His Woman (1931)

User Rating:

5.3/10   

Director:

Edward Sloman

Writers:

Melville Baker (writer)
Dale Collins (novel)

Release Date:

21 November 1931 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

Tough Caribbean freighter Captain Sam Whelan engages Sally Clark, a tramp masquerading as a missionary's daughter...

Plot Keywords:

Freighter | Abandoned Baby | Blackmail | Dance | Beautiful Woman

Cast

Gary Cooper	...	Captain Sam Whalan
Claudette Colbert	...	Sally Clark
Averell Harris	...	Mate Gatson
Richard Spiro	...	Sammy
Douglass Dumbrille	...	Alisandroe
Raquel Davidovich	...	Maria Estella
Hamtree Harrington	...	Aloysius
Sidney Easton	...	Mark
Joan Blair	...	Gertrude
Charlotte Wynters	...	Flo
Herschel Mayall	...	Mrs. Morrisey
Joseph Calleia	...	The Agent
Lon Haschal	...	Captain of Schooner
Harry Davenport	...	Customs Inspector
John T. Doyle	...	Doctor

Runtime:

76 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Kaufman Astoria Studios - 3412 36th Street, Astoria, Queens, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

Sound debut of Douglass Dumbrille.

Movie Connections:

Version of Sal of Singapore (1928)

The Baby Makes Three

His Woman is a story of lonely tramp freighter captain Gary Cooper who while in port in Asia has a white baby abandoned on the rowboat he uses to get to and from his freighter with a note by a despondent mother. Gary takes to the little guy, but he knows full well he'll need a woman's touch in tending to him. And not just any woman.

His order to dive owner Douglass Dumbrille, send me over a woman, but a nice woman, not some of those who frequent your establishment. Claudette Colbert seems to fill the bill. But she's been around the track a few times though Cooper doesn't know it.

When first mate Averill Harris who's seen her in waterfront dives before makes advances on her, Cooper eventually finds out though.

His Woman is the kind of Victorian melodrama that might have been popular on the stage 35 years before. Studios were still digging up these old plots as vehicles for their films. Cooper comes across as stupidly naive. I mean this is a sailing man, a man of the world, who did he think he was going to find in the places he hangs out, Florence Nightingale.

And Colbert comes across too much as a lady. Someone like Joan Crawford would have been perfect for the part, but Colbert never quite convinces as a waterfront denizen.

The film was shot on the East Coast and in Paramount's Astoria Studio in New York after Cooper was on extended holiday in Europe and on safari in Africa. According to the Citadel film series book, The Films of Gary Cooper it hadn't been shown on television ever because of the two Amos and Andy like black characters who were ship stewards on Gary's freighter. This was back in the Sixties, because apparently it's been seen by a couple of people to write reviews about it.

The two stewards, played by a comedy team of Hamtree Harrington and Sidney Easton, were a bit much and they would indeed be found offensive by a lot of people today.

So with Hamtree and Sidney and the fact it's a dated melodrama from the Victorian age does not bode well for His Woman.