package states " color film" | Glamorous Ladies: Ginger Rogers & Bette Davis [VHS]

fine motion picture with a strong shot in the arm from a young Joel McCrea | Glamorous Ladies: Ginger Rogers & Bette Davis [VHS] | Bette Davis, Leslie Howard

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	• Glamorous Ladies: Ginger Rogers & Bette Davis [VHS] Bette Davis, Leslie Howard Madacy Records, 1998 average customer review:based on 14 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

EXCEPTIONAL COLLECTION!!!!!

This collection from Roan is one of their best. All 3 films look great with only minor imperfections. Recommended.

package states " color film"

Fine performance by Helen , however disappointed as it states it was in color. I was expecting 2-strip technicolor.

fine motion picture with a strong shot in the arm from a young Joel McCrea

Kept Husbands has a good plot which moves along nicely; it held my attention every step of the way and the acting is very convincing. The cinematography is pretty good; and the choreography shines in crowd scenes and scenes at the steel mill factory. This is definitely one of the better films out there from Alpha Video.

When the film starts, we quickly meet some members of a fabulously wealthy family in the steel business. There's Mr. Arthur Parker (Robert McWade) and his wife Henrietta (Florence Roberts); we also meet their snooty and spoiled brat daughter Dorothea (Dorothy Mackaill). Arthur announces to everyone's shock and disgust that he's invited a low level "steel boss" to dinner; he explains to them that the young man is a hero who saved three lives in a fire at the steel mill--and he even refused a reward check! Despite the fact that Arthur thinks highly of the young man, Dorothea and her mother believe that he's too "common" to even eat at the same table with them. Henrietta carries on as if she were about to have a heart attack! However, when Richard "Dick" Brunton (Joel McCrea) shows up for dinner, they are impressed with him for having been such a great football player just a few years back.

But there's more. Dorothea, much to everyone's surprise, can't take her eyes off Dick at the dinner table. He has impeccable manners, too; and she vows to her father that she'll be marrying him within four weeks! Arthur doesn't really believe Dorothea can pull that off; but Dorothea makes it her business to visit Dick just about every day at the steel mill and eventually she proposes to him! He accepts, too.

But then things start to happen that could threaten their relationship; Dick doesn't want to be a "kept" husband like Llewllyn Post (Freeman Wood) is being kept by his rich wife Henrietta (Clara Kimball Young). Henrietta ruined Llewllyn's drive to become a great architect; and Dick doesn't want Dorothea to ruin his ambitions, either. After a lavish honeymoon of many months (and several cables to the states asking father for yet more money), Dick sees that Dorothea is gradually ruining his ambition to truly earn his keep at the company. It soon becomes a tug-of-war as to which one of them really wears the pants. Dick becomes even more uncomfortable after he is "promoted" to 3rd vice president of Arthur's steel company.

What happens next can be anyone's guess. Dick is told by his father-in-law there's a big sales job to score a contract on a bridge--it's the biggest gamble the company will ever make. Arthur wants Dick to go to Saint Louis to sell the plan and get the contract. Trouble is, Dorothea throws a temper tantrum and tries anything she can to make Dick stay--will she succeed? What about all the money they need from Arthur to keep up that extravagant lifestyle--will Arthur eventually stop giving them money? Will Dick even stay with Dorothea or will they divorce? Watch and find out! Look also for excellent performances from Ned Sparks as Hughie Hanready and Mary Carr as Dick's mother.

Kept Husbands is a great film that deals with issues that still crop up in our times; but it must have been somewhat scandalous in its day. I highly recommend this film for fans of the actors in it; and people who like classic movies would do well to get this film.

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Millie

Loved this movie. This is definitely a movie of "forbidden Holywood". This movie touches on lesbianism, attempted rape and how life in the fast lane affects one woman.

"Work?!? You won't have any time for opportunity!"

Millie is an excellent pre-Code drama with convincing acting and a plot that moves along at a fairly good pace despite some slow points here and there. The casting is well done and the choreography is great! The cinematography is very good and the sound is fine; the quality of the print is really rather good for an "Alpha Films" DVD release.

