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TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2 (The Divorcee / A Free Soul / Night Nurse / Three on a Match / Female)

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March will mark the release of some PreCode gems on this Forbidden Hollywood set, in particular for Norma Shearer fans.

"The Divorcee" (1930). Ms. Shearer's Academy award winning performance as Jerry in the role her husband, Irving Thalberg, initially thought she wasn't sexy enough to play (a few wonderfully seductive portraits, courtesy of Mr. Hurrell were enough to prove his doubts had no basis) is excellent. Great minor role by her future leading man, Robert Montgomery, as well.

"A Free Soul" (1931). Ms. Shearer is Jan Ashe; Mr. Lionel Barrymore (in his Academy Award winning role) is her alcoholic, lawyer father, Stephen Ashe. Young Clark Gable made his cinematic bones with his role as mob heavy Ace Wilfong. For those who've only known Norma for "Marie Antoinette" and "The Women", be prepared for an entirely different actress. Ms. Shearer, resplendent in her erotic white gown, is pure bombshell.

"Night Nurse" (1931). Barbara Stanwyck was at her best in PreCodes (though I think "Illicit" is a better film) and Joan Blondell packs a punch as her nurse friend. This film has a plot to kill children, a nymphomanical mother, drug references and Clark Gable mobbing up again as Nick, the chauffeur.

"Three on a Match"(1932). Anne Dvorak, Joan Blondell and Bette Davis play the three ladies who share the karmic match. One's a bad girl who turns her life around (Blondell); another one is a good girl who remains true to her goodness (Bette Davis); the third has all the luck, money and the love of a faithful husband (Dvorak), but throws it all away for booze, drugs and shady men. Humphrey Bogart, also making his start as a mob heavy, plays her connection/kidnapper, Harve while the charming Warren Williams plays her abandoned husband, Robert.

"Female" (1933). The exceptionally talented Ruth Chatterton plays Alison Drake, president of a successful automobile factory, with a penchant for having trysts with her male secretaries and promptly transferring them to the company's Canadian office. Enter George Brent (Ms. Chatterton's husband off-screen at the time) as designer Jim Thorn and the sparks begin.

Commentary, trailers and a new documentary make this a must-own for fans of Pre-Code cinema. Let's get working on set 3, why don't we? Classic film fans (myself included) are only glad to spend those preorder dollars for Pre-Code releases.

A little over a year after the release of volume one, Warner Home Video is finally giving us volume 2 of its Forbidden Hollywood series. There are supposedly to be two releases of this series a year from this point forward. Included in this set are:
a. Five films instead of the three in volume one.
b. Commentaries for two of the films.
c. A new documentary on the precode genre.

The films included are:

"The Divorcee" (1930) and "A Free Soul" (1931). These two films feature great performances from Norma Shearer. In "The Divorcee" she plays a wife who discovers her husband has cheated on her. When confronted he admits what he did but insists it meant nothing. However, he has a different attitude when Norma does the same with hubby's best friend (Robert Montgomery). The two divorce and Norma enters into a long string of ill-fated affairs. Shearer won Best Actress for her performance.
In "A Free Soul" alcoholic attorney Stephen Ashe (Lionel Barrymore) and his daughter Jan (Norma Shearer) have always lived a lifestyle of which the rest of their socialite family disapproved. Stephen has always taught his daughter to go her own way and not pay attention to what other people think. Now this may be good advice when it has to do with priggish conventions rooted in tradition rather than right and wrong. However, what Stephen has failed to point out to Jan is that people also generally think it is a bad idea to walk into a busy intersection blind-folded, and just because this is a majority opinion does not make it a convention ripe for the testing. Thus, completely blindfolded, Jan walks into the busy intersection that is the world of gangster Ace Wilfong (Clark Gable), a murderer that her father has recently managed to get acquitted in one of his more sober moments. Stephen Ashe is faced with a parent's worst nightmare - he has given his daughter what turns out to be very bad advice, and she has not only listened but followed it. Barrymore won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance.
DVD Special Features:
The Divorcee commentary by Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta

"Three on a Match" (1932) and "Female" (1933) are on the second disk.
"Three on a Match" stars Ann Dvorak, Joan Blondell, and Bette Davis as three girls who grow up together but go very different ways. However, as adults they reunite for lunch one day and from that moment their lives intertwine once again, this time resulting in tragedy. Dvorak plays a woman whose narcissism she has confused as a bent for the romantic, Blondell plays the woman with a jaded past but a good heart, and Davis is in the background as a reliable Girl Friday type.
"Female" stars Ruth Chatterton as the sexually liberated manager of an automobile factory. However, she meets her match in inventor Jim Thorne (George Brent). A kind of "Taming of the Shrew" meets Ernst Lubitsch, although Lubitsch himself had nothing to do with this film. If you can ignor the improbability that a woman would ever be able to reach this position in management in the 1930's while so flaunting convention, this is a very enjoyable little movie.
DVD Special Features:
Theatrical trailers for both films

"Night Nurse" (1931) and the precode documentary are on disk three.
"Night Nurse" stars Barbara Stanwyck, one of the queens of the precodes, in a film that is more of a depression era crime/mystery film than anything with some precode bits thrown in. Unlike "Baby Face", here Stanwyck is using her toughness more than her sexuality. She plays a nurse on the night shift who ends up caring for two wealthy children who are being systematically starved by an evil chauffeur (Clark Gable) so that he can marry the childrens' mother and grab their trust funds. Stanwyck faces indifference on all fronts, and is helped out by a bootlegger friend (Ben Lyon) in her effort to save the children.
DVD Special Features:
Night Nurse commentary by Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta
Night Nurse theatrical trailer

The announcement of the second set of the Forbidden Hollywood series is welcome. The set falls neatly into 2 groups - the MGM pair and the Warners trio.

The former are well mounted up-market A pictures with the prestigious Norma Shearer. Shearer was the wife of MGM wonderboy producer Irving Thalberg and his management of her limited talent was masterful. Both films carefully showcase her in "modern" stories of liberated women with attitudes to sex which were scandalous in 1930.

- In "The Divorcee", Shearer won the best actress Oscar playing a woman who divorces her husband because he is unfaithful then proceeds to "liberate" herself with other men. The film is a very early talkie with all the associated limitations - stagy, endless talk and some corny acting, including a very mannered Shearer. The disk contains a commentary which notes these limitations, particularly Shearer's.
- "A Free Soul" enhanced Shearer's reputation as THE prototype of the sexually liberated woman in this tale of a woman whose fiance, Leslie Howard, murders her lover, a very raunchy Clark Gable. Lionel Barrymore won an Oscar for his performance as Shearer's lawyer father and deservedly so. This is a much better film than "The Divorcee", demonstrating how quickly Hollywood progressed with talkies - better direction, photography, recording and acting. The story is really interesting with some great twists and Shearer is generally less mannered and accordingly much more effective than the earlier film. She also wears some of the best clothes ever seen on the screen, transforming her dumpy figure into a svelte and sexy one.

The remaining trio reflect Warner's assembly line approach to film making at the time and have shorter running times and faster pace.

- "Night Nurse" is a sordid tale starring the relentless Barbara Stanwyck as a nurse, with great support from Joan Blondell and a particularly nasty Clark Gable whose star quality is impossible to ignore. Stanwyck and Blondell seem to be constantly stripping for the camera and there are some great lines. Blondell says "I used to worry that the hospital would burn down. Now I have to watch myself with matches".
- "Three on a Match" is a very short film which moves with lightening speed. It stars the luminous Ann Dvorak as a bored wife, the reliable Blondell as the heart-of-gold showgirl and an attractive but subdued Bette Davis as a secretary/nanny of all things. The women, who were childhood friends, renew acquaintance at lunch and light their cigarettes with one match, a superstition with ominous consequences. The film's plot involves kidnapping, a subject taken straight from the headlines in 1932, and covers sex and drugs and rock 'n roll, well jazz anyway. Note also the array of great players in supporting or cameo roles, some unbilled - Glenda Farrell in the reform school, Humphrey Bogart as a particularly vicious gangster, Allen Jenkins as one of the gang, Edward Arnold as the head of the kidnappers, Frankie Darro as as a schoolboy and Anne Shirley, billed as Dawn O'Day, playing Dvorak as a child.
- "Female" is the oddest film in the bunch because it stars the sophisticated and dry Ruth Chatterton, a polished diva probably more suited to MGM gloss than gritty Warner's realism. Chatterton plays a business woman competing in a man's world until she meets her nemesis George Brent. The pre-code aspects of the film relate to Chatterton placing her sex life in a compartment with a string of lovers on call, but no time for true love. It is surprising. The film is very funny at times and Brent, who was married to Chatterton at the time, is excellent.

