Cinema Revisited: I Love That Man (1933) – a Paramount pre-code feature
I Love That Man (1933)
Directed by Harry Joe Brown. Cast: Edmund Lowe, Nancy Carroll, Robert Armstrong, Warren Hymer, Lew Cody, Grant Mitchell, Dorothy Burgess, Walter Walker, Berton Churchill, Inez Courtney, Susan Fleming, Luis Alberni, Esther Muir, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Duke York.
Paramount Pictures. Released July 8, 1933
Romantic dramas during the pre-code era are usually filled with tight scenes that are briskly paced with sharp dialog. But occasionally they use the narrative as a foundation to explore the characters with more depth. Such is the case with “I Love That Man,” a Paramount feature from 1933.
Edmund Lowe, in a part originally slated for Ricardo Cortez, is Brains, a pleasantly smooth operator with the ladies, conning his way into their hearts and benefiting from it at several levels. His attractive manner and measured charisma immediately cause a reaction from even the most casual female acquaintance (e.g. Susan Fleming, the real life Mrs. Harpo Marx, in a small role as a secretary at the outset of the film). This persona is more firmly established when he hooks up with a giggling woman (Dorothy Burgess) while gambling, which leads to a higher level connection with a more sophisticated woman (Nancy Carroll). She eventually teams up with him on his schemes, finding this life exciting and interesting. When they gather enough money, Brains settles into life as a respectable citizen, but finds it dreary and dull. Some mugs from his past, whom he had double-crossed, return to his immediate world, and Brains must then return to a life of crime and make it right.
“I Love That Man” is missing the grit of Warner Brothers or the gloss of MGM, but Paramount held its own with pre-code drama and comedy. “I Love That Man” takes a few twists and turns in its narrative to keep things interesting, and while Lowe and Ms. Carroll are central to the film, they are surrounded by interesting supporting characters played by welcome veterans like Robert Armstrong, Warren Hymer, and Lew Cody.
Lowe is very good as the smooth operator with the ladies, who can switch gears and appear to be a fellow mug (with other mugs) or a fast talking sharpster. While the Nancy Carroll character practically has him reformed by the end of the movie, his restlessness as well as his past catching up with him force his return to crime, especially after his business partner has absconded with his money. And, as this is a pre-code movie, a happy ending is not guaranteed.
This would be the last film Harry Joe Brown directed for another eleven years, as he would soon become a producer, his best work happening years later with director Budd Boetticher and actor Randolph Scott. Brown would return to direct a couple films in the 40s, but “I Love That Man” ended the directorial streak he had amassed since the 1920s (another feature, “Sitting Pretty,” was released after “I Love That Man,” but filmed earlier). Brown would work at Paramount for only about a year, and most of his films were second-features.
As with most pre-code features being screened as late as the 21st century, it is the dialog that resonates:
Ethel: “I can’t make you out”
Brains: “Remove the word ‘out’ and we’ll see.”
Ethel: “Look at that dress, let’s go buy it.”
Brains: “Yeah, let’s go right by it.”
Of course there is no shortage of sappy romantic dialog, but often that is used within the context of Brains conning a woman with a load of bull, so it works in that context and does not seem dated.
Another positive aspect is the supporting cast. Robert Armstrong and Warren Hymer play a couple of mugs named Driller and Mousy, chewing the scenery with gusto every time they are on screen. When they meet up with a successful Brains, who had conned them in the past, the look on Hymer’s face registering surprise than anger with just a change of his eyes, is striking – it makes the scene that much more chilling. When Armstrong drops his mug-like persona, pulls out a gun, and growls his dialog in a threatening manner, any lightness in the film disappears. It is exceptionally well done.
The film takes an especially odd twist when they all converge on an apartment from where they plan to tunnel into the bank. A woman in the apartment is about to have a baby, but is not allowed to go to the hospital. Materials are brought in and a dentist in the room is forced to do what he can to deliver the baby. It is an odd tangent, but does add more dramatic tension to the proceedings (director Brown’s close-up of Nancy Carroll’s face as she backs away from the camera in reaction to the young mother’s death is an especially strong image).
“I Love That Man” is a cinematic cultural artifact from the pre-code era, offering so many elements that make this period such a delightful time in cinema’s history.