Dorothy Mackaill, real life Ziegfeld Girl turned actress, might've become another Crawford or Davis had she come along seven or eight year later. Her early talkies are nearly-lost artifacts which shouldn't really hold up well today, yet her performances are always worth-watching. Here she plays a working girl who has to retreat to a "rest home" after getting pregnant by a wealthy playboy, driving her family into bankruptcy. Surprisingly fresh and fast-paced. Mackaill, as well as Joan Blondell as Dorothy's sassy sis, is "a real peach" and a natural comedienne. This is probably her finest showcase, based on the play "Ambush" by Arthur Richman. **1/2 from ****
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AlsExGal21 December 2012... starting with model Margie Nichols (Dorothy Mackaill) trusting socialite Allen Crane (Walter Byron) enough to go out with him and think him on the level after he basically insults her on first meeting. All dressed up in formal attire, he at first thinks her a fellow socialite and is very polite, but after he finds out she is a model in the dress shop his demeanor changes significantly, he gets familiar, and basically says she'll eventually sleep with him.
At home Margie has a rather difficult situation. Mom (Helen Ware) is dissatisfied with Dad's (H.B. Warner as Walter Nichols) income, with him owning a book shop and being happy with just that. She wants him to be bolder with his money and become an investor and a big shot, and she's constantly nagging on the subject. Margie is bored with her main suitor, Harry Gleason (Joe Donahue), but sister Myrtle (Joan Blondell), for some unknown reason, is just aching to take this zoot suited wise-guy away from her sister and drag him to the nearest JP. Conrad Nagel plays artist Eddie Adams with which Margie has a second course of reckless moments in the last half of the film after she becomes cynical about romance. She and the artist are a good match as he has become cynical too due to a faithless wife and his resulting failed marriage.
This is pretty much a precode with lots of conventional angles - middle class girl thinking she has found her rich prince charming only to find out he's a heel and that when it comes to his family the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree, feuding parents with one parent lending a sympathetic ear to the troubled daughter and the other parent oblivious and self-involved, and a couple of colorful neighborhood characters to lighten up the melodrama just a bit.
A couple of things of note. Joan Blondell's mating ritual with Joe Donahue's Harry Gleason just had me thinking - I'd actually believe she found this character interesting if Harry was being played by James Cagney, who was also still a supporting player at this point. After all, it was the kind of street wise character that Cagney excelled at playing that Joe was obviously aiming at portraying, but instead he just seems like a street-wise wannabe braggart. There's also a very interesting scene at a club when Margie is out with Allen. When he's talking things over with Eddie as to his plans that evening Allen basically tells Eddie - with Margie standing right there - that he's occupied because the two are spending the night together. That Allen would talk about her like she was a piece of meat in front of a total stranger should have told Margie that this relationship was not on its way to the altar. Finally notice Ivan F. Simpson as Eddie's butler who also played similar roles in George Arliss' films.
I'd recommend this as a very typical precode of the era, but with interesting performances by those involved and a look at Warner Brothers in transition, as it would soon abandon the stars it started out with in talking pictures such as Dorothy Mackaill and H.B. Warner and turn more towards stars such as Joan Blondell. -
blanche-216 October 2017This film is 86 years old and presents such a different world from the one we live in today.
"The Reckless Hour" concerns a young model, Margaret (Dorothy Mackaill) who falls for a playboy Allen Crane (Walter Byron). Her family isn't wealthy - Margaret lives with her parents Walter and Harriett (H.B. Warner and Helen Ware). Her mother, of course, is thrilled that she's dating someone from a wealthy family.
Walter isn't. He notices she's wearing a very expensive bracelet and informs her that if she's seen wearing it, people will realize it's too expensive for him to have given her. Then what will people say? Back then, a man giving jewelry was just not done unless the two are engaged or married. Margaret says it's a fake, and besides, it's an engagement gift, to Walter's relief.
Well, the bracelet is real, as a friend informs Walter, and it really isn't an engagement gift. Margaret and Allen are fooling around in an apartment he keeps in the city. One night while on the town, they meet a friend of Allen's, Eddie (Conrad Nagel). He is immediately attracted to Margaret, and then realizes that she's sleeping with Allen.
