Stubs - A Farewell to Arms (1932)

A Farewell to Arms (1932) Starring Helen Hayes, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou. Director Frank Borzage. Screenplay by Benjamin Glazer, Oliver H. P. Garrett. Based on the novel A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (New York, 1929) and the play of the same name by Laurence Stallings (New York, 22 Sep 1930). Produced by Benjamin Glazer (Associated Producer) Run time: 90 minutes. Black and White. USA Drama

As a writer, you’re often advised to write what you know, and the novel A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, may be a good example. Responding to an International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement recruitment effort, an 18-year-old Hemingway signed to be an ambulance driver with the American Red Cross Motor Corps in Italy. Within two months of landing in Italy, Hemingway was badly wounded in mortar fire and would spend six months recovering in the Red Cross hospital in Milan, where he fell in love with a nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky, seven years his senior. The two would become engaged but she would break off the engagement after Hemingway came back to the States. That experience would be the basis for his third novel, A Farewell to Arms first serialized in Scribner's Magazine (May-Oct, 1929).

Stubs - They Call It Sin

 

They Call It Sin (1932) starring Loretta Young, George Brent, Una Merkel, David Manners Directed by Thornton Freeland. Screenplay by Lillie Hayward, Howard J. Green Based on the novel They Call It Sin by Alberta Stedman Eagan (New York, 1932). No Producer Credited. Run time: 68 minutes. Black and White. USA. Pre-Code, Drama.

If you’re ever looking for a film to watch, the old adage "you can’t judge a book by its cover" can come into play if you go simply by the title. Case in point, They Call It Sin from First National. I saw the title in the guide for TCM and saw that Loretta Young was the star. Young had been the lead of many racy pre-code films and the promise of one with this title was too much to pass up.

Stubs - Big City Blues

Big City Blues (1932) Starring: Joan Blondell, Eric Linden, Jobyna Howland. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Screenplay by Ward Morehouse, Lillie Hayward. Based on the play New York Town by Ward Morehouse (copyrighted 5 Jan 1932). Producer Uncredited. USA Run time: 63 minutes Black and White. Drama.

There are some actors that when I see one of their movies is going to be on TCM, I make a point of recording to make sure I can watch it. Joan Blondell is one of those whose films I try to catch if I can. Recently, I happened to see that Big City Blues was going to be on, which is how I ended up watching this film.

At this point in her career, Blondell was very busy. Having arrived in Hollywood in 1930 thanks to her Broadway appearance in Penny Arcade and was cast to reprise her role in the film version Sinners' Holiday (1930). By the end of 1932, she would have appeared in 21 films, some as a co-star or in a supporting role and some as the star, as with Big City Blues.

Stubs - Island of Lost Souls

Island of Lost Souls (1932) starring: Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams, Bela Lugosi; Directed by Erle C. Kenton; Screenplay by Waldemar Young, Philip Wylie. Based on the novel The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells (London, 1896). Producer: None Credited. Run time: 70 minutes. Black and White. Drama, Science fiction, Horror

While Universal gets credit for the early 30s craze for horror film with Dracula in 1931, they were not the only studio to make that genre of films. Paramount Pictures had released Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and wanted to make a follow-up with more horrific and sexual themes. On June 1, 1931, Paramount paid $15,000 (equivalent to $300,500 in 2023) for the rights to H. G. Wells' novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, first published in 1896. Along with the novel, the studio also had access to an unproduced play by Frank Vreeland that was based on Wells' story and titled His Creatures.

The Paramount version of the story differed from the H.G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, on which it is based. One of the differences was the addition of a character called The Panther Woman. This was used in pre-production as publicity with a talent search for the actress to play the role. Paramount publicist Arthur Mayer developed a contest that involved giving the winner a trip to Hollywood, $200 (equivalent to $4,470 in 2023) a week for five weeks, a home at the Ambassador Hotel, and a role in the film.

A copy of the form women could fill out to be considered for the role.

Contestants were required to be between the ages of 17 and 30 years old, to be in good health, between 5 feet 4 inches and 5 feet 8 inches tall, and not have worked, or be related to anyone who had worked, at Paramount. In his memoir, Merely Colossal, published in 1951, Mayer claimed that the contest attracted 60,000 contestants. There were four finalists; Lona Andre, Gail Patrick, Kathleen Burke, and Verna Hillie and the judges were Cecil B. DeMille, Rouben Mamoulian, Ernst Lubitsch, Norman Taurog, Stuart Walker, and Erle C. Kenton, who took over directing the film from Taurog.

On September 29, 1932, Kathleen Burke was summoned to the casting office and told she had won the contest. Two days later, the film went into production. There was location shooting on Catalina Island for a week, and on the SS Catalina, which encountered real fog as called for in the script. Shooting lasted until early November, with retakes of the scene of Ruth with Ouran on December 8. Bela Lugosi was added to the cast in October, replacing George Barbier as the Sayer of the Law. The film was first released in Chicago on December 23, 1932.

Stubs - Murders in the Rue Morgue

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) starring Bela Lugosi, Sidney Fox, Leon Waycoff (Ames). Directed by Robert Florey. Screenplay by Tom Reed, Dale Van Every. Based on the short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe in Graham's Magazine (Apr 1841). Produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. Run time: 62 minutes. USA. Black and White. Pre-Code, Horror.

How does one follow up on a landmark performance? This is what faced Universal Pictures and Bela Lugosi after he made Dracula (1931). The original thought was to star him in Frankenstein, which is what director Robert Florey intended, with Carl Laemmle, Jr. wanting Lugosi to play the monster. According to TCM, “Accounts vary, but Lugosi was to say that he turned down the monster role because it was not a speaking part; others claim that at the time he threw himself into the preparations. What is known is that Florey, working with Garrett Fort, completed a draft of a screenplay for Frankenstein, and shot a make-up test with Lugosi (as the monster), Edward Van Sloan, and Dwight Frye. This footage, shot over two days, June 16 and 17, 1931, is long-gone and much-discussed among horror fans.”

