Blood Money

This is another case of a film that turned out to be different than I had expected: in fact, I thought it would be a gangster picture – which is why I watched it following 2 Josef von Sternberg genre entries that happened to feature the same star, George Bancroft! Still, it does concern a racket of some kind – since the protagonist is a leading bail-bondsman with an ability to pull strings where and when required (if anything, this was an area of work which was hardly ever touched by cinema and certainly not at this point!).

The film came at the tail-end of the "Pre-Code" era, but it offers plenty of salacious elements – notably a gratuitous semi-nude Hawaiian dance and the uninhibited character of Frances Dee (which she herself described as "a masochistic nymphomaniacal kleptomaniac"!). Ironically, the lovely actress – soon to marry Joel McCrea and perhaps best-known for the Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur horror classic I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943) – had just come off something from the opposite end of the spectrum, the David O. Selznick/George Cukor adaptation of the literary classic LITTLE WOMEN (1933)! Anyway, as had been the case with all 3 Bancroft vehicles I watched prior to this (there was also yet another Sternberg title, albeit not genre-related), he is played up to be something of a ladies' man (whereas a review of THUNDERBOLT [1929] had described his physical appearance as "repellent"!) but, at least, here he eventually settles down with someone closer to his type and age i.e. Judith Anderson in an early – and atypically glamorous – role (she is the owner of a speak-easy which comes equipped with a chanteuse whose vocal range takes in both Mae West and Al Jolson!).

Another important character is Anderson's younger brother, an unrepentant criminal whom Bancroft is often required to bail-out for the woman's sake. However, the situation is complicated when Dee (another of the hero's clients) enters the picture – Bancroft neglects Anderson for her but, after she meets the "exciting" young man herself, begins an affair with him behind her 'protector''s back! In a complex turn-of-events, the protagonist himself becomes a pariah and is marked for death (via an exploding billiard-ball a' la Buster Keaton's SHERLOCK JR. [1924]!) by the city's gangland factions – with Anderson's consent! – but, ultimately, she sees the error of her ways and races against time to stop the attempt (suspense is admirably built here through cross-cutting, with her car even getting involved in a wreck!). The finale sees the two getting back together…while Dee bumps into a girl who had been practically ravaged by her proposed employer when answering an ad and, ever a glutton for punishment, she takes up the call herself!

Finally, this is the first of 3 pictures by Rowland Brown (who seems to favor shooting from odd angles!) I will be watching over the course of succeeding days – the others are the thrillers QUICK MILLIONS (1931) and HELL'S HIGHWAY (1932); incidentally, he would make another film with Bancroft i.e. the gangster milestone ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938) – by which time, however, both had been demoted: the director to co-scriptwriter status and the star to a supporting role!

Rowland Brown was a prolific scenarist, but directed only a handful of films, the best being 1932's rather remarkable "Hell's Highway." This effort from the following year is interesting if not as successful. George Bancroft plays a bail bondsman who's somehow the kinpin of the town--at least its shadier quarters--and as such attracts a thrill-hungry debutante (Frances Dee). She proves trouble, particularly when they cross paths with his pining ex-flame's (Judith Anderson) genial ne'er-do-well brother (Chick Chandler), and the deb can hardly help throwing over semi-respectable George for an honest-to-god bank robber.

This movie has a fast pace, considerable esprit, and enough suggestive pre-Code titillation, though it's hardly in the "Baby Face" league of outrageousness. What makes it interesting is more the atmosphere than the plot, and the performances--both the ones that work and those that don't, quite. Bancroft is good, though maybe coasting a bit too much. Stage legend Anderson made her film debut (one short aside) here, and you can see why she didn't make another movie until Hitchcock and "Rebecca" seven years later--she's definitely got an unusual presence, but you can tell she just isn't comfortable with the medium yet. Ditto Blossom Seely, a then-famed vaudeville and nightclub singer who plays the latter here (she's basically onscreen just to sing three songs), but she too doesn't feel at ease, so she comes off as a somewhat colorless Mae West knockoff--I'm sure she had a lot more to offer than she communicated in a screen career that obviously didn't work out (this was the last of three films she made in 1933, her first and last such efforts).

