Faithless (1932) User Reviews

A remarkable film

[mik-19 · 7/10 · 20 February 2004]

Not quite 'The Crowd' to be frank, but a very worthy, suitably downbeat and constantly entertaining depiction of conditions in Depression America. Bankhead is the spoiled heiress who goes broke, and not very graciously at that, reunites with her old beau, Montgomery the sausage manufacturer, and learns valuable lessons walking the streets to buy medicine for him when he is recovering from a vicious attack by truck-drivers when he was trying out as a scab. So, pretty down-to-earth stuff this, right? But of course, MGM being MGM, even in these daring Pre-Code days, and Tallulah being Tallulah, the first third of the film is packed with state of the art glamor and a little too self-absorbed and complacent to blend in well with the rest of the film.

Miss Bankhead slouches through the various modes of the film, very much in a one size fits all kind of characterization, but she says her lines well and growls her 'dahlings' to every heart's content. You don't quite believe her heart is in it when she quotes the percentage of streetwalkers claiming they all had "good reason". Robert Montgomery is the real treat as the eternal optimist who just cannot be held down for long. He is wonderful and has an authentic vulnerability. The best scene, though, is Tallulah's in collaboration with the director. Exasperated at the sight of her ailing husband lying there in bed Tallulah quickly dresses to go out. The sympathetic landlady asks her where she's going. "To the drugstore". Landlady: "You look a little ... pale". So she obviously guesses Tallulah's about to prostitute herself and helps her apply her alluring makeup in her own understated way. By the way, it's a remarkable film.

that's entertainment

[mukava991 · 8/10 · 15 November 2009]

FAITHLESS is neither a great classic nor an artistic masterpiece nor even a very original story. In simple, straightforward fashion it tracks the downfall of a spoiled heiress (Tallulah Bankhead) ruined by the Depression who struggles between love for an ad executive (Robert Montgomery) and addiction to the high life which she can no longer afford. For a while she manages to sponge off old friends from her social circle but is rejected when it becomes clear to them that she is hopelessly broke. And down and down she goes. Her personal fate parallels that of the economy – from the hedonistic roaring 20's to the sober, desperate 30's. The movie even opens with a series of newspaper headlines tracking the progress of the economic downturn from late '29 until '32 when this plot goes into action.

The chief attraction is Bankhead, who made few films, most of them abysmal. This was one of the good ones. She is coiffed and made up to look like Garbo in GRAND HOTEL. The result is certainly striking from the neck up, though she looks a bit dumpy and ill-at-ease in some of Adrian's more extravagant gowns. No matter. With her distinctive voice, vivid personality, physical agility and polished theatrical diction, she never fails to delight or at least intrigue the viewer and this scenario gives her opportunities to explore a wide range of emotional states. There is nothing original about the fallen woman story, but Tallulah is a true original. She is in particularly fine form delivering witty banter, as in a scene in which she converses with Montgomery's brother (Maurice Murphy), who introduces himself as a metallurgist ("What kind of metal do you urge?") Lines like that roll off Bankhead's tongue with effortless aplomb. Montgomery is his usual spiffy self, delivering a competent, honest performance.

The strains of "St. Louis Blues" rise from the soundtrack as Bankhead contemplates prostitution as a way to get money. That melody was so often used as cinematic code for "prostitute" that someone should take a count.

Interesting to see a young Tallulah Bankhead on film

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 11 February 2006]

Tallulah Bankhead made her name on the stage and came to Hollywood under contract to MGM. "Faithless" would be her last film until 1944's "Lifeboat." Bankhead's particular style of acting was not effective on film, and it was probably because of the way she was cast. In "Lifeboat," she's perfect - Hitchcock wanted "the most oblique, incongruous person imaginable in such a situation." Actually, part of her role in "Faithless" fits that description also, but this time, it works against her. Bankhead plays an heiress intending to marry Robert Montgomery. When he insists that they live on his salary, she walks out. She soon learns that she's flat broke and, after borrowing from everyone she knows, gets a sugar daddy, leaving him when Montgomery comes back in her life. Both broke, the two marry and struggle to keep going.

As one would suspect, Bankhead is great as the heiress but not quite believable when she's poverty stricken trying to get work in a coffee shop. She lacked the vulnerability of a Constance Bennett or the sadness of a Kay Francis.