Stubs - Arsène Lupin

Arsène Lupin (1932) Starring John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Karen Morley. Directed by Jack Conway. Screenplay by Carey Wilson. Based on the play Arsène Lupin by Maurice Leblanc and Francis de Croisset (Paris, 28 Oct 1908) and was based on the book of the same name by Maurice Leblanc, first published in Paris in 1907. Producer (none Credited) Run time: 84 minutes. USA Black and White Pre-code. Drama. Crime. Comedy.

If you’re like me, you may be aware of Arsène Lupin through Lupin III, a series of manga and anime about the supposed grandson. The origins go back to a short story written by Maurice Leblanc, "The Arrest of Arsène Lupin", which was published on July 15, 1905. The character would go on to be featured in 17 novels and 39 novellas by Leblanc published until 1935.

It should come as no surprise that films would be made as well. The surprise may be in how many. The first film was The Gentleman Burglar (1908). The German film Arsène Lupin contra Sherlock Holmes followed in 1910. A French film called Arsène Lupin came out in 1914. A new version of The Gentleman Burglar (1915) was followed by a pair of films called Arsène Lupin (1916; UK) and (1917, US). Overall, there have been at least 25 films made, with the most recent being the Japanese film Lupin no Kiganjoh (2011). That doesn’t count the television series (Lupin III), stage plays, comic books, and video games based around the character and his descendant.

While the finished film would star the acting Barrymore siblings, they were not the first choices for the roles. Robert Montgomery and John Gilbert were both considered for the starring role in the film. This would end up being the first of four films to feature the brothers. They would also appear in Grand Hotel (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), and Rasputin and the Empress (1933).

Stubs - Beauty and the Boss

Beauty and The Boss (1932) Starring: Marian Marsh, David Manners, Warren William, Charles Butterworth Directed by Roy Del Ruth Screenplay by Joseph Jackson Based on the play A Templom Egere by Ladislaus Fodor (Budapest, 2 Dec 1927). Producer (None Credited). Run time: 66 minutes. USA Black and White. Pre-Code, Comedy.

Violet Ethelred Krauth had a bit of a meteoric rise in Hollywood. Her film career began in 1928 when she was only 15. While she was still attending Hollywood High, Marian had approached a silent movie actress, Nancy O’Neil, who gave her speech and movement lessons. That lead to appearances in short subjects produced by Pathé, where she used the name Marilyn Morgan.

Stubs - Rain (1932)

Rain (1932) Starring: Joan Crawford, Walter Huston, Matt Moore, William Gargan, Guy Kibbee, Beulah Bondi Directed by Lewis Milestone. Screenplay by Maxwell Anderson. Based on the play Rain by John Colton and Clemence Randolph (New York, 7 Nov 1922) as adapted from the short story "Miss Thompson" by W. Somerset Maugham in The Smart Set (Apr 1921). Produced by Joseph M. Schenck. Run time: 94 minutes. USA Black and White Drama. Pre-Code.

Hollywood loves to tinker with films and remake them, usually aimed at a new generation of moviegoers. Once sound had become the norm, silent films were considered passé and some of them were remade to take advantage of the “talkies”. Case in point, Rain. What had been a very successful silent film, Sadie Thompson (1928) starring Gloria Swanson, seemed ripe for a remake.

Stubs - Downstairs

Downstairs (1932) Starring: John Gilbert, Paul Lukas, Virginia Bruce Directed by Monta Bell. Screenplay by Lenore Coffee, Melville Baker Story by John Gilbert Produced (None Credited) USA Run time: 77 minutes. Black and White. Drama. Pre-Code.

There were many silent stars who did not fare well with the coming of sound but none may have been more famous than John Gilbert. Once the rival of Rudolph Valentino as a box office draw, Gilbert was once known as "The Great Lover". The coming of sound didn’t end Gilbert’s career, but it did correspond with his decline.

Stubs - The Sign of the Cross

The Sign of the Cross (1932) Starring: Fredric March, Elissa Landi, Claudette Colbert, Charles Laughton Directed by Cecile B. DeMille. Screenplay by Waldemar Young, Sidney Buchman. Based on the play The Sign of the Cross by Wilson Barrett (London, 27 May 1895). Cecil B. De Mille's Production. Run time: 126 minutes. USA Black and White. Melodrama, Historical, Religious. Pre-Code.

Feature filmmaking in Hollywood owes a lot to Cecile B. DeMille. Along with Jesse Lasky, Sam Goldfish (later Samuel Goldwyn), and a group of East Coast businessmen created the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company in 1913, one of the companies that would eventually become Paramount Pictures. DeMille became director-general of the company. He would also co-direct the first full-length film shot In Hollywood with The Squaw Man (1914).

Stubs - Trouble in Paradise - "The Lubitsch Touch"

Trouble in Paradise (1932) Starring: Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall, Charlie Ruggles, Edward Everett Horton, C. Aubrey Smith, Robert Greig. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Screenplay by Samson Raphaelson. Based on the play A Becsuletes Megtalalo (The Honest Finder) by László Aladár (Budapest, Dec 1931). Produced by Ernst Lubitsch Run time: 83 minutes. USA Black and White. Pre-Code Romantic Comedy.

Director Ernst Lubitsch was an early émigré from Germany to Hollywood but he didn’t come to America to escape the Nazis. Instead, by 1922, he had seen enough American films to know that Hollywood had more financial resources than the rather spartan German one. While making films in America he became known for his urbane comedies of manners and something called the “Lubitsch Touch.” One of the better examples of that is Trouble in Paradise (1932).

Stubs - White Zombie

White Zombie (1932) Starring: Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn Directed by Victor Halperin Screenplay by Garnett Weston Inspired by The Magic Island (1929 novel) by William Seabrook Produced by Edward Halperin Black and White Run Time: 68 minutes. USA Horror

Bela Lugosi had once been a matinee idol back in his native Hungary and later Broadway. He played the part of Dracula in a 1927 stage adaptation of Bram Stocker’s novel and his life would never be the same again. After playing Dracula in the Universal 1931 film of the same name, he would find himself typecast. He would appear in other films, but he is best remembered now for his horror film roles. Some films would be more memorable than others. One that he might have liked to forget was White Zombie.

