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Forbidden Holywood Collection Vol. 3 - Disk 2 - DVD9- Frisco Jenny (1932) - Midnight Mary (1933) [DDR]
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Forbidden Holywood Collection Vol. 3 - Frisco Jenny (1932)
Frisco Jenny is a 1932 Pre-Code drama film starring Ruth Chatterton and directed by William A. Wellman.
CAST:-
Ruth Chatterton as Frisco Jenny Sandoval
Louis Calhern as Steve Dutton
Helen Jerome Eddy as Amah
Donald Cook as Dan Reynolds
James Murray as Dan McAllister
Hallam Cooley as Willie Gleason
Pat O'Malley as Policeman Pat O'Hoolihan
Harold Huber as George Weaver
Robert Emmett O'Connor as Jim Sandoval
Willard Robertson as Police Captain Tom
Directed by William A. Wellman
Produced by Raymond Griffith
Written by Gerald Beaumont, Lillie Hayward, John Francis Larkin, Robert Lord,Wilson Mizner
SYNOPSIS:- Frisco Jenny (1932)
In 1906 San Francisco, Frisco Jenny Sandoval (Ruth Chatterton), a denizen of the notorious Tenderloin district, wants to marry piano player Dan McAllister (James Murray), but her saloonkeeper father Jim (Robert Emmett O'Connor) is adamantly opposed to it. An earthquake kills both men and devastates the city. In the aftermath, Jenny gives birth to a son, whom she names Dan.
With financial help from crooked lawyer Steve Dutton (Louis Calhern), who himself came from the Tenderloin, she sets herself up in the vice trade, providing women on demand. Jenny has one loyal friend, the Chinese woman Amah (Helen Jerome Eddy), who helps take care of the baby.
At a party in Steve's honor, he catches gambler Ed Harris (an uncredited J. Carrol Naish) cheating him in a back room. In the ensuing struggle, Steve kills him, with Jenny the only eyewitness. The pair are unable to dispose of the body before it is found and are questioned by the police. However, neither is charged. The scandal forces Jenny to temporarily give up her baby to a very respectable couple who owe Steve a favor to keep the child from being taken away from her.
After three years, she tries to take her son back, but the boy clings to the only mother he can remember, so she leaves him where he is. He grows up and goes to Stanford University, where he becomes a football star, graduates with honors, and becomes first a lawyer, then an assistant district attorney. Jenny lovingly follows his progress. Meanwhile, she takes over the vice and bootlegging in the city.
When Dan runs for district attorney, his opponent is Tom Ford (an uncredited Edwin Maxwell), who does Jenny's bidding. Against her best interests, she frames Ford so that Dan can win.
When Steve tries to bribe Dan to free some of his men, he is arrested. Out on bail, Steve asks Jenny to blackmail Dan into dropping the charges, but she refuses to jeopardize her son's future. In fact, she intends to retire to France with Amah. When Steve threatens to reveal that Jenny is Dan's real mother, she shoots and kills him at Dan's office.
She is quickly arrested and prosecuted by Dan. Refusing to defend herself, she is condemned to death by hanging. Amah pleads with her to tell Dan the truth in the hope that he can help her, but when he comes to see her, she remains silent.
According to Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies, George Brent was originally slated for the role of Dan Reynolds. However, Chatterton and the younger Brent were soon to be married, and she did not like the idea of playing his mother.
Frisco Jenny was orphaned by the 1906 earthquake and fire and has become the madame of a prosperous bawdy house. She puts her son up for adoption and he rises to prominence as district attorney dedicated to closing down such houses. When her underling Dutton proposes telling the DA that Frisco Jenny is his birth mother, she kills the underling not to cause trouble for her son now the successful DA, she must face execution.
     
Forbidden Holywood Collection Vol. 3 - Midnight Mary (1933)
Midnight Mary is a 1933 film that reveals in flashbacks the hard life of a woman on trial for murder. It stars Loretta Young, Ricardo Cortez, and Franchot Tone.
CAST:-
Loretta Young as Mary Martin AKA "Midnight Mary"
Ricardo Cortez as Leo Darcy
Franchot Tone as Tom Mannering Jr.
Andy Devine as Sam Travers
Una Merkel as Bunny
Frank Conroy as the District Attorney
Warren Hymer as Angelo Ricci
Ivan F. Simpson as Mr. Tindle
Harold Huber as 'Puggy' Nestle
Sandy Roth as Blimp
Martha Sleeper as Barbara Loring Mannering
Directed by William A. Wellman
Produced by Lucien Hubbard (assoc. producer)
Written by Anita Loos (story), Gene Markey, Kathryn Scola
MOVIE REVIEW:- Midnight Mary (1933)
Mary starts out on a life of crime by chance, when she is unjustly accused of stealing from a store after being in the wrong place at the wrong time. After serving time in a house of correction, she can’t find honest work in the Depression and drifts into becoming a gangster’s moll, kept in luxury by Leo Darcy (Ricardo Cortez in a series of sharp suits) – and dressed in impossibly glamorous outfits designed by Adrian, including a beautiful beaded headdress.
However, this isn’t the life she wants for herself, and, unlike Bunny, also a moll, she dreams of something more. When a violent incident at a casino throws her together with rich, handsome lawyer Tom Mannering (Franchot Tone), she sees a way back to the straight and narrow and persuades him to give her a job as a secretary. But Leo is keeping an eye on her and won’t let her go so easily – and the police aren’t about to forget about her either. Before long she is forced back to her old life again, with more twists in store.
Both Cortez and Tone are fine in their roles, but this is Young’s film all the way. It’s full of pre-Code suggestiveness – there’s even a scene where Tone’s character says he is thinking “about sex”, while in another sequence Young whispers seductively into Cortez’s ear to get him into bed and distract him from the crime he is plotting.
But it is also very much a film about the Great Depression, and, as well as that scene with the neon billboards, there is also a sequence showing Young’s feet trudging through the streets until her shoes wear out and she has to stuff them with newspaper. The DVD commentary says that some film-goers of the time complained about scenes like these because they were too close to the reality all around them. Apparently they preferred scenes like the one where Cortez takes Young to buy a fur coat – but really it is the contrast between opulence and poverty which is the keynote of this film.
     
SYNOPSIS:- Midnight Mary (1933)
Loaned to MGM by her home studio of Warner Bros., Loretta Young suffers her way through the title role in Midnight Mary. A good girl led astray, Mary (Young) endeavors to save the life of her boyfriend Tom (Franchot Tone) by killing the aptly named Leo the Rat (Ricardo Cortez). As her case is heard in court, the clerk goes over Mary's record, and at this point the flashbacks begin, stretching all the way back to her days as an unwanted orphan. One bad break leads to another, and by the time she reaches adulthood Mary is mixed up with a gang of crooked gamblers. For the sake of Tom, a well-connected socialite who loves her unquestioningly, Mary tries to go straight, but her past, and the ill-fated Leo the Rat, catch up with her. No matter what disaster befalls her in Midnight Mary, Loretta Young always manages to look as though she's just stepped out of a beauty salon.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:-
Video Codec: MPEG-2
Video Bitrate: 4999 kbps
Video Resolution: 720x480
Video Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1
Frames Per Second: 29.970
Audio Codec: AC3
Audio Bitrate: 192kb/s CBR 48000 Hz
Audio Streams: 2
Audio Languages:English
RunTime 143 mins
Subtitles: None
Ripped by: Trinidad [DDR]
Duration: 143 mins |
