The Rains Came

At a formal dinner early on in Clarence Brown's The Rains Came, former lovers Lady Edwina Esketh (Myrna Loy) and Tom Ransome (George Brent) reunite. He very much wants to rekindle their affair while she has her sights set on Hindu doctor Maj. Rama Safti (Tyrone Power). She admits she's trying to seduce Rama out of boredom but will it result in something else?

Released the same year as other big screen spectacles like Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, The Rains Came is mostly forgotten to today's audiences. But there's one aspect of the film that stands out: the special effects. It doesn't take much to see how it won the Oscar over the two previously alluded titles.

Being made within the Hays Code, Edwina's flirtations are treated with scorn by nearly everyone she encounters. How dare a woman go behind her husband's back (especially if he knows of them) for her own personal urges? After all, women are supposed to only be wives and mothers, nothing else. (At least that's what the most conceited of people would think.)

But Edwina develops a sense to redeem herself after spending more time with Rama. (If you're familiar with other fiction following this premise, you may know the outcome.) Admittedly such a conclusion might seem like cheap writing but bear in mind this was a time when women had very little standing outside a domestic setting; they had to break free somehow.

The Rains Came may follow the conventions of storytelling at the time but the work from its three leads warrant a look at least. (It also showed Power's underused talent.) It has that balance of adventure and romance, a common trait of films from that era, but one that only works a scant number of times. (This, of course, is one such example.)

My Rating: ****

A Free Soul

Clarence Brown's A Free Soul contains everything that made a film from the pre-code era famous. A respectable member of society falling in love with someone from the wrong side of the tracks. A scandal just waiting to happen. Murder.

Jan Ashe (Norma Shearer) is the daughter of prominent but alcoholic lawyer Stephen Ashe (Lionel Barrymore). She's engaged to Dwight Winthrop (Leslie Howard), but she has no intentions of marrying him. Instead, she carries on a fling with Ace Wilfong (Clark Gable), a gangster and Stephen's client.

Brown most definitely got some great performances out of his actors. Long before they were Rhett Butler and Ashley Wilkes, Gable and Howard wonderfully represent the bad boy and the perfect gentleman in Jan's life. Barrymore represents Jan's crumbling pillar of support, getting weaker from age and drink.

But this show belongs to Shearer. Her character goes through a number of events that any other actress in the role could have easily overdone it. Shearer, however, knows what she's doing. And boy, does she nail this role.

A Free Soul is one of those films that made a bit of an impact upon its release but over eighty years later, it has somewhat been forgotten. It's hard to see why: stellar actors, an amusing story...how has it been forgotten?

My Rating: *****