Stubs - The Most Dangerous Game

The Most Dangerous Game (1932) Starring: Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Leslie Banks Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel Screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman Based on the short story "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Edward Connell in Collier's (19 Jan 1924). Produced by David O. Selznick (Executive Producer) and Merian C. Cooper (Associate Producer) Run Time: 61 minutes. USA Black and White Adventure

If the undertaking of filming King Kong (1933) wasn’t enough, Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper were also making another movie at the same time, The Most Dangerous Game. Described as the first in a series of adventure and mystery films the two were going to make at RKO, the film is based on the short story "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Edward Connell, which appeared in Collier’s magazine in January 19, 1924. You have no doubt been exposed to the short story at some time during your schooling. The short story has been called the "most popular short story ever written in English” and upon publication, won the O. Henry Award.

Stubs - What Price Hollywood?

What Price Hollywood? (1932) Starring: Constance Bennett, Lowell Sherman, Neil Hamilton, Gregory Ratoff, Brooks Benedict, Louise Beavers, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson Directed by George Cukor. Screenplay by Gene Fowler, Rowland Brown, Ben Markson, Jane Murfin. Produced by  David O. Selznick (Executive Producer) Pandro S. Berman (Associate Producer) Run Time: 89 minutes. USA Black and White Drama

Hollywood has never met a good story that it didn’t want to remake, sometimes again and again. Take A Star is Born. There have been four versions of the film made, A Star is Born (1937), starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March; A Star is Born (1954) starring Judy Garland and James Mason; A Star is Born (1976) with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, and A Star is Born (2018) with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. (There was even an Indian remake Aashiqui 2 (2013)).

But before A Star is Born comes What Price Hollywood? (1932), directed by George Cukor at RKO under David O. Selznick the Head of Production. While Selznick would also be the producer behind the first A Star is Born, which he made for United Artists, RKO would undertake a comparative point-by-point analysis of the storylines of the two films and, based on the perceived similarities, recommended that a plagiarism suit be filed against Selznick.

Selznick wanted to make a film that was true to Hollywood and even added some of his own experiences into the plot about scandals in tinsel town. Loosely based on the marriage of silent star Colleen Moore and alcoholic producer John McCormick, other stories were added as there is no end to Hollywood filmmakers who have lost their own battles with the bottle.

To play the part of the director, Lowell Sherman, an actor and director, was cast. While he was never a household name as a director, he did go on to make She Done Him Wrong (1933) and Morning Glory (1933). A Broadway actor and film actor himself, he added some character traits he'd observed in his then brother-in-law, John Barrymore.

Selznick originally wanted to cast Clara Bow, the irrepressible silent star of such films as Wings (1927), who had fallen on hard times with the arrival of the talkies. However, Bow, herself an alcoholic, couldn’t lose the necessary weight to play the part. At the last minute, Selznick gave the role to Constance Bennett, then a contract player at RKO. Bennett was a very popular actress in the 1920s and 30s and was once the highest paid actress in Hollywood.

To direct, Selznick chose his best friend in Hollywood, George Cukor. At the time Cukor had only recently begun to direct films by himself, having co-directed several films at Paramount Pictures where he had worked with Selznick. Even though he had not yet scored a hit on his own, Selznick entrusted him with the film.

Originally called a variety of titles including Hollywood Merry-Go-Round, The Truth About Hollywood, and Hollywood Madness, the film, made on a budget of $411,676, went into production on April 4, 1932, wrapped on May 13^th and was released on June 24, 1932.

Like many girls, Mary Evans (Constance Bennett) dreams of being a movie star.

The film revolves around Mary Evans (Constance Bennett), a waitress at the once iconic Hollywood Brown Derby (a restaurant now closed but best remembered for co-owner Robert Cobb’s Cobb salad).

The Brown Derby restaurant. Gone but not forgotten completely.

Mary is pretty and sassy and wants to be an actress. One night at work, she manages to amuse alcoholic film director Maximilian "Max" Carey (Lowell Sherman) with her sharp wit and clever observations. A bit of an eccentric, Carey invites her to the premiere of his latest film, which is being presented at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Mary catches the attention of eccentric director Max Carey (Lowell Sherman).

They drive there in a jalopy he bought off a motorist just for the occasion. He introduces her to the radio audience that is listening in and then spends the night drinking and carousing with her.

He buys a jalopy to drive to his film's premiere in Hollywood.

The next morning, not wanting to waste the opportunity, the ever-ambitious Mary cajoles Max into taking her to the set of his latest production and eventually convinces him to give her a walk-on part in the film. Untrained as an actor, Mary performs her role terribly and despite the work that is done with her, she is fired from the production.

Mary practices her scene on the staircase at her rooming house.

But Mary doesn’t give up that easily. Determined to keep the part, Mary practices at home that night until she finds the proper rhythm and style for her delivery. The next day, she stuns Julius Saxe (Gregory Ratoff), the film's producer, with her performance and is signed to a seven-year studio contract (only in the movies).

Her improved acting catches the attention of Julius Saxe (Gregory Ratoff), the film's producer.

Later, now a successful actress, Mary is on set near the exclusive Santa Barbara Polo Field, where she meets Lonny Borden (Neil Hamilton), an Eastern-bred snobby millionaire. He asks her to dinner and she makes some outlandish demands which he keeps, though she decides to skip the engagement. Undeterred, Lonny kidnaps her from her hotel room and practically drags her to the dinner he’s arranged for her. She resists but eventually succumbs to his will.

Mary on location in Santa Barabara with producer Julius Saxe. Here she meets Lonny.

After a fiery courtship, Mary and Lonny marry in an opulent, much-publicized ceremony, but differences in their social backgrounds as well as the pressures of Mary's Hollywood career soon take their toll on the marriage. Lonny doesn’t have the patience for such things as fan magazine interviews and such.

Lonny (Neil Hamilton) shows contempt for Hollywood.

At the same time, Carey’s alcoholism takes its toll on his career until he is forced out of motion pictures.

Max shows up one night outside Mary and Lonny's bedroom.

One night, a distraught Carey shows up drunk in Mary's bedroom and this is the last straw for Lonny. Mary can’t turn her back on Carey, who had been so important to her career, but Lonny doesn’t see it that way and, in a jealous rage, leaves, later filing for divorce.

Now alone, Mary gives birth to Lonny's son but refuses to allow Lonny to see the baby.

