Beauty For Sale stars a radiant Madge Evans as a good girl trying to make it as a beautician in Manhattan. The film is a little more than a multiplot soap opera but benefits from Evans, the unlikely romantic lead (Otto Kruger), solid direction by Richard Boleslawski, and most of all, superb photography by James Wong Howe (here credited simply as James Howe). The film is sublime when Howe's camera is most active, with superb lighting and set-ups and some scenes that look like they could be from films shot 20 or 30 years in the future. His sense of depth is particularly impressive, especially in a brilliant scene involving a slowly swinging bathroom door! The film feels like a classic at about the two thirds mark, but sadly cycles down to merely enjoyable by the final reel, as comedy and romance take over from tragedy and drama. Nonetheless, this is strongly recommended.
Add a Review
-
JohnSeal13 December 2003
-
AlsExGal9 December 2012The story opens with Letty (Madge Evans) sending her mother back to their hometown of Paducah after her father has died. In a front porch step conversation with her landlady's daughter (Una Merkel as Carol), we learn that Letty's "rich dad" died with nothing but debts and after paying them all off there was only 600 dollars, which Letty credited to her mother. A recent beauty school graduate, Letty now has to earn a living given that she has no money. This one little conversation tells you all you need to know about our main characters. Letty - hopeful despite her family's bad luck, courageous, full of class. Carol - protective of her friend, sassy, wise in the ways of the world and unapologetically a mercenary when it comes to men, and Carol's brother, Bill, not bad looking at all, but as grating on the nerves as Pee Wee Herman and just as appealing, and worse, he's in love with Letty -it s not mutual - and he's the moralizing kind. We also understand from this conversation that Madame Sonia's Salon is not for girls of the faint of heart - girls like Letty who were raised "like a Persian Kitten". Letty says she can take it, so Carol promises to get her a job there.
During the next prolonged scene, at Madame Sonia's exclusive salon, we get the lay of the land there - girls glad to be employed in the depression, but with wealthy bored beefy customers, these girls want a piece of the high life for themselves. If the salon's customers can afford to lie around half the day gossiping with mud on their faces, why can't they? During the first half of the film, whenever any of the beauticians are photographed together, they are usually in profile, oddly smiling and at an odd angle, like those "happy workers unite" posters in Old Soviet Russia. Later, as things do not work out quite so well, the photography becomes more individualistic and conventional as the focus is on what is, not what might have been.
Hedda Hopper is inspired as Madame Sonia who will do anything to protect her precious son, played by Philips Holmes. She considers the girls she employs so far beneath her she doesn't see the obvious relationship forming between her son and one of the beauticians. Alice Brady is hilarious as Mrs. Henrietta Sherwood, a rather housebound woman who has the beauticians come to her house, substitutes her dog for a child, and is obsessed with numerology. Her executive husband (Otto Kruger as Mr. Sherwood) falls for Letty, and we can sympathize with him, since he comes across as a guy who is just lonely for the wife he married but who transformed into this silly creature after he became wealthy and to whom he is now bound purely out of obligation and habit. He actually has a conversation with his wife talking about the "wife he remembers" when they were struggling. She shrugs it off and goes on chattering about her numerologist. Even Carol has a back-story that makes you realize that behind that adding machine exterior there beats a heart that was once badly broken and made her the mercenary she is today.
This film has a little bit of everything for the precode fan, and it's worth watching more than once to get all of the one liners and undercurrents going on. Highly recommended. -
Phillips Holmes, who just a few years before was Paramount's bright hope for future stardom, was now midway down the cast list. When the roles called for it ("An American Tragedy", "Stolen Heaven") he could bring forth much sensitivity but all too often his parts exposed his lack of talent. By 1933, he had been waylaid by the more dynamic talents of Clark Gable and James Cagney, until in "Beauty For Sale" he was given the role of Burt, the pampered son of the beauty shop owner, which is what he had been playing for most of his career. Madge Evans was often only decoration but she had a lot more in her (as her role in "The Nuisance" showed). Irving Thalberg had a lot of faith in her ability and he was not wrong.