Upset that Allen may be taking his daughter for a ride, he confronts Allen's father, who never heard of her. A confrontation between Allen, his own father, and Walter - overheard by Margaret - solidifies the fact that Allen has no intention of marrying her. Allen's father insists that if he said he would, he's going to. Margaret says no. Later she tells Walter that she's pregnant - by saying "I didn't tell him...everything."
Walter raises the money to send her to a rest home. When she returns, she learns that Eddie, who is an artist, having learned she's no longer with Allen, has been asking for her. She decides to work for him.
Really lovely film, based on a play, dealing with a common pre- Depression theme then - class differences - which ended with the Depression when writers like Clifford Odets began to write plays about the working man. And, before the code, women who slept with men before marriage weren't killed in the last reel as punishment.
Dorothy Mackaill was beautiful and gives a touching performance; Joan Blondell as her wisecracking sister is a riot. For me the best performance was by H.B. Warner. Warner is most famous for being Jesus in the DeMille King of Kings, and more famous for being Mr. Gower, the pharmacist in It's a Wonderful Life. His performance is heart- wrenching and his love for Margaret is palpable. In this film he's in his fifties but today could pass for 80. Amazing.
Excellent film - check it out. -
drednm25 June 2012Dorothy Mackaill stars as Maggie, a sensible girl from Jersey City who works as a model in New York City but lives with her family. She's tired of dating ordinary men and one day meets a rich man (Walter Byron) who's eager to date. She enjoys the gifts and evenings at nightclubs but her parents are worried.
Meanwhile her younger sister(Joan Blondell) is dating the guy Maggie jilted. Her father (H.B. Warner) is having a tough time with his book shop, and her mother (Helen Ware) defends Maggie's dating the rich guy. Things start to go wrong, however, when Maggie discovers she is pregnant. She assumes the rich guy will marry her. After he dumps her, she's left to explain things to her father.
After some time in a "rest home," she meets another rich guy (Conrad Nagel). Has she learned her lesson? Will he be interested in "damaged goods"? Should she tell him everything?
Mackaill is terrific as Maggie and earns audience sympathy by being so nice. She's matched here by the snappy Joan Blondell who drops wise cracks every time she opens her mouth. Warner and Ware are fine as the parents. Byron is an appropriate louse. Nagel is fine as the nice guy. Also in the cast are Billy House as Jennison, Dorothy Peterson as his wife, and Joe Donahue as the sourpuss Hal.
As a pre-Code film, there are some surprises in the way the women act. A few years later, the Code would force certain behaviors and conclusions. There's one outrageous exchange when Maggie declines to go out with her drippy boyfriend. When Blondell's character jumps on her for standing him up, the mother says something like, "Leave Maggie alone. She's been on feet all day." Blondell (whose character works at Macy's) snaps back, "And where have I been all day? On my back?" -
SimonJack11 December 2014"The Reckless Hour" appeared in theaters in August 1931. That was nearly two years into the Great Depression that had gripped the industrial world. Hollywood had always done a lot of comedy, but now it was cranking out comedy films along with musicals and other films with gaiety and laughter. Audiences that did or didn't have money to spend on entertainment, surely didn't want to spend it watching morose movies about gloom and doom. This was a time when people needed things to help lift their spirits. This may seem far-fetched to audiences of the 21st century, but it was very real for people of the 1930s who lost jobs, incomes, businesses, houses, farms, and, in many cases, hope.
Yet, Hollywood still produced some dramatic films. A common element of those included the wealthy, high society, and the fun life. Audiences could still dream about the good life – a life that most would never really achieve or see. And, mostly those serious films about the rich and worldly had a tragic element to them. The message was that all was not sunshine and gaiety at the top.
"The Reckless Hour" has the usual appeal to riches. The film seems to be set in a time when there wasn't a depression. I would guess that models and jewelry clerks would have been among the least employed during that time. Yet, here we have Dorothy Mackaill and Joan Blondell in just such jobs. Mackaill's Margaret Nichols is the model, while Blondell plays her sister, Myrtle. It's through Margaret's job that this film acquires its riches theme.