Max's life flashes through his head as he commits suicide.

After Mary bails an intoxicated Carey out of jail, Carey, distraught at his life, commits suicide in Mary's bedroom. Her career is now ruined by the subsequent scandal and Mary flees Hollywood, taking her son and moving to France.

But no matter how far away she goes, Lonny, now repentant, finds her. He informs her that Saxe wants her to star in his next movie. In the end, Lonny is reunited with Mary and their son.

Upon its release, the film got good reviews but still lost money. Making $571,000 at the box office, RKO showed it losing $50,000 when all was said and done. The film did manage an Academy Award nomination for Adela Rogers St. Johns and Jane Murfin Best Story but lost out to Frances Marion for The Champ (1931).

The film did though help make Cukor into a successful director and his future films with the studio including A Bill of Divorcement (1932), Our Betters (1933), and Little Women (1933) would make Selznick’s reign there RKO’s golden age. When Selznick moved to MGM, Cukor followed, there directing such films as Dinner at Eight (1933) and David Copperfield (1935), Romeo and Juliet (1936) and Camille (1936) working with both Selznick and Irving Thalberg.

Constance Bennett, who had made her career up to that moment wearing elegant clothing in films, really stretched herself as an actress. She would go on to appear in such films as Bed of Roses (1933), Topper (1937), Topper Takes a Trip (1938), Two-Faced Woman (1941) and The Unsuspected (1947).

Lowell Sherman was good as "Max" Carey but his own directorial career would be short-lived. He would act in only one more film, False Faces (1932), and direct only a handful of films before dying at 46 of double pneumonia on December 28, 1934.

Neil Hamilton, who had been acting in films since 1918’s The Beloved Imposter, would go on to appear in Tarzan and His Mate (1934), the second in that series, but he’s probably best remembered for his role as Commissioner Gordon on the 1960s Batman series. He plays snotty very well here to the point that the reunion at the end of the film sort of feels false.

But the somewhat forced romantic ending aside, the film has one very memorable sequence. Over the sound of what seemed to be a swarm of bees, but was, in reality, a cigar box being swung around on a string, Max distraught over the negative effect he’s had on his protégé’s life, kills himself. The brainchild of the special effects man, Yugoslavian immigrant Slavko Vorkapich, the sequence includes a quick montage of scenes from Max’s life, his life literally flashing by as he shoots himself and before he falls dead to the floor in slow-motion. This slow-motion death technique would be used to great effect by director Sam Peckinpah in his film The Wild Bunch (1969) almost 40 years later. Vorkapich would also produce memorable montages including the harpies flying through New York at the start of Crime Without Passion (1934), the earthquake in San Francisco (1936) and the locust attack in The Good Earth (1937).

That one scene is well worth the price of admission in my opinion. However, there is more to What Price Hollywood? then that. The film is perhaps the first one to try to give a somewhat realistic look at the trappings of sudden fame and the scourge of alcoholism. Though it has a breezy pace, there is something more substantial to the film and it is definitely worth a viewing, if only to see the origins of A Star is Born, no matter which year’s version you prefer.

Stubs - Doctor X

Doctor X (1932) Starring: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Lee Tracy, Preston Foster. Directed by Michael Curtiz. Screenplay by Robert Tasker and Earl Baldwin. Based on the play The Terror by Howard W. Comstock and Allen C. Miller (New York, 9 Feb 1931). Producer Uncredited.  Runtime 80 minutes. USA Color. Horror.

With the success of Dracula (1931), other studios wanted to get in on the surge of horror films. Warner Brothers did not want to be left out. The studio stayed true to their roots and set their film in a modern urban setting, the sort of place their more famous gangster films might be based.

Looking for content, the studio paid $5000 for the rights to the play The Terror written by Howard W. Comstock and Allen C. Miller. I can’t find anything about it making it to the Great White Way but it must have made enough of a splash for it to garner the studio’s notice and see it as a viable vehicle.

The film was shot using a two-strip Technicolor process, making it the first color horror film. The color prints, however, were only shown in the big theaters while a black and white version was sent to the small towns. There are apparently slight differences between the two versions. (The color version was thought lost until 1978 when a copy was discovered in the personal collection of Jack L. Warner.)

Reporter Lee Taylor (Lee Tracy) is investigating a series of murders at the beginning of the film.

Directed by Michael Curtiz, the film opens with reporter Lee Taylor (Lee Tracy) investigating a series of murders that had taken place in New York. Lee watches as three men visit the morgue to examine the sixth body in a series of "moon murders” which involve cannibalism and always take place during a full moon. Two of the men are with the police, Police Commissioner Stevens (Robert Warwick) and Detective O'Halloran (Willard Robertson).

The third man, Dr. Xavier (Lionel Atwill), who has been brought in to do the autopsy, pronounces the murders to be the result of a fixation. Because the murders all occurred in the vicinity of his Academy of Surgical Research and utilize an imported scalpel only used there, the police are interested in interrogating his staff. Dr. Xavier, who is worried about the reputation of his institute, asks the police for permission to conduct his own investigation and they reluctantly give him forty-eight hours.

However, they do insist on looking around.

Father Xavier (Lionel Atwill) and daughter Joan (Fay Wray).

The academy is between sessions, so there are no students, only faculty and the doctor’s daughter Joan (Fay Wray). The professors are all there working on their own research. There is Dr. Wells (Preston Foster), a student of cannibalism. He’s ruled out as a suspect since he is missing one hand, no doubt as a result of his research. Dr. Duke (Harry Beresford) is also initially ruled out because he’s a cripple.

Dr. Rowitz (Arthur Edmund Carewe), one of Dr. Xavier's colleagues.

Dr. Haines (John Wray), who might have engaged in cannibalism when he was shipwrecked along with Dr. Rowitz (Arthur Edmund Carewe) and a third man, but only two of them survived. Now Dr. Haines displays a sexual perversion with voyeurism. Dr. Rowitz, who has a notable scar on the side of his face, is conducting studies of the psychological effects of the moon.

The location shifts to Cliff Manor high on the cliffs.

Only Wells appears to be beyond suspicion because his missing arm makes it impossible for him to strangle anyone. Snooping outside the academy, Lee meets Joan. When he calls on her the next day, she tells him that his news stories have made it impossible for her father to conduct his experiments there. They all leave for Cliff Manor at Blackstone Shoals, Long Island, and Lee follows them.

