A fantastic pre-Code film, and if this one doesn't make you fall in love with Bette Davis, I'm not sure what will. She is simply radiant, and her character is a feminist well ahead of her time - a talented, genial woman who calls the shots in her life, unashamedly puts career first, eschews marriage, and has a lover (Gene Raymond). She quite simply expresses her 'modern' views while being such a warm and loving person, making her a compelling figure, and therefore dangerous to conservative morality.
The relationship that Davis and Raymond have in the film is fantastic. He stands up to her father when confronted, not by saying that he wants marriage and that she's the one who is holding out (even though that's the truth), but by saying it's their decision. When they do decide to get married, it's because she's proposed to him, not the other way around. In business, he's not bent out of shape because she is more valuable and talented than he is. They also have some wonderfully tender moments. On their honeymoon in Havana they sit in a nightclub watching a scantily clad dancer move sinuously about, and he makes a motion with his eyes for them to step outside. Without saying a word, they walk slowly outside together, then enfold each other in a beautiful kiss on the veranda. She then leads him over to a bench, which we see from behind, and reclines back, out of the camera's view. He walks over to her, smiles, and then joins her, obviously signaling passion to come, as we see the dancer's hip action in the background. It's a scene that is both heartfelt and erotic.
Later when they find that being married is leading to some of the frustrations she predicted, they decide that being lovers 3-4 times a week is preferable (as the circles on the calendar of May, 1933 show) - more honest, harmonious, and exciting. And this is the real danger the Catholic Church saw in Hollywood pre-Code films. Bette Davis is not playing a 'loose', depraved woman here. She's smart, funny, talented, rational, and has a healthy interest in sex - and she makes an excellent point about an alternate way of living for women, to pursue their own interests, and not necessarily be on the track to get married and crank out children. It's simply extraordinary.
In one very revealing moment, a male character pining for the 'good old days' points out that the 'hobble skirt' was a way of controlling women - "They couldn't walk fast nor far in a hobble skirt. You could trust them." And this was one of the main facets of the Production Code enforcement of the following year - to put a lid on women's sexuality and to get them back into their subordinate roles in society. As the film plays out it never compromises either. As both characters are pursued by others (played very well by Kay Strozzi and Monroe Owsley), they find that their love for one another - not the convention of marriage or a need to control the other - leads to jealousy whether they're married or lovers. It seems like a pretty simple story, but it's in this that the film has real power.
The film zips along in its 67 minute run time, and while it's not a work of art or anything, director Robert Florey gets in some interesting camera angles (e.g. of the opera singer at the dinner party, and the overhead shot of Davis being pulled on to the floor in a kiss). He also gives the actors space to communicate with their eyes. The screenplay was based on a play by Edith Fitzgerald and Robert Riskin, unmarried lovers, and I think it shows. Some bits from the script that I thought were fantastic:
Don (Gene Raymond): You know, I'm just about fed up with sneaking in.
Helen (Bette Davis): Sneaking?
Don: Yes, sneaking. Let's get married, so I'll have the right to be with you.
Helen: What do you mean, 'Right?' I don't like the word 'Right.'
Don: Oh, let's not quibble about words.
Helen: No, I'm not quibbling. 'Right' means something. No one has any rights about me, except me.
Later, when she's condemned by her father when he sees that Don has spent the night with her, she very reasonably and calmly tells him this:
"Oh, don't let's get dramatic about this. Don't let's start arguing. We've been all over this. I don't believe in what you believe. That's all. I don't want to get married."
Here's how she handles it with her lover:
Don: I want to marry you.
Helen: Oh, Don, we've been over it, over it, and over it. I went away from home to be on my own. I don't want to be like my mother, a yes-woman for some man. I want to be a person on my own. If I like to live a certain way, and have a certain kind of furniture, do a certain kind of work, and wear a certain kind of clothes, I want to do it. And not have somebody tell me I ought to do something else.
And then later this:
Helen: We have a different sense of values. I don't want babies. When I'm 40, I'll think of babies. In the meantime, there are 20 years in which I want to be the baby and play with my toys and have a good time playing with them.
Don: A career.
Helen: Oh, it isn't just that. Sure, I want to do good work. But it isn't that. I want to stay young for a while and have a good time and not be dull and set. I don't want to be a wife.
Meanwhile, another guy named Nick (Monroe Owsley) wants to be her lover and thinks she must be a 'puritan' for repeatedly turning him down. She doesn't explain her lifestyle or her choices in the slightest, simply telling him amiably, "What conceit!" The conversation continues:
Nick: Come on, let's quit kidding.
Helen: That's what he said.
Nick: Who said?
Helen: That's what every man says when he wants you to do what he wants you to. Man, whew. I'm souring on the lot of you.
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