Delicious (1931)
* 1/2 (out of 4)
Really bad musical/drama from Fox about a Scottish immigrant (Janet Gaynor) who arrives in America with a detective (Lawrence O'Sullivan) hot on her trail. She's able to duck him for the time and this is how she meets Larry Beaumont (Charles Farrell), a rich man and it doesn't take long for the two to fall in love. DELICIOUS was the ninth film to feature Gaynor and Farrell together so needless to say the duo were very popular and audiences loved them. I do wonder how audiences originally reacted to this film. I mean, it's so poorly made but I wonder if they would eat this type of thing up anyways. We've got a poorly made movie that runs way too long with a story with so much sugar on it that it almost caused this diabetic to go into a coma and to make matters worse it features some horrid and embarrassing songs from George and Ira Gershwin. We can start with the ugliness of the movie. Yes, production levels hadn't reached their highpoint in 1931 but there's still no reason for this film to look as badly as it does. The cinematography is among the worst I've seen from a major studio and even the editing is poor. The film, for some reason, was shot way too dark and the special effect dream sequences look poor as well. The music numbers are so small and silly that it almost seems like they took a camera into a local bar and just filmed some drunks trying to dance. The story itself is a very predictable one but what they did to the Gaynor character is make her so child-like and "sweet" that she almost comes across as being slow. The character is so fake and boring that you can't help but not care what happens to her. It also doesn't help that Gaynor is really bad in the role. She was one of the best actresses of this era so it's pretty sad seeing her work with nothing. Still, she deserves some of the blame as well and especially for that Scottish accent that goes in and out as the movie flows. Farrell and the rest of the supporting players are equally bad. Clock in at 106-minutes also shows that the producers just wanted to throw everything into the movie no matter if it worked or not. I'm sure DELICIOUS will have people interested due to the talent involved but sadly it's a complete misfire not worth anyone's time.
* 1/2 (out of 4)
Really bad musical/drama from Fox about a Scottish immigrant (Janet Gaynor) who arrives in America with a detective (Lawrence O'Sullivan) hot on her trail. She's able to duck him for the time and this is how she meets Larry Beaumont (Charles Farrell), a rich man and it doesn't take long for the two to fall in love. DELICIOUS was the ninth film to feature Gaynor and Farrell together so needless to say the duo were very popular and audiences loved them. I do wonder how audiences originally reacted to this film. I mean, it's so poorly made but I wonder if they would eat this type of thing up anyways. We've got a poorly made movie that runs way too long with a story with so much sugar on it that it almost caused this diabetic to go into a coma and to make matters worse it features some horrid and embarrassing songs from George and Ira Gershwin. We can start with the ugliness of the movie. Yes, production levels hadn't reached their highpoint in 1931 but there's still no reason for this film to look as badly as it does. The cinematography is among the worst I've seen from a major studio and even the editing is poor. The film, for some reason, was shot way too dark and the special effect dream sequences look poor as well. The music numbers are so small and silly that it almost seems like they took a camera into a local bar and just filmed some drunks trying to dance. The story itself is a very predictable one but what they did to the Gaynor character is make her so child-like and "sweet" that she almost comes across as being slow. The character is so fake and boring that you can't help but not care what happens to her. It also doesn't help that Gaynor is really bad in the role. She was one of the best actresses of this era so it's pretty sad seeing her work with nothing. Still, she deserves some of the blame as well and especially for that Scottish accent that goes in and out as the movie flows. Farrell and the rest of the supporting players are equally bad. Clock in at 106-minutes also shows that the producers just wanted to throw everything into the movie no matter if it worked or not. I'm sure DELICIOUS will have people interested due to the talent involved but sadly it's a complete misfire not worth anyone's time.