Affairs of a Gentleman (1934) User Reviews (6)

A Bevy of Pre-Code Beauties!!

[kidboots · 7/10 · 27 November 2015]

Paul Lukas brought under-stated sincerity to all his roles so that by the time Paramount dropped him in 1932 thinking the era for suave continental gentlemen had passed by, Lukas found he could put his stamp on the more meatier roles that came his way as a freelancer. In this flashback story Lukas plays a womanizing best seller author, Victor Gresham, whose puzzling death in the first couple of minutes allows the detective, with the help of the many people who happened to have an appointment with Gresham that morning, to piece together the events leading up to his death.

It starts with a surprise party arranged by Carlotta (Lillian Bond), a past mistress who thinks that by bringing back past loves she can embarrass him into returning to her. The big plus of the movie is the bevy of pre-code beauties who get their little chance to shine. There is Lillian Bond looking completely beautiful as the calculating Carlotta. She was British and was always cast as a femme fatale. Joyce Compton was Foxy - was there ever a time when she wasn't cast as a ditzy Southern belle!! Leila Hyams looks delicious but her part jarred - she played Gladys Durland who couldn't really understand why she was being discarded, she played her as a "dumb dora" something you know Leila could never be. She is being thrown over for snappy Patricia Ellis as Jean Sinclair, an illustrator who is eager to curry favour with debonair author Gresham. Last but not least there is acidic Dorothy Burgess who is Nan, Victor's first love and the only one who has his best interests at heart. She wants him to return to the type of book he used to write before he became bogged down in pot boilers. Bringing up the rear is the inscrutable Murray Kinnell as his faithful butler Fletcher and Sara Haden as the red herring Miss Bennett who acts guilty from the start. The pre-code cuties lighten the film which should have been more interesting as a straight out drama. Certainly when Onslow Stevens storms in at the start as Gladys' jealous husband you think you are in for a nifty crime drama - and for the last ten minutes that's exactly what you get when the mask like Murray Kinnell takes centre stage!!

"B" Murder Mystery With a Plenteous of Identifable Names

[Thrift_Store_Junkie05 · 6/10 · 6 March 2008]

Affairs of a Gentleman is a mystery/romance, whodunnit style film about the mysterious death of a notoriously candid author from Universal Pictures starring a gargantuan amount of recognizable names from the '30s such as Paul Lukas, Leila Hyams, Patricia Ellis, Phillip Reed, Onslow Stevens, Lilian Bond, Joyce Compton and Dorothy Burgess. The film is told in flashback style and for the vast majority appears in the high-rise apartment building of our murder victim, the suave Victor Gresham (Paul Lukas), who has written a scandalous autobiography detailing his numerous affairs, with no regard to the feelings of the women involved. The police begin investigating these women and it all sets about during a publisher's party for the author. Therefore, several of Victor's ex-girl friends appear at the party and he smoothly entertains them.

For the most part, Edwin L. Marin's Affairs of a Gentleman is that of a b-grade murder mystery that possesses a somewhat stagey, artificial quality, though a plentiful of twist and turns to keep our curiosity engaged, as well as the characters being generated quite effectively, which in result the film is leisurely paced. Beautiful blonde Leila Hyams gets top female billing and is most certainly playing a far more edgy and boldly assertive character then one might be use to seeing her play. However, her screen time is rather limited and is quite possibly outshined by two other strikingly beautiful ladies in Patricia Ellis and Dorothy Burgess. With that being said, Affairs of a Gentleman is the probability of interest to fans of the films leading stars, particularly that of the women, and shouldn't garner much attention or interest to anyone unknowing of the films leading stars.

And A Good Time Was Had By All

[boblipton · 8/10 · 29 June 2019]

Paul Lukas has killed himself. Or has he? Inspector Charles Wilson asks why the successful author of novels of love affairs, based on his own, would commit suicide. The events of his last day appear on the screen.

This was released in May of 1934, with the NRA insignia to start it off, but without the Production Code, still not fully enforced. On July 7, the National League of Decency condemned it as "immoral and indecent." With its multiple affairs, marital infidelity, suicide, and light tone for most of its length, it's not not hard to see why. Paul Lukas is charming, witty and, for the first time in his life, actually in love, with book jacket designer Patricia Ellis. There's also a parade of his former lovers, all of whom took their affairs much more seriously than he, along with their husbands; some of them learn of the affairs for the first time at the surprise party thrown by his publisher to celebrate his next book. Lukas is having trouble with the last chapter.

Although the League of Decency would object to, and the Code forbid the goings on, blue noses missed the point of the movie: the regret and unhappiness caused by these events. Of course, this was an old trick of the movies; Demille would make a career of showing people having a great time sinning for six reels, and punish them severely for them in the last. The sinning looked like too much fun, the sinners too smart and admirable, just as here, the lines too witty, the punishment a license to rejoice at the end. This was the problem. The players are too handsome, the lines too witty, the environment too enjoyable the sinning is too much fun. If the movie was poor, none of it would have been threatening. What the League objected to was that the movie is too good.

