Possessed (1931)

Director:

Clarence Brown

Writers:

Edgar Selwyn (play)
Lenore J. Coffee (adaptation)

Release Date:

21 November 1931 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

Marion is a factory worker who hopes to trade the assembly line, for a beautiful penthouse apartment...

Plot Keywords:

Feminism | Coney Island | Political | Election | Sex

Cast

Joan Crawford	...	Marian Martin, aka Mrs. Moreland
Clark Gable	...	Mark Whitney
Wallace Ford	...	Al Manning
Richard 'Skeets' Gallagher	...	Wallace 'Wally' Stuart (as Skeets Gallagher)
Frank Conroy	...	Horace Travers
Marjorie White	...	Vernice LaVerne
John Miljan	...	John Driscoll
Clara Blandick	...	Marian's mother

Runtime:

76 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | USA:Approved | UK:PG (re-rating) (1994) | UK:A (original rating)

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

Edgar Selwyn's play, "The Mirage", opened in New York on 30 September 1920.

Quotes:

Marian Martin, aka Mrs. Moreland: You don't own me. Nobody does. My life belongs to me.
Al Manning: You'll make one fine mess of it.
Marian Martin, aka Mrs. Moreland: It'll still belong to me.
Marian's mother: Don't, Marian, you frighten me when you talk like that.
Marian Martin, aka Mrs. Moreland: If I were a man it wouldn't frighten you! You'd think it was right for me to go out and get anything I could out of life, and use anything I had to get it. Why should men be so different? All they've got are their brains and they're not afraid to use them. Well neither am I!

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006)

Soundtrack:

Little Annie Roonie

Dated social mores

Joan Crawford is a girl who longs for a better and faster life than she has in Podunkville, USA with factory worker Wallace Ford eager for her hand in marriage. She journeys to NYC where she charms Clark Gable, a lawyer with political ambitions, into a relationship. Not marriage, mind you, though to keep the relationship secret she now goes by the name of a widow.

I was reminded of that line from Goodfellas where the wise guys bring girl friends to the Copacabana on Thursday night and wives on Friday night. I guess Gable doesn't qualify to go on Friday nights. Today the whole premise of the film is ridiculous because these two are both unmarried adults. Class distinctions just ain't what they used to be.

Women have certainly come a long way from 1931 where apparently the only career choices open to them were wife and mom or the kept Possessed woman. That's why the film is so dated.

But Gable and Crawford make it interesting to watch, but it's in neither of their top 10 lists.

In Possessed there is a really nice torch ballad entitled How Long Will It Last which Crawford sings. But a better version of it was done by Bing Crosby in one of his early Brunswick recordings.