After six months of living in New York Letty (Madge Evans) finds she is flat broke. She has just finished a beauty course and with Carol's (Una Merkel) help is soon working for Madame Sonia (Hedda Hopper) - she is also proving popular with the customers. While out on a job with Mrs. Sherwood (Alice Brady), a delightfully daffy matron who consults her numerologist before getting out of bed in the morning, Letty meets Mr. Sherwood (Otto Kruger), who takes her out to buy a hat when his wife's pekingese chews up her old one!!! They meet again, sheltering from the rain and a friendship develops. He remembers when he and his wife were struggling and she was a wonderful helper but now, with wealth, she is just a dizzy dame who puts the comfort of her pekingese above everything. Letty is like a breath of fresh air.
Meanwhile, two of her friends are having their own dramas. Carol is having an affair with a much older, married man (Charley Grapewin) and Jane (Florinne McKinney) finds she is pregnant and left in the lurch by Sonia's weakling son Burt (Phillips Holmes). When Jane commits suicide and Letty finds Carol has become very cynical about finding true happiness, she rethinks her values and decides she wants an uncomplicated future with Bill (Eddie Nugent) who has always carried a torch for her.
Fortunately the story does end happily for Letty and Carol (if not for Jane and Bill). It was a pity though that once Jane committed suicide, she was never mentioned again and Burt, also didn't come back into it - a big dramatic opportunity wasted to make this a pre-coder to remember. It stands only as a well made romance about the trials and tribulations of a working girl's lifes and loves. Florinne McKinney was capable of a lot more. She alternated between bits and uncredited parts until a "bit" in the prestigious "David Copperfield" (1935) as the grown up Little Emily gave her a few years of leads in independents until, by 1940, she was back to uncredited bits in major movies ("Waterloo Bridge"). She was a sensitive actress who, unfortunately, had a colourless personality. Isobel Jewel, as usual, almost steals the show as Hortense, the beauty shop receptionist - she just excelled at these types, with her fast speech and pseudo ritzy accent - that she could turn off and on like a tap!!! -
denscul7 June 2007Note that this screenplay was was written by two women based on Faith Baldwin's novel.On the surface the film seems to be all about scheming young women selling their youth and beauty to rich men. The three main female characters are positively portrayed against the rather vain, older and ridiculous customers of the beauty salon. The men are more sympathetically portrayed. The film may not be understood by today's generation who live in a different world where love, marriage, children without fathers, and the role of women is entirely different.
The script is witty and the acting,direction are excellent. Madge Evans is enticing as the lead female, Una Merkle plays the worldly wise and unabashed gold digger. Two of the supporting characters- Mrs. Sherwood, wife of Otto Kruger who is the married man with whom Madge Evans falls in love and Madge Evan's unmarried but inept boyfriend play roles that are simultaneously humorous and irritating.
After attempting to end the affair between Evans and Kruger, Evans agrees to marry her ridiculous but single suitor. We wouldn't have a happy ending if she hadn't left him at the altar.
Merkle who has managed to marry her prey, is out looking for a house with Evans and a real estate agent. They just happen to see the home built by the Sherwood's and discover that the Sherwood's are divorcing and the home is about to be sold. Evans forces the realator out of the driver's seat and makes a Nascar dash to the office, arriving just in time to stop the sale and inform Kruger that she is also available to live happily together for ever after.
I would recommend seeing this film as a window on the state of love, marriage and divorce in the thirties - as portrayed by Hollwood. -
moonspinner5521 January 2008Another delectable sweet-and-sour pre-Code entry of the early 1930s, nimbly skirting the edges of that era's morality with prodding grown-up material, satirizing the comedic and dramatic possibilities therein. Story concerns three gals who work in a New York City beauty parlor: one is dating a married man, another is pregnant by a no-goodnik, and the third spends her nights with a rich sugar daddy. Society cattiness at its most cynical; colorful performances by Madge Evans, Una Merkel and Alice Brady adds to the fun. Director Richard Boleslawski allows the bracing narrative to degenerate once or twice into slapstick, but if you can overlook that there's a great deal of sharp, salty wit here. Fine supporting turns by Otto Kruger, Hedda Hopper and May Robson. **1/2 from ****
-
bkoganbing6 March 2018Richard Boleslavski directs this pre-Code drama for MGM about three women in the beauty trade who are there to find husbands, richer the better. All of them have a tale to tell why they want marriage and security in the same male package. Madge Evans, Una Merkel, and Florine McKinney are the three women.