The prints of all the films are good enough, with "Three on a Match" particularly mint. The Warners group contain the original trailers. The set includes a first rate documentary on the pre-code era which neatly captures the intrigue of this short period as talkies evolved. The documentary, produced by TCM, largely confines itself to the products of MGM and Warners which of course are the TCM libraries. "Night Nurse" contains an entertaining commentary shared between 2 relaxed historians.

It is worth noting that the stars of all of these films are women, like the previous Forbidden Hollywood Series. The Hays Code curtailed the actions and attitudes of women, taking them out of the bedroom and boardroom and placing them back in the kitchen and lounge. For men, nothing really changed much. By the way, that's Bette Davis, who was very attractive in those days, on the cover.

Those who enjoyed Volume One of Turner Classic Movies' Forbidden Hollywood Collection will undoubtedly be thrilled by Volume Two. Before the Hays Code neutralized the sexually oriented behavior that could be shown in Hollywood movies for over three decades, there was a crop of movies that reflected a more laissez-faire attitude toward risqué subjects like promiscuity, homosexuality and drug use. Three films were presented over two discs in Volume One, and five are presented here over three discs along with a new seventy-minute documentary produced specifically for this set and aired on the TCM network.

Disc One contains two early classics starring Norma Shearer, 1930's "The Divorcee" (***1/2) and 1931's "A Free Soul" (****). Along with Garbo, Shearer was fast becoming MGM's prestige star at the time thanks to some degree to her marriage to the mythic studio head Irving Thalberg. However, she was also uniquely talented as proven by the diversity of her films. Although she is remembered today more for her later roles in the title role of 1938's Marie Antoinette and as the virtuous center of 1939's The Women, Shearer plays Jerry Martin, the blazing center of "The Divorcee" in which she plays a carefree young wife who cheats on her husband after he carelessly cheats on her. Instead of treating her in Scarlet Letter fashion, the film takes a refreshing look at the double standards between men and women when it comes to adultery. Naturally, they eventually regret their behavior but not before a lot of alcohol-fueled hell-raising with their fair-weather friends.

In comparing the two Shearer vehicles, I find "A Free Soul" the more interesting film because it has some sizzling dialogue from screenwriter Adela Rogers St. John and an uncommonly powerful cast that includes Clark Gable, Leslie Howard and Lionel Barrymore. She plays Rogers St. Johns' alter ego, Jan Ashe, the free-spirited daughter of an alcoholic attorney (Barrymore) who successfully defends mob leader Ace Wilfong (Gable) in a murder case that is eerily prescient of the O.J. Simpson criminal trial. Jan gets hot and steamy over Ace, even though she is engaged to the socially acceptable Dwight (Howard). The inevitable complications occur with alcohol abuse, gambling and murder. Although not a natural temptress like Garbo, Shearer manages to imbue her role with an effective carnality mixed with her innate nobility. Gable was in his sinister period, while Barrymore pulls out the stops as her father, especially in the climactic murder trial scene. As an indication of public acceptance of these racy films, Barrymore won an Oscar for his role here, as did Shearer for "The Divorcee".

Disc Two is a Warner Brothers double-header with the studio feeling like the working class cousin to the glossier MGM. Both films barely run an hour, and not a scene is wasted in these fast-moving vehicles. The first is 1932's "Three on a Match" (****), which follows three schoolmates over the course of a dozen years. Joan Blondell plays Mary Keaton, the dropout who goes to reform school for her wild ways; a bottle-blonde Bette Davis plays class valedictorian Ruth Wescott who becomes a stenographer; and the forgotten Ann Dvorak plays popular Vivian Revere who marries a wealthy lawyer and has a son. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, the film is most intriguing for the way the plot twists the characters' fates. In a very early role, Davis barely registers as Ruth, but Blondell is terrifically likable showing how Mary turns her life around. Bearing a striking resemblance to Luise Rainer, Dvorak gets the meatiest role as Vivian as she descends from bored socialite to unrepentant cocaine addict. It's a mesmerizing turn capped by a shocking finale. A very young Humphrey Bogart shows up in a minor role as what else, a gangster.

The second half of Disc Two is 1933's "Female" (****), the most intriguing of the five films as it manages to be a sociological statement as well as a romantic comedy. Directed by Michael Curtiz, it centers on Alison Drake, the powerful CEO of an automobile company. There is great fun watching her order her subservient male staff around like a drill sergeant and using them for inappropriate conjugal visits at her palatial estate to satisfy her desires. Naturally, she meets her match in auto designer Jim Thorne first in a meet-cute situation and then in a battle of wills at the company. Ruth Chatterton (the selfish wife in Dodsworth) is wonderfully game as Alison, while the usually bland George Brent (her real-life husband at the time) complements her well as Jim. The ending is trite but inevitable. Pay attention to the fascinating Art Deco set decorations, including the use of Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House as Alison's mansion.

