombody call TCM. They need to run this as a series. NOW.

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 11:23am

I just checked out NIGHT NURSE on the IMDB boards. WOW. It's a Must-See!

In an ideal world, Clark Gable's chauffeur (NIGHT NURSE) and Frances Dee (BLOOD MONEY) would meet and find true love. They are made for each other!

http://imdb.com/title/tt0022208/

http://imdb.com/title/tt0023818/

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 5:30pm

pardon my ignorance, but what does "pre-code" mean?

[Kringas]

Posted: 12/14/06 at 5:36pm

Pre-Hays Code. The Hays code was sort of a precurser to the MPAA rating system, but much more stringent.





The Hays Code

Updated On: 12/14/06 at 05:36 PM