Product Details

• Actors: Joel McCrea; Dorothy Mackaill; Robert McWade; Florence Roberts; Clara Kimball Young; Mary Carr; Ned Sparks
• Directors: Lloyd Bacon
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Region: All Regions
• Studio: Reel Enterprises
• DVD Release Date: April 19, 2007
• Run Time: 76 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000PITGGQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #325,633 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

In the years before Hollywood submitted to the self-imposed censorship of the Production Code, filmmakers were free to use adultery, prohibition drinking, and sexual double standards to explore the moral complexity of the modern age. Of Human Bondage, John Cromwell's adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's novel, is the best-known but perhaps least interesting example in this triple-feature set. Leslie Howard stars as the sensitive would-be artist turned medical student who falls in love with a slutty waitress (Bette Davis, who steals the film with her cold-hearted manipulations and shrill cockney accent), allowing his desire for this vicious little tart to control and almost destroy his life. At a brief 80 minutes, the picture leaves little nourishment between the narrative peaks but is always well-acted and handsomely staged.

Stalwart Joel McCrea is the working-class engineer who marries a spoiled society girl in Kept Husbands. "Dad, I want him more than anything in the world. Can't I have him?" pleads kittenish Dorothy Mackaill, but the tug of war between his work and her play soon tears them apart. Though the plot is sometimes slow, sparkling society wit and humorous working-class platitudes (croaked out by an always entertaining Ned Sparks) add dimension to the familiar story.

Millie, the jewel of the collection, represents everything great about the pre-code era. Sweetly sexy Helen Twelvetrees is Millie, a small-town girl turned big-city woman disillusioned with love, but while she lets the good times roll she never sacrifices her ideals: "I pay my own way," she insists. When a former beau plots to seduce her 16-year-old daughter, however, the worn, sad woman becomes an avenging angel, ready to sacrifice all for the girl. Though highly melodramatic, with adultery and sex to spare, the film drives ahead with wild abandon, with the dynamic Millie centering the drama. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dazzling Trip Into our Pre-Code Past!, May 3, 2005

By 

Jery Tillotson "author" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pre-Code Hollywood - The Risque Years (Of Human Bondage / Millie / Kept Husbands) (DVD)

"Millie" and "Kept Husbands," both made in the very early 30s, are both a delight--a journey into America's past when movies were amazingly frank and frisky. "Millie" is the dramatic show-stopper with the legendary Helen Twelvetrees delivering a powerhouse performance. She's Millie, a weepy, naive young woman who marries a jerk and then she falls for another, bigger jerk. She has a baby who grows up to be a beautiful young woman. You watch Millie being used and dumped by more heels and she becomes increasingly bitter and gradually becomes an alcoholic. By this time, Millie has become a bitter, haggard woman who murders the sleazy heel who tries to seduce her daughter. In the courtroom scenes, Twelvetrees looks amazinly like Susan Hayward in her later years and the movie ends rather abruptly. But the scenes of Twelvetrees defending her daughter will stay in your mind, long after the movie has ended. "Kept Husbands,' is a risque, sophisticated drama, beautifully scripted and acted by Joel McCrae and Dorothy Mackail. Both are delightful as the beautiful young couple who marry for all the wrong reasons. Dorothy wants to "keep" her handsome architect all to herself and arranges a In-Name-Only high priced job with her father's construction empire. Joel is finally repulsed of being a kept husband and flees. The two stars are totally delightful. This is the first time I've seen Mackail and in some scenes, she looks exactly like Marion Davies, a close friend. You can't go wrong visiting the past in these two gems of a by-gone era where women were always beautifully gowned and everyone sat around having cocktails, flirting madly with each other and then slinking off into the boudoir.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, July 22, 2007

By 

Samantha Glasser "Maliejandra" (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Millie (DVD)

Millie (Helen Twelvetrees) is a young girl jumping into marriage with a man named John (James Hall). Despite her inhibitions, she puts all she has into their relationship and bears a child, but finds that John has been cheating on her. She drops him and soon moves on to Tommy (Robert Ames), a reporter who appears to be very devoted to her. Not the case, as pointed out by Millie's two best friends, lovers Helen (Lilyan Tashman) and Angie (Joan Blondell). Time goes on, and Millie's daughter Connie (Anita Louise) becomes a beautiful young teenager, who unsuspectingly draws glances from men old enough to be her father.

For a pre-code, this film is surprisingly dull. Yes Millie is a woman who has "loved" multiple men who have jilted her, and yes she knows men that try to take advantage of both jaded and naive women, but these things are staples of melodrama, a genre that transcended the production code. The most shocking thing here is the lesbian relationship between Blondell and Tashman, which is only mildly important to the story.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Alpha version of Millie is exceptional., August 22, 2006

By 

Prometheus "diosprometheus" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Millie (DVD)

The Alpha version of Millie is exceptional. The print quality is outstanding and far better than I expected. This is the old Pre-Code story about Mother Love with exceptional performances by Helen Twelvetrees, Joan Blondell, Lilyan Tashman, and John Halliday.