The film, however, is a very good depiction of life in the depression. This was no MGM romantic comedy or fantasy film. When her husband is injured, the Bankhead character turns to prostitution. The best scene in the film is between her and the landlady, who realizes what she's about to do.

Robert Montgomery plays one of depression's many unlucky - what jobs he gets, he loses because the companies close, and he's finally attacked on the job by employees who feel threatened. Through it all, he keeps his dignity and hope.

Both actors were young stars who were put into this film probably for contractual reasons. They're good, but they're both too elegant and classy to make parts of this film work the way they were supposed to. Bankhead, however, has some wonderful dialogue that she delivers with aplomb, and it's great to see her before the smoking, drugs, and booze got to her face.

Some of this plays melodramatically, and there's a particularly odious performance by Maurice Murphy as Montgomery's brother. But "Faithless" is an intriguing look at the desperation caused by the depression, and Bankhead is fascinating to watch.

Fine Soap Opera

[fsilva · 23 June 2003]

Good Soaper, starring theater legend, Tallulah Bankhead, in the last of six movies she made (this one, on loan to MGM) before her Paramount contract, which had started in 1931, expired in 1932. It's a rare chance of watching a young Tallulah (she was 29 years old here).

She works well with co-star Montgomery, who's right as a good-natured advertisement executive, who loses his job, just as the same time, his millionaire fiancée ("dahling" Tallulah) runs completely out of money.

*MAYBE SPOILERS AHEAD* Then Talloo, turns to the oldest profession, first as a kept woman, then as a streetwalker, and the soaper begins...

The film's running time seemed just right for me, as well as the definite Pre-Code nature of the film (the picture's ending wouldn't have been possible from 1935 onwards).

Wonderful, lavish, sophisticated sets, décors and costumes, especially in the first half of the movie. Tallulah really gets MGM's first-class treatment.

Unsuitable for poverty

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 19 January 2014]

A chance to see Tallulah Bankhead at the prime of her career is never to be passed up. Faithless provides her with a better vehicle than The Devil And The Deep which she did over at Paramount the same year.

MGM provided her with Robert Montgomery as a leading man and she and he just can't get together and their backgrounds make them unsuitable for poverty. Which in 1929 both enter. She loses her millions and of course she blames mismanagement. Many people who got out of the market before the Stock Market Crash kept their fortunes, many more who thought the market would stay bullish regretted that choice. Up to a point Tallulah is right in blaming her financial advisers, but up to then she also never cared just as long as she had it to spend.

Montgomery too is affected. His advertising firm goes under and he loses his job. With both starting equal you think that they can be married now. But neither wants to live modestly, her far more than him. Like former nobility in Europe she trades in on her society name and becomes a permanent house guest for hire for a while. It's there she meets up with Hugh Herbert.

Now he's the biggest revelation in the film. Herbert was capable of so many things more than what you see in those Warner Brothers musicals and that incessant 'woo woo'. Here he's a deadly serious rake who after his wife throws Tallulah out as a party guest because she's tired of her leeching, Herbert's quite willing to make her a mistress.

White collar Montgomery also sees a more earthy side of life. MGM brings up some working class issues that you would normally find Warner Brothers doing.

Both Tallulah and Montgomery acquit themselves well in a film that should be better known and seen more.

Would-be sensational drama ruined by censorship and miscasting

[Nazi_Fighter_David · 7/10 · 25 July 2005]

The early confession girls lost their virtue for fun, for luxury, or for nobly self-sacrificial motives… But as the depression continued, films began to touch on a more basic motive for streetwalking: staying alive…

In the first of these, "Faithless," Tallulah Bankhead is a spoiled heiress so wealthy that she refuses marriage with an impoverished $20,000-a-year executive (Robert Montgomery) because he insists that they live on his salary alone…

When both are wiped out by the Wall Street crash, Tallulah in order to go on living in the style to which she is habituated, becomes the mistress of a rich boor (Hugh Herbert). When she can no longer stand his ill-treatment, she seeks out the penniless Montgomery who is soon badly injured in a labor riot…

Tallulah Bankhead was lent to MGM by Paramount for "Faithless." Her flamboyant personality and uninhibited performances on and off the stage had kept Londoners on a vicarious spree for eight years until Paramount brought her back to the States in 1931… They starred her in five films, and she returned to stage after this MGM job… The camera unaccountably dimmed her brightness and her crowd magnetism

Rather Raw for a Metro Production

[richardchatten · 7/10 · 20 August 2019]

'Faithless' marked the end of Tallulah Bankhead's brief pre-Code spell in Hollywood - and effectively of her film career - since although MGM were sufficiently impressed with her work in this (despite several flops in a row for Paramount) to offer her a contract, she'd had it with Hollywood and thereafter filmed only very occasionally.