Dr. Wells slathers himself with a synthetic skin.

During Xavier's first attempt to find the murderer, the lights go out and Rowitz is killed. Joan volunteers to participate in the second experiment. This time, all the men except Wells are chained to their chairs. He secretly attaches synthetic flesh to his arm and face, which enables him to attack Joan, but he is stopped from killing her by Lee, who sets him on fire and pushes him out the window to the cliffs, where he burns to death.

Dr. Wells tries to strangle Joan before Lee stops him.

Part of my interest in the film was the involvement of director Michael Curtiz.  The Hungarian-born director had helmed some of the great films from the studio era, including Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), The Sea Wolf (1941), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Casablanca (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945), This Is the Army (1943), White Christmas (1954), and We're No Angels (1955). He seemed to be able to move from drama to comedies to musicals without ever missing a step. So, I was anxious to see what he could do with the horror genre.

I hate to say it but I was disappointed. It may have to do with the material and the subject matter but I could never really get into the film. The staging is claustrophobic, even the scenes that are supposed to take place outside are obviously done on a soundstage. And the pacing is slow, to say the least, with all of us getting bored while watching.

Fay Wray as Joan Xavier.

The acting is rather wooden with none of the actors really distinguishing themselves. Fay Wray, who was a year away from her best-known role as Ann Darrow in King Kong (1933), is perhaps the only one who is memorable in her role. Some of that may be due as much to her looks as her acting. She had been in films since the silent era, including her first lead role in Erich von Stroheim’s The Wedding March (1925). Even though the film was a financial failure, Wray stayed at Paramount Pictures for more than a dozen films before leaving the studio, after which she signed for various film companies. She starred in Stowaway (1932) at Universal before making Doctor X at Warner Bros. the same year.

Lee Atwill as Dr. Xavier.

The star of the film, Lionel Atwill, gives a very stagey performance as Dr. Jerry Xavier. An English stage actor, this is only Atwill’s second sound film. You can tell why he might have been considered for the lead but he’s not really all that engaging.

Lee Tracy is the hero as well as providing comedic relief.

Lee Tracy is supposed to provide both a hero for the story and as well as comedic relief. The film needs both. A stage actor, Tracy is the one who originated the role of Hildy Johnson in the Broadway production of The Front Page in 1928. When he arrived in Hollywood, he continued to play newspapermen as he does here. He’s all right in the role.

Cannibalism as a subject matter is rather risky as it is a real turn off. Thankfully, no one is eaten, though Dr. Wells seems to be the worse for having studied it. And the synthetic flesh that he plasters over his face is also off-putting. I’m sure the idea wasn’t to gross out the audience but to take the horror genre somewhere new. It’s too bad it wasn’t somewhere I wanted to be taken.

The two-strip Technicolor process gives the film a rather sickly tone which enhances that queasy feeling you might be having. The film has a rather dingy green tone throughout.

When the film was originally released it received good reviews and was enough of a box office hit that Warner Bros. made Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), which would reunite Atwill and Wray with Curtiz directing again.

While I have read some very positive reviews that talk about the imaginativeness of the film, I have a dissenting opinion. I’ll give the film credit for being the first color horror film and picking a subject matter that must have been considered genre-expanding at the time, but there’s not much else to recommend the film. I am not a huge fan of the horror genre, you’d have to be one to get much out of this film.

Stubs - County Hospital

County Hospital (1932) Starring: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Billy Gilbert Directed by James Parrott. Screenplay by H.M. Walker. Produced by Hal Roach. Runtime 19 minutes. U.S.A. Black and White. Comedy Short

Sometimes its hard to top yourself and in 1932, the comedy team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy had released what maybe their gold standard, The Music Box, the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film (Comedy). Knowing that, there maybe nowhere but down for the duo.

While not the follow up short, that would go to The Chimp, County Hospital was another short for the two. Written and filmed in February 1932, the film would be released on June 25, 1932. Like The Music Box, County Hospital has a pretty basic premise, one friend visits a sick friend in the hospital but in this case, the friends are two of the most talented comics to ever live.

Stan arrives at the County Hospital.

Stan is shown driving on his way to the hospital. For whatever reason, when he sees the typical Quiet Hospital Zone sign, his car rears up on its front wheels.

Despite his broken leg, Oliver looks content lying in his hospital bed.

Inside, Oliver is in bed with a broken leg in traction. He seems surprisingly happy for someone who is bedridden. When Laurel enters the room, he’s carrying a paper bag. When Oliver inquires about its contents, Stan tells him “hard-boiled eggs and nuts.”

What else do you bring to someone in a hospital bed but hard-boiled eggs and nuts?

But Oliver would rather have had candy, but Stan tells him that he can’t afford candy; Oliver never paid him from the last time. Even though Oliver doesn’t want an egg, Stan has one. Now you might imagine watching a man eat a hard-boiled egg wouldn’t be funny but, somehow, the way Stan eats it, without a care in the world, makes it funny.

Stan eats his egg like he doesn't have a care in the world.

When he’s done with one, even Oliver is surprised when Stan takes out a second one. But this time, the egg rolls off the night stand into Oliver’s water pitcher. He stops Stan from reaching his hand into the water to retrieve the egg. It takes two tries, but eventually, Stan is able to pluck the egg without putting his hand in the water. But the egg is wet and when Stan uses the towel draped over the table, he spills the water pitcher into Oliver’s bed.

Stan about to spill a pitcher of water into Oliver's bed.

Next, The Doctor (Billy Gilbert) enters to check on his patient. Oliver is happy to hear that he might have to stay in the hospital for a couple of months. While doctor and patient are talking, Stan decides to have a nut. When he sees the weight being used to hold up Oliver’s leg, he gets an idea what to use to crack the nut.

The Doctor (Billy Gilbert) arrives to check on his patient.

Picking up the weight, he tries to use it on the window sill. This sends Oliver up in the air, being held up by his broken leg. When the Doctor tries to pull the weight off the sill, he goes out the window, pulling the weight with him and Oliver further into the air.

The Doctor goes out the window.

