1935 - THE SCOUNDREL, interesting, crazy filmmaking from Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur

The Scoundrel is what you end up with when you let two successful but very cynical screenwriters have the keys to the studio, in this case Astoria Studios in New York City.  Hecht and MacArthur got financing through Paramount Studios to produce some moderately budgeted film.  The end result were a series of offbeat and mostly weird films.  

The Scoundrel stars English actor/playwright/composer Noel Coward in his first film.  Theatrical audiences may have known Coward as a successful writer of upper class comedies but I would bet his name and reputation meant next to nothing outside of New York.

The story has Coward playing a malicious publisher who enjoys ruining people's lives.  When he dies in a plane crash, he comes back as a ghost who can only get to heaven it someone grieves for him.   Yes this is the same plot as the Rogers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. 

For a couple of guys who were top screenwriters in Hollywood, Hecht and MacArthur sure had a primitive film technique.  They seem to have had absolutely no visual sense and didn't know how to get decent performances out of their actors.  What makes The Scoundrel watchable is top cinematographer Lee Garmes who ended up being a co-director on this and other Hecht and MacArthur films.  The fact that this film looks professional at all is a tribute to Garmes skill.

But lets go to some quotes from this film, this was Hecht and MacArthur's strength, clever and cynical dialog:

"Pity - that most vile of virtues - has never been known to you."

"I'm never nice "

"She's the only woman I've ever met who seems shallower and more superficial than I am. It'll be a perfect match: two empty paper bags, belaboring each other. "

"I don't approve of child labor as a rule, but so much depends on the child."

"Cora, get off your knees. Tears always make me crueler than I really am."

Written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, the running time is 76 minutes.

1934 - CRIME WITHOUT PASSION, a real weirdo of a film.

Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur are chiefly remembered as the authors of The Front Page. However they were top writers in Hollywood and on Broadway.  For a while they co-directed and wrote a series of offbeat films.  Crime Without Passion was their first film and apparently they weren't that well versed in film making technique.  To the rescue came their cinematographer Lee Garmes who not only photographed the film but is listed as "associate director" in the credits

The film is full of wild editing and montage effects as well as some pretty over the top dialog. The story has velvet voiced Claude Rains as a sleezy attorney involved with two women.  Rains wants to get rid of one of his mistresses so he can take off to Europe with the other one.  This snowballs into a whole lot of craziness.

I guess as a mainstream commerical film, this film doesn't really come off but it is so off beat and original it's a lot of fun to watch.  Hecht and MacArthur apparently had enough sense not to push their story too much the film is a brisk 70 minutes.

70 minutes.