Woman to Woman (1929) User Reviews

The Britisfs Film Industry In Transition

[malcolmgsw · 5/10 · 14 December 2013]

In 1929 many of the British film producers,such as Michael Balcon and C.M.Woolf had the idea that talking pictures were just a fad and were therefore left rather with egg on their faces when the public demanded talkies.As the industry had not constructed sound stages the only alternative was to go to Hollywood to hire the facilities there.This happened with Herbert Wilcox,George Pearson,and in this case Victor Saville.He decided top remake the 1923 silent with Betty Compson who was just approaching the peak of her career.Compson is a true delight and clearly adapted well to the demands of sound.This cannot be said of other members of the cast who sound extremely stilted by comparison.The film is a 4 hankie weepy which was of a type that was popular at the time.Nevertheless worth a viewing.

Good sound version of hokey domestic melodrama

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 17 May 2014]

Not a good film, but an interesting one for many reasons, not the least of which is that it's an early sound re-make of a 1923 silent, also starring Betty Compson. This silent version was co-produced by Victor Saville and directed by Graham Cutts from a screenplay by Alfred Hitchcock. For the 1929 re-make, Saville took on the jobs of both directing and producing from a screenplay he wrote in collaboration with Nicholas Fodor. Would you believe, the film was again remade in 1946 with Douglass Montgomery and Joyce Howard, directed by Maclean Rogers from a screenplay by Marjorie Deans and Jane Seymour? The 1929 version is probably the best. Not only is Compson in fine form, but the support cast led by Juliette Compton and George Barraud is also top-notch. By the none-too-crisp standards of early talkies, not only are production values excellent, but the melodrama is well acted and keeps us glued to the screen despite its hokey plot. It's only when the curtain falls on Act 3, that we realize we've been had, and that the screenwriters have taken the easy way out and haven't really made any honest attempts to solve any of the domestic problems they've been so keen to introduce! Available on both a very good Grapevine DVD and a much-worn Alpha pressing.

Betty Compson & Benjamin Kline

[boblipton · 5/10 · 8 January 2018]

This is in many ways Michael Balcon's first serious assault on the US market, in concert with his producing/directing partner, Victor Saville, and the offices of the ambitious Tiffany-Stahl Studios in Los Angeles; at this stage, the most likely of the Poverty Row studios to break into the Majors, until the following three years destroyed the studio and sent most of the majors into some form of receivership.

George Barraud is an English officer during the Great War, in love with French entertainer Betty Compson. They are to be married, but he is ordered back to the Front... and suffers shell shock to such an extent that he can't remember anything about his war years. After the War, he marries Juliette Compton in a distant sort of marriage. One evening, he is at the theater and sees Miss Compson performing. He remembers all and discovers they have a son.

It's the complicated sort of womanly suffering that worked all right in RANDOM HARVEST, solely because that movie starred Ronald Colman and Greer Garson. If this movie almost works, it's because Betty Compson gives a magnificent performance; but despite some great camerawork by Benjamin Kline (including shots that Balcon would have Hitchcock use in the concluding sequence of THE 39 STEPS), the over-the-top plot and other performances make this one only intermittently watchable.

Still, when it's Miss Compson alone on the screen, it's mesmerizing.

Terrific Betty Compson

[drednm · 10 November 2010]

Betty Compson stars in this talkie remake of the 1923 silent version she also starred in.

Compson plays a famous French cabaret star during World War I. She meets an English officer (George Barraud) and they plan to marry but he is whisked away to the front and never sees her again. He is wounded and suffers from amnesia. Years go by.

Next we see Barraud unhappily married to his brittle wife (Juliette Compton) who is a rapacious social climber. She refuses to have children. But she has imported a famous French singer for her society charity ball. Of course it's Compson who has trudged on with her career despite having a bad heart. Barraud sits and watches her act without much interest until she sings a certain song and his memory floods back. He then discovers she has had a child.

Will they reconcile and be happy with their child? Will the wife give up the husband and social position? Compson is terrific as the entertainer. She's believable on stage and also as the tragic heroine. Barraud is solid as the hapless man caught between the two women. Compton excels at playing the sharp and angular ice queen. The songs are forgettable but this is worth catching.

Betty Compson starred in an amazing nine films in 1929.

This must have been the inspiration for "Random Harvest"

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 30 September 2015]

Betty Compson plays Lola, a French cabaret singer during WWI. She and a British officer, David, are in love and plan on marrying. However, before the wedding can occur, David is called to the front and is injured--losing his memory of this lady. Time passes. David is back in England and has a successful life in many ways, though his new wife (NOT the singer!) is cold and not particularly likable. Later, Lola sees David and realizes he's alive. What's next? See the film.

