Ladies Should Listen

 

Frank Tuttle: Ladies Should Listen (1934) with Frances Drake (Anna Mirelle) and Cary Grant (Julian de Lussac).

Frank Tuttle: Ladies Should Listen (1934) with Cary Grant (Julian de Lussac) and Nydia Westman (Susie Flamberg).

 

La signorina curiosa
    US 1934. Director: Frank Tuttle. 62 min
    Sog.: from the eponimous play (1933) by Guy Bolton, adaptation of the play La Demoiselle de Passy by Alfred Savoir. Scen.: Claude Binyon, Frank Butler. F.: Henry Sharp. M.: Eda Warren. Scgf.: Hans Dreier, Ernst Fegté. Mus.: Tom Satterfield.
    Int.: Cary Grant (Julian de Lussac), Frances Drake (Anna Mirelle), Edward Everett Horton (Paul Vernet), Nydia Westman (Susie Flamberg), Rafael Corio (Ramon Cintos), Rosita Moreno (Marguerite Cintos), George Barbier (Joseph Flamberg), Charles Ray (Henri), Charles E. Arnt (Albert), Ann Sheridan (Adele).
    Prod.: Douglas MacLean per Paramount Pictures. 35 mm
    Theme song: "Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss auf Liebe eingestellt" / "Falling in Love Again" (comp. and lyr. Friedrich Hollaender, 1930, for Der Blaue Engel), also hummed by Cary Grant.
    Unreleased in Finland.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato: Guns for Hire: Frank Tuttle vs. Stuart Heisler.
    35 mm print from NBC Universal by concession of Park Circus
    Original version with e-subtitles in Italian by Sub-Ti Londra.
    Introduce Ehsan Khoshbakht
    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 24 Aug 2020.

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "Archie Leach, the young lad from Bristol who later became Cary Grant, made his debut in Hollywood under Tuttle’s direction, in the Lubitschian This Is the Night (1932). There is more Leach than Grant in that film, yet the star on the rise appeared in no less than four features in 1934, the best of which was Ladies Should Listen, also by Tuttle (and the one that contributed most to his ‘Cary-Grantness’). It would seem that Tuttle did for early Grant what Hitchcock did for mid-period Grant. He plays the debonair Frenchman, Julian de Lussac, who returns to Paris from South America, with no prospects for financing his luxurious lifestyle. When a rich fiancée appears to be the answer to his problems, the pursuit of the wealthy socialite makes him deaf to the call of the heart and he ignores the switchboard girl who is secretly in love with him. Edward Everett Horton is on the scene too, with his usual confused charm, following his own agenda with women almost as successfully – though not as tactfully – as Grant. What begins as skirt-chasing, thanks to the unexpected arrival of love, leads to a better understanding of women. For Tuttle, the key to conveying the seductive nature of the sharply written script by Claude Binyon and Guy Bolton lies in techniques he had fully mastered by the early 30s: the timing of performances and the pacing of scenes, with a minimum number of camera setups. Even when it seems there’s absolutely nothing to break the theatrical nature of the scene, a highly ironic panning shot from the characters to a statue and back again – from sexual innuendo to a more humane and emotional note – adds a cinematic quality to that which seems at odds with the lens. As with most of Tuttle’s comedies, the location for the battle of sexes is a site of charming intrigue and playful plotting, with devices and deceptive spaces such as secret doorways, alluring staircases, and gadgets – which here include a fake thunderstorm generator!" Ehsan Khoshbakht (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: American romantic film comedy and satire was changing in the year 1934 (It Happened One Night), but Ladies Should Listen still belongs to a current that had started with DeMille, Stroheim and Chaplin after WWI and whose master was Lubitsch.

The Hollywood veteran Frank Tuttle was experienced in comedy, and as Ehsan Khoshbakht states, he had directed Cary Grant's debut film two years earlier. It's fascinating to observe Cary Grant here before his full breakthrough next year in Sylvia Scarlett. George Cukor, Leo McCarey and Howard Hawks guided Grant to mastery, but Tuttle launched him on the course.

