Director: Erle C. Kenton
In the pre-Code era, Warner Brothers led the industry with progressive films that dealt with serious political issues. Perhaps the most famous of these was I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, which forgoes simple preaching in favor of depicting the brutality in all of its rawness, justly sparking an outrage in the American public. If Stranger in Town plays as a typical maudlin family drama, it shares a similar resonance to many of the studio’s social interest pictures in the way it discusses just what happens to small businesses when bigger stores come into town, and ultimately the humiliation of being undercut by the competitors. Just as importantly, it affords a respectable role for the terrific Ann Dvorak—she is the voice of reason, speaking for progress (she pushes her father into revamping his business) and even harboring a rebellious streak (she engages in a love affair with the competitor). Beloved vaudevillian mainstay Charles “Chic” Sale plays the store owner, whose performance doesn’t stray far enough from the “old coot” type, but he is a smarter actor than the surface might have one think—his stubbornness is chipped away bit by bit throughout the movie, making his character’s ideological transition happen smoothly. If Stranger in Town is not among the most memorable Warner Brothers pictures of its time, it does serve as a useful example of what the studio was capable of at its peak, and just how far ahead it was of its competition in terms of producing smart, adult films that reflected on the world around them.
Director: Erle C. Kenton
Island of Lost Souls was so shocking that it was banned in several countries at the time of its release. It could be called one of the first (and certainly among the most sophisticated) films about pain, and even in a culture largely desensitized to filmic violence it continues to disturb. Director Erle C. Kenton would never achieve these heights again, so one must credit much of the film’s success to the cinematography of the legendary Karl Struss. As with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (which he shot the previous year), Struss conceptualizes the horror as something three dimensional. The parade of disturbing man-beasts lurch towards the camera near the climax, just as Fredric March’s gruesome Hyde was often photographed head-on. Of all of the close-ups in Island of Lost Souls, perhaps none are more upsetting than those of Charles Laughton, who brilliantly conceives of Moreau as a manchild and a snob, shamelessly expressing glee when considering the potential of his vivisection practices. In a chilling touch, Laughton is often giggling and holding back smiles as if in a desperate struggle to hold back his proud laughter. That disconnect–between his unknowable private jokes and what he projects outwards–suggests that more than simply being an evil doctor, he’s an utter sociopath.
Director: Erle C. Kenton
In the opening scene of Grand Exit, an arson investigator (Edmund Lowe) runs into a mysterious beauty (Anne Sothern) who seems to have a particular attraction to fires. When he continues to cross paths with her at several more crime scenes, he begins suspecting that she has something to do with the string of arsons. The picture is a forgettable programmer, only worth a look for fans of Sothern or for admiring a handful of nicely accomplished fire sequences. Lowe is an unconvincing ladies’ man, although he’s not without his charm–the most memorable line happens when he explains that a love affair is not unlike a fire, because only when it’s over can you begin to parse the reason for why it happened. It’s a nicely romantic thought in what is otherwise a fairly standard crime melodrama, complete with a nearly incomprehensible conclusion. Sothern looks great in an array of costumes, and the moody opening scene, which complicates the romantic “meet cute” element with the high stakes setting of a fire, is nicely staged.
Director: Erle C. Kenton
Made on the cheap by Columbia Pictures, The Public Menace is a tightly-constructed, highly entertaining screwball comedy featuring the delightful Jean Arthur in top-billing. After taking a break from Hollywood and refining her talents on Broadway, Arthur was offered a contract by Columbia in late 1933, where she would work on programmers of this breed before breaking out with a series of Frank Capra blockbusters. The Public Menace sees her as a manicurist aboard a cruise ship who, for reasons never made clear, has lost her citizenship and wishes to make a new life on land. She bribes an opportunistic journalist into marrying her by promising that she has the evidence that will lead to the breaking of a major story. The screenplay, written by Ethel Hill and Lionel Houser, might stumble with the exposition, but it deftly juggles the genres of the newspaper film, the gangster thriller, and the romantic comedy. In progressing two plot lines concurrently – one, the developing romance between Arthur and her co-star, George Murphy; the other, a thought-to-be dead gangster on the rise – director Erle C. Kenton builds suspense in teasing when the paths of the characters will inevitably intersect. While he doesn’t have much of a reputation today – perhaps due to his politics (he infamously said that Mexicans were genetically suited to farm labor before serving on the United States Senate from 1965 – 1971) – George Murphy was an able leading man who did well as foil to great comediennes, such as Ginger Rogers in the charming Tom, Dick and Harry.
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