Meanwhile, Nurse Smith (Estelle Etterre) is given a sedative for one of the patients. But hearing the commotion in Oliver’s room, she comes running into the room, putting the syringe down on a chair.

The doctor hangs on for dear life, while Stan feebly tries to pull him back inside all the time, Oliver is a human yo-yo. But dragging the rope back and forth over the edge of the sill eventually breaks it, sending Oliver crashing down, breaking his bed in the process. It takes Stan a while longer to finally pull the Doctor back into the room.

A publicity still showing getting Oliver back in his bed.

By the time the Doctor is pulled back into the room, the nurses and orderlies have gotten his bed back together. But the Doctor is mad and orders everyone to leave the room. When they’re alone, The Doctor orders Oliver to leave the hospital. Stan, though, doesn’t seem to react to the news with any haste.

Stan cuts the wrong trouser leg on the wrong pair of trousers.

When Oliver asks Stan to help him get dressed, Stan struggles with the pants leg, which is too small to fit over Oliver’s cast.  Oliver tells him to use a pair of scissors, so Stan cuts off one of the legs of a pair of trousers he takes out of the closet. But it turns out to be the wrong leg, so Oliver cuts off the right leg.

Just then, Oliver’s roommate (William Austin) returns with news that he’s too is going home, though most likely because he’s cured. But the roommate soon realizes that he’s trying to put on Oliver Hardy’s pants, whose names are even in the pants. Stan takes a seat in the chair and gets stuck by the hypodermic needle.

Into the room comes Nurse Smith looking for her syringe.  She finds it sticking out of Stan’s backside. She laughs at his predicament. She takes the syringe back to Miss Wallace (May Wallace), the head nurse, to get it refilled. Laughingly, she tells Nurse Wallace that Stan is going to sleep for a week.

Stan helps Oliver out to the car.

Stan, already starting to show the effects, helps Oliver out to the car. Oliver, despite the cast on his leg, insists on driving, but when they try to get his cast over the car’s windshield, he ends up in the backseat of the car. He insists Stan drive.

Stan is half-asleep while driving Oliver home from the hospital.

The rest of the movie is Stan, half-asleep, driving through what is possibly the streets of Culver City, with Oliver in the backseat all too aware of the danger they’re in. Finally, they end up getting squashed between two street cars, leaving their car bent in a semi-circle and driving in circles.

Publicity still showing the car after it's been squashed between two street cars.

While there are funny moments, the film suffers from poor production values. Its reliance on rear projection is undermined at just how bad those shots look. The last several minutes, which don’t look good at all, just drive the point home. I can’t underline how poor the final sequence looks, as it is so obviously rear projection footage that isn’t always to scale and doesn’t look the least bit believable.

Rather than a coherent story, like The Music Box, County Hospital seems to be a series of set piece sketches that don’t exactly work together to form a whole: hard-boiled eggs and nuts, the nut smashing with the weight, the cutting of the pants and the drive home, each sadly a little less funny than the sketch before.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play pretty much the same characters they always do, which is not to take away from them. Most great movie comedians play a particular role or type of role through most of their films. Chaplin had his Little Tramp, Lloyd had the Glass Characters, the Marx Brothers had their own stock characters and so do Laurel and Hardy. Funnier together than separately, they play like a well-oiled machine. Too bad sometimes the material they’re working with isn’t always up to snuff.

The supporting cast is almost superfluous. With the exception of Billy Gilbert, none of them are all that memorable and in some cases, like Hardy’s roommate, don’t even have role names.

After climbing to the heights in The Music Box released earlier in 1932, the pair comes back down to Earth in County Hospital. If you can just watch the first half of the film, then it is very funny, but like a bad SNL sketch, it goes on too long.

Stubs - Red Dust

Red Dust (1932) Starring: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Gene Raymond, Mary Astor. Directed by Victor Fleming. Screenplay by John Mahin.  Based on the play Red Dust by Wilson Collison (New York, 2 Jan 1928). Producer: Hunt Stromberg Run Time: 83 min. USA. Romance, Drama, Pre-Code

Jean Harlow was as close as one can get to being an overnight sensation. She was married at 15 to Charles "Chuck" Fremont McGrew, four years her elder. Afterwards the couple moved to Beverly Hills and, there to win a bet with aspiring actress Rosalie Roy, Harlow went on an audition. She finally received a job in a film, Honor Bound (1928), as an uncredited extra. She would appear in bit roles in several films before signing a five-year deal with Hal Roach in December 1928. There, she appeared with Laurel and Hardy in Double Whoopee (1929), Liberty (1929) and Bacon Grabbers (1929). But her film career put a strain on her marriage and Roach let her out of her contract in March 1929. But in June of that year, Harlow separated from McGrew.

Her big break came later that year when she was spotted by James Hall, an actor working on Howard Hughes’ World War One epic Hell’s Angels (1930). Hughes was having to reshoot much of the film as part of Hollywood’s overall transition from silent to sound. The original leading lady, Greta Nissen, a Norwegian-born actress, had an accent that unfortunately didn’t translate well to sound. After an audition, Harlow was hired and the film went on to be the highest-grossing film of the year, making Harlow an international star, even if the critics didn’t love her as much. She was all of 19.

During the shooting, Harlow met Paul Bern, an MGM executive, a man who would play a big part in her life both professionally and personally. Hughes lent her out to other studios for such films as The Secret Six (1931) at MGM, The Public Enemy (1931) at Warner Bros and Platinum Blonde (1931) at Columbia. Soon, Bern was romantically linked to Harlow and tried to get his boss, Louis B. Mayer, to buy out her contract with Hughes, but Mayer didn’t see her as being up to MGM’s elegant standards for their leading ladies and found her screen persona abhorrent. Undeterred, Bern turned to Irving Thalberg, the head of production and Bern’s close friend.

Reluctantly, Thalberg agreed and on her 21^st birthday, purchased her contract from Hughes for $30,000. Her first film after signing her MGM contract was Red Headed Woman (1932) and her second, Red Dust.

Clark Gable was already a star at MGM, having appeared in such films as Dance Fools Dance (1931) opposite Joan Crawford; A Free Soul (1931) opposite Norma Shearer; Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) (1931) with Greta Garbo; and Possessed (1931) with Crawford again. But it would be Red Dust that would make him MGM’s most important male star.

