CHILD OF MANHATTAN
d. Edward Buzzell, 1933

4 August 2009

CHILD OF MANHATTAN contains taxi dancing, premarital sex, a kept woman, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, discussion of prostitution, oblique references to abortion, and a Mexican divorce - all solid Pre-Code content.

The film itself, however, stalls in the mire of earnest melodrama, albeit with a couple of odd comic detours - such as an Irish mother complaining to her taxi-dancing daughter about "Eye-talians," and an Italian lawyer who plays just this side of Chico Marx. It was hard to peg the tone because of these shifts, until I realized that CHILD OF MANHATTAN is an early Preston Sturges script. So that accounts for the comic asides, if not the earnest melodrama.

With the rich/poor romance and selfless, suffering heroine bound for happiness despite herself, I'm guessing this is the kind of picture shopgirls and housewives saw at matinees in the 30s.

Heroine Nancy Carroll is a cute Everygirl in that 30s heart-shaped face way, resembling a softer, more domesticated Bette Davis. It's hard to assess her as an actreess, since her character is burdened with some unwieldy contradictions. When introduced, she's an experienced (although not quite cynical) dance hall girl. As the story develops, she's portrayed as much more meek and naive than the earlier scenes might lead one to expect. She makes a series of selfless, morally upright and completely dumb decisions based on flimsy misunderstandings, and the consequences drive the melodrama.

As much as anything, it is the lapsed genres of 1930s pop culture that fascinate me. There isn't quite any modern equivalent to the kind of film CHILD OF MANHATTAN represents. I'd love to get hold of several years' worth of Photoplay and other movie fan magazines from the 30s to see how these were promoted to the public.