No more ladies

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Movie
Original title No more ladies
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1935
length 81 minutes
Rod
Director Edward H. Griffith ,
George Cukor without credit
script Donald Ogden Stewart ,
Horace Jackson
production MGM
music Edward Ward
camera Oliver T. Marsh
cut Frank E. Hull
occupation

No More Ladies is an American comedy film starring Joan Crawford and Robert Montgomery . With its opulent equipment and excellent cast, even in the supporting roles, the film is a good example of the excellent production values ​​that MGM had available.

action

Marcia is a young, wealthy woman who lives on the feudal country estate of her wealthy grandmother Fanny Townsend. She is not particularly happy with her boyfriend, the city-famous playboy and womanizer Sheridan Warren. Their romance is not going smoothly because Sheridan cannot leave other women. Although all friends and also her grandmother warn Marcia again and again to get involved with Sheridan on a permanent basis, Marcia accepts a marriage proposal, basically against her better judgment. Before that, however, she wants to test her future husband's loyalty. She appears to be flirting with Jim Salston and also invites Therese German, Sheridan's current lover, to join her. The four people spend the weekend with all sorts of intrigues, intrigues and a lot of talk. In the end, the couples find each other, and Grandmother Fanny gives up her resistance to her granddaughter's connection.

background

Joan Crawford had achieved fame in the silent film days as the actress of exuberant girls, flappers , in a series of light romances. At the beginning of the 1930s she was able to further consolidate her status as a star by changing roles to becoming a heroine of tearful melodramas. Most of the time Crawford was seen as an ambitious woman who copes with the adverse circumstances on her own and thus creates social advancement and / or stubbornly fights for her happiness with a man against all prejudice. After 1933, the actress specialized in portraying wealthy women who experience romantic entanglements between two men and end up finding true happiness, preferably in the arms of Clark Gable . In 1934 alone, the actress appeared on the screen three times in more or less identical situations: Never marry the first time , Sadie McKee and In Golden Chains hardly differ in their basic premise, but they all made a lot of money at the box office.

It was therefore only logical for MGM to apply the tried and tested formula again. No More Ladies is produced with a lot of effort. Crawford relived the emotional crises in a never-ending sequence of spectacular costumes by MGM chief designer Gilbert Adrian with constantly changing hairstyles and in front of opulent studio sets, all of which were designed by Cedric Gibbons . The camera work immersed the scenes in a luxurious, softly drawn aura of prosperity and solidity using the soft skylight preferred by MGM. At the same time, some of Hollywood's best supporting actors are signed on, including Edna May Oliver and Gail Patrick. However, by repeating the same situations over and over again, Crawford's career began to stagnate, albeit at a high level at first. The shooting was also problematic. The screenplay is based on a less than successful comedy that had only 176 performances the previous year with Lucile Watson and Melvyn Douglas . The studio engaged the well-known playwright Rachel Crowther for the script, but she was dissatisfied with the constant interference of the studio and in the end refused to mention her by name in the opening credits. Donald Ogden Stewart , one of the highest paid screenwriters in Hollywood, finally took over the final version, which may explain the fluctuating quality of the individual scenes and dialogues. In the middle of filming, director Edward H. Griffith , a recognized specialist in romantic melodramas, fell seriously ill. George Cukor took over the direction, but received no credit in the end.

Joan Crawford was not particularly happy with the finished result. To Roy Newquist she said:

"Another of my personal mistakes - I misinterpreted the role and didn't let Cukor help me (I can be pretty stubborn.)"

Theatrical release

The film was nationally distributed on June 14, 1935. A cost of $ 765,000 made No More Ladies one of the most expensive Crawford films to date. He brought in a very substantial sum of 1,117,000 US dollars in the USA, an indication of the continued high popularity of Crawford with their fans. With overseas revenues of $ 506,000 and cumulative total earnings of $ 1,623,000, the studio was only able to realize a small profit of $ 166,000 in the end due to the high production costs, the lowest value for a film by the actress since Today We Live .

Reviews

Most of the critics were not particularly fond of the film and criticized the repetition of the now common Crawford scenario.

Andre Sennwald found in the New York Times :

"The kind of class that is usually written with a capital K has been put in abundance in the movie version of" No More Ladies "[...]. Joan Crawford has it, Robert Montgomery has it, the dialogues have it, Adrian's costumes have it and the opulent backdrops of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer have it. The film comes from the same glamor factory as Miss Crawford's "Don't Marry First Time" "

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] nother one of my personal mistakes - I interpreted the part wrong and I didn't let Cukor help me. (I could be a headstrong bitch.)
  2. ↑ Andre Sennwald: 'No More Ladies,' a Film Version of the AD Thomas Play, at the Capitol - 'Princess Charming.' In: The New York Times . June 22, 1935 (English, online from the New York Times archive [accessed November 1, 2018]): “The kind of class which [..] used to spell with a capital K has been expensively buttered on the motion picture version of "No More Ladies" [...]. Joan Crawford has it, Robert Montgomery has it, the dialogue has it, Adrian's gowns have it, and the opulent Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer sets have it. The photoplay […] is out of the same glamor factory as Miss Crawford's "Forsaking All Others". ”