AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

mark.waltz All great stars had to start somewhere, and for Barbara Stanwyck, it was on Broadway. The play "Burlesque" made her famous and brought her to the attention of film producers. It would take a man named Frank Capra to get ahold of her and teach her to love the camera and teach the camera to love her. But between "Burlesque" on Broadway and "Ladies of Leisure", Stanwyck made several films in which she did her best to find her niche' on screen. "The Locked Door" and "Mexicali Rose" are the two I've seen, and in each, I have to admit that my favorite actress of the 30's and 40's just hadn't found her place yet. It doesn't help that the films are stagy, filmed like old theatre melodramas, and are stiff and rigid. Stanwyck has presence; She just needed the right Svengali to come along and show her the way. "The Locked Door" is certainly better than "Mexicali Rose" (the Brooklyn gal as a Latina?), but not much better. Rod La Rocque is the slimy villain she fights off then defends her sister-in-law from; He is an exile of the silent movies, a character that has thankfully faded from view in films, TV and theatre except for parody (most memorably in the Broadway musical "The Drowsy Chaperone"). No one else in the cast really is worth mentioning except for Zasu Pitts as the chatty operator who adds on some much needed laughs. Thankfully this has been rescued from obscurity by recent TCM airings, one of the last Stanwyck films I needed to see to complete my viewing of all her work. As Stanwyck herself proclaimed, "They never should have opened the damned door!"

John Seal Is there a rottener rotter than louche Rod la Rocque? Not if you judge him on his performance in this surprisingly agile early talkie from producer/director George Fitzmaurice. La Rocque plays playboy Frank Devereaux, who meets sweet young thing Ann Carter (Barbara Stanwyck in good early form) aboard an offshore Prohibition booze boat and almost rapes her. His indiscretion is interrupted by a police raid, but the propitious appearance of a newspaper shutterbug allows slimy Frank to get his hands on a photo of the event with which he can later blackmail Ann, wed 'eighteen months later' to straight arrow Larry Reagen (Stage Boyd). Larry's innocent little sister Helen (cute Betty Bronson) is also being eyed by the lascivious Devereaux, and complications ensue when Ann goes to his penthouse apartment to persuade him not to be such a cad. Yeah, good luck with that. With eyebrows perpetually arched and pencil moustache carefully groomed, la Rocque would be the perfect person to portray John Waters in a biopic. Also of note: ZaSu Pitts turn as a bored telephone operator and William Cameron Menzies impressive set design.

Robert J. Maxwell Kind of a historical curiosity. Here it is, 1929, and it's a talkie. The microphones were hidden in bouquets and under lapels. The noisy camera was hidden within a sound-resistant "blimp." On those many occasions when people weren't walking or dashing around, they stood in staged groups facing the camera, as if for a wedding photograph.And the truth is they didn't need to dart around that often. The story rests with the dialog, which, without too much in the way of perspiration or creative frenzy, could have been a radio play.Barbara Stanwyck's character is young, pretty, vulnerable, and innocent, and she is talked into accompanying the womanizing cad, Rod La Roque (his real name, more or less) onto an offshore ship where liquor can be served legally -- this being Prohibition and all. The ship drifts within territorial boundaries and Stanwyck is arrested and her reputation stained.Hiding this scurrilous incident, she manages to marry an older and very wealthy man, William "Stage" Boyd, and she lives with him and his sister, Betty Bronson, in their mansion.But, lo. Rod La Roque shows up again, this time trying to seduce Stanwyck's young sister-in-law, Bronson. Both Stanwyck and La Roque remember that night from eighteen months earlier but neither lets on in front of the others.I don't want to make this exposition too long so -- an abbreviated version would simply say that La Roque makes a date with Bronson in his hotel room, but Boyd, having discovered what a cad La Roque is, shows up first and shoots him by accident. He leaves. But Stanwyck had shown up first and hidden upstairs. Then the cops arrive and Stanwyck's tryst with La Roque is uncovered. Then Betty Bronson shows up. Then Zasu Pitts, the hotel switchboard operator who has overheard the shooting, is brought in -- and, trust me, she is a DEAD RINGER for Betty Bronson. It would require a DNA EXPERT to tell one from the other.La Roque lives long enough to tell the true story and absorb whatever blame is to be distributed. Everyone goes home happy, except for La Roque, of course, who is completely dead.The film generates a certain amount of suspense and pity, but not much of either. But it's pleasant to think of a time in history when a woman's reputation could be ruined by her having been swept out to a ship that served liquor. Kind of nostalgic, like those cloche hats the ladies wear or the caviar and champagne that the rich could afford. There is no directorial stamp worth noticing and the plot, as I say, seems to come from the radio plays that were becoming popular at the time. A curious artifact, this movie, like a cuckoo clock.

mukava991 The attraction here is not just Barbara Stanwyck, even though it's her first talkie and she handles her role with a secure professionalism that belies her cinematic inexperience. Born for the camera she was! But an equally impressive performance is delivered by Rod La Rocque as the serial cad who mistreats her and then sets his sights on her younger sister. The trappings are typical 20's soap opera/melodrama, in this case derived from a stage play. But not typical for the era is La Rocque's well-tailored villain who seems to have stepped out of a story from a much later era; in fact, his performance would not be considered one bit dated even by today's standards - highly unusual for a film from 1929. His line readings and body language bespeak a decadent, spoiled rogue without a scintilla of conscience, all of this enhanced by delicately tapered sideburns. He also has a smooth, deep speaking voice. The look and style of the film are standard for the era but include an interesting, lively panoramic dance party sequence on a "drinking boat" (pleasure boats that sailed outside the 12-mile limit of the US coast so the patrons could drink alcohol illegally during the Prohibition era) intercut with an intimate scene between Stanwyck and La Rocque in one of the cabins.