The movie was based on the play Red Dust by Wilson Collison, which debuted at Daly's 63rd Street Theatre, on January 2, 1928, and played all of eight performances. The three-act play starred Jerome Collamore as Andre Chauvenet; Curtis Cooksey as Lucien Fourville; Leo Curley as McHorg; Lenore Meyrick-Sorsby as Maurice Chauvenet; Leonard Mudie as Jacques Guidon; Sydney Shields as VanTene; and Reo Suga as Hoi. While both the film and the play take place on a rubber plantation in French Indo-China, there were some changes made. To begin with, Lucien Fourville’s character named was changed to a more American sounding Dennis Carson and Andre and Maurice Chauvenet were changed to Gary and Barbara Willis.

The film went into production in late August 1932 and completed a month later. It was during the Labor Day weekend hiatus from the film's production that Harlow's second husband, Paul Bern, committed suicide, just two months after they were married. Although Harlow was absent from filming for ten days, scenes were shot around her and the picture's production was not interrupted.

Red Dust opens on a rubber plantation run by Dennis Carson (Clark Gable). Rubber is the family business and Dennis inherited the plantation from his father. Dennis is out surveying production with "Mac" McQuarg (Tully Marshall) one of the foremen. We get the sense that Carson is getting sick of the work, the heat, the dust one week and the mud – just to make rubber for products “to keep old ladies warm”. When a dust storm arises, the two men head back to the main house to wash up.

When they get there, they find the other foreman, Guidon (Donald Crisp), drunk and asleep on the table. The two men pick him up and carry him into his room, but when they dump his body on his bed, they discover Vantine (Jean Harlow) already there.

Dennis Carson (Clark Gable) and Mac (Tully Marshall) discover Vantine
 (Jean Harlow) already in Guidon's (Donald Crisp) bed

A prostitute by profession, Vantine has hitched a ride on the boat that has come up the river from Saigon. She’s hoping to hide out from the authorities for a while and only took the room when Hoy (Willie Fung) said she could stay there.

Dennis and Vantine bond over cheese of all things.

Dennis is not happy at first to have a woman on the plantation, but Vantine has an easy manner and she’s easy on the eyes. She wears down his resistance, finally breaking the ice with a discussion of cheese preference.

The next boat won’t be for four weeks, so they make the best of the situation and become involved, how much depends on whom you ask. While they take to calling each other “Fred” and “Lily” as a lark, Vantine is more in love with Dennis than he is with her. When the boat arrives from Saigon, with his new engineer on board, Dennis mistakes Vantine’s stammering to say good-bye as her asking for money. He insults her by giving her money.

Dennis pays Vantine for her time when she's leaving.

Getting off the boat as Vantine gets on is Gary Willis (Gene Raymond), the new surveyor Dennis has hired. But he is surprised to see Gary’s wife, Barbara (Mary Astor), also get off the boat. The couple is dressed all in white and stand out almost immediately as outsiders. Dennis is not shy about his contempt for Barbara, even though it turns out he’s very attracted to her. Barbara is not happy with the living conditions, especially that the bath is out in the open. Not the sort of thing for a lady.

Gary (Gene Raymond) and Barbara (Mary Astor) Willis look
out of place as soon as they step off the boat.

Unexpectedly, Vantine returns to the plantation due to trouble with the boat. The confrontation Dennis had hoped to avoid happens over breakfast the next day. Vantine spins a yarn to explain her presence, but it is clear to even her that Barbara doesn’t believe it.

Vantine tells Barbara a story to explain her presence, but Barbara doesn't believe her.

Gary quickly becomes ill, an attack of malaria, and Dennis almost reluctantly helps Barbara take care of him. Dennis refuses to get the doctor or to stay and nurse Gary, and Barbara gets mad and slaps him. But he does end up staying with Gary, nursing him back to health. When Gary is well, Barbara apologizes for her earlier behavior, and it's obvious that Carson has feelings for her. He even brushes Vantine off when he finds her in his room that night.

Barbara needs Dennis to help her take care of Gary, who has become ill with Malaria.

When Gary is able to go back to work, Dennis stays back at the house. Vantine takes the opportunity to flirt with Dennis, taking a bath out in the open in a rain barrel. He worries about Barbara seeing her and he even pushes her down into the water.

Dennis doesn't want Vantine to act improperly in front of a lady.

Barbara does appear and he takes her on an extended tour of the plantation including the "factory" where the rubber "milk" is transformed into rubber. She learns, as we do too, that this is accomplished by adding acidic acid. The rubber is then put through rollers to make it a sheet. Barbara seems impressed.

Barbara gets to see rubber being made.

Barbara is told by Dennis that none of the workers are allowed to bring their wives, as the camp is "no place for a woman." The native women would cause trouble and the white women couldn't "stand the gaff". Dennis admits that he was born to it, and doesn't mind the loneliness, but admits that Vantine is part of the life here, "if a man is interested."

Dennis ends up carrying Barbara back to the main house during a monsoon storm.

Barbara tells him that she aims to be happy and find her place, and thinks she could be happy on the plantation. Dennis asks her if he can make it his job to make her happy. Before she can answer, a sudden storm makes them run for home, and he ends up carrying Barbara, who's dressed in high heels. Vantine sees him carrying Barbara up the stairs into her room, where alone they share a kiss.

"Did the Duchess sprain her ankle?" Vantine asks Dennis when he appears. She knows something is going on between them - the lipstick on his face is a giveaway. Dennis leaves and Barbara, scared of the storm, asks Vantine if she can stay with her. The girls have a chat, both bemoaning the fact that neither of them could resist Dennis’ charms.

That night, everyone sits down to dinner. Gary and Dennis complain openly about the coolies (the indigenous people who work the plantation) and how you can't trust them when your back is turned. Barbara, feeling guilty, excuses herself from the table.

Dennis arranges for Gary and the other men to go on a surveying and construction trip that will take a few weeks and would be too harsh for the women. But Barbara is worried and wants to go with Gary. Vantine threatens Dennis with telling Gary what is going on with his wife. She doesn't though, and while Gary is off, Dennis and Barbara fall in love.

