Marion Davis

  • Operator 13 (1934)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) There’s something interesting in Operator 13’s dive into American Civil War history as a pretext for a spy romance. It features Marion Davis as a showgirl pressed into service to spy on southern forces as a maid (in blackface, unbelievably enough). With Gary Cooper to blandly serve as a romantic interest, you can see how the film is an early shot at the four-quadrant demographics even in the 1930s. For modern viewers, the dismay at the blackface stuff may (or may not) be matched with the unusual nature of a spy story set at an unusual period—especially now when few spy thrillers ever delve beyond World War II. The ludicrousness of the story was apparent even to 1934 viewers, but there’s some lingering effectiveness to this early-Hollywood attempt to dramatize recent history (reminder: The American Civil War was as distant to 1934 as the mid-1950s are to 2022) even when it scarcely makes any sense.

  • The Bachelor Father (1931)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) Even the most ordinary pre-Code films have their charms, and so The Bachelor Father’s enduring impression is based on its very casual depiction of fatherhood, as a British aristocrat decides one day to track down his three estranged children (from decades-ago liaisons) and recall them to his estate for a reconciliation. For those young men and women, it’s like winning the lottery—even more so for one of them, as she is unaware of her parentage. Movie secrets have a tendency to form the backbone of third acts, so it’s not any big wonder if that ends up being The Bachelor Father’s eventual climax. (Along with some transatlantic flying—recall that Lindbergh had completed the first such flight only four years prior.)  Marion Davis is not bad as the unaware unrelated young woman, while C. Aubrey Smith (reprising his role from the theatrical version) doesn’t too badly in the older man’s role, despite built-in objections to him as the worst father ever. While not particularly funny nor heartwarming, The Bachelor Father nonetheless goes down smoothly as a competent Pre-Code film, a bit racier than later movies and generally handled well enough in an appropriately short running time.