Nothing here in language or really in sexual innuendo that would make the censors frown. I think that what got some tailfeathers ruffled was Beauty For Sale's showing that gold digging was the way to go. The only one who falls hard and has a real romance is McKinney with Phillips Holmes, the son of the women's employer Hedda Hopper. He's idealistic, but weak in the end and it's a formula for tragedy.
Merkel is the comic relief as she usually is and has some really great lines. The girls all live at Merkel's mom's boardinghouse. Mom is tart tongued May Robson and there's a brother Eddie Nugent they'd both like to see out their house and their hair.
The main story line is Madge Evans who falls for married Otto Kruger. He's married to society girl Alice Brady an empty head who likes the money and position Kruger gives her, no way she wants to divorce him. Looks for a while like Evans will to settle if she can't select.
The three girls flesh their characters out fine and there's some snappy dialog especially for Una Merkel. Two years from now, no way this ending would have approved by The Code. -
rosie-1519 September 1998Beauty for sale is one of those classic movie treasures that you happen to come across by channel surfing one late, late Tuesday night and stop to watch for no other apparent reason than you happen to like classic movies so you watch. Perhaps it was Madge Evans' polished mannerisms, speaking voice or looks that catch your attention, or Una Merkel who you swear you've seen somewhere but you can't place your finger on it. (I later found out she played Verbena on the Hayley Mill's classic, The Parent Trap - I knew I recognized her) It's an endearing story that's probably been told a hundred times over, but you can't help falling in love with it anyway. Falling in love with married men, men who are old enough to be your father, men who are in no position to ever want commitment, adultery, unwed motherhood, and gold digging - sounds like Jerry Springer. Except this one has class. A wonderful movie, a great cast (including Hedda Hopper and Alice Brady), and even I fell a little for Otto Kruger.
-
This is a superb dramatic film, one of the best of this type. It gives one of the best insights into how the attitudes of the early 30s were so different from those of today. It's also exceptionally well made with excellent direction, acting and writing making it thoroughly engaging and entertaining.
There were a few films made about this time with very similar themes: THREE ON A MATCH, THREE WISE GIRLS for example showing how three young women could survive in the big nasty city. The only way many of them could survive was to get themselves a man, a husband or someone else's husband - for so many there just wasn't a choice. To us, the 1930s might seem a magical and exciting time to visit for an hour and a half but it would be unimaginably horrible if we had to live there.
This picture would look good on the big screen, it's such a beautifully made and imaginatively photographed picture. You can see how much care and effort went into making every scene perfect. The lighting, the framing, the sets are just right. Also, you'll notice that it's not just the actors doing their lines who are acting (one flaw apparent in many early 30s movies) the facial expressions and reactions from everyone in frame are all perfect. This is film-making way ahead of its time. One thing which makes this a little bit special is its director Richard Boleslawski. He had run the first acting school in America teaching Stanislavski's technique which evolved into what became known as "method acting" as beloved by Brando and co. Many years later. The naturalism and realistic performances make this film feel a more modern than so many early talkies but even so, it actually manages to capture and convey to us the feel of the 1930s even stronger. It's a shame Boleslawski died young or he would have been much more well known today.
Besides benefiting from a director ahead of his time, top cinematographer James Wong Howe and high production standards courtesy of MGM, the cast and also top notch - even Philips Holmes! Madge Evans, who'd been in movies since childhood is outstanding - she gives such an authentic, relatable and believable performance. She's one of those people whose acting is so good, it's not acting.
