A Lady Of Chance (1928)

[Gagman 66]

I was quite fortunate enough to pick up a nice copy of this feature on DVD-R a couple weeks ago from a member of the TCM forum. The movie had debuted on TCM a few years back, but somehow I managed to miss it each time it has been shown in the past?

A delightful romantic comedy, this rather obscure MGM Silent starrs Norma Shearer, and Johnny Mack Brown. The picture seems a pretty good blue-print for very similar type screw-ball comedy pictures that were to come during the 30's and 40's from big time Director's such as Frank Capra, and Preston Sturges. Particularly, Sturges THE LADY EVE, with Barbara Stanwyck, and Henry Fonda, in 1940.

The first half is simply hilarious stuff! I was cracking up! Norma plays Dolly "Angel Face" Morgan, a no good despicable Con-Lady! Not a nice girl at all! She runs repeated scams on people and takes their money! In her defense, Dolly at least target's older wealthy gentleman, so she has some scruples. Bradley (Lowell Sherman), and Gwen, (Gwen Lee), are Dolly's two partners in crime that she is constantly trying to ditch!

The leary threesome do not trust each other, in the least! After spotting her running a Telephone Operator's scam, they force Dolly to work with them or they will expose her to the police! The couple try to put one over on her claiming that their last little scheme had fallen through. In reality Bradley and Gwen try to deprive Angel Face of her cut of the Ten Grand that they have just stolen! Dolly is to smart for this, and one step ahead of them. She finagles them both, and walks off with all of it!

Sight unseen, Dolly overhears some interesting talk in an elevator from a very handsome young Wall-street Millionaire Steve Crandall (Johnny Mack Brown), concerning an apparent big business deal? He informs his broker that on his new cement contract He won't take less than Five Hundred Thousand Dollars! Hem, sounds as if this is the next likely prospect alright. Now she catches a glimpse of the guy, and it's as if this Lady were staring at a triple dipper of pistachio ice-cream! For the first time she concedes this is gonna be fun! Not some crusty old codger this time! No sir! Crandall is clean-cut, almost to good looking, and always immaculately dressed!

She orchestrates an innocent meeting, and the two soon are having dinner together. Steve stupidly admits to Her that his Plantation could be worth a Million! Dolly works her feminine wiles on the incredibly naive young fellow, and with in a week, the poor sap has proposed! Dolly has some small misgivings about fleecing this dope, she has developed some legitimate feelings for the big fella. Still all that money is much to tempting, and definitely more important than a few misguided Heart pangs!

Enthusiastically, she accepts Steve's asking for her hand in Marriage! Just as they are about to Elope, wouldn't you know it. Bradley's shows up looking to take back his and Gwen's share of the dough! Dolly manages to elude him yet again, and Be-Wedd's the young Millionaire! Or so She thinks! The confident Con-lady is in for the shock of her life! Let's just say that the new Mrs, Crandall is not nearly so well off as She thought! Shortly Bradley, and Gwen track her down to her new digs, then things get complicated!

The TCM print of this movie is excellent, and boast's a fine score by Chris Caliendo. No not the late former NWA World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion who passed away last year from a blood-clot in his leg! At least I don't think it's the same guy? I enjoyed the score though, and it is all original music too.

This role just seems so different for Norma Shearer, but She handles it with amazing skill! Future Western star Johnny Mack Brown, still known as John Mack Brown at this point, was one of the most attractive and dashing leading men in Hollywood. As illustrated by his roles, in of Ben Blaine in OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS (1928) opposite Joan Crawford, and as Tommy Hewlet in Greta Garbo's THE SINGLE STANDARD (1929). Brown is great in this movie as the straight-laced Steve. Providing the perfect contrast to his lecherous underhanded Wife!

Lending support, Lowell Sherman plays a convincing sharper, and Gwen Lee is allot of fun as his tag along squeeze! I 'mm mighty glad that I finally got to see this one!

[feaito]

I watched "A Lady of Chance" (1928) and I was enthralled by the overall very good quality of this print. I could not believe I was watching a 1928 film. The score is perfect. I had never seen Norma in such a tongue-in-cheek role, and least of all playing a con-woman. She's good in the comic scenes she plays, quite skillfully, and she's aptly supported by Lowell Sherman and Gwen Lee as fellow swindlers. John Mack Brown is rightly naive as the man who falls for her. A real pleasure to watch.

[Dawtrina]

Yeah, there were a lot of surprises in this one.

Here's what I wrote after seeing it last July:

Here's Norma Shearer's last silent film, not that it ended up that way. She's Dolly Morgan, aka Angel Face, a con artist who gets recognised pulling scams in a hotel by a couple of crooks who want her to work with them. One evening and ten thousand dollars later, she's back on the wanted list both by the cops and the crooks who try to swindle her but get swindled instead.

However she's long gone, at some cement convention trying to crack what would appear to be an easy mark but who turns out to be completely unlike she expected. He's Steve Crandall, played by Johnny Mack Brown, who has always seemed to me like the closest thing to Gary Cooper without actually being Gary Cooper. Back in the silent era, he was cast in women's pictures, with people like Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford and Norma Shearer, but soon he would find his way to westerns where he'd spend the rest of his long career.

Like Brown (and Cooper), Norma Shearer often tended to appear too serious, which got quickly boring and was a shame as she was very expressive when she chose to be. Here she gets to be extremely expressive, playing most scenes from a variety of temperaments depending on who the man in the scene was looking at. As possibly the ultimate example of what she could do, there's one extended closeup shot halfway through this film that is nothing but Shearer's face going through a multitude of emotions for almost forty seconds!

This is almost entirely Norma Shearer's show, unsurprisingly, but she has a little competition. Johnny Mack Brown's boyish charm is old but contagious and Brad, the lead crook, is played by silent regular Lowell Sherman who appears like half Bill Murray and half Edward Everett Horton. He and WAMPAS baby star Gwen Lee do a solid job of making their presence felt. The only downside is the overly sappy ending.

[Gagman 66]

feaito,

I love this movie, and the score by Christopher Caliendo. I wish that I could say the same for Mr. Caliendo's new score to John Ford's Masterpiece FOUR SONS (1928). Unfortunately, I can not! I do not like the score on the DVD release at all! It is positively nothing like the Vintage Movie-Tone track that I am used to hearing with this film!

Fox really blew it big time when they seemingly unthinkingly nixed the original track for no apparent reason, other than to make the audio more fit for 5.1 Dolby Surround sound! What other possible excuse could there be?

With it's vintage track in-tact FOUR SONS was ready to be rediscovered as one of the great motion pictures ever produced! As good or better than any of Ford's sound features! Now with the Vintage score no longer in place the film will go largely unnoticed! I am very, very upset over this. Heart Broken even! I just can not believe that the original score was not at least offered as an Alternate track! It makes zero sense!

I was so excited when I heard that this film was finally coming to DVD! Although right away I was fearful that something like this would happen, and the score would be replaced! I was assured that it wouldn't be be the case! But ultimately it was! What a bitter disappointment!