Wrong ways of life

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Movie
German title Wrong ways of life
Original title Dance, fools, dance
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1931
length 82 minutes
Rod
Director Harry Beaumont
script Aurania Rouverol
production Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
camera Charles Rosher
cut George Hively
occupation

Errwege des Lebens (OT: Dance, Fools, Dance ) is an American film with Joan Crawford directed by Harry Beaumont . The plot is vaguely inspired by the 1927 Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago and the murder of journalist Jake Lingle. It was the first film of a total of eight films by the screen couple Joan Crawford and Clark Gable .

action

Bonnie Jordan starts off as a wealthy heiress who leads a life of luxury and endless parties. She celebrates with her friends in a relaxed atmosphere on board the family's own yacht. Bonnie is just about to take a bath in the sea in sheer silk underwear when the news of the 1929 stock market crash arrives. The family is ruined, the father commits suicide and Rodney, Bonnie's weak brother, ends up in a criminal environment. Bonnie manages to become a reporter for a scandal newspaper through relationships.

Barely hired, she already uncovered connections between Rodney and the gang of Jake Luva, the most brutal mafioso in town. To help her brother, Bonnie takes a job as a showgirl in one of Jake Luva's bars under a false name. At the same time, she ensnares Jack in the hope of gaining important information through feminine charms. The carefully thought-out plan goes awry when Jake Luva discovers Bonnie's true identity, beats her, almost rapes her and just by accident did not kill her. With her bare life, Bonnie saves herself to the police, who arrest Jake and his gang. Bonnie marries a friendly millionaire a short time later, with whom she fell in love while she was still a wealthy heiress.

background

Joan Crawford had come to fame in the last days of silent film for portraying carefree young women then known as flappers . Profound changes in society were associated with the economic uncertainty in the wake of the global economic crisis . While musicals , revue films, and salon comedies depicting the problems of the Top Ten Thousands rapidly lost popularity, new genres such as horror films and gangster films established themselves . Increasingly, socially critical films were also produced that cast a concerned look at abuses in society. The changed taste of the audience meant that the role of flappers as a carefree young woman who understands life as a series of amusements without material worries quickly became a thing of the past. Against this background, from 1930 onwards, the studio transformed Joan Crawford's image into an ambitious woman who wants to improve her living conditions on her own. Therefore, at this point in her acting career, she often played working-class girls who make up the social ladder. This upheaval took place over a number of films, starting with Our Blushing Brides , who made Crawford an employee for the first time, who bravely faces the adversities of life and ends up marrying a millionaire. At the beginning, the wrong ways of life borrows from earlier successes and presents Joan Crawford as a kind of Whopee girl who enjoys her life in all sorts of frivolous situations. Later in the plot, the actress' dramaturgy allows for some dance interludes, also referring to previous appearances in films like Our Dancing Daughters or Untamed .

At the same time, the film also contains numerous elements of the gangster film. The heroine investigates in the milieu of organized alcohol smuggling and the plot takes a few episodes around the notorious massacre on Valentine's Day a few years earlier. At this early point in his career, Clark Gable was committed to portraying die-hard criminals who, while anti-social to society, are irresistible to women. The brutal treatment of his female co-stars became a trademark of Gable. In Helga's case and ascent , he abused a prostitute and simply threw her down a flight of stairs. In Night Nurse, he beat Barbara Stanwyck unconscious and then raped her. Norma Shearer fell for the gangster Gable as a well-behaved daughter from a good family in The Courage of Fortune and became his mistress despite regular beatings.

In life's wrong ways , the relationship between the Gable character and the heroine is thoroughly ambivalent. On the one hand, Bonnie is repulsed by the ruthlessness and coldness with which Jake Luva rules his empire and commits murders. At the same time, she is not indifferent to the erotic power of Jake. The two actors didn't have to play the sexual attraction between them. Both began an affair during filming that lasted, with numerous interruptions, well into the 1950s. In total, the two should make seven more films together. After a disastrous preview , the studio replaced actor John Mack Brown with Gable as the male partner of Joan Crawford in their follow-up project Laughing Sinners . Gable played there, in a radical departure from his other appearances, a clergyman who upholds morality and virtue.

Although the film was one of the greatest financial successes for Joan Crawford, she was not happy with the result. A few decades later, she told Roy Newquist:

“[A] disaster. I gave a terrible performance. Again the usual exaggerations. "

Theatrical release

Production costs ended up being $ 234,000, a good quarter less than the usual cost of a Joan Crawford film. At the box office, the wrong ways of life proved popular, grossing $ 848,000 in the domestic market. With overseas revenues of $ 420,000 and a cumulative total income of $ 1,2681,000, the studio was able to generate a hefty profit of $ 524,000 in the end. Thanks to the successes in paid and wrong turns of life , Joan Crawford established himself as one of the most economically valuable stars of MGM.

Reviews

In contrast to Joan Crawford's self-assessment, the professional critics were much more positive in their judgment.

Photoplay , one of the most influential industry journals, found:

“Joan Crawford is proving to be another great dramatic actress. The story is nonsense, but good nonsense and Joan gives a lively account. "

The New York Times wasn't quite as enthusiastic:

"Miss Crawford's acting technique is still quite self-centered, but her followers will find that her performance is up to her usual standard."

literature

  • Roy Newquist (Ed.): Conversations with Joan Crawford . Citadel Press, Secaucus, NJ 1980, ISBN 0-8065-0720-9 .
  • Lawrence J. Quirk : The Complete Films of Joan Crawford . Citadel Press, Secaucus, NJ 1988, ISBN 0-8065-1078-1 .
  • Lawrence J. Quirk, William Schoell: Joan Crawford. The Essential Biography . University Press, Lexington, KY. 2002, ISBN 0-8131-2254-6 .
  • Alexander Walker: Joan Crawford. The Ultimate Star . Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1983, ISBN 0-297-78216-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [A] disaster and I gave a lousy performance: the overacting thing again.
  2. ^ Again Joan Crawford proves herself a great dramatic actress. The story ... is hokum, but it's good hokum and Joan breathes life into her characterization.
  3. ↑ Miss Crawford's acting is still self-conscious, but her admirers will find her performance well up to her standard.