Of those similar films tracing the lives of three different types of girl struggling to survive in the city, this picture isn't quite as engrossing as THREE ON A MATCH but still packs a punch. It's a hundred times better than THREE WISE GIRLS but that's mainly because this doesn't have Jean Harlow in it! SHE HAD TO SAY YES however, although about one rather than three girls is the most shocking, jaw-dropping insight into how alien to us the times were back then. -
typo-227 February 2000It's probably been more than thirty years since I saw this movie on television. "Beauty for Sale" typifies the films of the thirties, which I prefer to the current crop. The wit of the script and the polish of the acting and directing are beyond anything Hollywood could produce nowadays. There were other films in the thirties that starred mostly character actors, who absolutely had what it took to carry the show. Why are there so many great thirties films that are not available on video? I'm sure there is a market for classic films, besides the most well-known ones.
-
This is a film that is pretty typical of a so-called "Pre-Code" film--a movie made before the strict Hollywood Production Code was enforced. During the 20s and especially early 1930s, a lot of films were released with very adult themes that would NOT have been allowed after the code was adopted. This movie deals with three women who work in a very up-scale beauty parlor and plan on sleeping their way to wealth! One is dating a guy who is nearly as old as Anna Nicole's late husband, another is sleeping with the shop owner's very immature son and the heroine of the story is having an affair with a married man. However this last relationship isn't done in a way that is as salacious as it seems because she seems to have never slept with the man AND the man's wife was portrayed as a truly awful person--the type MOST husbands would have to strangle!! I am NOT excusing the husband's desire to commit adultery, but this WAS a common theme at the time--men who "deserved" to have affairs since their wives were so self-absorbed and cold. Post-Code, however, this interesting moral dilemma just wouldn't have been dealt with--"nice girls" rarely would even have a platonic relationship with a married man--or if they did, there would be VERY serious consequences.
Oddly, how all these morally questionable relationships were worked out gave a VERY confusing message. In one case, the lady WAS rewarded with a marriage to a rich old coot, in another, she got pregnant and the guy dropped her and in the last relationship, things somehow worked out perfectly so she COULD sleep with the man in a morally acceptable manner! A very strange yet highly entertaining film that leaves you with real-life dilemmas and no clear answers. If you want closure and a neat and tidy ending, then you WON'T like this film. If you don't mind a little bit of vagueness and moral ambiguities, then you will find this to be an interesting film that is STILL pretty timely today. -
BEAUTY FOR SALE spends so much time in a beauty salon for snobbish, gossipy women that you have to wonder whether it was Claire Booth Luce's inspiration for THE WOMEN. However, it has none of the distinctive, biting dialog that Luce brought to her play and film version.
Although there are plenty of talented players in the cast, most of it is terribly overacted in early '30s fashion. MADGE EVANS makes a beautiful blonde heroine with a sweet personality--and lesser roles are played in standard fashion by OTTO KRUGER, ALICE BRADY, UNA MERKEL, PHILLIPS HOLMES, HEDDA HOPPER and ISABEL JEWELL.
The romance between Kruger and Evans is painfully corny and contrived, while his scenes with Alice Brady are simply overacted to the nth degree for comedy effect.
If the manners, mores and fashions of superficial women in the '30s is your cup of tea, sit back and enjoy. Obviously, women were the target audience for this kind of film penned by Faith Baldwin.
