Straight Is the Way

While "Straight is the Way" is not a bad film, it does have one big strike against it. The main character, Benny Horowitz, is a Jewish guy living with his Jewish family...yet Hollywood decided to hedge its bets and made this the most Gentile-looking Jewish family...with Franchot Tone playing Benny. Now I don't think it ruins the film...plus not every Jew looks like the stereotypical Jewish person. But it sure did seem odd having Tone (of Irish ancestry) playing this role. Perhaps part of the problem is that in films of the day, MOST Jewish actors were comedians. Ricardo Cortez (who, despite his name, WAS Jewish) could have taken on this role...and I can't help but think that many others would have been better suited to this than Tone.

When the film begins, Benny is getting out of prison. It's not only been rough on him but his dear mother (May Robson) and she is terrified that he'll return to his old friends and his old ways. And, although Benny tries, the pull of his old girlfriend and old gang members is strong. Two especially bad problems are his trashy ex-girlfriend and a menacing hood named Monk (Jack La Rue).

This film, despite the odd casting, is a very nice B-movie...clocking in at under and hour. It works well because of the fine writing and Tone is very good...though not especially Jewish. Well worth seeing and a lot better made than most Bs of the day.

Straight is the Way (1934)

** (out of 4)

MGM melodrama has Franchot Tone playing Benny Horowitz, a man recently released from prison who returns home to his mother (May Robson) who prays that he goes straight. He has a good woman (Karen Morley) who loves him but Benny gets involved with a former flame (Gladys George) who certainly doesn't have good intentions with him. This is a remake of a 1928 film but it has a lot more in common with the countless crime pictures that Warner and MGM were releasing through this early part of the decade. While watching the picture and Tone I couldn't help but think that in a couple years Humphrey Bogart would be making "B" pictures like this one at Warner. Tone, while at MGM, got to star in some bigger budgeted pictures but there were a lot of "B" movies like this one where the bigger stars at the studio got the great roles and he had to appear in stuff that, like Bogart, was below his talent. This film here is just so corny that you can't help but laugh at it at times and especially the first twenty-minutes. Tone returns home and we get countless preachy scenes where the mother just stops everything to pray and the "good-faithed" woman is constantly talking about the good in the world. This stuff comes off so forced that the well-intentions just come off laughable. Even sillier is when we're told about her heart condition and we even have a wacky subplot dealing with the old flame who just happens to want to fix Tone for not being "into" her. The entire film lasts just 59-minutes so there's not too much plot but what's here just doesn't work as it comes off rather tame as we've seen this type of thing countless times before and in much better quality. The cast is good for the most part with Tone, Morley, Robson and George fitting their roles just fine. Nat Pendleton is on hand and offers up good support.

It was very rare to see Jewish characters in movies, and even television until maybe the 1980s. Willy Loman probably is meant to be. Fred and Ethel Mertz -- Need I identify the work in which any of these appear? -- probably were too. But Hollywood chickened out.

Not so here. May Robson is very concerned about having the Sabbath candles lighted. Her son, played by Franchot Tone, is just out of prison. They live in a walk-up apartment in a tenement (as do I.) Oddly, it seems that this building has only four floors. Tenements usually have five and sometimes six.

Tone is at his best in this sort of serious role. Also, as Bertha, the girl his mother ants him to marry, Karen Morley is most touching. Gladys George plays a sneering bad girl. To me, that's a waste: She could be so poignant she could break your heart. Here, as Shirley, she looks a little like Mae West and is not at all likable. (This is not to say the actress turns in a bad performance. She was incapable of that.) Nat Pendleton gives a subdued performance. That guy was never a star but he was always reliable.

I'd be curious to know what motivated MGM, of all studios, to turn out a movie with what then was such a daring setting. It pays off, in any case. The plot is routine but the honesty of the characters' ethnic makeup is refreshing.

STRAIGHT IS THE WAY (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1934), directed by Paul Sloane, might have been an appropriate title for some educational film in driving school class, but actually a mild melodrama of an ex-con's determination to reform, in other words, not being crooked but "going straight," for that "straight is the way." Taken from a 1927 stage play, "Four Walls" by Dale Burnett and George Abbott starring Paul Muni, the story was soon transformed to the silent screen by MGM (1928) featuring an impressive cast of John Gilbert, Joan Crawford and Carmel Myers. With many stage productions retold for the motion picture screen, as well as the remaking old silents with the use of sound, STRAIGHT IS THE WAY is no exception. Bearing a new title and cast consisting of Franchot Tone, Karen Morley and Gladys George in the Gilbert, Myers and Crawford roles, the plot remains basically the same.