After starting conventionally enough with her as a dizzy young heiress - who we're told is 24 but was actually thirty and if anything looks even older - who loses all her money (a relatively young-looking Hugh Herbert is remarkably effective at this point as an abrasive would-be sugar daddy), this extremely misleadingly-titled film proves for MGM to be a surprisingly raw look at life on the breadline with her new husband Robert Montgomery (two years younger than her but looking even younger) and forced to sell herself on the streets to pay her doctors bills. (Thank goodness that wouldn't happen now in the 21st Century!)

Being Tallulah she really seems too worldly & resilient to convincingly put up with the woes the Depression throws her way; which now force her to sell to the highest bitter what in reality she enthusiastically gave away for free. And of course it has one of those 'happy' endings which in reality solve nothing...

The depression is over.. Now it's the panic that's setting in.

[sol-kay · 6/10 · 9 November 2012]

***SPOILERS*** Poor and spoiled rotten little rich girl Carol Morgan, Tallulah Bankhead, is in for a great shock where her both bank accounts as well as stock & bond portfolios goes bust just when she was to marry the handsome Oscar Myers Weiner sausage advertiser Bill Wade, Robert Montogomery. At first feeling that Bill's meager $20,000.00 a year saleary,$275,000 in 2012 dollars, would't be enough for her and Bills lifestyle. That in Bill insisting that he not Carol is the one who's to wear the pants as well as pay the bills in the family. But even that fell by the wayside will Bill's advertising firm going bust the very day the two were to get married!

Putting her marriage with Bill on the back burner and living off her rich friend's money Carol sham of still being rich soon falls apart when it's discovered by those that she's grubbing off that she hasn't a pot to you know what in much less the cash to pay them back with! It's then that Carol slowly descends into poverty with Bill, whom she had since married, doing his best to keep the couple's heads above water things get even worse! That's when Bill as a scab for an on strike trucking company ends up being banged up in a truck accident by a couple of outraged truckers who's job, for half the salary they were getting, he had taken away from them. With Bill desperately needing immediate medical help Carol swallows her pride and decided to walk the streets as a hustler, or hooker, to get the money to pays his medical bills. While hooking on the streets Carol runs into,or tries to pick up, Bill's brother Tony, Maurice Murphy, that in him knowing that she's now down in the gutter just about destroys her emotionally as well as morally.

***SPOILERS*** It's then that the kindly but stern Irish cop Carter, Henry Kolker, came on the scene and instead of running in Carol for prostitution as well as public intoxication that she can get as much as 9 month in the can, or jail, gets her a job as a waitress. with the meager money that she makes as a waitress Carol is able to pay the bills in the Wade household thus putting food on the table as well keeping a roof over both her and Bill's heads. It's When Bill now fully recovered got himself a job making $60.00 a week in the advertising world you would think everything is now all right for the struggling couple. That's until Tony shows up and brings up the sad fact that Carol was doing some hooking on the side while he was laid up in the apartment with a number of broken ribs! The ending of the movie will really get to you in Bill's reaction to the news that he got from is kid brother Tony. Knowing that Carol has a heart of gold and wherever she did was for the best not worst for both of them Bill dropped the entire matter and together with a grateful and loving Carol the two decided to start anew and put the past, the sad and troubled past, far behind them.

Tallulah is amazing in a less than amazing film

[1930s_Time_Machine · 7/10 · 19 August 2023]

You're so glad that she loses all her money at the beginning of this. 'Ha, that'll teach you!' you'll exclaim. She's such an annoying, horrible piece of work that you can't help but wish misfortune on her......but hold on, she's just an actress.... Just an actress!

No, this isn't just an actress - this is the great stage actress Tallulah Bankhead who was both (apparently) fantastic live on stage whilst also being capable of being natural and utterly believable as a real person on film...... not something every stage actor could do back then. That's why she connects so well with you , it's why you initially loathe her, she's just so genuine.

