dougdoepke
Snappy comedy drama. With all the biting dialogue and crusty dames, I kept thinking '30's Warner Bros. but it's RKO on a Warner's trip. Bennet and Kelton are a couple of hookers on probation looking for a way to get by. So guess what, Bennet meets sugar daddy Halliday who sets her up in comfort after initial misgivings (she probably applied her professional know-how). So it's now a bed of roses except that she can't get over cotton barge captain McCrea. Trouble is he's a straight shooter who might reject her if he finds out about her past. So what's she to do-- stay with sugar daddy or follow her heart and risk rejection. And will Kelton's presence help since she's a constant reminder.All in all, it's a little gem, with sassy Kelton providing spark. Some of the lines are knee-slappers, like the guy who tells the girl he's a boll-weevil exterminator to which she replies, "I ain't done nothin' ". Mc Crea may get top male billing, but it's really Halliday getting the screentime. Note too how the screenplay finesses prostitution even though 1933 is still pre-Code. And that's along with cracks about Prohibition, which was about to end its 13-dry years. Anyway, thanks to the writers including underrated director La Cava, it's a nifty programmer of the sort old movie fans love to stumble across. I know I did.
LeonLouisRicci
Very Good Little Slice of the Street Life from RKO that is Racy, Yet Playful and Full of Peppery Slang and a Peek at Gold Digger Prostitutes Fresh From the Slammer who Show No Reform and are Back to Their Roots just Outside the Prison Gate.This is Definitive Pre-Code Stuff that would become Forcibly Absent in Hollywood for Decades. The Two Dames, Played by Constance Bennett and Pert Kelton are surely an Eyeful with Skin Tight Dresses and Swagger to Burn. Especially Kelton who is Channeling Mae West and completely Holds Her Own with Star Bennet and then some.Joel McCrea doesn't do much here but is, as Always, a Likable Hunk. There are some Tasty Period Settings including a Sugar Daddy Funded Apartment and a Mardi Gra Party. It's a Hoot of a Movie with some Serious Social Concerns at Play but is Never Preachy and Delivered in a Semi-Comedic Tone.Definitely Worth a Watch for the Pre-Code Daringness and Attractive Actors. It's another Short Movie from the Era and this is the Kind that one Wishes More Screen Time for All involved.
Michael_Elliott
Bed of Roses (1933) ** (out of 4) Pre-code has Constance Bennett getting out of reform school and she starts milking a banker but soon falls in love with a riverboat captain (Joel McCrea). There's really nothing too original here as it steals from some films that came before it. The screenplay also doesn't offer anything new as it contains a lot of the same situations we've seen countless times before. All of this leads to a fairly straight film but the racy dialogue really sticks out and adds some fun. The two leads are very good in their roles but it's Pert Kelton who steals the film.
laursene
... the scene in the second half of the film in which most of the principals attend a costume ball. Connie Bennett and Pert Kelton both appear in fancy dress, in masks, with cordial smiles on their faces and the main chance in their hearts. It's a delicious moment that sums up the whole movie: the way life is about role-playing, the way it delights us and defeats us. Playing the game is the point, according to our preceptor LaCava, and here everyone plays it most engagingly.Cheers also for the scene where Bennett visits McCrea one morning on his scow, and watches him shave. No doe-eyed innocents here: he knows the score, so does she, and we, of course, can read between the lines.
AD
