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"A story of a New York lady." Tallulah Bankhead gets a tremendous introductory close-up taking a leisurely drag on a cigarette while blindfolded, it's a promotional contest, the ruined socialite needs every income she can get. Love with the callow writer (Alexander Kirkland) or security with the self-made magnate (Clive Brook), a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. (One last night for idealistic romance before leaping into pragmatic marriage, a beachside stroll where a spangled gown sparkles along an ocean consumed by moonlight.) After chasing away a creditor, the tycoon waits to be invited into the proud heroine's abode. "If we give you tea, do you promise not to offer to pay for it?" "Ouch." George Cukor's adroit qualities are already distinct in his first solo directorial project, a brisk sureness with staging including airy location shooting. Champagne trays and "Siboney" at a soiree give way to the Wall Street Crash's avalanche of ticker tape, the dejected traipse downstairs dissolves to a speakeasy in full swing. (The bender encompasses slurring songs, bitter jokes and sudden scuffles before collapsing in a crying jag back in the penthouse, a replete showcase for the star's slouching insouciance.) "The beauty of poverty" exalted by the would-be artist is nowhere to be found in the protagonist's travails as single mother and shopgirl selling cloche hats to her rival (Phoebe Foster). "You know, this whole thing might make a very good play." The conflicting triangles finally settle on a budding family in a tenement flat, "I hope you will be very, very unhappy." A Life of Her Own is practically a remake. With Osgood Perkins, Elizabeth Patterson, Berton Churchill, Eric Blore, and Cora Witherspoon. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |