Ladies of Leisure

Barbara Stanwyck, Pre-Code

Frank Capra's Ladies of Leisure is an above average early talkie, a romantic melodrama that gave impetus to the career of its leading lady, Barbara Stanwyck, at Columbia Pictures. The picture was adapted from a David Belasco play that opened in 1924. Ladies of Leisure was one of many stage scripts that were converted to film at the start of the sound era. Screenwriter Jo Swerling did his best to wipe away some of the cobwebs, but what remains smacks of the contrivances of a previous era. Luggish film veteran Ralph Graves plays a wealthy painter named Jerry Strong. Strong has forsaken his father's railroad dynasty to pursue his muse. Graves at no times resembles a painter, but proves to be a suitably hulking masculine presence to contrast with the petite Stanwyck, an avatar of downtrodden femininity.

The picture proper begins with a wild party at Strong's penthouse. Drunken revelers are thoughtlessly chucking bottles which smash on the pavement below narrowly missing pedestrians. Capra here, and later, uses miniatures to apt effect. The opening accurately reflects the mood of Capra's country in 1930. The effects of the Crash were now being felt in earnest. There was a backlash to, what was then felt were, the wild excesses of the roaring 20s. A return to traditional and homespun values was in process. In part, this led to the institution of the Motion Picture Production Code in 1934. Strong is so disgusted by the actions of his guests that he storms out of his own party to prowl the waterfront in search of his muse. This he finds her, Stanwyck introduced in a leggy long shot.

Stanwyck is playing Kay Arnold, a party girl who has just departed a swank affair on a yacht by borrowing a rowboat. Strong gives her a ride home and asks if she will model for him. She is surprised, impressed, but eventually miffed when he does not try to take advantage of the situation. She admires his values and falls in love with Strong when he shows her an elevated view of life. The formula is the familiar Victorian one of the fallen woman who finds redemption. At one point, Arnold is called a "gold miner", a precursor to the "gold diggers" derided by Dean Martin and Kanye West and countless other rapscallions. On their first film together, Capra had a tough time adjusting to Stanwyck's style. She tended to giver her all on the first take with little remaining for subsequent takes. What remains onscreen are explosions of masochistic hysteria, what would become Stanwyck's trademark. Her fierce energy redeems a trite role and holds this picture together.

The supporting cast is fully able to inhabit the stereotypical roles. The doomed Marie Prevost is a delight as Kay's best buddy and roommate. The jokes about Prevost's character's weight have not stood the test of time. Lowell Sherman is perfectly cast as Strong's best bud, a pixilated playboy. Nance O'Neal and George Fawcett are both memorable as Strong' understanding mother and obdurate father. However, what lifts the film above the ordinary, besides Ms. Stanwyck, is the energy and craft of Capra. He was very far from the placid and corny director of his late maturity. He doesn't attempt to open up the sections of the film that are taken from the play, but has his camera prowl the limits of the interiors. This establishes the sets as lived in spaces that both define and limit the characters who inhabit them. Capra dollies back numerous times from his urban apartment dwellers to emphasize their confinement. Contrapuntal pans delineate the apartments of both Kay and Jerry and the social chasm that separates them. Ladies of Leisure ends in a flurry of cross-cutting that is as kinetic and exciting as anything Capra produced during his long career.