FAITHLESS: Blu-ray (MGM, 1932) Warner Archive

Tallulah Bankhead – a Southerner, Paramount contractee, and, sometimes ‘friend’ of Jock Whitney – one of the richest men in America – costars with ‘then’ MGM ‘new find’ Robert Montgomery in Faithless (1932) – a pre-code ‘nothing’ directed with lugubrious ennui by Harry Beaumont. Bankhead’s career at Paramount had begun with high hopes, virtually squandered in five disposable movies that do not survive their first impressions as being bad to downright terrible. Faithless is a minor step up…a very minor one at that. For although it boasts MGM’s usual zeal for surface glamor, and Oliver T. Marsh’s sumptuous B&W cinematography, at just a little over an hour-and-seventeen-minutes, it manages to make the very least of Carey Wilson’s meandering screenplay, based on Mildred Cram’s novella – Tinfoil. It is difficult to discount Faithless as a clunker outright, because Bankhead and Montgomery really are invested in every word of dialogue they utter. It’s just that Wilson’s prose gives them very little to emote beyond what is essentially an hour-long squabble about finances. Setting the tale in the uber-wealthy milieu of the hoi poloi, contrasted with darker realities seeping in about the Great Depression is a bit off-putting too as even after Bankhead’s spoilt heiress, Carol Morgan discovers her vast holdings have been either embezzled by her New York investors or spent to death by her own devil-may-care boredom with the high life, she still cannot resign herself to live off Montgomery’s advertising exec, Bill Wade’s $20,000 a year salary. Just for context, twenty-grand today is roughly $447,804.38 – give or take a penny. Very nice work if you can get it.

Only Carol Morgan doesn’t want it. Not even with the caveat of true love dangling before her upturned nostrils. MGM, in a moment of artistic madness, chose to transform Bankhead into a Garbo-esque knock-off, bedecked in sumptuous rags from horn to hoof – leaving Bankhead ever more awkwardly, the mannequin in Swedish hand-me-downs. With everything there is to bicker about in the world, Carol and Bill cannot surrender the shop talk about how he will be able to keep his woman in the manner to which she is accustom. Worse, his big, dumb male ego is determined to force the bride to sell off her Park Avenue playhouse, trade in her rocks and frocks for a modest home somewhere in the vicinity. So, hardly to dump Manhattan for Bedford-Stuyvesant. But the real derailment of Faithless occurs as a result of Carol’s lingering crave to claw her way back from bankruptcy. This includes several laughably misguided attempts to screw her way to the top.  Bill’s a better man than most. He is willing to forgive Carol just about anything. And, at intervals, she feigns gratitude as well as fleeting interest to pick up where they protractedly left off whenever greed engulfs her better judgement and the good sense God gave a lemon.

Here's how it all plays out. Manhattan socialite, Carol Morgan gives not a hoot for the Depression. What she worry, when her cup runneth over with cash, jewels, furs and the like? Desperately, deeply in love – she actually proposes to Bill – not the other way around – Carol nevertheless breaks off her engagement when he demands she forsake her wealth to live off his comparatively modest salary.  Carol frowns on Bill’s work ethic. Why be middle class when one could so easily motor by those neighborhoods in her Duesenberg? An impromptu romp between the sheets seems to clear the air between them. Except Carol turns down Bill's request for a speedy marriage at City Hall. No go. However, when her attorney, Mr. Ledyard (Lawrence Grant) and financial advisor, Mr. Grant (Henry Kolker) explain the dire situation in her own finances – basically, everything’s gone – a momentarily contrite Carol runs back to Bill. Too bad, the Depression has hit Bill’s firm hard. He’s out of a job. Nevertheless, Bill proposes again. He and Carol can begin anew in Chicago where he just may be able to secure another position, albeit, at a greatly reduced annual income. Heaven’s no! Some money better than none?!? Ridiculous.

Disgusted by Carol's arrogance, Bill's younger brother Tony (Maurice Murphy) admonishes her and tries, later on, to get Bill to see Carol for her wicked ugliness. Instead, Bill insists Carol’s heart is pure, even if her wealth has modestly corrupted her common sense. Without Bill, Carol resorts to sponging off social climbers with very deep pockets, using her name to carry her over the threshold. Eventually, the cache in the social register dries up, forcing Carol to become the mistress of Peter Blainey (Hugh Herbert). Bill finds Carol as Blainey’s kept woman in a fashionable penthouse. She feigns confidence. But after Bill departs in disgrace, Carol is disgusted with herself and ends the affair with Blainey. Now, truly on her own, Carol takes up residence in a dirty tenement, selling off what remains of her once glamorous wardrobe for a fraction of its worth to Mrs. Mandel (Anna Appel) her greedy landlady. Destitute and starving, Bill again tries to make Carol see the light. His is still struggling and about to lose his job again. Nevertheless, Carol and Bill are wed. Hired as a strikebreaker, Bill is severely injured while attempting to ram his truck to break the picket line. Carol turns to prostitution to pay his medical bills, inadvertently soliciting Tony. Arrested, Carol enjoys a reprieve when Police Officer Clancy (Ben Taggart) helps her find gainful employment as a hash-slinging waitress at a greasy spoon. Tony informs Bill about Carol, unaware, at first, she is his sister-in-law. Returning home from her first day’s ‘honest work’, Carol confesses. But Bill is moved by the depths she has gone to restore him to health. All is forgiven. Life goes on.

Faithless is a pretty pedestrian affair. Interesting to consider this one as pre-Code because in tone and atmosphere it plays it very safe from beginning to end with the foibles and follies of repeated thwarted romantic love. Even Carol’s stint as a streetwalker is of the sanitized ‘come out of the rain’ ilk rather than that hard-as-nails derivative witnessed in other pre-Code dillies like Rain (1932), and, Of Human Bondage (1934). Hookers with a heart of gold would live on, in spite of the code, and, later become even more decorous and slight under the stringencies of Hollywood’s self-governing censorship. But truly, there is not much sin or sex going on here – even without the code’s impediments. And Bill’s chronic blind-spot where Carol is concerned, also, her sudden, but certain realization she loves Bill for himself, renders the title of this piece fairly moot. If anything, Bill and Carol prove their fidelity to be faithful – not, faithless. In the end, Faithless is a movie that challenges neither the code nor our hearts to respect the sanctity of two people who, despite being averted with every witless roadblock in the cheaply popularized celluloid melodrama, eventually come together as we always suspected they would: wham!...like a couple of taxis on Broadway!

Faithless arrives on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive. WAC continues to mine such chestnuts ahead of an embarrassment of bona fide classics still awaiting the hi-def treatment. To what purpose? Not sure. Presumably, the audience for Faithless is far less than, say…Captain Blood, Around the World in 80 Days, Random Harvest, Scaramouche, and on and on. And money spent on remastering such minor movies is money taken away from achieving greater things on movies far more deserving of that effort. But I digress. Faithless looks stellar in hi-def. Every ounce of integrity has been lifted off Ollie Marsh’s B&W cinematography. The image is appropriately dark and nuanced. Grayscale tonality is uniformly excellent. Fine detail abounds. The image is occasionally soft, but this is owed to Marsh’s camera and film stocks from the period. It’s a great looking disc. It also sounds pretty spiffy – the limitations of Westrex early sound recording, tempered by some effort to keep everything in check. Perhaps recognizing how ‘thin’ this program actually is, WAC has given us a musical short, plus two almost half-hour-long Inspector Carr mystery shorts. Personally, I enjoyed these more than the feature. Bottom line: Faithless is gutless. The Blu has been paid far more respect than this movie deserves. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

1

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

3.5