In the early thirties, about 100 films per week seemed to made about a rich girl who lost all her money and ended up walking the streets. BAD COMPANY (1931) was one of the better examples - apart from some lousy acting. The acting in this one however (with the exception of Maurice Murphy) is excellent. This also benefits from a more believable storyline albeit a supreme misery-fest. At times it makes Tennessee Williams seem like Spongebob SquarePants.

This is probably one of the very best depictions of the suffering caused by The Great Depression in America. It does focus on the plight of the middle and upper classes only but their fall from s great height would have been more shocking and dramatic than those at those at the bottom who's life was pretty awful anyway even in the late 20s. Also this was made for that nice MGM audience, not the scruffy bunch who go to the Warner Brothers theatres! It didn't however really fit in with the MGM house style of family oriented, wholesome entertainment though. Neither did Tallulah - the girl who decided she was too good for Hollywood. The larger than life chain smoking, hard drinking, coke snorting, sex obsessed, human rights activist living life twice as fast as everyone else. She was certainly not an MGM sort of girl! She only 'lowered herself' a few times to make movies but this, along with LIFEBOAT is probably her best and worth watching. It was MGM's loss that they didn't want her.

Like John Barrymore - who was her male equivalent in so many ways, she is always great to watch but that doesn't always mean the film is good as well. Despite somewhat lifeless direction this is pretty compelling especially the second half but wouldn't be anything without Miss B who's character really pulls you deep into her story. You really can feel her suffering - you will hate her at the start, you will feel sorry for her in the middle, you will love her by the end.

Amazing how a 75 yr old film can be so mature and evolved - Faithless restores my faith in true love

[Ursula_Two_Point_Seven_T · 9/10 · 6 January 2007]

I'd seen several of Robert Montgomery's movies before Faithless, and I liked him well enough. But this movie made me fall in love with him. They way his character handles the news of his wife's prostitution amazed me -- it gave me goosebumps and brought tears to my eyes. Movies certainly were mature-minded 75 years ago. In many ways, more mature than even they are today.

This movie tells the story of two people who really and truly love each other, but who have to go through many hardships to realize that their love is strong enough to endure. Sort of like how steel becomes strong only when subjected to high temperatures, Tallulah Bankhead and Robert Montgomery come out at the end of this movie stronger than they went in, because of all the tribulations they've endured. They haven't had enough faith in one another's love, and so they don't fully trust each other and they break up and go their separate ways several times during this movie, allowing the various tribulations that come their way -- the stock market crash, the great depression, homelessness, joblessness, pennilessness -- to be more powerful than their love for each other.

The couple's circumstances become more and more dire as the movie goes on, till near the end it hits what we, the audience, think must be rock bottom. But Robert Montgomery has learned through all the horrific hardships that he and Tallulah have been through, what true love means. And so has Tallulah. In fact, it is she who learns first and who shows Montgomery what true love is by her actions; by doing what is most despicable to her in order to save her husband. And, the true and caring and loving man that he is, he recognizes her sacrifices and returns her faith and love with a huge heaping helping of his own. By the end of this film, Robert and Tallulah (and we the audience) have faith that that they will be rock solid from here on out and that nothing will ever break them apart again.

T. Bankhead, R. Montgomery during the depression

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 4 August 2019]

Larger than life actress Tallulah Bankhead is "Carol", rich girl, who has decided to marry the dashing, regular-guy Bill (Robert Montgomery). Of course the depression is in full swing, so nobody's guaranteed anything these days. Carol wants to keep living the high life, but Bill wants to keep working in case the depression knocks them off their feet. Co-stars Hugh Herbert and Sterling Holloway. Bill and Carol both have their ups and downs. This one certainly paints the hard reality of looking for work, and trying to scrape by. and things really haven't changed that much over the last 90 years! when Carol puts on her lipstick, and heads out on her own to get money for meds... we know exactly what she's going out to do, even though they never say it directly. this was still just before a stricter film code would be enforced, so they could still be quite suggestive. a couple years later, such things would be much more whitewashed or avoided all together. Directed by Harry Beaumont. had started in the EARLY days of the silents. moved on to talkies, and even a bunch of the Maisie films. it's pretty good. definitely shows the darker side of the depression, where folks did everything and anything to survive.

Oh Bob!

[Maleejandra · 8/10 · 2 April 2006]

Faithless is a film about a rich society girl (Tallulah Bankhead) and an average, middle class citizen (Bob Montgomery) who fall in love. The two are at each other's throats though, because each wants to live off the money he or she has. The two do not marry because of this quarrel, and although she loses her money, she lives by borrowing from her wealthy friends and he loses his job and scrounges for jobs during the Depression. Finally, the two meet again, poor and hungry, and decide to marry since they have nothing else to lose. But the Depression gets them down, and an accident forces her to make some tough decisions.

Bankhead is beautiful at first and becomes appropriately harsh as her character loses her money. She is not exotic the way Marlene Dietrich was, but her accent is detectable.

Montgomery is excellent in this movie. His character is consistent and good and perhaps because of this and his five o-clock shadow, he is absolutely gorgeous.

Overall, this is an entertaining pre-code film with a great cast and a few surprises up it's sleeve.

"Delinquent girls...I don't believe in them."

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 25 August 2018]

"Sausages, sausages, sausages!" Tallulah Bankhead screeches this line as if she was rival Betty Davis shouting "Peter, Peter, Peter!" or Cary Grant warbling "Judy, Judy, Judy!" In the best of her early talkies, Tallulah goes from Paramount to MGM where the glamour takes over her usual screen shady dame, giving her a role to really sink her teeth into. She's a spoiled socialite, dealing with the depression the best way she knows how, spending money like it's easily available. Engaged to advertising man Robert Montgomery, Tallulah insists on living on her inheritance, refusing to budget herself on $20,000 a year. But as the depression marches on, Montgomery finds himself unemployed, and Tallulah moves on with a wealthy married man (Hugh Herbert) who keeps her in furs and jewels until her conscience gets the better of her. She's on the verge of turning to a street walker when a reunion with Montgomery results in marriage, on his terms. But a sudden turn of events has her taking care of him doing exactly what she had not wanted to do, giving the indication that sometimes a woman has to turn to desperate measures such as this to help the man she loves in every way possible.

An intriguing pre-code melodrama with excellent performances by Bankhead and Tallulah, delightfully detailed in her self-centered nature, her passion, her joy, her regret. Louise Closser Hale and Anna Appel are quite unique as the two very different landladies whom Bankhead and Montgomery rent from, with Hale quite slovenly, prickly and even a bit sinister, practically drooling over Bankhead's $50 pair of shoes that she is forced to part with in order to not sleep on the street. Appel, with her huge heart, becomes like a second mother to both Tallulah and Montgomery, looking on with understanding as Tallulah prepares to go out and sell herself. Montgomery, turning to truck driving, deals with angry union workers put out of work who turn to violence over their company's betrayal of them. Then there's Maurice Murphy as his younger brother, disgusted by the socialite Tallulah he initially meets, and absolutely revolted by the prostitute Tallulah he encounters on the street. There's also a great bit by Ben Taggart as the cop who arrests Tallulah and ends up becoming her savior (after he makes her kiss a crucifix in promise not to solicit men again). It's the little details like that which makes this a very good example of what made pre-code so riveting, and a sign that with better scripts, Tallulah could have been a great screen star rather than simply her notorious "vain Broadway legend".

Miscast, mildly entertaining Depression weepie

[LadyJaneGrey · 4/10 · 7 February 2006]

Basically interesting just to see Tallullah Bankhead acting in one of her few film roles. Alas, she is miscast as a society girl who loses all her money in the Depression. She spars with her ad-man boyfriend (the always-great Robert Montgomery) but will not give up her lavish lifestyle to live on his money and so will not marry him. When they both lose it all in the crash and Montgomery sustains injuries when he gets caught in a labor riot and is unable to work, Bankhead must take to the streets as a prostitute to support them. In a few years, this kind of character would be run down by a bus instead of persevering, damn that Production Code. Anyway, Montgomery is handsome but clueless as the ethical ad man (and he must have been bored out of his mind at these romantic leading man roles MGM stuffed him into; no wonder he fought so hard to play the psychotic decapitator of "Night Must Fall"!) but plays his role well. Bankhead, a stage actress and undeniably decadent and somewhat louche in her private life, does not come off well in this self-sacrificing role. However, she does have some good lines, my favorite one being when she is introduced to Montgomery's brother: "Oh, a metallurgist! What kind of metal do you urge? Does it succumb easily or does it take a lot of coaxing?" Fabulous!