Forgettable programmer and easy to skip. -
firefoxpies-139-63567629 April 2012There's a ton of stuff to like about this movie. Remembering that it's still pre-code, we get LOTS of skin, with the girls constantly dressing and undressing intimately, and babbling throughout. Several stories of luv are woven into the plot of the movie, which sort of centers on a swanky salon for bored wives of tycoons: one of the girls surreptitiously falls for beautifully handsome Phillips Holmes, son of Hedda Hoppers' salon owner "Madame Sonia", to her regret and other bad things. But the real love story involves gorgeous Madge Evans and (in this role) a surprisingly sensual Otto Kruger. The scene of him explaining the anticipation of her call, of being in love, and wanting her, was truly touching; makes you look again and again at his physical reaction to her. The beginning of the movie is a bit wild, until Madge Evans gets away from the clingy, dominating bf, and the suffocating boarding house, to move uptown with the girls and slave in the salon, scathingly watched over by the genius that is Isobell Jewell. Put her dialect performance against Hepburn's "Trigger" in Spitfire, and you will see who the REAL actress is, and how stinky sexual politics have manufactured the idea that Katharine Hepburn could act. I felt for Madge, Una, and the rest of the girls in their struggles to conquer love and the city, and the unfolding relationships are sexually charged, coercive, erotic, sentimental, frightening, intriguing,and even dangerous. Stay until the end, no matter what you think the story is doing to you.....it's worth it.
-
gridoon202428 October 2018It gets points for trying something that Robert Altman would popularize many decades later: several conversations at a crowded place (this time, a beauty parlor) going on all at once, the audience only hearing snippets of each. But overall the script is too scattershot, if directed with some flair by Richard Boleslawski. Madge Evans is attractive, Una Merkel is cute (the most surprising scene in the movie is a short mouth-to-mouth kiss between them!), but Otto Kruger lacks magnetism as the romantic lead. **1/2 out of 4.
-
eebyo10 December 2012This fast, fizzy, deft comedy skirts the Code so nimbly that I couldn't tell just by watching (on TCM this morning, thanks for the thousandth time TCM) whether it's pre- or post-Code. I appreciated so many unsung, supporting, and subtextual things about this ur-romcom that I can't mention them all here. In order of surprise/urgency, the top 5 are:
1. Otto Kruger! Here is the man who clearly should gotten all those roles wasted on Warren Williams - what were producers thinking? (Were they thinking?) They look about the same age, yet Otto's handsomer, less tedious, and possessed of actual romantic and comic acting chops.
2. The writing! Cattiness among beauticians, and the delectable Alice Brady brand of un-self-awareness: "I'm very intuitive." Her literal kiss-off scene with Kruger has never been done better in a comedy, not even by Meryl Streep and *insert leading man here*.
3. The bad boyfriend! An almost complex portrait of a goofball who clearly doesn't deserve the leading lady, but not because he's a bad guy. He's not all good, either. He's just not grown up. It's a forgiving, shaded character, played by Eddie Nugent with a subtlety usually missing from lame runner-up lover roles.
4. The slapstick! I don't care how many takes they went through to print the change-of-driver-in-real-estate-agent's-car scene. The result is totally worth it. I'm actually surprised I've never seen this bit in a TCM montage of silly scenes.
5. Madge Evens! Una Merkel! Listed low, but only for the surprise factor. Both are at or near their very best here. Miss Merkel never gets enough credit for delivering both sides of a double-entendre grilled to smoking hot perfection. Miss Evans does more-or-less blameless ingenue so well it's not boring - this is Carole Lombard territory, and she nails it, sweetly and demurely (well, mostly demurely, see no. 4). -
Jithindurden25 May 2022A story like this in the 30s even with its relative mildness to today's movies could've only been made because it belonged to the pre-code era. It does have its share of problems with some outdated views but at the same time, there are a lot of things in it that are progressive even by today's standards. The story itself can be seen as a classic rom-com trope now but the film treats the subject quite bleakly while having enough stuff for levity. It is not much more than a studio movie from the 20s but it has moments of brilliance in the script that make it really interesting. Madge Evans and Una Merkel are charming and powerful on-screen, the two biggest reasons the film works so well. In most of the romantic movies, I've seen till the 50s and 60s the male lead is almost never really convincing enough for me. Maybe it's because of different sensibilities but I feel like it has to do more with how men looked upon themselves than how women chose them at the time. This is one of the rare times where I thought Otto Kruger's character was nearly convincing enough for me to not cringe while watching the romantic scenes.