Interesting, Unusual, Could Have Been Better

[patrick-50839 · 3 June 2023]

Without being familiar with the play by Edward Ellis and wife that is the basis of this film, I would hazard a guess that its fine screenwriters Cyril Hume and Peter Ruric (aka Paul Cain) were doing their best to humanize a shallow, formulaic kind of mystery play--and did not wholly succeed. The basic idea, an author who is a suave, elegant ladies man having to cope with a multiplicity of ex-mistresses, all worried about their reputations being tarnished if he detailed his affairs with them in his forthcoming book, is a good one. (Women must've been a lot more concerned about their "reputations" then than they are now.) Paul Lukas is, as always, very good in the principal role and the supporting cast of beauties are at least adequate, sometimes better than that. But it was done at budget-conscious Universal, obviously hastily made, and with particularly anodyne sets. (I doubt that art director Charles D. Hall designed anything new for this picture, likely reused standing sets.)

One can't help thinking the same story, with much the same script, would have been done better as an "A" picture at Paramount with William Powell in the lead and, say, Mitchell Leisen directing. Aside from having a more polished look and more elegant sets, it would, most importantly, avoid the rushed feeling we get here. It seems like director Edwin L. Marin was always conscious of the need to fit the story into a 60-minute running time, not wanting to dwell on any scene longer than necessary, so that the relationships between Lukas and the various women seem shallower and more transitory than intended. Of the actresses the standout is now unfairly forgotten Dorothy Burgess, portraying his most lasting love, a sensitive woman who appears to be recovering from a long self-pitying drunk. (Not spelled out, but that's the implication.) She has a couple of marvelous scenes and the most touching line in the movie: "Oh, why don't you send me to South America? No one has any nerves down there." ("Nerves" apparently meaning nervous breakdowns.) She says it so poignantly, it plays much better than it reads.

Of the other actors, the excellent Sara Haden is somewhat wasted as Lukas's self-sacrificing secretary. Patricia Ellis plays a rather naive young book jacket designer who thinks she is in love with the great man but who is upset, disillusioned to find--duh!--that Lukas has another girl friend. Her acting is unimpressive but her bosom is. Props to Universal's costumer Vera West for putting her in a dress that, while "tasteful," shows them off in all their abundance. Richard Carle amusingly plays Lukas's publisher, who harks back to an era when most publishing houses were essentially run by one man (outstanding examples: Alfred Knopf and Horace Liveright). Decisions about what they wanted to publish and how to market it were made without recourse to committee-think or numbers crunching. That era is of course long gone, though maybe still exists to some extent in some of the smaller niche publishers.

I don't think director Marin brought much to the movie; on the other hand, he did permit Dorothy Burgess's scenes to come through with all the actress's sensitivity intact, just as he did a decade later with Signe Hasso's scenes in the otherwise routine George Raft vehicle Johnny Angel. So give him credit for something. His only directorial mannerism that I noticed was a penchant for staging sort-of-romantic scenes with the woman standing with her back to the man (Lukas) and talking to him coquettishly over her shoulder. Some of the time it works, some of the time it's just a mannerism.

What a novel idea!

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 10 May 2019]

While he did not have the style of fellow Universal director James whale, director Edward L. Marin had the right idea, utilizing a fantastic structure in this story told through flashback of the murder of popular novelist Paul Lukas who has had more affairs than all of the characters in his books combined. Husbands threaten him, former lovers stalk him, and there are clues that his death was not necessarily a crime of passion. Was his murder a result of his amoral behavior? Thanks to an astute screenplay and fine performances, the audience is intrigued throughout and the very last moments are suspenseful indeed.

As evidenced by his non-horror films like "A Kiss Before the Mirror" and "Remember Last Night", James Whale (Universal's answer to Paramount's Josef Von Sternberg) would have made this oppulant to the point of distraction. with the film less glossy, the viewer can focus on the characters and the writing rather than ooh and ah over the sets. Fine supporting performances by Sarah Haden as Lukas's secretary and Murray Kinnell as his butler round out the beauties totally under Lukas's spell, and even if he is obviously older than them, it's easy to see why they would be charmed by him. This indeed Is an affair to remember!

All in all, an intriguing tour-de-force!

[JohnHowardReid · 9/10 · 10 February 2018]

Almost everyone knows that the position of an actor in a movie's credits does not necessarily indicate the importance or the size of the role. But even by Hollywood standards, these credits are most unusual. Lukas is the star, that's for sure. And a fine job he does of making the cheap, cynical author a man of stature and even sympathy.

Next in importance in both size and significance is the role of the author's publisher, superbly played here by Richard Carle who makes the most of his many sharp lines and fascinating changes of mood. And where does Carle figure in the list? Way, way down, near the bottom. Lukas' co-star is allegedly Leila Hyams whose role is so small that if you blink, you'll miss her at the party. True, she does return for another scene, but this time she's over-shadowed by her escort, Onslow Stevens, who does almost all of the talking!

The film's feminine lead is actually Patricia Ellis, although she doesn't have much to do except look radiantly beautiful, but even here she is outclassed by Lillian Bond. All the real acting on the distaff side of the ledger is done by Dorothy Burgess - surely one of the most under-rated stars of the 1930s. Sara Haden is no slouch in the acting department either. But I didn't even spot Joyce Compton. I'm surprised to learn she was one of the faces in the crowd. And then there's Murray Kinnell who has more lines than anyone else in the cast except Lukas and Carle!

Although the script's origins obviously lie in a stage play, it has been cleverly opened out, and Marin keeps it moving along nicely with his extraordinarily adroit direction. Admittedly, his editor has helped him out in the important Dorothy Burgess scene by printing up some effective close-ups. All in all, an intriguing tour-de-force, this gem of a movie was formerly available on an excellent DVD from VintageFilmBuff.