A Movie Nearly Every Night: Evelyn Prentice

Evelyn Prentice (1934)
Dir. William K. Howard
Starring: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Una Merkel, Rosalind Russell, Isabel Jewell

whoo!

It's a woman's picture, sure. Hey, I like those too, sometimes more than the boy pictures. And my mom recommended it -- can you think of a better way to hear about a woman's picture? Honestly, if you can't trust your mom on girl movies then the world is in worse shape than I thought.

So, pardon me while I put on my feminist hat for this one, boys.

I'm currently reading a biography of Irving Thalberg. Yes, it's the third one I've read and no, nothing terribly new in this one so far, except that it talks a bit more about his relationships with the women on his lot, including my idol Frances Marion, who wrote a stack of movies dating all the way back to The New York Hat (1916). Don't know about The New York Hat? Have you heard of D.W. Griffith? Yeah, he gets a lot of credit for that movie, leaving Anita Loos and Frances Marion out in the cold.

But I digress (and on Frances Marion I can go on for days).

Anyway, another top writer at MGM was Lenore Coffee. According to Mark Viera's book "Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince" Coffee helped save some crappy films, but when she stood up to Thalberg he dropped her like a bag of dirt. Then, when he needed her again, he hired her back without a contract and cut her pay.

Dude. And you know I love Thalberg, but I guess nobody's perfect after all, huh?

Anyway it was good to see Lenore Coffee's name on Evelyn Prentice. It's a juicy little story. William Powell and Myrna Loy are married rich folk who get mixed up in a whole lot of trouble when lawyer Powell has a slight almost-indiscretion with client Rosalind Russell.

The family that exercises together...

I won't tell you what happens, because it's got some twists, but it all takes place in less than an hour and half. Gotta love the swift ones. (Have I mentioned Three on a Match (1932)? Kidnapping, adultery, drug addiction, Bette Davis and Joan Blondell squeezed into 60 fun minutes. See that movie too.)

Obviously Myrna Loy is the big draw. She's fantastic and I don't just say that because my grandmother was her stand-in, but that's part of why I like it, sure. Myrna plays this part with a quiet, I mean whispered quiet, intensity that's very different from her turns as Nora Charles in The Thin Man series, where she's sophisticated, but very there. Her Evelyn is insignificant compared to her husband's great legal life and while she's beautiful, Myrna plays her subdued and forgotten. She slides into the background and when there's tension in the courtroom ... wow, she pulls that tension even tighter when she speaks to lawyer-husband, William Powell.

Mr. Prentice discovers a little too late how to defend his case

Also starring are Una Merkel as the amusing friend who keeps things lively, but also complicates things a little with her meddling...

"The last time I mixed a cocktail four people eloped,
the butler did nip-ups and a man made love to his wife!"

... and, as mentioned before, our own Rosalind Russell, who appears here in her first movie playing the kind of person I don't think she ever played again: a swanking society woman with no sense of humor about herself at all.

Breathless, glamorous
Hildy Johnson's in there somewhere, I know it

Since this is one of the few times Rosalind and Myrna appeared in the same film together, I'd like to think this is where my grandmother and Rosalind Russell became friends. "She was a good Catholic woman," my grandmother told me. Maybe they met here. Maybe they met in church. I don't know, but I'm sticking to the met-on-the-set scenario because it's fun and fabulous. (Personal trivia note: Rosalind Russell had metastasized breast cancer. Ah, Roz Russell = sister.)

By the way, the costumes here are all by Dolly Tree, who also got a little screwed by MGM. (You've heard of Adrian though, haven't you? Yeah... Dolly got the high-hat when Adrian was around.) She's got some fantastic creations in this picture, including Una Merkel's lovely lounging pajamas:


Throwing a bone to the boys -- the set design is by Cedric Gibbons and, even though he did set design for every flippin' MGM film out there, we'll give him a mention on this one for two reasons:

1. The desk drawer of the murdered man is propped with some keys, some cards, a pen, a pencil, a gun, and a worn stick of Wrigley chewing gum.

Dude! Gum! That's awesome ... I don't know why

2. The front page of this paper actually reads "GIRL KILLS GIGOLO" and, again, I don't know why, but that slays me. Slays me.

Sorry, Evelyn, but hahaha "Gigolo" ... too hilarious

But, back to the ladies. Friends, I loves Isabel Jewell. She turns up in all kinds of movies, I swear she worked for every studio at one time or another, and is included here in Evelyn Prentice where she's good girl gone bad, Judith Wilson.

"Alright, I'll tell you everything" -- boy, does she ever

Isabel Jewell always had small character roles in pictures, but never the plum leads. A Hal Erickson bio on The New York Times notes that she was "denied roles because of her height (she was well under five feet)," but Veronica Lake was only 4'11". Ah well ... Anyway, boy-o, I'll tell you what, she could do anything. Need a character who's been cheated by her man? Get Isabel on the phone.

Why you low-down scoundrel. I oughta...

How's about a doxie little bubble blonde who doesn't realize how much trouble she's in until it's too late, like in Marked Woman (1937)?

Whaaaaaaaaat?

Gun mol, goofy pal, secretary -- but then, oh THEN, she could do these out of nowhere dramatic parts, like the little seamstress who rides with Sydney Carton to the guillotine in A Tale of Two Cities (1935).

"When I look at you I'm not afraid."

She breaks your heart. I cry buckets watching the end of this movie. Buckets! All because of the way she and Ronald Colman seem to close themselves together, protecting each other from the tragedy they're riding headlong into. "You're so brave," she tells him. Ohhhhhh the tears are starting just talking about it. Two years later she was a consumptive possible-prostitute in Lost Horizon (1937) again with dapper Ronald Colman, and then the studio decide to cut a lot of her scenes ... man, Hollywood, I tell ya'. Jerks.

But my favorite Isabel Jewell moment lasts only about 45 seconds and you barely hear her even say a word. She's that oft-mentioned "white-trash Slattery girl" in Gone with the Wind (1939) seen here with Victor Jory.

Scarlet: "Who baptized your other brats after you killed my mother?"
Emmy: "Oh!"

Yeah, not a lot of time on screen, but absolutely perfect as always. Isabel, I'm glad you gave us what you did. Thank you. Thank you! You're the best.