Even if these performances are limited successes, they nonetheless add texture. And there are a number of very good performances, most notably by Chandler and Dee. He underlines the film's insouciant amorality by playing a compulsive stick-up-guy as a devil-may-care youth who doesn't commit crimes out of any need, but just because,..well, it's fun, and he can't help himself.

Dee was usually cast in nondescript ingenue roles, but she really digs into this change-of-pace character. The script doesn't spell it out, but the way she plays the society girl (who in addition to picking up shady men is a compulsive shoplifter) makes it absolutely clear that this woman is CRAZY--the kind of nuttiness that probably would have landed her in lockup already if she didn't have wealth and privilege protecting her, with a tycoon father eager to view her behavior just as mild eccentricity. She does have a couple eye-opening lines pretty much saying flat-out that she is looking for a bad man who will push her around--she's a debutante looking for a club-using caveman, the less respectable the better. It's quite the character, almost more than the movie knows what to do with, and Dee really throws herself into it, without becoming hammy. Pity her career didn't take a few more such left turns--she clearly relished the opportunity to be "bad." At a revival screening much, much later, she reportedly told the audience that in "Blood Money" she played "a masochistic kleptomaniac nymphomaniac," something you don't see everyday on screen (esp. in 1933), and to her credit that is exactly how it comes off.

"Blood Money" is a fascinating precode - what else can you say about a film that has Judith Anderson in a glamor role? And an ingénue who longs for S&M to boot.

This 1933 film concerns a bail bondsman named Bill Bailey (George Bancroft) who's been helping out the mob for years. He falls for a pretty shoplifter named Elaine (Frances Dee) - she's actually slumming, as she's from a wealthy family.

This leaves Bailey's girlfriend, club owner Ruby (Anderson) in the lurch. She's the woman responsible for his success, helping him out when he was thrown off of the police force.

However, Elaine (who would follow any man who thrashed her around like a dog, says she) steals some bonds instead of delivering them to the appropriate place, thereby setting up Bailey as a mob target and getting his brother-in-law in deep trouble with the law. Ruby believes he's responsible for her brother's problems, and has a hit put out on him.

The acting is over the top, the dialogue is rough and filled with sexual innuendos, the atmosphere is sleazy - it's pre-code all right. I read a transcript of an interview with Joel McCrea (intended to be for a biography that wasn't written) and he kept referring to "Mother" - I finally realized that he didn't call his wife, Frances Dee, "mother" - he was referring to her that way while talking to one of his sons, who was conducting the interview. As the promiscuous, dying to be hit ingénue, she wasn't very motherly in this.

This is a no-miss if only to see Judith Anderson in a gown and jewels hanging out with mobsters and Frances Dee as something other than a pretty goody-two-shoes.

Wow! Were do you start with this one?

Director Rowland Brown (soon blackballed in Hollywood for striking a producer) certainly confirms his reputation for style with this racy little pre-Code gem, in which an impossibly youthful Judith Anderson and Frances Dee are both revelations: the former as a supple, sleepy-eyed, smoky-voiced dame draped in a succession of slinky backless thirties evening gowns; the latter as a spoilt little minx who in Miss Dee's own words is a "a kleptomaniac, a nymphomaniac, and anything in between".

Great fun.

All the critics and all the old movie books rate this highly, personally I found it awful. Awful and very boring. It's not so much a black and white film, more of a dull, grey nebulous lump of fog. The premise of Rowland Brown's story actually sounds really exciting and Rowland Brown, who also directed this, was a pretty decent filmmaker so this should have been a thrilling, exhilarating picture - but wasn't.

What made this so interminably dull was the acting. It's not bad acting, it's just dull, flat and lifeless. George Bancroft's character is one of the dullest, most characterless leads I've ever seen. You simply couldn't care less about him. Will he get shot? Will he find happiness? Nobody cares!

Besides Mrs Danvers badly impersonating Mae West, the other female lead is Frances Dee. Her character, the obligatory millionaire's daughter, is so poorly written, so poorly explored it lacks any depth or credibility. She is is ridiculously unreal.

Like with BROADWAY THOUGH A KEYHOLE and BORN TO BE BAD, this picture which is one of the very first films to come out of that brand new studio: Twentieth Century Pictures. It seemed like they hadn't quite found their mojo. Even with their big bank account, their talent and enthusiasm, the teamwork hadn't seemed to have quite gelled yet.