A Warners film trapped in an MGM body

[marcslope · 17 January 2006]

For most of the 1930s MGM scarcely noticed there was a Depression going on, suffocating its films in production values and stars. But this fairly ludicrous soap opera starts Tallulah Bankhead out in Art Deco trappings and flouncy evening gowns and sends her down, down, down the social ladder, from high-priced mistress to woman of the streets. It's all for the love of Robert Montgomery, on a less precipitous but still steep downward path (he starts out as a $20,000-a-year ad man, a fortune in 1932, and becomes an unfortunate scab truck driver). Tallulah gets to laugh her throaty laugh and break mirrors and throw tantrums, but you see why she didn't become a movie star: It's not an expressive movie face, and the voice, fascinating as it is, hasn't much variety. Plus, this sort of part was so familiar -- think Ruth Chatterton, Kay Francis, Constance Bennett -- that one suspects audiences tired of it. Despite the ridiculous plot conveniences and unconvincing happy ending, it's a frank film coming from this studio, and the dialog has moments of sharpness. Hugh Herbert is good in an Edward Arnold kind of role, and Tallulah's something to see and hear, even if another throaty laugh or "dahling" is always just around the corner.

Tallulah and Bob Keep the Faith

[mikhail080 · 7/10 · 12 July 2010]

Here's a fascinating pre-code effort from MGM designed to showcase stage superstar Bankhead, on loan from Paramount. It was the last of her movies released before her twelve-year-long break from film making which lasted until 1944 and Hitchcock's "Lifeboat."

But "Faithless" fails to reach the heights of other classics from that studio at that time, and feels like its plot is lifted from a discarded Joan Crawford vehicle. And unfortunately, the camera just is not kind to even the youthful Tallulah Bankhead's visage, and she lacks the great beauty of her contemporaries like Garbo, Dietrich or the aforementioned Crawford. But nevertheless, she was very elegant and could wear outrageous Hollywood high fashions like an expert.

It's a riches-to-rags story with Bankhead playing a flighty young socialite who spurns the honest affections of middle-class ad man Robert Montgomery, but is eventually brought to her knees by the Great Depression. Based on a romance novel, the film covers all the bases of that time-honored genre, with elements like illness, destitution, prostitution, deceit, forgiveness and redemption all marched out for display.

It goes without saying that Tallulah Bankhead really can command attention, and she makes every attempt to exude her undeniable star quality, especially with her distinctive throaty voice, and her unique body language. In fact, there's a riotous scene where she's drunk on champagne, and her physicality -- including an impromptu dive off a piano onto a sofa -- which is marvelous to behold. And Montgomery elevates the proceedings since he never fails to exude charm and a boyish likability with his endearing demeanor and strikingly handsome appearance.

And for support, there's affable Hugh Herbert who takes advantage of Bankhead's financial ruin, and leads her into a lifestyle of shame and disgrace. Then there's old pro Louise Closser Hale in a seriocomic role as an opportunistic landlady who has a soft spot for fine footwear. But the performance by Maurice Murphy as Montgomery's younger brother fails so badly that this viewer at least cringed every time he appeared on screen. Murphy comes off as wooden as an oak tree, but not nearly as exciting.

So, "Faithless" serves up some standard 1930's romance, sin and redemption, all in a way most of us have seen before. Enjoyable for what it is, and for its two great stars -- but too standard in plot, characters, and dialog for me to recommend wholeheartedly.

*** out of *****

Tallulah and Montgomery elevate a rather tiresome plot...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 30 October 2009]

TALLULAH BANKHEAD is fine in one her of early screen roles, long before the booze and drugs did any damage to her youthful looks. Here she is, playing a 24-year-old society woman who loses everything when her wealth is wiped out by the stock market crash of 1929.

She's unwilling to give in to the marriage proposal of a man (ROBERT MONTGOMERY) who exists on $20,000 a year despite her losses. She leaves him, settles for a sugar daddy affair (with HUGH HERBERT), then returns to Montgomery who's willing to overlook her indiscretions when she promises to reform.

For awhile they're happy, but then the plot, in true soap opera fashion, thickens when he's hurt in a workplace accident and she hasn't got the money to take care of him. An interesting scene with her sympathetic landlady is underplayed (and subtly written) when the landlady sees through her plans to find some money by reminding her to fix her lipstick before she goes out. Tallulah applies the make-up, fixes her hair and leaves. The audience knows what she's about to do.