Disc Three contains 1931's "Night Nurse" (***1/2), a tense melodrama starring Barbara Stanwyck in the title role as Lora Hart assigned to take care of the two young daughters in a wealthy family. However, she uncovers a plot hatched by their alcoholic mother to kill the girls in order to steal their trust funds with the assistance of a nasty chauffeur and a corrupt doctor. Directed by William Wellman, the movie features several risqué moments with Stanwyck and pal Joan Blondell dressing and undressing in their uniforms, as well as moments of unexpected violence. Again, Clark Gable shows up in a sinister role as the chauffeur and slaps Stanwyck around with convincing malevolence. While I prefer her work in 1933's "Baby Face" on Volume One, no one shined more than Stanwyck in these pre-code films since her non-nonsense manner was a perfect fit for the era's candor and directness.

The 2008 documentary on Disc Three, "Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood" (****1/2), offers a fascinating overview of the pre-code period before 1934 when the Legion of Decency helped bring about strict adherence to the Hays Code. It offers plenty of clips from both famous and obscure films of the period including those on the Forbidden Hollywood Collection. Some are surprising such as scenes cut from 1933's King Kong, one where the giant ape strips the gown off Fay Wray and another where people are literally eaten and crushed. My favorite is the nude sequence with a body double for Maureen O'Sullivan swimming provocatively with Johnny Weissmuller in 1934's Tarzan and His Mate. Several people provide comments including the late Jack Valenti (who developed the film rating system still in use today), social critic Camille Paglia and director John Landis. As for extras, film historians Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta provide informative and often enthusiastic commentary tracks for "The Divorcee" and "Night Nurse". The original theatrical trailers are included for "Three on a Match", "Female" and "Night Nurse".

I just read about the release of Volume 2 of this great series featuring Pre-Code film. This volume will be released just in time for several Pre-code Film Festivals in my city. I was especially excited to see my favorite, Clark Gable, in two pictures: as the wonderfully wicked mobster, Ace Wilfong, who manhandles his mistress, Norma Shearer, in A Free Soul; and the equally evil chauffer, Nick, who is poisoning his employer's children to take control of their trust funds and inheritance from their drunken mother and belting the kid's nurse, Barbara Stanwyck, for meddling in his plans in Night Nurse.
The Pre-Code era was rich with incredible films. It is amazing what was allowed in these movies of the early thirties. Before the Code came in on July 1, 1934, women enjoyed their sexuality, took lovers, kicked out cheating husbands, went to work, and slept their way to the top. Men were dangerous; crime paid, and cracking wise was a way of life. After the Code, the genie was stuffed back in the bottle....women were pushed back into their kitchens, crime never paid, sin was either repented before the last reel or punishment (even death) was the final reward. (Check out Jimmy Cagney's character's demise in Public Enemy.)
I can't wait to own these fascinating films of the Pre-Code era. Check them out for yourself........you'll be very surprised what your grandparents and great-grandparents were watching (or even up to) back in the early thirties.

There were a few years in movie making when sound was first introduced but the Production Codes had not yet been in force. These codes would severely limit the ability of movies to depict the real world: sex, violence and corruption were toned down - often to the point of sheer blandness. Crime could never pay, authority figures were always forces of good and even married couples were confined to twin beds. There were those few years, however, from the late-1920s to 1934 which was known as the pre-Code era, a period that offered films that would be much more daring than the movies of just a few years later.

TCM's set, Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Volume Two, showcases five such pre-Code movies. On the first of three discs are a pair of Norma Shearer films. In The Divorcee, she won an Oscar as a wife who discovers that her husband had an affair. Although he assures her it means nothing, it is an obvious hypocrisy that's exposed when she balances the books with an affair of her own. In A Free Soul, she defiantly has a fling with gangster Clark Gable, only to discover that the relationship will have unintended complications. Lionel Barrymore, playing her alcoholic father, won an Oscar for his role and Gable's performance would help transform him from a supporting player into a star.

