The Lady of Scandal (1930)

Good concept, poorly executed.

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Dull, primitive early talkie from a Frederick Lonsdale stage success. The camera's nailed to the floor, the sound's iffy, and the performances and attitudes aren't just from another era, they're from another planet. Ruth Chatterton, never saying "terribly" when "teddibly" will do, is the stage actress (she does a musical scene, and if that's not her voice, it's a good double) who's looked down on by the family of the Brit gentleman (Ralph Forbes, boring) who wants to marry her. So she conveniently falls in love with his pal Basil Rathbone, also uninteresting, and the matter gets sorted out in clipped accents. Ruth's supposed to be self-sacrificing and appealing but she's haughty and supercilious, and the pacing's glacial. You don't care about these upper-class twits, and it's a relief when it's all ironed out. Marginally compelling as an example of movies learning to talk, but it's really, really stagebound, and director Sidney Franklin lingers over every stilted word as if it were Scripture.

If you want to see a film that shows you just how antiquated some of the early talking pictures were, try watching "The Lady for Scandal". It's a terrible film...one that practically puts you to sleep as you watch.The film begins with an upper-class Brit getting engaged to an actress and the entire family acting scandalized. When she and her fiancé arrive at the family estate, instead of fireworks, everyone talks and talks and talks and talks. And the problem with this is that it is all VERY mannered, very low energy and about as exciting as watching paint dry! Even Basil Rathbone, who is a lovely actor, is really dull in this one...and has LESS energy than a typical zombie. Insufferably dull and awful.

Interesting drawing room comedy from Frederick Lonsdale (On Approval) casts Ruth Chatterton as a stage star engaged to dull Ralph Forbes. It's announced in the papers that they are to marry so he brings her home to meet the relatives who are outraged at having an actress invade their stuffy manor house.Forbes' father (Herbert Bunston) decides that he will allow it if she quits the stage and stays engaged for 6 months. Three weeks later she cannot abide the oaf and has fallen for Basil Rathbone. She's also brought LIFE into the house in the forms of music, tennis, and "gullet washers" (cocktails).Chatterton was a charming actress of early talkies and is best remembered as a silly wife in the wonderful Dodsworth. She's terrific here and opens and closes the film with a song-and-dance stage number. Rathbone is OK as the love interest. Others in the cast include Nance O'Neill, Effie Ellsler, Cyril Chadwick, Mackenzie Ward, the oddly named Moon Carroll, Edgar Norton (butler again), Robert Bolder as Chatterton's father, and Frederick Kerr, who steals the film as the old crab who discovers the joys of gullet washers.The immense set is quite good as is the writing. As with most of Lonsdale's plays, there is a serious undertone. But Chatterton is always very good, and the rapport between Kerr and O'Neill is hilarious. Forbes may well have been the most boring actor in films.

British playwright Frederick Lonsdale had many of his drawing room comedies transferred to the screen, and this is one of his best. Ralph Forbes is in love with Ruth Chatterton, a British star actress, and forces the issue of marriage by announcing their engagement in the newspapers. He is the son of staid Lord Crayle (Herbert Bunston), who gathers the family together at his estate to try to determine what to do about it. They consider offering her a sum of £5000 to deny it when Forbes brings her to the meeting. Except for Basil Rathbone, the family is dead set against the marriage and think Chatterton too low in society. In a funny twist, her father, Robert Bolder, arrives to object to the marriage too. He thinks Chatterton is a genius at providing entertainment for the masses, and doesn't want her marrying beneath her station. He suggests they approve the engagement providing the marriage is delayed for six months, by which time Forbes should be totally bored with her. They agree and so does Forbes and Chatterton. She stays at the estate and brings about a transformation in the most reserved members. It was fun to watch Herbert Bunston do a solo modern dance to the tune of "Lulu Comes Home." And Frederick Kerr, who normally doesn't drink, gets drunk as he extols the virtues of the "gulley washers" Chatterton introduces him to. Meanwhile, Rathbone and Chatterton fall in love, but she is also aware he has been carrying on a long-term affair with a married Parisian woman, who he had said earlier he would marry if he could. He promises to give up the woman, but things change as they hear on the radio that the husband of that woman has died. Now Chatterton feels that woman will always be between them, but Rathbone is adamant about giving her up. Chatterton puts through a call to her in Paris and hands the phone to Rathbone, who has some difficulty going through with his plan. And Forbes has some ideas about his life, too.