Lady with a Past (1932)

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

"Lady with a Past" is Constance Bennett as an unlikely bookish wallflower who sails from New York City to Paris where she engineers a fake sex scandal hoping it will make her the talk of the town by the time she returns and thereby attract the attention of young men who find her literary chatter a big bore. She also talks to herself and pretends to be singing out loud when caught in the act.Her co-conspirator in Paris is the golden voiced Ben Lyons whom she picks up at a sidewalk café after he tricks her into paying his food and drink tab. But her heart really belongs to David Manners, a handsome member of her social set who is looking for someone more exciting.If this all seems terribly unexciting, it is. Then why watch? Miss Bennett, of course. They don't make 'em like that any more. In the pre-production publicity it was said that Miss Bennett was being fitted for 17 gowns to wear in the film. I didn't count, but she probably did.

In order to find this film believable, you have to buy the premise that Constance Bennett, one of the most beautiful and glamorous Hollywood stars ever, is unattractive to men. Does her character, Venice Muir (her parents honeymooned in Venice) wear glasses, frumpy clothes, have dull hair? Uh, no, she looks like Constance Bennett, it's just that she's playing an intelligent woman who likes to read. Meanwhile, the woman who may have poisoned her husband gets all the attention at parties.One night, while roaring drunk, a man with whom Venice is in love, Donnie Wainwright (David Manners), proposes and wants her to sail with him to France to be married. The next day, he's sober. So Venice travels alone.In Paris, she meets a man Buy (Ben Lyons) whom she hires as a gigolo to bring her to parties and get her into the right circles so that she can meet someone. He has the idea that if he creates a "past" for her, she will be more exciting to men.This is a nice film, but I didn't believe it for a second. Venice has intelligence, money, glamor, beauty, and guys want to date a woman who might have killed her husband? If it had been another actress, someone like Anna Lee, Sylvia Sidney, good-looking but perhaps not a knockout, it would have been more realistic.For Constance Bennett fans. She is always a joy, and the performances are good, particularly from Ben Lyons.

Constance Bennett is miserable. Despite having money and being a pretty lady, she is hardly noticed by men. Yet, at the same time, 'bad' women attract men like flies. For instance, one woman was acquitted for shooting her husband--and now men won't leave her alone! So, out of desperation, she hires a guy down on his luck to pose as her lover and create the impression she's a loose woman! He seems a bit worldly and indicates he knows how to make her attractive by making her mysterious and a bit trampy. The plan works pretty well--but, of course, by the end of the film several complications have occurred.The plot is pretty clever and is carried off pretty well due to good acting from Bennett and Ben Lyon. Not a great film, but nice entertainment and worth your time.

This is a charming, subtle little pre-code in which everything is implied and little actually shown.Constance Bennet is a good girl from a good New York family and no one finds her interesting. In Paris she finds Ben Lyon, an indigent American who bums a beer from her. She hires him as a gigolo and he shows her how to be fascinating to men, using frequent kicks to the shin to encourage her education.Lyon is particularly good in his fast-talking role and Miss Bennet is at her most charming. The two have real chemistry together and Edward Griffith directs with a gracefully moving camera under the control of the under-rated Hal Mohr. All of these combine to produce a comedy that is knowing without being cynical.