The lovers talk about their future and their plans to get out of "this rotten country." Wanting to get on with their new lives, Dennis says he will tell him the next day when he goes out to visit the men. Barbara is worried because Gary is "so helpless” but she doesn’t stop Dennis from riding out to the work camp.

Out in the jungle, the camp is being threatened by a tiger and the men break up into groups to try and kill it. Gary and Dennis are paired together and they chat while they wait. Gary talks nearly nonstop about how much he loves Barbara and the plans they have for an idyllic life back in the States.

While they wait for a tiger to show, Gary tells Dennis about his plans with Barbara back in the states.

Dennis kills the tiger, but also realizes that he is not right for Barbara. Even though it is night time and it is raining, Dennis insists on riding back to the main house, a six hour trip in the dark. When Gary asks out loud what would make Dennis ride back in a storm, Guidon insinuates in no uncertain words that it’s Gary’s wife. Gary decides to ride after him.

But Dennis has decided to break it off with Barbara and tells Vantine so over a bottle. Dennis tells Vantine that she is more his type and better suited for the life they’re living.

Dennis: It’s a dirty, rotten country.

Vantine: And we're dirty, rotten people, I suppose, eh?

Dennis: Sure.

The two go back to calling each other Fred and Lily, embrace and even playfully wrestle. It’s at that moment that Barbara enters the room and is none too pleased to see what is going on. In an effort to be cruel to be kind, Dennis tells Barbara that he is not a one woman man, but she is welcome to take her turn.

Barbara walks in on Dennis and Vantine getting reacquainted.

Barbara feels wronged and lets Dennis know by shooting him, hitting him in the arm. The timing couldn’t be better as Gary walks in. To explain things and to protect Dennis, Vantine tells him that Dennis, who has had a thing foo Barbara, had gotten drunk and tried to break into her room, but Barbara defended herself. She warns Gary to take his wife away from there. Dennis adds, “You two pack your tennis racquets and go back where you belong."

Gary is proud of how his wife handled Dennis.

Gary is proud of his wife and retorts, "If she hadn't plugged you I would have."

Vantine pushes the bullet out of the wound.

Vantine helps Dennis patch up his wound, even pushing the bullet out the wound on the other end. Later, we see her sitting on Dennis’ bed reading to him from the newspaper, including a bed-time story. The only thing she hasn’t read him, which she finally does, is the notice that Willises are sailing to San Francisco.

While Dennis recuperates, Vantine reads to him from the newspaper.

Finally, Dennis makes his move on Vantine and we’re left assuming they live as happily ever after as two people can in the jungles of Indochina.

Red Dust rolled into theaters on October 22, 1932, and earned $1,223,000 worldwide on a budget of $408,000.

According to information in the file on the film in the MPAA/PCA Collection in the AMPAS Library, some territories objected to parts of the film; however, most censor boards approved it for exhibition. Berlin was an exception, having been as Variety termed it "deemed too hot for Nazified Germany.” In a letter from Hays Office representative Col. Jason Joy to MGM executive William Orr, dated 12 Oct 1932, Joy stated: "The sex element has, on the whole, we believe, been handled extremely well."

There are many things that make Red Dust an interesting film. The story about work on a rubber plantation is not something you see very often on screen. Nor would the depiction of an extramarital affair and nudity, though very tame by modern standards, be seen on film for more than three decades. Even at that, the affair is more hinted at through a few kisses and a lot of looks. Jean Harlow was about as naked as you can be on film at that time, but there was no reason to show more than her shoulders above the water.

This film provided outlets for two sets of fans; those attracted to Gable’s good looks and manliness and those attracted to Harlow’s sultry lips and wisecracking mouth. While Gable may be the male lead, it is Harlow who makes the film interesting to watch. She has great comedic timing and delivers the lines as if they were right out of her head. She is fun to watch and listen to throughout the film. It is truly sad that her career would end so suddenly when she died of kidney disease at the age of 26.

Mary Astor, who plays the other woman, should not be overlooked. Astor was all of 26 when she played Barbara but had been in films since having a bit part in Buster Keaton’s short, The Scarecrow (1920). Most of her early films are sadly considered lost and if Hollywood had its way, Astor may never have been a star. When the studios switched over to sound, despite her good looks and talent, Astor was out, her voice deemed too masculine for films and Fox released her from her contract.

She was out of films for a total of eight months, returning in Paramount’s Ladies Love Brutes (1930) starring George Bancroft and Fredric March. She would work steadily until her retirement in 1964 after finishing Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). Perhaps best known for her role as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941), Astor was a good choice to play Barbara in Red Dust.

Gene Raymond had the unenviable task of acting in the shadow of Clark Gable. His role in Red Dust is rather small, though not insignificant, but he is somewhat forgotten in the shadows of Gable, Harlow, and Astor.

Raymond, who would marry Gable’s San Francisco co-star Jeanette MacDonald in 1937, was a homosexual and would be arrested three times for having sex with a man. He would continue to act, however, also co-starring in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1940) opposite Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery.

Willie Fung plays Hoy, not a flattering depiction of the indigenous population.

As good as the film is, Red Dust is still a product of its time. Those looking for political correctness will need to look elsewhere. The Coolies are often held up to ridicule and their image is not helped by the depiction of Hoy by Willie Fung. He is presented as a somewhat idiotic, lazy trouble-maker. Not the best image to put forward. While Fung’s acting is somewhat off-putting, he would have a fairly long career in Hollywood. Born in China, Fung would appear in 125 films in a career that lasted from 1923 to 1945, though usually in uncredited roles.

What makes the film work best besides Harlow's comedic senses, is her interplay with Gable. The two have a very good screen chemistry, which MGM took notice of as well, pairing them in several films. In their first, The Secret Six (1931), neither were stars, though Harlow, not Gable, did receive credit on the movie's poster. While Red Dust would be the first time they co-starred in a film together, it was certainly not the last. The next year, they would appear in Hold Your Man, followed by China Seas (1935), Wife vs. Secretary (1936) with Myrna Loy, and Saratoga (1937), which would sadly be her last film. 

I would recommend Red Dust to anyone who likes Pre-Code films or is fans of Gable, Harlow or Astor. You will not be disappointed.