... because you can tell by the dull empty stretches that everybody involved would just love to make a precode, would love to come out and say what is being insinuated, but they just can't.
The film is about a magazine editor, Richard Kurt (Robert Montgomery) who wants to pay a globe trotting artist who has had many affairs (Ann Harding as Marion Forsythe) to write her biography. He's actually not expecting her to write it so much as have her tell her various stories and then he can translate it into salacious text.
Marion agrees because she needs the money, but the two have a basic difference in viewpoint because Marion is a very tolerant individual and Kurt is not, and he seems to love not only the amount of money to be made in the biography but the idea of exposing the publicly sanctimonious people with which Marion has been involved. Then there is Edward Everett Hornton as a bag of wind who is running for senate who was Marion's first love in Tennessee, and he fears if his name is mentioned in this biography it will be the end of his senate hopes.
This film starts out fast funny and energetic with some great scenes and dialogue, but about a half hour in it begins to bog down, because the film simply is not allowed to come out and say the things that are insinuated. I really love Robert Montgomery, but the end of the precode era really took a bite out of his career for a few years as he was great at playing the precode playboy and those roles no longer existed. Although I will say it was interesting to see Montgomery play a role angry rather than glib as he did in so many other films.
The film is about a magazine editor, Richard Kurt (Robert Montgomery) who wants to pay a globe trotting artist who has had many affairs (Ann Harding as Marion Forsythe) to write her biography. He's actually not expecting her to write it so much as have her tell her various stories and then he can translate it into salacious text.
Marion agrees because she needs the money, but the two have a basic difference in viewpoint because Marion is a very tolerant individual and Kurt is not, and he seems to love not only the amount of money to be made in the biography but the idea of exposing the publicly sanctimonious people with which Marion has been involved. Then there is Edward Everett Hornton as a bag of wind who is running for senate who was Marion's first love in Tennessee, and he fears if his name is mentioned in this biography it will be the end of his senate hopes.
This film starts out fast funny and energetic with some great scenes and dialogue, but about a half hour in it begins to bog down, because the film simply is not allowed to come out and say the things that are insinuated. I really love Robert Montgomery, but the end of the precode era really took a bite out of his career for a few years as he was great at playing the precode playboy and those roles no longer existed. Although I will say it was interesting to see Montgomery play a role angry rather than glib as he did in so many other films.