-
whpratt110 December 2003It was very surprising to see Otto Kruger (Mr. Sherwood),"Hitler's Children",'43, looking handsome and finding himself falling deeply in love with a woman and still being married. Otto Kruger play many hateful roles as cruel Nazi's SS officers during the WW II years and was a crook in every picture he appeared in during the 1930's and 40's. The women and men in this picture all seem to fall in love with married couples and we even witness a young gal who is pregnant and decides to kill herself by jumping out a window. Madge Evans (Letty) decided to get married to a man who laughed at his own jokes and then got COLD FEET ! Carol sure made a good choice in running away and finding her prince charming along with a fantastic colonial mansion ! Very Classic and enjoyable film to view, it seems like it was produced in 2003!
-
gbill-748774 February 2019I was a little surprised how much I ended up liking this little film. It has all the signs of a typical 'B' pre-Code effort, without big stars in its cast, some corny humor, and women who are looking to improve their lot in life via romance (ok, gold-diggers if we must call them that). It grew on me though, through the strength of its characters, interesting story lines, and frank depiction of adultery and the emotions that go along with it.
Three young women work at a beauty shop attending to affluent ladies, and in the process, also meet their husbands (and in the case of one of them, the boss's son). The film is very direct about the affairs this leads to, and we see that each of them is in it for a different reason: the pursuit of wealth (Una Merkel), marriage (Florine McKinney), and just simple pleasure (Madge Evans). How refreshing is it to see Madge Evans so empowered and sexually free, as other pre-Code women were permitted to be (Norma Shearer in 'A Free Soul' comes to mind). Here's the exchange she has with Merkel's more mercenary character, who asks her what she's going to get out of it:
"Oh, I'm not trying to get anything out of it." "I hope he's not out to get anything either!" "Of course not. He was lonely." "Lonely? (laughs) Unless there's a mistake in the census report, there's 4 million other people in New York besides you." "Well anyway, his wife came back three days ago." "Oh, so now he isn't lonely anymore. I bet you haven't seen him since!" "Why should I? It amused him to take me out. It amused me to go. It was a pleasant friendship, that's all, and it's over. Why, I'll probably never see him again."
Note she's just a cheerful young woman with a good head on her shoulders who has enjoyed a fling; not a wanton creature doomed because she's sinned.
It's a dangerous game, though, as Merkel puts it so aptly when real feelings are involved: "You don't want to have to hang around the back door of his life, begging for a handout. You don't want to have to sneak and hide and keep outta sight the way I do. And in the end, when he turns back to his wife and his home, you don't want to be kicked out in the sacred name of respectability - the way I was." And aside from the frustrations of being the 'other woman', the film gives us some pretty dark stuff: unplanned pregnancy, an allusion to an abortion (a separate case we hear about via gossipers), and real despair. McKinney has one of the film's great scenes when she's trying to process an emotional shock, giving the film a depth I didn't expect.
Madge Evans is irrepressible, taking things as they come with a buoyancy that is never cloying, and in fact, we often see her resigned stoicism. Her character is a nice combination of being virtuous but also knowing the ways of the world, and she also has no inhibitions about smacking Una Merkel on the butt or kissing her on the lips in friendly affection (a common pre-Code bit of titillation, as are scenes of the women changing, revealing the lingerie of the day). Merkel is delightful too, though I liked her character more when she was putting her brother in his place than when she was seeking gifts from her aging sugar daddies.
This brother is played by Edward J. Nugent, and he's always joking around, and in pretty endearing ways early on. We see him pretend to drop a plate in front of his mother (May Robson) and then catch it, for example. We see an unpleasant sides of him as time goes by though, and his jokes get a little tiring ("Well, no harm will come to that, as the drummer said when he looked at the cross-eyed old maid"), though I confess I actually chuckled at just how bad they were. He's a nice enough guy, but he's just not all that sophisticated, and he's a little creepy too, for example, making it clear that he's had a variety of women succumb to his 'charms', and what he intends on doing on his honeymoon.
