Pleasure (1931) Poster

(1931)

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5/10
Brothers Have Similar Tastes
boblipton28 April 2023
Conway Tearle is a successful novelist, estranged from wife Carmel Meyers. Paul Page, Tearle's brother, is an unsuccessful painter who doesn't work hard enough. Tearle subsidizes him. When he finds a perfect model in Frances Dade, he falls in love with her. He doesn't know she is carrying on an affair with Tearle, whom she does not know is married.

Tearle seems unable to speak a line without intoning it, while Page seems callow. In all probability, there are performance choices, but it causes me to dislike both of them. My sympathy is reserved for Miss Myers, who has a rare well-written talkie role, and Miss Dade, who is an elegant creature, best remembered these days, for her performance as Lucy in DRACULA. Hers was a short career, fifteen screen appearances from 1928 through 1933, then a marriage to a wealthy man. She died in 1968 and the age of 57.

Somewhere in the writing, this movie was intended as a serious commentary on open marriage. It seems to have lost its way, and become tawdry as a result. Keep an eye out for Roscoe Karns, Lina Basquette, and George Hayes, far from his 'Gabby' persona.
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7/10
It's a Pleasure!! - Not Really!
kidboots13 July 2016
Warning: Spoilers
  • it's okay, just one of a group of films with one punch titles ("Extravagance"(1930), "Exposure"(1932)) that seemed to suggest more than the films delivered. Stoic Conway Tearle - "the man of one expression", amazingly seemed to get a new lease of life when talkies came in. I suppose he was the Clive Brook of poverty row!! He was also given a boost on Broadway by originating the role of Larry Renault in "Dinner at Eight" but unfortunately for Tearle, when the film was produced, MGM went for John Barrymore - maybe they had seen Tearle in just too many of these turgid quickies!!


He was definitely given a couple of lovely stars for this movie, starting with sultry Carmel Myers (a star of Universal, in the early days), she plays Dorothy, fed up wife of Gerald (Tearle), a frustrated writer but she is still living the life of a single woman with parties and men at her command. Gerald envies his playboy brother, George (the once popular (for a couple of years) Paul Page) - he is forever sponging off Gerry until he meets Joan who becomes his muse (he is an artist) and whom he feels is "Miss Right". When Gerald drops into one of Georges's parties (probably to see how the other, more exciting half live) he also meets pretty Joan Channing, who not knowing his identity is eager to discuss an interesting book she has been reading......

Joan is a socialite and a lot more suited to Gerald's staid intellectual pursuits than his carefree brother. They become a twosome but somehow when Dorothy finds out, she is not the laid back, everybody's got a right to be happy girl as of old - seems she wants to be the only happy one in this family. She organizes a dinner between the four of them, hoping for a showdown and there is one - but not really as she planned.

Frances Dade (Joan) was a beauty with a Joan Bennett/Jean Harlow look about her. Unfortunately she was from a socially prominent family and while that was a plus given her regal bearing and also her reputation as a very elegant dresser, it was a minus for her acting skills - she sounded as though she were slumming!! Not so Lina Basquette who made the most of her brief screen time as a tempestuous model whom George eventually discards when Joan visits the studio.

It is described as a racy pre-code but at around 50 minutes, what's left is nothing to get too excited about - just the old "two men in love with the same girl" malarkey!!
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1/10
Why is there no rating lower than "1"?
JohnHowardReid2 November 2016
Warning: Spoilers
This movie does not seem to have survived in its original length of 73 minutes, but in a Kodascope 16mm copy of around one hour. The story now moves in a series of jerks. No, "moves" is the wrong word. The movie hardly moves at all. It stumbles along in a series of non-sequiturs that are so boring, it's not even worthwhile looking up how to spell the word. The male leads, Conway Tearle and Paul Page, are pretty dreadful in all respects, including charisma, charm and acting abilities. In fact it's hard to believe that Conway Tearle was a major star in "B" movies right up to 1936. However, it was good to see Carmel Myers who had a remarkable career from 1915 to 1976 (she died in 1980). Frances Dade who played the second femme role in "Dracula" can also be glimpsed in this movie as well as – at least according to the blurb on the Alpha DVD – Lina Basquette, but with 13 minutes or so missing, I wouldn't be too sure of that – and I'm certainly not going to run the movie again to find out!
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