I really like the 1942 film "Random Harvest". In fact, I liked it so much I read James Hilton's novel (1941). However, today when I watched "Woman to Woman" I was surprised--so much of this 1929 film (a remake of a 1923 silent) seems like "Random Harvest". However, they are different enough that you might just want to see both.

As far as "Woman to Woman" goes, it's a film you best watch understanding the limitations of the early talking pictured. For example, Betty Compson's French accent isn't great--and it comes and goes throughout the movie. This isn't unusual for the time--nor are the rather crappy dance numbers. And, some of the acting and dialog is stilted. For 1929 it's not unusual--compared to films made just a year or two later, it looks very old fashioned and cheap. Try not to judge it too harshly. Because of this, I'd give it an 8 compared to other films of the day but only a 6 overall (and this might be a bit generous). Worth seeing but for folks willing to cut it some slack.

Woman to Woman

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 12 September 2022]

Betty Compson reprises her role from the silent 1923 version of this rather sad tale of a young girl ("Lola") who meets and falls in love with British soldier "David" (George Barraud) in Paris. He is swiftly sent to the Western front where he suffers injuries that cause him severe amnesia. Both proceed with their lives - she believing him killed, he having no memory of her at all - until, one night at the theatre he sees her sing a song and his memory quickly restores. Sadly, though, they cannot simply pick up where they left off. She has a young son (his) and he is stuck in a loveless marriage. Add to their predicaments the fact that she has a weak heart and... I much preferred the silent version. Though this is adequate, the production is really quite static. The camera never moves - even when there are theatrical numbers on screen, and the dialogue is a bit block and tackle. Still, Juliette Compton is quite effective as his wife "Vesta" and the ending would bring a tear to the eye of the most hardened cynic.

Woman to Woman review

[JoeytheBrit · 3/10 · 5 May 2020]

Painfully sincere and very, very dull relic that pulls at the heartstrings with all the subtlety of a hammer to the forehead. Everybody acts with stiff and slow exaggeration, while Victor Savile's direction possesses neither flair nor imagination. Awful stuff.

Pretty awful, even by 1929 standards

[1930s_Time_Machine · 2/10 · 28 May 2024]

There were a few really fabulous films made in 1929 but most were dreadful. This is not one of the worst but it's still one of the dreadful ones. Only if you like cringingly sentimental Victorian melodrama made by people who don't know how to make pictures should you brave this one.

To be fair, this was Victor Saville's first full talkie and only the fifth film he'd ever directed so he was still finding his feet - Gainsborough's head of production had clearly not fully developed any directorial skills yet. To learn the ropes, he'd set up yet another company where he'd produce and direct talkies in collaboration with the equally ambitious Tiffany-Stahl company over in America.

Unfortunately for all concerned, T-S's sound recording system was RCA Photophone. Like Warner's Vitaphone, this was a cumbersome sound on disc system which meant that the film's dialogue had to be delivered at a glacial pace giving the film a horribly stilted feel. The sound on disc system also didn't allow for any editing or re-takes so once it was shot, that's what you got.

So this picture isn't terrible simply because of poor direction and poor acting - although the direction and the acting were exceptionally poor! Curiously however the first half hour of this, the scenes set in France aren't too bad - in fact I'd go as far as saying, quite impressive and even engaging. I was actually thinking: Hey, this is quite good for 1929. Were this just my review of the first half hour I'd say that Betty Compson is lovely and I can understand why George Barraud would fall head over heels for her. I'd say that the picture cleverly shows how his feelings develop and loads the screen with tension for the inevitable catastrophe.

Unfortunately you get the impression that Mr Saville went back home to England half way through this picture because once the story has moved on to London, that lively style of delivery, that interesting and imaginative camerawork and that empathy with the characters completely vanishes. It feels like a different film all together - a really bad one! Everyone suddenly starts speaking like they've some horrible disease and Betty Compson forgets she's meant to be doing a French accent.

If you can overlook the awfulness of the production (of the last 2/3 anyway) what is quite interesting is to note that whereas in the original wrote just after the war, soldier David was already married and playing away from home with Lola whereas in this film, such immorality could never be shown - certainly not with a British officer. It's also fascinating to see that the whole crux of the sad denouement relies on the almost impossible to accept today fact that the future of a child born out of wedlock could be so awful that you'd sacrifice your life to avoid it! I'd imagine crowds would have burned down London and hanged Ramsay MacDonald had the original story been filmed! (Or does the example of that beloved Prime Minister disprove this?)