The supporting cast is deep, and part of the film's appeal. The manager of the shop (Isabel Jewell) and owner (Hedda Hopper) are given strong personalities and lines. Otto Kruger is smooth and refined as the lawyer Evans carries on with, and Alice Brady is fantastic as his wife; she's a pampered dingbat, and into things like numerology and astrology. "We vibrate in different planes," she says at one point, channeling the 1960's. In another hilarious moment she has Evans bend her legs back over her head 50 times as part of the "exercise" that will help her with her "undeveloped hips". The gossiping patrons also keep things lively with various comments we hear in between major scenes.
The wealth gap is on full display, which was another interesting aspect of the film. We learn that Brady's character wasn't always as she is now, and that wealth not only spoiled her, but made her lose touch with the realities of the world. The clients of the beauty shop have money to burn, and fritter it away. One of them brings her little girl in to also receive treatment, and after it's over, the girl impudently sticks her tongue out at the manager. The mother has just spent $42.50 for the two of them - that's over $800 in today's dollars - and this was during the fourth year of the Depression! The film falls into a common trope of the era - getting out of poverty by meeting someone rich (essentially winning the lottery) - but it does manage to get some satire of the wealthy in. -
mukava99122 March 2019The subjects of "Beauty for Sale" are three employees of a fashionable Manhattan beauty salon run by the haughty Hedda Hopper. There is Una Merkel, the hardworking but cynical daughter of a rooming house proprietress (May Robson), Madge Evans, a boarder fresh from Paducah, Kentucky hoping to make it in the Big City and Florine McKinney who falls for the charms of Hopper's rakish son (Phillips Holmes).
At various moments the main characters' faces are arranged at sharp angles in close-up as they converse about the hard choices in their lives; or off-kilter flashes of one beauty parlor customer after another engaged in varieties of gossip and small talk; we get glimpses of carefully choreographed throbbing studio-shot street life as we follow characters from plot point to plot point: Eddie Nugent (Robson's loquacious son) on a crowded Brooklyn street as he makes his way home; the minutiae of daily home life: Robson preparing a gargantuan lunch basket feast for a departing tenant; a beauty parlor client (Alice Brady at her ditzy best) fussing with her pillows, her dog, her tea as she chatters away as her long-suffering, patient husband (the elegant Otto Kruger) attends to her every whim. Every scene is filled with little bits of vibrancy and every featured player contributes something solid.
The Madge Evans character gets the most screen time as she struggles to figure out whether to pursue her relationship with the older, married Kruger who is taken with her. This could be Evans's most substantial screen role. Merkel provides her customary sassy humor as she stakes out an even older admirer, hoping to marry into riches. McKinney's romance is another story entirely.
Despite its rather hackneyed story (young women navigating the perils of romance) "Beauty for Sale" is well worth viewing for its details of character, perspective and environment. -
ksf-27 July 2022Madge evans, una merkel, may robson. Even hedda hopper, when she was still a film star. Ed nugent, as bill, the wisecracking boyfriend. A girl gets a job at the fancy schmancy beauty parlor, which leads to sexy adventures, sometimes with married men. Kind of an early version of "the women". The girls at the salon even talk about how lovely the red is, similar to jungle red, which they kept referring to, in the women! It's a fluff piece, kind of a reflection of the times, where all the proper women just wanted to get married. A pre-film code, right in the heart of the depression, when no-one could find a job. Good things happen, bad things happen. A snapshot of the 1930s, i guess. Life goes on, for good or bad. Directed by rich boleslawski. Died young at 47, bad heart. Based on the book by faith baldwin; she had TONS of stories and novels made into film.
-
I just finished watching a surprising pre-code romantic comedy drama, BEAUTY FOR SALE (1933). It's the story of 3 women working at a NY beauty salon and their various entanglements. There's some nice photography by James Wong Howe, and some pretty sharp dialogue.
One character in particular stands out: Alice Brady as Mrs. Sherwood, a rich narcissistic ninny who is a customer at the salon. Her few scenes are marked by high speed monologues as she remains oblivious to everyone around her.
Some situations are cliches, and the ending is too convenient, but there was much to recommend this MGM delight. It aired on TCM, where old movies wait for us to find them.