Tonight I watched a very funny Silent movie called "The Love Trap" (1929), which I discovered in a search for Neil Hamilton in the library database. I think I saw Hamilton in one of my "Forbidden Hollywood" flicks, and as you know I do a lot of searches of actors, directors and producers just to uncover movies I haven't seen. Neil Hamilton was known to kids of the 1960s (including me) as "Commissioner Gordon" on the "Batman" TV series. I did not know until recently that he starred in several films in the early 1930s as a very handsome and suave leading man.
But he was not the revelation in this film. That honor goes to the leading lady Laura LaPlante. I had heard her name before in regards to the Silent era but had never seen her. She turns out to have been very talented, with natural movie star charisma, and she is a hoot in this picture.
She plays an off-Broadway chorus girl who has just been fired as the movie opens, because she can't get her dance steps down. The director has made an example of her in front of the other girls. She is humiliated, but worse, she is late on her rent and has received a "pay or else" note from her landlady.
A friend from the chorus line suggests she attend a party at the home of a wealthy gentleman. The friend will be there, all LaPlante has to do is "show up and look pretty" to earn fifty bucks. I think we have heard this line in another pre-Code movie. It sounded familiar, but anyway, you can be sure that LaPlante will be expected to do more than look pretty once she gets there. This is depicted in a fairly blunt way, considering that the year was 1929, but the enactment is done within studio limitations . The crudeness is implied. One of the blueblood partygoers deliberately spills a drink on her so that she will have to change her dress. He naturally offers an upstairs bedroom for changing, and it begins to sound like a scenario that was so common to Hollywood that it lasted until the MeToo# generation finally spoke up about it. You can picture what I am talking about, though it is mild in a 1929 film.
LaPlante is spunky, however, and doesn't give the rich dude what he wants. He takes his fifty bucks back and the next we see her she is sitting on the sidewalk in front of her apartment with all of her furniture. She has been evicted. It is nighttime and pouring rain.
As the script would have it, a cab pulls up and another rich guy gets out. He is Neil Hamilton, and he is an actual gentleman. He offers to take the lady and her furniture to shelter, and he calls up four more cabs to do it. All of the preceding scenarios are played for humor and not pathos. This is a funny film all the way.
A short time later, LaPlante and Hamilton are married. Now the major plot points can kick in, because the rich man at the "fifty dollar" party at the beginning of the film just so happens to be Neil Hamilton's uncle. He is a phony baloney judge, a bastion of society, who goes to parties to hook up with chorus girls. And now he is excoriating his nephew, the similarly wealthy but nice Hamilton, about the shame that will be brought upon the family by this marriage.
Neil Hamilton is ignorant of what transpired before he met his wife, but she knows about his uncle, and this sets up a revenge plot for the final third of the story, where LaPlante tricks the hypocritical uncle, into coming to "visit" her. Now she can threaten him with blackmail and save her marriage.
She never did anything wrong in the first place, but she is dealing with the Upper Crust, and they will do anything to avoid being implicated in their own scandals. They have money, she doesn't. But she has smarts and sex appeal. You can guess who wins.
As I say, the whole thing is played for laughs, but there is a surprise two thirds of the way through. All of a sudden, 45 minutes into the picture, it becomes a "Talkie"! Yep, and apparently this was a gimmick used in some motion pictures that were produced right on the cusp between Silent and Sound. The year would certainly be 1929 for any crossover film, and it seems that before the studios were able to release a full fledged sound film, they teased audiences with short sections of talking. This is what happens here. You have a traditional Silent, with the corresponding facial expressions and gestures, and then all of a sudden, two thirds of the way through, the characters start talking. From what I have read by Googling, this sudden change caused a sensation in theaters. The studios were gearing people up for sound, and then it took off into the Golden Era of Hollywood.
"The Love Trap" is mostly for fun, and could be considered a Silent example of a screwball comedy. Laura LaPlante is delightful as the chorus girl from the wrong side of the tracks. According to IMDB, she retired from the film business in 1935, but I think she could have had a major career like Carole Lombard had she stuck with it. Watch and see for yourself. The movie was directed by William Wyler, an early effort in his career, but he would go on to direct more Oscar nominated performances than any other director. ////
I am tired tonight, back at Pearl's after my time off, and so I didn't make my Scarlatti pick yet, for my classical Top Ten list, but I promise I will do it tomorrow. I also wanna comment on a couple of books I've been reading. I hope you had a great day.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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