Ladies of Leisure (1930)

Touches You

Fresh and Exciting

Best movie ever!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

I love a good weepie -- particularly when I have no idea in advance that it's going to be one; every so often my over-the-top spoiler-avoiding policy does pay off in trumps! -- and this film turns out to be a real corker. I haven't seen so much surreptitious sniffling among the audience after the lights went up since "A Matter of Life and Death": and that's a compliment.Perhaps it's no surprise that this is the first of the early Capra films to really click into place with me so far, given that I've found that the most successful scenes from his silents have been the poignant moments rather than the sometimes crude treatment of the humour -- Mack Sennett's influence perhaps hard to shake. This time the director gets a sparkling dialogue script and a stellar leading lady in a five-star "woman's picture", and for my money the results exceed those from some of the better-known 'Capraesque' films of his later years.Having recently seen and been disappointed by the celebrated "An Affair to Remember", I would add that "Ladies of Leisure", clearly falling in the same genre, managed to succeed for me where the later melodrama somehow failed to deliver. The banter is involving, the characters engaging, and the central romance -- despite falling under all the cases of cliché and despite my initial longing in both cases to see expectations undermined -- manages to break through in convincing reversal and enlist my sympathies utterly. I was particularly engaged by Ralph Graves, who infuses what could have been an all too worthy two-dimensional hero, with scarcely a defect to his character, with a full measure of conviction as a human being and a great deal of likability and charm; I am amazed to see all the specific IMDb criticisms of him as 'wooden' in this role, and wonder if it is a question of English versus American expectations of male behaviour. I found him delightful in a role that could easily have been played very badly.Barbara Stanwyck, of course, is the central figure, depicting with utter believability both the hard-as-nails shell of the party girl for hire whom Jerry first meets, and the glimpse of 'Hope' that inspires him to employ her as a model for a new painting -- and then spend frustrating days trying to relocate beneath her wise-cracking, gum-chewing exterior! In her scene with Jerry's mother she plays out the time-honoured renunciation theme with the passion and conviction of a Violetta Valery; indeed it's hard not to hear echoes of "La Traviata" in her role here. And if you have ever longed to hear the 'fallen woman' in this situation instead answer back her sanctimonious accuser with "No, I won't give him up and you can't make me -- get out!", Miss Stanwyck flings all the fire and justification into the defiance for which one could wish; even if she eventually lapses into allowing herself to be beaten down by convention. Fortunately, she has what Violetta lacked: a pragmatic friend with both feet upon the ground and no qualms about eavesdropping when clearly necessary...The long-delayed love scenes are so real as to be tactile in their intensity, the sparing and well-delivered poignancies tear at your heart, the melodrama has your pulse racing, yet the film is often also very funny. The banter between the two girls is as hard-boiled with dry fizz as that of any Warner Brothers product, and Lowell Sherman, dissolutely charming and almost permanently sozzled, is the heroine's male counterpart in more ways than one, though Kay's streetwise wits are a match for almost anyone. There is a hilarious scene where Dot is attempting to lose weight via a patent machine at the same time as trying to answer the door, an echo of earlier physical humour amid dozens of moments that are half-laugh, half-tears.The only acting that I felt sometimes struck the wrong note was that of the older generation, Nance O'Neill and George Fawcett as Jerry's parents, who slide a little too far into the sonorous melodrama vein when it comes to the big confrontations. Otherwise, from its bombs-on-the-sidewalk smash opening to its final fadeout, this film rarely puts a foot wrong. It could so easily have been utterly hackneyed; films that go for high emotion gamble everything on transfixing the audience out of potential disbelief. Instead, it resonates not only with the audience and mores of its era but down to our own. Miss Stanwyck deserved to be a star on this showing, and she would be.

Ladies of Leisure (1930) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Frank Capra's remake of a (now lost) 1926 film has Barbara Stanwyck playing a "party girl" who begins working as a model for an artist (Ralph Graves). The two have an up and down relationship but soon they fall in love, which doesn't sit too well with his rich family who knows her secret. This film starts off with one thinking they're going to get a Pre-Code sexploitation but it quickly turns into a very dramatic love story. I think there are quite a few flaws here but this is certainly the best of the early sound Capra movies that I've seen. Apparently there's a silent version of this out there and I'd like to see it at some point so hopefully TCM will show it. What works best with this film is the performance by Stanwyck who is pretty remarkable considering this was only her third film (4th if you count her work as an extra). She gives a very dramatic and believable performance but also gives that Stanwyck style that she is best known for. Seeing her with that style so early on in her career made me wonder if Capra had a major part with that. This is the film that made her a star so I guess it's a possibility. Graves, on the other hand, didn't have me too impressed as he came off quite wooden and at times I really couldn't figure out what he was trying to display on screen. George Fawcett, a veteran of several D.W. Griffith features, does a very good job in the role of the father. The film still has quite a few flaws and that includes poor technology because a lot of the sound is pretty bad. Just check out the scene where we first see Stanwyck and she's trying to talk to Graves. You can't even make out what she's saying. Another problem is a rather snails pace, which starts to hurt the film towards the end. With that said, there are still some remarkable sequences here with the best being the scene between Stanwyck and Graves' mother in the film. This sequence is high drama at its very best and is reason enough to see the film.

The creative team of Barbara Stanwyck and director Frank Capra makes its debut in Ladies Of Leisure which casts a young Barbara as a party girl who falls big time for artist Ralph Graves after he hires her to model for him. They did a total of five films together, the last one Meet John Doe is considered a classic.Ladies Of Leisure is far from that, but you can see why it helped make Barbara Stanwyck the star she became. Their are hints of her later Oscar nominated part in Stella Dallas in her performance here.Ralph Graves isn't just any artist, he's the son of railroad tycoon George Fawcett and Nance O'Neil, but business just doesn't interest him which displeases dad. Fawcett wants him to forget this art kick and join the family firm. But that's nothing compared to how he and O'Neil feel about their son when he brings Stanwyck home after he's fallen for her.The production values aren't the greatest, remember this is Columbia Pictures while it was still a poverty row studio like Monogram. Still Capra and Stanwyck show traces of the movie legends they became.Nothing terribly special about Ladies Of Leisure other than these two people coming together for the first time.

Considering that movies only began to talk in 1928, this early sound film starring BARBARA STANWYCK as a girl of ill repute (she calls herself a party girl), and RALPH GRAVES as an artist who wants to use her as a model, is not bad at all. It's certainly one of the better jobs in sound recording for a film made in the early '30s. As usual with films of this period, there is almost no music on the soundtrack except for the moment when "The End" is flashed on the screen. In the TCM print I watched, the screen then fades to black while some "exit" music is played against a dark screen.Stanwyck is the prostitute with a heart of gold who finds a good man and doesn't want to let him go, even when his family objects to their union when he proposes marriage. She is convinced by the mother to give him up--but circumstances change after she makes a rash decision.Stanwyck is excellent at conveying the brassy qualities of the character, but then reveals the softer nature of the girl as she falls in love with the man who only wants to paint her portrait. The tenderness of the romance that develops is full of nuances that one wouldn't expect from a Frank Capra film. The sentimental ending is more in keeping with his usual style.RALPH GRAVES gives a quiet, assured performance as the man who finds that he does really love Stanwyck. LOWELL SHERMAN does his usual schtick as an inebriated friend who flounces around making wisecracks. MARIE PREVOST has some good moments as Stanwyck's roommate and NANCE O'NEIL does a good job as Grave's well-meaning mother.Stanwyck fans will appreciate her well modulated performance.