The story of two Parisian playboys (Cary Grant, Edward Everett Horton) and three lovely ladies (Frances Drake, Nydia Westman, Rosita Moreno) is piece of amiable light entertainment. There are witty inventions such as the thunderstorm machine to prevent ladies exiting prematurely from afternoon coffee visits. It's not entirely superficial. There are also moments of solitude, loss, disappointment and regret.

I was thinking about the Billy Wilder question: how would Lubitsch have done it? The first answer is that he would not have filmed this screenplay. Not because of its shallowness: Lubitsch filmed even flimsier ones. But he needed a story in which he could better express his brand of tender irony.

The witty surface is more than a surface for Tuttle and Lubitsch. But in addition, Lubitsch composed a richer and deeper sonority. Frank Tuttle deserves eternal honour for giving Cary Grant his debut film role. But why did Lubitsch never direct Cary Grant, although he would seem to have been the ideal Lubitsch actor? Or was that the reason, that he came too close?

The title of this light entertainment film refers to eavesdropping, telephone listening, spying. In effect, Cary Grant ends up with the woman, Frances Drake, who has been spying on him, and thereby saving him from disaster. In our age of Edward Snowden revelations about ubiquitous espionage by foreign agents, the analogue telephone switchboard listening seems quaint. (In Finland "Sentraali-Santra", "Switchboard Sandra" was the name for this). But it is still disturbing.

A brilliant, sparkling print from NBC Universal.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: SYNOPSIS FROM AFI CATALOG ONLINE:

Julian de Lussac, a man-about-town in Paris, is being chased by three women when he returns from South America with an option on a Chilean nitrate concession. The first woman, Marguerite, is the wife of thief Ramon Cintos, who followed Julian from Chile to steal his nitrate option. The second is Susi, the myopic daughter of millionaire Joseph Flamberg. She has little sex appeal but is adored by Julian's friend, Paul Vernet, who claims that she is his fiancée. At Cintos' request, Marguerite makes love to Julian and he falls for her. When Marguerite calls to tell Julian good-bye, he threatens to kill himself, after which the third woman, Anna Mirelle, the telephone operator, who has been listening in on his calls to Marguerite, rushes in to save his life and reveals a wealth of facts about him. Anna warns Julian about Marguerite's duplicity and confesses she procured information from the Cintoses' switchboard operator. Marguerite then enters, planning to get Julian into a compromising position so that her husband has an excuse to pull a gun on him. Anna takes Marguerite's place in Julian's bedroom and Cintos' plan is thwarted. Marguerite then convinces Cintos to let her run away with Julian, who agrees. To keep Julian in town, Anna poses as his nurse and tricks Susi into coming to Julian's apartment by telling her that Julian, delirious, keeps calling for her. Flamberg arrives and accuses Julian of compromising Susi's virtue. Anna then asks her doorman friend, Henri, to call Julian regarding the nitrate concession, and Flamberg overhears and agrees to a marriage between Julian and Susi to get his hands on the nitrate option. Julian then cancels his rendezvous with Marguerite, although Anna knows that he is still in danger. The next day Susi and Julian's engagement is announced in the papers and Cintos arrives with a gun. After claiming that Marguerite is leaving him for Julian, Cintos forces Julian to pay for stealing his wife by signing over the nitrate rights to him. Anna comes to the rescue with Henri, and when Julian thanks her with a brotherly kiss, she tells him out of spite that she is engaged to Henri. On the day of Susi and Julian's wedding, Julian confesses to Paul that he is in love with Anna and advises Paul to be more aggressive to win Susi. When Flamberg intimates that Paul is a "safe" date for Susi, he tells Susi that he is mad for her and accosts her passionately. Anna then leaves a good-bye note for Julian while Susi arrives to return his engagement ring. Heartbroken to learn that Anna has left, Julian finds her behind a curtain in his apartment and they kiss.