Interesting for the good chemistry between Bankhead and Montgomery, both of whom play their roles with professionalism. A good feel for the Depression-era mood, but could have been an even stronger film with a better script. Unfortunately, MAURICE MURPHY, as Montgomery's younger brother, gives an awful reading of all of his lines.

Tahlulah Bankhead and Richard Montgomery

[suzanne-36 · 7/10 · 6 October 2000]

Anything with Tallulah Bankhead is worth a viewing, but the added bonus of Robert Montgomery says it all. The problems which they have are interesting, but Tahlulah's acting is believable or one can view her as a comedienne. Robert Montgomery is so charming and funny.

$ 290,000 /year in 2009 dollars

[qatmom · 7/10 · 30 October 2009]

Low-grade spoiler:

The notion that earnings of a "mere" $20,000 a year made one an ordinary or impoverished worker is simply wrong. Nearly all members of a 1932 audience of this movie only fantasized about making that kind of money, even in the better years of the 1920s.

Adjusted for inflation, $20,000 is equivalent to about $290,000 in 2009, which yields the proper perspective that Mr Sausage Marketeer was earning very good money for the times, making a comfortable life possible, the kind of life most Americans of the day could only dream about.

Ms Fluffhead was not rejecting a respectable middle class station--she was rejecting a very comfortable, upper middle class life, which is how she should be viewed to understand the point of the movie.

Solid film with a weak ending.

[hemisphere65-1 · 6/10 · 19 June 2021]

Somewhat melodramatic story, but surprisingly harsh in some ways. Bankhead was never convincing as the "down and out gal", but at least she wasn't constantly upbeat like her loverboy. As others have pointed out, the landlady/lipstick scene is the highlight of the movie.

Tallulah's the whole show

[Dr. Ed · 8/10 · 9 October 2000]

The wonderful Tallulah Bankhead shines in her last Hollywood film of the 30s, playing a spoiled heiress who loses her money and her man (Robert Montgomery), as well as her dignity, on the way to learning what is important. Typical weepie of the early 30s is a terrific vehicle for Bankhead in the kind of role often played by Constance Bennett----glamorous, slinky, and bitchy. Excellent dramatic support from the usually comic Hugh Herbert.

Talluhah Bankhead's Final Movie for Ten Years

[springfieldrental · 7/10 · 16 December 2022]

The Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the resultant Depression proved fodder for scriptwriters in a number of Hollywood films revolving around the disastrous economic times. One of the more descriptive films to come out of the pre-code period showing the riches-to-rags descent was October 1932's "Faithless." Based on the Mildred Cram novel 'Tinfoil,' the MGM picture follows rich New York socialite Carol Morgan (Tallulah Bankhead) arguing with her working stiff fiance, Bill Wade (Robert Montgomery), about living on his (to her) low wages when they get married.

Bankhead appeared in "Faithless" as a loan-out to MGM from Paramount Pictures, a common practice in Hollywood at the time when actors and directors were contracted by one studio. The studio loaning out its talent to another collected nice 'rental fees' to pay above and beyond their salaries. Thirty-year-old Bankhead was especially problematic for Paramount since her previous five films with the studio hadn't performed well at the box office. In "Faithless," MGM hairdressers, make-up artists and dress designer Adrian gave Bankhead the Garbo look to heighten her public appeal. The highly-successful Broadway actress didn't like the movie-making process, but loved her $50,000 per motion picture salary.

Bankhead's role as a heiress to a fortune that disappeared by the Depression was perfect for the off-screen hedonist. In "Faithless," to support her fiancé in a relationship that was sputtering, she turned to soliciting in the streets after unable to find employment. Bill, sick and unaware of her activity, eventually discovers her methods of financial support. As modern film reviewer Laura Grieve notes," The plot would have been impossible to film just a couple of years later, especially as the heroine is not punished for her transgressions, as would have been required under the 1934 Code. The ending was somewhat unexpected and a bit improbable, but very touching."

The gritty nature of the film ran counter to the sophistication and richness of MGM movies. As one reviewer wrote, "There are some scenes in 'Faithless' that may require you to rewind the film to the beginning and see the lion again in order to convince yourself you're watching an MGM movie." After "Faithless," Bankhead's contract with Paramount ended. MGM head Louis Mayer was scared off by the actress' promiscuity and her complete frankness to the press whenever she was interviewed. She said to one reporter about the current movie production code under Will Hays, "I have followed Mr. Hay's advice and have taken up a completely sexless, nun-like, legs-crossed existence."