I won't divulge the story more here, but just note that this is a surprisingly good morality play. It bursts the bubble of the idea that wealth is everything and brings happiness. The title hints at what is to come. It's a story about hope, decency, mistakes, forgiveness, family, selfishness and charity, kindness and sacrifice. In its own way, this film could lift the spirits of audiences.
The attention given this film for being "pre-code" seems nothing more than a marketing effort today. While there is a situation that could be very scandalous in that day and time, it is only alluded to in the film. And, it's important to the plot, and as an example of the culture and mores of the time.
All of the cast give good performances. Mackaill was a dramatic actress who starred in many silent films of the 1920s. She made the transition to sound with several good films in the early 1930s. But, the rise of many new talented and attractive stars diminished her demand and she retired from films by the mid-1930s. Blondell, on the other hand, was more diversified, and her movie career would last until her death at age 73 in 1979. She played in many comedies, but was also very good in dramas, musicals and other genres. Walter Byron's career also started in the silent era and came to an early end by the start of the 1940s.
This is a good film for a look at these and some other good actors who graced many films into the mid-20th century, but who today are little known. Conrad Nagel, H.B. Warner and Claude King had very good careers in movies. -
mark.waltz1 December 2023A sparkling pre-code drama, the type of depression era film that sparkles from a sordid plot, snappy dialog, art decco sets and fabulous period costumes. The performances may seem a bit dated and stagy, and the finger wagging morality and judgments sort of preachy, but T least the girl who gets in trouble (Dorothy Mackaill) has a father (H. B. Warner) who only wants to help her after she's left unmarried and pregnant after learning the truth about her rich non-commital boyfriend (Walter Byron).
There's also the wonderful pop eyed Joan Blondell who gets the best lines as the younger who takes no nonsense and sees the world through all its angles. She is fun to watch, especially for viewers who only know her through her character parts. Warner is absolutely perfect, the dear old dad of every child's dreams. Joe Donahue as Blondell's boyfriend has the best wisecracks tossed towards him, but that plotline isn't developed that well.
Conrad Nagel is the successful artist who woos Mackaill after hiring her as his model, finding that she's not interested in a personal life after her bad experiences. The conversation between them over their hurts and distrust towards the opposite sex is fascinating, especially when Byron walks in after and the viewer findsout what happened to the child. Definitely one of the more well done pre-codes, a perfect entry for film festivals celebrating that genre. -
Hollywood felt the need to teach us morality in the early 1930s such as with WEEKEND MARRIAGE (1932) and LUXURY LINER (1933). The delivery however of this Warner Brothers sermon is not given by the charismatic firebrand preacher but by Doris from the delicatessen in Spar. This is not a good film.
Weren't things different once upon a time! This is firmly rooted in the morality of the early thirties and the moral being preached in this was the same as was preached in so many others of the early thirties: know thy place. Watched today the message feels chauvinistic and regressive but although these people look like us, they are from a very different society, a society where such moralising worked.
Marriage was massively important. It was such a different thing back then - it wasn't just a romantic commitment, it was vital for survival. What else could most young women do - there were no other options. Young women needed to get married primarily to have somewhere to live - especially during The Depression. In early thirties movies it seems crazy to us how people seem to marry each other at the drop of a hat but marriage was for security. At the most basic level, marriage was a contract to look after a man, give him children and he will give you somewhere to live. These themes were explored much better in other films.
CALL HER SAVAGE may have been the only decent film John Dillon directed. This is not his finest hour, he doesn't manage to make you care about his cast, he doesn't make them real. Walter Byron is basically Captain Hook from the Christmas Pantomime, Dorothy MacKaill is insipid and H B Warner, the 'concerned dad' is acting like they're making a silent movie. Only Joan Blondell in her little role as feisty little sister acts like she's in a normal film.