On Disc Two, there is Three on a Match and Female. The former is a story of three schoolmates who meet in adulthood. Joan Blondell is the bad girl turned good, Ann Dvorak is the good girl turned bad, and Bette Davis is somewhere in the middle. This movie features an early gangster role by Humphrey Bogart. Female has Ruth Chatterton as the driven owner of an auto company. She works hard by day and chooses various male employees to be her playthings at night. It's a fine arrangement until she meets George Brent as the one man who resists her charms.

Finally, on Disc Three, Barbara Stanwyck is the Night Nurse, a woman from the wrong side of the tracks who betters herself by becoming a nurse. Unfortunately, the ethics of the profession compel her to look the other way when she sees malpractice, but she'll put what's right above what's required. Clark Gable is in one of his most villainous roles as a thuggish chauffeur out to kill a couple children. The resolution of this one would involve an act that would never be allowed under the Code.

Also on the third disc is a nice documentary called Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood. This feature describes more fully what this era meant to film, and what it meant when it ended. One thing that stands out is that this was a time where actresses could have juicy roles, a heyday for Blondell, Davis, Stanwyck and Shearer as well as folks like Crawford, Hepburn and Loy. The Code with its "family values" agenda would pigeonhole the women into much more limited roles.

All these movies are well-made and relatively short: the longest (A Free Soul) runs 93 minutes and Female is just an hour. With the documentary and a couple commentaries (on The Divorcee and Night Nurse), this is a wonderful set that will not only entertain, but serve as a reminder as to what the Production Code took away from movie making.

It may not have exactly been a time of innocence, but it was a time of some pretty good flicks that have, until now, been pretty much forgotten. Turner Classic Movies has changed that. Again. The five films in their second collection push the boundaries of morality---a sex, sin-filled orgy of flimsy nighties, politically incorrect situations, extraordinary frankness, nudity, adultery, premarital sex and prostitution. Some things never change. The best of the bunch is The Divorcee, the film that is considered the official kick-off of the pre-Code era. Norma Shearer won an Oscar for Best Actress as a woman who decides to match her cheating husband tryst for tryst after catching him husband in a compromising position. The phenomenal critical and financial success of the picture led other studios to try topping it, and soon almost every actress in Hollywood was required to sin. And repent. The sensational series of films that emerged helped Hollywood survive its economic crisis and moviegoers enjoy the vicarious thrills the films provided. The era came to an abrupt close beginning July 1, 1934, when Catholic watchdog groups threatened boycotts of all films and the Church established the Legion of Decency to monitor movies. Studio heads bowed to the pressure and the era of censorship began, lasting until the establishment of the industry's rating system in 1968.

'forbidden hollywood vol. 2' is comprised of films that have been seen often at tcm. whether it's during oscar sweeps or birthday tributes to barbara stanwyck or norma shearer, you can count on seeing 'night nurse' or 'a free soul'.

there are three additions to the collection, which is also accompanied by a nice new documentary titled 'thou shalt not' that make worth the price. the first is 'three on a match', which stars the now-obscure ann dvorak as a bored socialite, and joan blondell and bette davis as her childhood friends. dvorak's character has the life her friends aspire to--a rich powerful husband (warren william) and sumptuous digs on park avenue (or whereever rich white people lived in warners film of the 1930s). but she doesn't appreciate any of it and abandons it all for a fling with a handsome loser (lyle talbot). blondell and davis acquire all dvorak leaves behind to pursue sexual escapades. and as they rise, dvorak sinks lower, until she winds up a cocaine addict that must sacrifice her life to save her little boy.

this film is tight and features the neatest montage sequences at the beginning!

then, there's 'female', a true find! 'female' is way, way ahead of its 1933 release date. allison, played by ruth chatterton, is a high-powered auto-plant exec with a sharp mind, a great orry-kelly wardrobe and a sexual rapaciousness equal only to hugh hefner's. she plucks her boy toys from the factory and when she tires of them, she transfers them to canada! canada in 1933 must have been a lonely place.

'female' shows its timelessness when allison plucks a handsome stud that would fain worship her as a goddess--in other words, he's gay as a ukelele! then, as she seduces another, successfully with chilled vodka and pillows in front of the fire, she wears a gown that is a dead ringer for the gown cate blanchett wore to the 1999 oscar ceremony. all it needs is a painted hummingbird on the back.

of course, allison must realize a woman is nothing without a strong man so the film sinks at the very end but that's minor.

third but not last, is the documentary 'thou shalt not', which examines pre-code hollywood film product. the biggest revelation is to see jeanne eagels in a clip from the 1929 version of 'the letter'. this is priceless. eagels was more than intense--she was jennifer jason leigh at her most manic. tcm must show this version in its entirety soon.