When the action starts (and believe me, there'll be lots of action in this picture), we meet Millicent 'Millie' Blake (Helen Twelvetrees) who gets a surprise proposal of marriage from a man (John 'Jack' Maitland played by James Hall) she's not quite ready to settle down with; but she goes through with it even though she's rather nervous on her wedding night, to say the least. Time passes; and Millie and Jack now have an adorable baby girl. They are living well in fancy Westchester County, New York, too. There's just one little problem: Jack no longer loves Millie! He says he still loves her; but Millie knows better. One day, when Millie goes to have lunch with her "more-than-just-good-friends" Helen 'Hel' Riley (Lilyan Tashman) and Angie Wickerstaff (Joan Blondell), Millie discovers Jack fooling around with another woman--and that's it for their marriage.

Millie leaves her daughter Connie with Jack because she wants Connie to have all the best in the world that Jack can give her with his money; Millie sees Connie as much as she can and she gets herself a new life. Millie gets a job at a hotel lobby concession stand and she thinks of letting one of two men into her life: James 'Jimmy' Damier (John Halliday) and Tommy Rock (Robert Ames). Although Jimmy could take good financial care of Millie, Millie wants to remain free of relying on men; she proudly says several times that she likes to "pay (her) own way." Tommy does finally manage to catch her, though; and they begin a romance that is also shattered when Millie finds out, again through friends, that Tommy is not being loyal to Millie.

Millie is through with men; but then the greatest challenge comes a few years down the road: what to do when older men start eyeing her now grown (well, sixteen years old) daughter Connie? Millie wants no man doing to Connie what men have done to her; and when she realizes that Connie is being wooed by Jimmy despite his promises to steer clear of Connie, Millie must make a hard choice--and she's quite emotional about it, too!

Of course, the plot can go anywhere from here. What happens to Connie when Jimmy pursues her--will she defy her mother or will Millie lay down the law--or go even further to make sure things don't get out of control? What about Jack and Tommy, the men from Millie's past--will they be able to help, or will one or both of them do nothing to help Millie when she needs it? And what becomes of the love relationship between Helen and Angie after Angie decides to marry a rich older man purely for his money? No spoilers here--watch and find out!

Millie is one of the better pre-Code films released by Alpha Video. It's great to see fine performances by stars including Anita Louise as the grown Connie and Helen Twelvetrees as Millie; Joan Blondell also does a wonderful job of portraying Angie. I highly recommend this for fans of pre-Code drama and the stars of this film.

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In the years before Hollywood submitted to the self-imposed censorship of the Production Code, filmmakers were free to use adultery, prohibition drinking, and sexual double standards to explore the moral complexity of the modern age. Of Human Bondage, John Cromwell's adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's novel, is the best-known but perhaps least interesting example in this triple-feature set. Leslie Howard stars as the sensitive would-be artist turned medical student who falls in love with a slutty waitress (Bette Davis, who steals the film with her cold-hearted manipulations and shrill cockney accent), allowing his desire for this vicious little tart to control and almost destroy his life. At a brief 80 minutes, the picture leaves little nourishment between the narrative peaks but is always well-acted and handsomely staged.

Stalwart Joel McCrea is the working-class engineer who marries a spoiled society girl in Kept Husbands. "Dad, I want him more than anything in the world. Can't I have him?" pleads kittenish Dorothy Mackaill, but the tug of war between his work and her play soon tears them apart. Though the plot is sometimes slow, sparkling society wit and humorous working-class platitudes (croaked out by an always entertaining Ned Sparks) add dimension to the familiar story.

Millie, the jewel of the collection, represents everything great about the pre-code era. Sweetly sexy Helen Twelvetrees is Millie, a small-town girl turned big-city woman disillusioned with love, but while she lets the good times roll she never sacrifices her ideals: "I pay my own way," she insists. When a former beau plots to seduce her 16-year-old daughter, however, the worn, sad woman becomes an avenging angel, ready to sacrifice all for the girl. Though highly melodramatic, with adultery and sex to spare, the film drives ahead with wild abandon, with the dynamic Millie centering the drama. --Sean Axmaker

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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