Its stilted and unnatural feel possibly wasn't all Mr Dillon's fault, production was being disrupted at the time as Warner's recording equipment was being replaced as this was being made. Ironically the 'inventors' of the talkies were now having to play catch up with the other studios but nevertheless, others at Warners managed to make decent pictures then. This just feels amateurish and unpolished.
I've said that Dorothy MacKaill's character Marie is rather insipid but for the story to work, she has to be nothing more than a mouse. Girls in 1931 would however be able to relate to someone like this more so than to someone more interesting like Joan Crawford, it doesn't make for entertainment though. Whilst the attitudes prevalent of the time makes uncomfortable viewing today, this was how things were and how people thought. Marie nearly ruins her life by trying to be different, trying to marry the man of her choice, not the choice of her parents. It should not annoy us that having one's own mind was frowned upon, that's what kept society working then.
What's been mentioned is how a supporting role from Joan Blondell outshines all the established stars. Joan shortly-to-become-the-sexiest-woman-in-the-world Blondell isn't actually that good but her co-stars are just so dull. She wasn't bad - in fact her performance in this as the sassy sister (or only character actually with any character) helped to secure her long time contract.....in films a lot better than this. -
JohnHowardReid7 February 2014Here's Dorothy Mackaill in a downbeat story with a whole raft of unsympathetic characters. At least it's easy to pick the character we like least, namely the heroine's dad, a worthless old humbug whose actions are far from the principles that he loves to preach. These actions, of course, are dictated by the plot. And as they go right against the character, the producer has wisely thought to disguise them by casting H.B. Warner in the role. In my opinion, H.B. overdoes the Jesus-can-do-no-wrong overlay. In some scenes, he seems so full of righteous other-worldliness that we want to hit him on the head with four or five of the biggest and dustiest books in his library. All the same, it still comes as quite a shock when he betrays his principles, even though his stupidity, his defiance of his own principles and his fall from grace are given no great question marks in the movie. In fact, they are excused on the grounds of necessity. It's like reworking the commandments and saying: "I am the Lord thy god. Thou shalt have no other gods before me, except of course when it's more convenient to do so."
Number two in the unsympathetic characters line-up should be Allen Crane. Unfortunately, he is played with such charm and charisma by Walter Byron, it's rather hard to muster any righteous wrath against him. Third and fourth. however, are the characters played by Joan Blondell and Joe Donahue, both of whom are alley cats who have no qualms whatever in placing themselves first in the pecking order. Fifth, of course, is Billy House. Playing the role of the devil, Billy House places our god-like Warner on top of the visionary mountain where he can see all the glories of the world. Well, we all know what he promises, and good old H.B. is such a turncoat (or at least a dumb-bell) that he succumbs to the temptation. What a movie!
But there are at least two shining characters in the darkness, worthily played here by Dorothy Mackaill and Conrad Nagel. I disagree with the bios of director John Francis Dillon on IMDb. As a director, he was in fact still going strong in 1932 when he – most deservedly – had a major success with Call Her Savage. And despite all the strictures above, relating to The Reckless Hour, it is very competently directed. In fact, aside from H.B. Warner's deliberately muted performance, I have nothing against the acting at all. In fact, I thought Joan Blondell, Joe Donahue and Billy House gave excellent accounts of their unsympathetic characters. Dorothy Mackaill was also most believable. But best of all, Dillon actually got a really solid, engrossing and even charismatic performance out of Conrad Nagel. According to IMDb, Nagel had no less than 139 credits in his acting career. In my opinion, he was never more natural – and never more charming – than he is right here in The Reckless Hour. Available on an excellent Warner Archive DVD. -
wes-connors20 October 2014Attractive department store model Dorothy Mackaill (as Margaret "Margie" Nichols) begins a relationship with suave and wealthy Walter Byron (as Allen Crane). Of course, she hopes he's marriage material. Her working class father H.B. Warner (as Walter Nichols) thinks Ms. Mackaill is making a mistake. Mackaill's lover teasingly promises "dishonorable intentions." This turns out to be no joke. Mackaill finds herself unmarried and in trouble. She turns her attention to suave portrait painter Conrad Nagel (as Edward "Ed" Adams). The attraction for Mr. Nagel seems more genuine, but he's stuck in an unhappy marriage...
