Post by rmichaelpyle on Apr 29, 2010 6:04:04 GMT -6
I watched one of the holiest films ever last night - that is, one filled with holes so large one could drive a large Mack truck right through each of them!! I've not seen this one since TNT days, and it's a new Warner Archive release, so I was looking forward to it. Well, now I wonder what I thought of it fifteen years ago. Obviously, I've forgotten! I watched "No More Ladies" (1935) with Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Franchot Tone, Edna Mae Oliver (absolutely fabulous - as usual - and the only thing great about the film), Charles Ruggles, and Gail Patrick.
I won't bore you with plot, because it's just too incredible. I was so incredulous that crud kept creeping up into the cracks on my wrinkling brow. You don't really believe that, do you? The fact is, if Joan Crawford were either as sacrosanct or were she as nervy in her allowances of Robert Montgomery's behavior as portrayed in this film - well, then she's not the Joan Crawford we've all come to expect in films, nor the one she was in real life, that's for sure! His sins were not peccadilloes, either! They were utterly adulterous and flagrant.
Outside of all that, Charles Ruggles as the constant drunk drove me bananas. He was good at it, and at first it was fine, but the whole film?
Come on, even a drunk has a moment when he or she doesn't slur every syllable...
Enough. This movie is for the birds - one's like I am who chirp and chirp and warble and warble and watch and watch - when they could be doing something constructive - like building a nest in a bush somewhere where the hawks won't see me...
I won't bore you with plot, because it's just too incredible. I was so incredulous that crud kept creeping up into the cracks on my wrinkling brow. You don't really believe that, do you? The fact is, if Joan Crawford were either as sacrosanct or were she as nervy in her allowances of Robert Montgomery's behavior as portrayed in this film - well, then she's not the Joan Crawford we've all come to expect in films, nor the one she was in real life, that's for sure! His sins were not peccadilloes, either! They were utterly adulterous and flagrant.
Outside of all that, Charles Ruggles as the constant drunk drove me bananas. He was good at it, and at first it was fine, but the whole film?
Come on, even a drunk has a moment when he or she doesn't slur every syllable...Enough. This movie is for the birds - one's like I am who chirp and chirp and warble and warble and watch and watch - when they could be doing something constructive - like building a nest in a bush somewhere where the hawks won't see me...
