Tag: Miriam Hopkins

The Story of Temple Drake (1933)

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The Story of Temple Drake (1933)

The Story of Temple Drake (1933). 70 minutes. Directed by Stephen Roberts. Starring Miriam Hopkins (as Temple Drake), Jack La Rue (as Trigger), William Gargan (as Stephen Benbow), William Collier, Jr. (as Toddy Gowan), Irving Pichel (as Lee Goodwin), Guy Standing (as Judge Drake), Elizabeth Patterson (as Aunt Jennie), Florence Eldridge (as Ruby Lemarr), James Eagles (as Tommy), and Harlan Knight (as Pap).

The Story of Temple Drake is based on the controversial William Faulkner novel Sanctuary, which created a sensation when it was published in 1931 because of the way it handles the topic of rape. The movie, while more oblique than the novel, nevertheless also shocked the public. Critics lashed out against it, and its scandalous content helped catalyze the enforcement of the Hollywood Production Code in 1934. Yet while The Story of Temple Drake is laden with elements from the so-called vice movies of the pre-Code period, many of which will seem racy and distasteful even … Read the rest

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931). 98 minutes. Directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Starring Fredric March (as Dr. Henry Jekyll/Mr. Edward Hyde), Miriam Hopkins (as Ivy Pierson), Rose Hobart (as Muriel Carew), Holmes Herbert (as Dr. Hastie Lanyon), Halliwell Hobbes (as Brigadier General Sir Danvers Carew), Edgar Norton (as Poole), and Tempe Pigott (as Mrs. Hawkins).

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a terrifically creepy movie about a man who splits himself through chemical means into two distinct personalities with horrific results. Actor Frederic March plays both the tepid scientist Dr. Jekyll and his demonic alter ego, Mr. Hyde, who leers, threatens, assaults, and murders his way through the back alleys and palatial drawing rooms of nineteenth-century London. March’s Jekyll transforms into the malicious Hyde through elaborate makeup and camera techniques, but the film offers a great deal more than special effects-related thrills. As a pre-Code film, its content is daring, particularly its dark sexual undertones, which are largely absent from … Read the rest

Trouble in Paradise (1932)

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Trouble in Paradise (1932)

Trouble in Paradise (1932). 83 minutes. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Starring Herbert Marshall (as Gaston Monescu/Gaston Lavalle), Miriam Hopkins (as Lily Vautier), Kay Francis (as Madame Mariette Colet), Edward Everett Horton (as François Filiba), Charles Ruggles (as the Major), and C. Aubrey Smith (as Adolph J. Giron).

Roger Ebert begins his wonderful review of Trouble in Paradise by observing that this movie is a comedy about adults, not the typically juvenile characters that masquerade as adults in modern-day Hollywood films. I would go so far as to say that Trouble in Paradise’s characters are the ultimate adults of the Golden Age of Hollywood: witty, wry, sophisticated, infinitely engaging, amusing, and immaculately dressed and groomed. In particular, the movie not only creates a mature atmosphere laced with champagne, erudite talk, and subtle scheming but also offers us grown-up sexuality, which its characters allude to frequently in word and action, and practice with refinement and enthusiasm. Even more than other daring Lubitsch … Read the rest