During the later 1920s, Dorothy Mackaill was a successful second-tier star, impressive as Richard Barthelmess' love interest in "Shore Leave" (1925) and lending good support to "The Barker" (1928)...
"The Reckless Hour" finds her doing well in "all-talking" films, but her career faltered and Mackaill gave up the game. Here, she's a bit too worldly as the poor shop-girl, but gets stronger as her character matures. She and director John Francis Dillon have some fine moments - the highlight has Mackaill sneaking into her Jersey City apartment after spending the night with her lover in New York City. However, the director seems lax in spots - notably during the sequence where Mackaill's portrait is completed without fanfare. The supporting cast and crew are fun, with Nagel getting a chance to impress during the second half.
***** The Reckless Hour (8/15/31) John Francis Dillon ~ Dorothy Mackaill, Conrad Nagel, H.B. Warner, Walter Byron -
planktonrules28 August 2011Back before mid-1934, Hollywood have a love/hate relationship with censor boards. Sometimes they changed their films to appease the many, many state boards but sometimes they seemed to care less--putting lots of non-family friendly material into the movies. Much of this was pretty innocent though some was amazingly adult--even by today's standards. While "The Reckless Hour" is not among the most scandalous of these films, it certainly is a bit surprising for most to see this film today.
Dorothy Mackaill stars as a girl from an ordinary family. They aren't exactly poor but they certainly are not rich. Well, this isn't good enough for Dorothy and she sets her sights on bagging a rich guy. The problem is that some rich guys are only interested in poorer girls because they are so desperate to get the guy that they'll put out--so to speak. And so when she finds a guy who promises to marry her, she is more than willing to sleep with him--only to learn he wasn't the least bit serious. Now her father (H.B. Warner) realizes his daughter his not a virgin and you'd assume she now is without prospects for marriage and pregnant--or at least that is what MIGHT have happened had the film been allowed to be made a few years later. Instead, being a Pre-Code film, she is not pregnant but a bit wiser as a result of the experience. And, when the rich jerk's father insists that the young man must marry her, she refuses--again, something you just won't see in a Post-Code film.
However, this is NOT the end of the line for our morally-challenged heroine. While in the Post-Code world she would be 'damaged goods' and no man would want her, here she is still pretty much the same before she lost her virginity and she finds another man who is both rich and quite nice (Conrad Nagel) but divorced (again, not Post-Code). And so what we have learned from the film is that you should not sleep with someone before you are married--unless you do. And bad things will happen if you do--but in this case it doesn't. And, in fact, you STILL get to live happily ever after! This is probably not the sort of advice most parents give to their kids. Overall, the film is rather entertaining and a bit of a surprise to anyone not familiar with the period.
Oh, and by the way, Mackaill's sister is played by a young wise-cracking Joan Blondell. She's quite good and quite conventional compared to her liberated sister. -
jimjo121616 May 2015Joan Blondell, here playing the little sister, is about a thousand times more charismatic on-screen than star Dorothy Mackaill, and her presence is one of the only excuses to give THE RECKLESS HOUR (1931) a shot.
The Depression-era melodrama starts off boringly enough (until we meet Blondell's character) and covers the familiar ground of the rich boy dating the middle class girl and making promises he never intends to keep, leaving the girl to suffer the consequences on her own.
Dorothy Mackaill's line readings really bring the movie down. It's something about her enunciation and how she spaces her lines apart. Blondell, for example, is much more naturalistic, but H.B. Warner and Conrad Nagel are also noticeably better than Mackaill in their scenes with her. Top-billed Mackaill is probably the worst actor in the whole film, and some of the scenes late in the movie, with the melodrama slapped on pretty thick, are almost impossible to take seriously.
Joan Blondell, just starting out in Hollywood, is relegated to a supporting role with limited screen time, but is nevertheless delightful. Fans of hers might want to give this one a look if it shows up on TCM. Otherwise...