First, I'd like to thank TCM and Warner Home Video for restoring so many old films - This is a wonderful set with lively commentary tracks for "The Divorcee" starring Norma Shearer and "Night Nurse" with Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, and Clark Gable. The third disc also includes "Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood". So we've got five great films, two solidly entertaining commentaries, and a thouroughly entertaining and informative documentary. Excellent prints, excellent audio, excellent set. The only thing left to say is "Where's Volume Three! My credit card is ready!!"

The five films considered separately, I'd give three stars once and four and five stars twice each. But is has to be honored that these pre code films are available in good quality, with subtitles and accompanied by a fascinating documentary and audio commentaries for "Night Nurse" and "The Divorcee". This is what makes me give a five star rating for the entire box. The following may be said to the films:

1. Female (1933, 60 minutes, Warner, dir.: M. Curtiz, starring Ruth Chatterton, co-starring George Brent): She's rich. She's powerful. She's seductive. She runs an automobile company and dominates any man she wants - in business and in bed. She's on the man hunt, taking men as sexual objects and pure trophies, to be hired and fired. This is clearly pre code, hard, fast and beautiful... but why must this wild animal be tamed by someone who declares with a total lack of irony that women are by nature born for love, marriage and children?!? Fascinating film with an unbearable ending, but the first 50 of about 60 minutes are that fresh and witty that I'd still give a four star rating.

2. Three on a Match (1932, 63 minutes, Warner, dir.: Mervyn LeRoy, starring Ann Dvorak and Joan Blondell, co-starring Bette Davis and Warren William, featuring Humphrey Bogart): Interesting film about three (female) schoolmates who meet again about ten years later - you'll see a fine little drama about what women can expect from life and from men (and what they can't expect), where Dvoraks adultery will at the end be punished, but the film doesn't condemn her: Women also have a right to strive to happiness, and they have a right to miss something even if their husbands are gentle, kind, loving, noble and wealthy (as is William in the role of Dvoraks husband). This very short and fast-moving film is full of deliberately realistic", fresh down-to-earth-dialogue instead of MGM-polishing, and with many relations to actual events and trends in American History from 1919 to 1932, often shown by newspaper headlines or some semi-documentary footage. Even an allusion to Mussolini is made! The whole movie is a vivid proof for Warner being the studio for realistic sociocritical dramas instead of creating a polished world of its own (as did MGM). Five stars.

3. Night Nurse (1931, 72 minutes, Warner, dir.: William Wellman, starring Barbara Stanwyck, co-starring Clark Gable, Joan Blondell): Thrilling sociocritical drama about nurses' lives under hard conditions, due to prohibition, depression, cynicism, and hypocrisy of some of the doctors. Finally, Stanwyck will need all her courage to prevent two little kids from being slowly murdered by underfeeding. She undoubtedly is the best actress to succeed, sometimes very energetic (but never overacting), sometimes just with a silent facial expression which tells both Gable (as the villain) and the public that this tough lady is just overwhelming. The best movie in the entire collection. Five stars.

4. A Free Soul (1931, Metro, 93 minutes, dir.: Clarence Brown, starring Norma Shearer, co-starring Lionel Barrymore, Clark Gable, Leslie Howard): Drama about a young woman between three men, two of them being potential love interests and one being her father who taught her to be "A Free Soul" - but who won't get along with her being in love with a gangster (Clark Gable). Interesting story, but spoiled by some absolutely silly goofs (such as a man not being killed by machine gun fire although sitting just behind a thin wooden wall) and many pathetic talking, static camerawork and exaggerated mannerisms by Shearer (sometimes) and Barrymore (ALWAYS - his performance is the worst overacting I've ever seen, making Robert De Niro a master of understatement). Three stars.

5. The Divorcee (1930, Metro, 82 minutes, dir.: Robert Z. Leonard, starring Norma Shearer): It's quite better than "A Free Soul"! Shearer has, in some scenes, her mannerisms, obviously imported from the silent era, but she is touching and courageous in most scenes - and so is the script which even advocates sexual equality in adultery!!! Men, and particularly Shearer's husband, are shown as infantile machos, and Shearer clearly points it out, for which we may love her. The last ten minutes, however, are pure cliché, and the audio commentary is absolutely right in stating that the film is very well written and deserved its Oscar nomination for best script - but not because of the last scenes. Nevertheless, I'd give a four star rating.