Un alma libre

For those of you who did not have the dubious pleasure of seeing one of Elizabeth Taylor's lesser films, The Girl Who Had Everything, here's the original film it was taken from. A Free Soul is the story of a girl who misuses the freedom her father gave her in her upbringing.

The film is based on a story Adela Rogers St. John wrote, that drew from her relationship with her father, famed criminal defense attorney Earl Rogers. Rogers set the mold for the famous criminal attorneys we've seen in action down to today. Unfortunately he was a man with a severe drinking problem which in the end got the better of him.

He did not come from the upper crust that Lionel Barrymore as Stephen Ashe comes from. In fact the real Earl Rogers's father was a minister. Yet Barrymore creates a compelling and brilliant, but dissolute figure who raises his daughter to be broadminded and tolerant and to despise some of the snobs from her class.

Norma Shearer takes the lessons to heart only too well. She leaves stalwart beau, polo playing Leslie Howard, for gambler/racketeer Clark Gable. Gable's a client of Barrymore's who Barrymore got off on a gambit that Johnnie Cochran used successfully defending O.J. Simpson and he's rather full of himself.

Barrymore turns out to be a bit of a snob himself in the end, telling Gable he's not good enough for his little girl. Of course Norma has her own ideas.

This film was the first really big break for Clark Gable. Movie audiences went for his animal magnetism in a big way. Even though Barrymore won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance by virtue of an unforgettable courtroom speech at the finish, it was Gable who got all the newspaper print.

Norma Shearer got a Best Actress nomination, but lost to fellow MGM contract player Marie Dressler for Min and Bill. A Free Soul which was a pre-Code film, explored the theme of sexual satisfaction ever so gingerly, but in a way after 1935 could not be seen for thirty years on the screen. Shearer is also giving one of her best screen performances.

Leslie Howard I'm afraid had real little to do, but look patient and noble as the society polo player. Howard exuded class and distinction even when he's penniless as in The Petrified Forest. So much the better for him when he's dressed in tails.

A Free Soul is light years better than The Girl Who Had Everything and holds up very well for today's audience.