Laughing Sinners (1931)

Director:

Harry Beaumont

Writers:

Edith Fitzgerald (additional dialogue)
Martin Flavin (dialogue)

Release Date:

30 May 1931 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Cafe entertainer Ivy Stevens falls for sleazy salesman Howard Palmer and jumps from a bridge when he dumps her...

Plot Keywords:

Salesman | Salvation Army | Suicide Attempt | Singer | Train

Cast

Joan Crawford	...	Ivy 'Bunny' Stevens
Neil Hamilton	...	Howard 'Howdy' Palmer
Clark Gable	...	Carl Loomis
Marjorie Rambeau	...	Ruby
Guy Kibbee	...	Cass Wheeler
Cliff Edwards	...	Mike
Roscoe Karns	...	Fred Geer
Gertrude Short	...	Edna
George Cooper	...	Joe (hotel desk clerk)
George F. Marion	...	Humpty (cabaret owner)
Bert Woodruff	...	Tink (hotel worker)

Also Known As:

Complete Surrender (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

72 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

USA:Passed (National Board of Review)

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

Most of the film was shot with Johnny Mack Brown in the role of Carl when it was decided to drop this footage and reshoot it with Clark Gable.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Fast Workers (1933)

Soundtrack:

London Bridge is Falling Down

Not bad.....if you can believe it

A curious mixture of grit and fluff that doesn't work because of their incompatibility. Best is the rendering of the traveling salesman's grubby milieu: booze, poker games, floozies, boredom, played out in second-rate hotels and saloons. Though seemingly at home on the perimeter of these surroundings, cabaret singer and dancer Ivy (Joan Crawford) is incredibly naive, believing she has found fidelity and true love in her affair with the sleaziest of the traveling men. When he jilts her, she chooses suicide - until saved, at the last instant, by a cloyingly sanctimonious Salvation Army worker, Carl (played by a badly miscast Clark Gable), who persuades her that, whatever her mistakes, she has much to live for. Ivy devotes herself to the Army's mission, finds fulfillment and inner peace - until a chance encounter with her devious former lover causes her to fall by the wayside once again - until the latter's confrontation with Carl causes her to be saved once again - this time for keeps (we are meant to believe), as Ivy and Carl literally walk off into the sunset. It's all a bit much.

Guy Kibbee and Roscoe Karns score highest as a couple of washed-out drummers, present and future. An added bonus is Joan's very appealing "eccentric" dance routine. But her character, around which the story revolves, is simply too extreme and inconsistent to be convincing.