As the camera tracks through the streets and tenements of Manhattan's lower east side (a common practice found in many openings of the "East Side Kids" film series in the 1940s), the introduction to characters begins as Mrs. Horowitz (May Robson) patiently awaiting for her son, Benny (Franchot Tone) as he returns home after serving time in prison. Bertha (Karen Morley), whom Benny has known since childhood, also comes over to the Horowitz home for this special day. As for Benny, described as an avid book reader who ended up with the wrong assortment of friends with crimes that landed him in prison, he's now a free man with every intention in starting a whole new life. Benny finds the old gang, consisting of Monk (Jack LaRue), to have taken over the leadership as well as his old flame, Shirley (Gladys George). This doesn't matter to Benny with every intention on leaving everything in the past, especially Shirley, who makes every effort to double cross Monk and win Benny over, even to a point of moving into his building to be closer to him. As time passes, Benny finds employment hard to obtain but manages to get one in a garage. Working under Pop Slavko, he discovers he's being harassed for paying protection money to Monk, but manages to get Monk to "lay off." Later when Benny is caught in an embrace with Shirley on the rooftop by Monk, an fight leading to a fatal accident occurs. With Shirley as the lone witness, her testimony can either clear or send Benny back to prison for murder by Sullivan (C. Henry Gordon), an officer who originally placed Benny under arrest.

While the product of this drama rests entirely on Franchot Tone's characterization, the film suggests viewers to accept him as either Jewish or a natural born leader who once headed a powerful gang. Being unconvincing at both aspects, through Sloane's direction, Tone somehow plays his role with capable assurance. It's a wonder how STRAIGHT IS THE WAY might have appeared had the Benny character been awarded to Paul Muni reprising his stage performance in a loan-out assignment from Warners. Probably with more conviction from Muni's point of view.

There's also noble support by May Robson as the lovingly Jewish mother and Karen Morley's performance of a loyal good-natured girlfriend that's almost a carbon copy to her devoted wife portrayal of Mary Sims in King Vidor's OUR DAILY BREAD (United Artists, 1934). Interestingly, John Qualen, who appeared in OUR DAILY BREAD, is also seen here as one of the neighbors whose wife is expecting a baby. Others in the cast include Nat Pendleton (Skippy); William Bakewell (Doctor Wilkes); and Raymond Hatton (Mr. Mendel). Next to Robson, the one who's performance should gather much attention is Gladys George. A stage actress with some silent movies to her resume, STRAIGHT IS THE WAY is virtually unknown among her screen credits. In fact, her Academy Award nominated performance of VALIANT IS THE WORD FOR CARRIE (Paramount, 1936) is often categorized as her motion picture debut. Physically resembling the mannerism of Wynne Gibson and appearance of Mae West, her raspy voice fitting into her "tough babe" persona was not so much evident here as it was in her future film roles. George would work again with Tone in another melodrama, THEY GAVE HIM A GUN (1937) and once more in the comedy, LOVE IS A HEADACHE (1938), but of all her screen roles, who could ever forget her Panama Smith that has left a lasting impression in the crime drama, THE ROARING TWENTIES (Warners, 1939) starring James Cagney.

Lots of heavy sentiment with underscoring possibly lifted from FOUR WALLS (1928), STRAIGHT IS THE WAY, clocked at 59 minutes, is satisfactory to some degree. A straightforward story with one brief song, "One Hundred Years From Now," is certainly one to consider whenever this rarely revived old-style melodrama turns up on Turner Classic Movies. (**1/2)

Franchot Tone is just out of prison, and mama May Robson is glad to see him. So are girlfriends Karen Morley and Gladys George, representing good choices and bad choices -- it's all very symbolic. Tone never wants to go back to prison, but his old gangster friends and the difficulty of getting a job stand in his way.

It's based on a play by Dana Burnet and George Abbot, and it had been made as a silent as FOUR WALLS. I haven't seen that version, but there are hints in this one that these are all Jews from New York's Lower East Side, which makes the casting of the absolutely whitebread Tone and Miss Robson absurd. There's no doubt he was a serious actor, but he couldn't set foot on a stage without letting you know he he went to an Ivy League school by his demeanor. While director Paul Sloane handles the issues seriously, hearing Tone speak with Nat Pendleton, who, this movie would have us believe, grew up on the same block, destroys any illusions.