After recklessly sleeping with a number of Hollywood men and women, Bankhead returned to the New York stage when, during a 1933 performance of the play 'Jezebel,' she collapsed and underwent a five-hour emergency hysterectomy to cure her from an untreated disease she caught in California. Nearly dying, Bankhead was released from the hospital weighing 70 pounds. But the near-death experience didn't stop her from continuing her late-night partying with drugs and beddings. As she left the hospital, she told her doctor, "Don't think this has taught me a lesson!" Bankhead's return to the stage was a rousing success, winning a handful of acting awards in the process. "Faithless" was the final dramatic film she appeared in until Alfred Hitchcock's 1944 "Lifeboat."

Tallulah's greatest performance

[HotToastyRag · 9/10 · 30 June 2020]

If you're looking for the greatest Tallulah Bankhead performance ever, rent Faithless. She was a great stage legend, but in the years before taped performances, we aren't able to see her in The Little Foxes, in which I'm sure she shined. In this tour-de-force, she plays a high society lady who throws everything away for love.

She's rich, playful, and loves to party (just like her real life persona) and when the handsome, charming Robert Montgomery comes along, she thinks they'll manage nicely on her allowance and his moderate salary. He works in advertising, and his integrity shocks her before their wedding when he declares he has no intention of living off anything other than his weekly wages. Tallulah couldn't stand to be poor, so she breaks up with him.

The first fifteen minutes don't seem like it'll be the greatest movie ever, but keep watching. All the beginning shows is a spoiled, rich girl and an extremely handsome man bickering over excess money. They don't have any real troubles, and enjoy flaunting their privileges in the audience's faces. Keep in mind this movie was made during the Great Depression (and before the Production Code). This is actually quite a racy movie, and you can imagine how much would have been altered just two years later. After a kiss between the happy couple, the camera fades to a clock, showing an hour has passed. Then Tallulah is shown in a negligee and Bob is smoking a cigarette. They joke around that now they have to get married, and when they get in another fight, he says she should be glad society has a different view on premarital sex. "I don't see any shotguns around," he says before he leaves in a huff. See what I mean?

I'm not telling you anything substantial about the plot, or how Tallulah falls from her pedestal. It's much better if you find out for yourself. This is a classic melodrama with unending love at its center. It's a great movie to start off with if you're new to black-and-white classics, or if you haven't seen the two leads before. Faithless has been overshadowed by more famous flicks from 1932, like Grand Hotel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, but it's really enjoyable. If you liked the drama of Back Street, you'll like this one!

faithless

[mossgrymk · 6/10 · 18 June 2021]

Maybe in the hands of a Vidor or a Hawks this Edith Whartonesque tale might have worked, but as helmed by Harry Beaumont, the veritable personification of the term "journeyman", it's too melodramatic and way too sappy, especially that "uplifting" ending. Good performance from Tallulah, though. Only time I've seen this renowned stage actress onscreen other than "Lifeboat" and I was impressed. I particularly liked how she did drunken/hysterical in that fine scene with the rich "gent" who was keeping her. Wish there had been more like it and less of the lovey/dovey stuff with a rather stiff Robert Montgomery. C plus.

the silliness of Hollywood during the Depression years

[brucetwo-2 · 5/10 · 17 February 2005]

One of the silliest films ever made--and that's saying a lot! Maybe 1930's audiences were moved by Ms. Bankhead's descent from socialite to prostitute and Robert Montgomery's taking to his bed with a bad case of "Hollywood Disease," while she becomes a hooker to support him. And maybe they accepted the scene where Montgomery's brother returns from Canada and is solicited by Bankhead on a street corner and breaks the news to a clueless but forgiving Montgomery. But today the film's appeal must surely be mostly for its CAMP value, which is considerable. Could be shown on a double bill with "DANCE FOOLS DANCE" with Joan Crawford and a very young Clark Gable, wherein--once more-- a socialite down on her luck has to become a sexy nightclub "dancer" and consort with dangerous but swarthy masculine gangster types (because of the Crash on Wall Street)--before being redeemed (economically and morally) in the last reel.--What a woman will do for her man! What men will do to a woman! When will Hollywood do remakes of these movies!?!