It's weird how in the late twenties a handful of silent movie stars and theatre luvvies suddenly made it big in to the talkies - they were for a few years at the top of the tree, but within a couple of years they were history. Those big new superstars of 1929 of that transition stage between 1929 and 1931 when some great movies were made but most filmmakers were just learning on the job, just vanished. Even the sexiest, cutest and prettiest woman in the world, Alice White who came from nowhere to be absolutely massive in 1931 but was virtually forgotten by 1933. Unlike the divine Alice, Betty Compson was a big silent star - one of those who became a superstar of the talkies. She was perfect for them but as the talkies of 1929 evolved into the talkies of 1931, as they became films we'd recognise as films today, she just couldn't adapt. Most (but not all) of the moving pictures made before about 1931 were essentially silent films with sound. It wasn't really the advent of sound which somersaulted filmmaking, like life in general, the massive social changes in the early 30s were the main driver....... but back to this film - I think I'd prefer George Barraud's amnesia than remember this.

Betty Compson in a Stellar Performance

[kidboots · 8/10 · 9 December 2019]

Betty Compson was almost an old hand at talkies by this time and it made sense for the British film industry to remake this adaptation of a 1923 movie scripted by Alfred Hitchcock and also starring Betty Compson. It was a British production directed by the ultra stylish Victor Saville (and his style is there in every scene) but filmed in America where sound equipment was State of the Arts. Also James Hilton must have seen and remembered these films because "Random Harvest" had a very similar plot line, especially in the earlier scenes.

Betty Compson was fabulous and her French accent never faltered (actually Juliette Compton gave a very passable British accent as Vesta). Betty is Lola, a French cabaret artist who meets British officer David (George Barraud) during the war. He is called to the front before they can marry and years later finds him in an empty sterile marriage with cold Vesta but having no memory of the war or Lola, the love of his life. Lola is now a celebrated dancer taking London by storm and one evening David, who is in the audience, suddenly finds his memory returning when Lola sings an old favourite military style sing along. David is keen to renew his old life with her and knowing she has his child makes him more determined. Strangely his wife doesn't share his keenness to make the break - she is a social climber and knows if David walks out she will be an outcast!! So Lola reaches out to her "woman to woman" to see if they can find commom ground!!

The ending is pretty hokey - Lola has a heart condition and another performance will kill her. She wants Vesta to be a mother to her little boy. I don't agree with the other reviewers that the child is whiney - I think he struggled with an accent and just gave up half way through!!

Very Recommended.

a style that deserved a better story and e better cinematograher

[kekseksa · 18 December 2016]

The widespread introduction of sound in 1928-29 caught all the European film-makers unawares, as it was intended to. It was, in certain respects, simply a ploy on the part of the US industry to dish its rivals. In fact it did not quite go according to plan. The US industry itself was not so well prepared as it might have been and the far more technically advanced German industry wad rapidly able to turn the change to its own advantage. The major sufferer was in fact France which was hopelessly unprepared for the change. As far as Britain was concerned, it had been working independently on sound systems and was in fact relatively well prepared (the same year saw Hitchcock's Blackmail) and, since the British industry was also co-operating quite closely at this time with the German industry, its early talkies are generally of a much better quality than their US counterparts even if the dialogue was sometimes, as here, far too slow-paced.

Those who were sceptical about the advent of sound were not simply convinced that it was a fad; they believed that it was a regressive development that would tend to further trivialise film as a medium. When it became clear that "silent" films were not only dead but damned, all those sceptics made their mea culpas but they were quite wrong to do so. Now, as we are beginning, after decades of neglect, to rediscover "silent" cinema, we can at last see that in many respects the analysis of the sceptics was very largely correct and that "sound" has been something that the more serious end of cinema (generally outside the US) has struggled to recover from ever since. One might for instance regard the "neo-expressionism" of the forties and fifties, post-war "neo-realism", the "new wave" cinemas of the sixties and seventies and even the current interest in the digital, as all being means of compensating for the trivialisation of cinema that accompanied the introduction of the talkies. Each of these phenomena in its turn coincided with a rise in interest in silent cinema (or what little was then known of silent cinema).

What is interesting to note is that this film, like so many British films of the period, shows at moments - but alas only at moments- clear German influence in it style of direction but the cinematographer Benjamin Kline, a throughly conventional product of the US "glamour" school, has difficulty in doing it justice (relying on occasional exaggerated close-ups to create "atmosphere"). Nevertheless the style is often interesting and one suspects it was probably even more so in the lost Cutts/Hitchcock 1923 version. Unfortunately the story itself is unoriginal and over-melodramatic, the ending pathetically and here rather incomprehensibly conventional,and the dialogue poor. The child is unbearably whiney and Compson's apology for a French accent is a horror.

One does not really need to apologise all the time for films of this transitional period (The Cocoanuts, Applause and Piccadilly, all talkies made the same year, are superb films and Blackmail and The Dance of Life are also good). This film was itself remade in 1946 but remains by common consent the better of the two versions. But the best of all may well be the one that got away. Should the 1923 film re-emerge it may afford a very interesting comparison both between silent and sound and between the European and US style of filming.