Stolen Heaven

This is absolutely dripping in atmosphere and oozing with the authentic feel of the big bad city as The Depression took hold. Besides having a great engaging story, it just looks so good - a real time machine movie.

This could only have been made in the early thirties. Made at any other time, the story would have sounded completely ridiculous but made when it was, it accurately reflects the mindset of those desperate years. During that time, the expression: "Let's spend all this stolen money, let's live like kings for a while and then kill ourselves" bizarrely was a perfectly feasible attitude to have.

Obviously Nancy Carroll is faultless in this but poor old Phillips Holmes got quite a bit of criticism for this: Why didn't they use a rougher tougher actor to play "a desperado"? He's far too placid and bland to be taken seriously. When he says: They'll never take me alive! He's so unconvincing, he's such an unlikely villain. ..... But that's exactly why he's perfect in this role! He's a normal, mild-mannered middling sort doing a middling sort of job. People like this were exactly the ones who suffered and the ones who could often see no other way to survive than to behave completely out of character.

It's estimated that the majority of Americans in the early thirties saw the banks and businesses as the enemies of the people. The police were seen as paid thugs working for those evil entities, not a service to serve or help or even to maintain law and order. It would not have been too unusual for someone like Phillips Holmes' character to cross that very fuzzy boundary. This was a different alien world!

Although written and directed by a Broadway guy rather than a pictures guy, this is as removed from a static, stagey theatre production as you can imagine. It seems that not only was George Abbot a top theatre impresario but knew how to make pictures better than a lot of established directors. Watching a picture made in 1930 is often a really awful experience because so many directors hadn't figured out how to make talkies by then but not George Abbot. This is a beautifully fluid and dynamic visual and auditory treat. Besides making his characters alive and genuine, he really captures the contrast between the haves and have-nots.

The first scene is startling - two shadows walk past an old billboard advertising Wonder Bread - "sliced - just say Wonder cut". Mary is a street walker - her mannerisms show that she is new to it. Later on she explains that she was a dancer who lost her place and this is her first night on the job. Joe is a young man Mary first assumes to be drunk - then she notices blood in his hair. He has committed a robbery - he has $20,000 and wants to live life to the full, then when the money runs out he will shoot himself. Mary helps divert the police by putting him in bed and pretending he is a customer - even by pre-code standards it is pretty racy.

He asks Mary to go with him, and that's when it falls flat. It loses its grittiness when they start to live it up at a Palm Springs resort. Something went wrong with the story about 2 down and outers who grab their chance of happiness regardless of the price.

The establishing shot of the resort is great - firstly showing the orchestra and lastly the dance floor, where Mary (with a beautiful new look) and Joe are dancing. Nancy Carroll is absolutely gorgeous whether as a down on her luck dancer or among the idle rich. She has a few really good scenes - when she is trying to convince the police Joe is just a customer, when she is reminiscing about her life, telling Joe what she wants out of life and the sequence where she gambles her last $1,000, thinking it is her last night on earth.

Even though with 3 films together ("The Devil's Holiday", "Stolen Heaven" and "The Man I Killed") they were a team (sort of) Holmes didn't seem very comfortable in their scenes together. Nancy came up trumps but Holmes struggled and made the dialogue ("they'll never take me alive") sound trite which it was. May be he was out of his depth. Frederic March would have made a much more believable Joe. Nancy and Phillips certainly win the award as the most beautiful couple in the movies. Louis Calhern does well as the cad that comes good.

Recommended.

The opening sequence is incredible, starting with the shadows on torn billboards of the two protagonists in a seedy cityscape. She's a whore, and he, stumbling drunk, is following her to her room. Actually, she discovers when they get to her room that he's not stumbling drunk--a bullet had grazed his head and nearly knocked him out. There's no question, though, about her being a cheap whore, and the room a being whore's room. At one point, he looks around and says, "How'd I get here?" Her disgusted response: "The fairies brought you." He asks for a drink, and she gives him one: "One of the girls left this bottle here yesterday." There's a commotion in the hall. Detectives are searching the house for the man who just held up the payroll in the factory opposite. She tells the boy, "Quick, get off your clothes." He jumps into the bed and pretends a drunken sleep. The detective is looking for bigger fry and doesn't give her too hard a time for prostitution. She says he's been there for hours; she doesn't know anything about him. In these scenes, the acting, direction and writing are simple and direct. The two are shown as both cynical and naive; two lost souls. So far, superb! But then they decide to take his money, go on a spree, and when it's gone they'll commit suicide. Not superb. After the great opening sequence, the story becomes very sloppy, degenerating into primitive and unbelievable melodrama. At one point, for example, she asks how much money is left. Just $1,000, he says, only one day left. One day on $1,000 in 1931?? And Nancy Carroll unabashedly chews the scenery: "I don't want to die!" Hey, OK, so who's forcing you? But the film doesn't totally disintegrate. For example, the opening shot at a ritzy Havana hotel starts with a close-up of the band and gradually pulls back, tracking through the diners, all the way back for a long shot of the dance floor. When a stateside detective catches up with them, there are some lively plot twists, and Calhern, a wolf who has been after Nancy, winds up helping them when he sees that true love is bound to triumph. See this for the vital, gritty, pre-Code opening sequence; the rest is OK in a primitive way.

Prostitution, suicide, larceny, conniving idle rich--a gritty pre-Code item about two down-on-their-luck misfits who acquire some ill-gotten gains, make a suicide pact, and fall slowly, quite convincingly in love. Carroll, at the peak of her powers, is utterly natural and appealing as a not-that-nice girl, and she plays well against Louis Calhern, in an early rich-cad role. George Abbott was more of a stage than movie director, but he sure shows his acumen with actors here. Even Holmes, who was often too pretty and too whiny to be a convincing leading man, miscast as he is here, is convincing. There's some fine early-talkie camera-work and a surprisingly modern, almost existential gloom to the material. It doesn't cheat its way to an entirely happy ending, and it's one of the best showcases for Carroll's talent I've seen.

Phillips Holmes (Joe) ends up at the apartment of stranger Nancy Carroll (Mary) after following her in a dazed condition. She is actually a street walker and he has just stolen $20k. He is injured and the two of them open up to one another and seem to have a connection. However, the police are not far behind and come calling at Nancy's apartment block to catch the thief. She shields Holmes and the two of them make a suicide pact. They will spend all the money together and then end it all.

The film starts well and the acting is fine. Louis Calhern (Steve) appears as a wealthy womaniser with an interest in Nancy and he has a nice transformation during the film - he starts out as a creep. There are some entertaining sections of dialogue and poignant moments in the film, eg, when Carroll tells Holmes that they have been invited to a party the following week to which Holmes replies that they won't be around. We deduce from this that the money has run out. Do they see it through?