Waste of talent


This film was probably shot in a week. Simply terrible. Never thought I would say Cary Grant did poor job but this is bad.

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No matter what, Loretta Young looks gorgeous !

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I didn't think it was so bad. The ending was a little disturbing.

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I didn't think it was so bad, either. I enjoyed Grant and Young's performances -- particularly Young because I'm used to seeing her play more refined characters. However the film did seem to cut off when there was more of a story left to be told. When I recorded it and saw it was barely more than an hour long I wondered why.

I've been watching an unusual number of films lately which were made in the early '30s and I'm surprised at how many of them involve infidelity.



Cheese fries...next time.

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Do you think we are supposed to believe that she has left her son with Grant's character and his wife for good? Has her character changed for the better?

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Good questions. I don't know for sure, since they could've thrown some more twists in there.

Letty may have genuinely realized she had some growing up to do and may have convinced herself that Mickey would have a more stable upbringing with Malcom and his wife. I could be wrong, but I doubt Letty's conscience would allow her to stay away for good, so she might try to arrange visitations, eventually. However I don't imagine that Mickey was in a tension-free home from the final moment of the film, with the wife knowing her husband wanted to leave her for another woman...but who knows, maybe the husband and wife were able to rekindle what they once had.

I may have missed something, but I didn't necessarily buy Malcom's wife's story about how Malcom only preferred Letty because she was able to provide a child for him. It sounded like the type of thing a jealous person might say in order to cause a rift and if that's the case it worked. It seemed that if Malcom found out his wife said that, he might go to Letty and try to convince her that what he felt for her was more than just appreciation for getting a son.

That said, apparently the code of filmmaking regarding infidelity was beginning to be enforced around the time this film came out (the code was officially being enforced about 6 weeks after this film was released), so Letty and Malcom wouldn't have been allowed a happy ending together. It makes me wonder if the originally intended outcome was for Letty, Malcom and Mickey to be a family. Rather than showing that, the film ended and made code enforcers happy(?).



Cheese fries...next time.

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Thanks - your explanation makes a lot of sense. I had forgotten how controversial infidelity was in those days.

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I think the primary issue with Grant in this one was his attempt at an American dialect. He seems rather nervous when speaking, and some words his natural distinctive Mid-Atlantic British tone slips out.

I don't think it was all together terrible. It's pretty characteristic pre-code scandal themed fair. Decent amount of drama with the storyline of Grant taking in Young's son. The affair angle is overdone, and the ending leaves much to be desired.

But what I found most interesting, is that specific ending- (*SPOILER*) the open-endedness, unresolved type ending with a somber occurence. Together with the character Young plays, leading the good man astray and into trouble, etc. actually made me see this movie as a very early precusor to film noir.

It for all purposes should in fact be categorized as such, but for the fact that real textbook film noir didn't exsist in 1934.

I found that discovering one of the most pleasant surprises in the movie.

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I agree with everyone's assessment of "Born to Be Bad." The outfit that Loretta Young wore while playing with her son was a shock to 1934 America, but would be more in tune with today's films, ironically. Cary Grant, being a new star to Hollywood at the time, was learning the ropes of moviemaking, although he did a couple of Mae West films at Paramount prior to this movie. All in all, I was surprised at some things in this film that I may have overlooked previously. Finally, I thought Grant and Young, long before they reunited in "The Bishop's Wife" in 1947, did a decent job in their roles. I'll see if it's available on DVD.

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A couple of Mae West films?! Grant had already been in film for 2 years before Born To Be Bad, and had starred in 15 total films.

And that old claim about "a couple of Mae West films" stuff is rubbish. West always liked to say that to make it seem Cary was only famous because of her prior to his 1937 blockbuster The Awful Truth which made him the leading male star of Hollywood. The truth of the matter is prior to Born To Be Bad, Grant was always in one of the leading male roles in every one of his films even since his debut in This Is The Night.

And the 2 Mae West films are only part of the story on his successes prior to 1934. Of which his first legitmate major breakthrough role, that first attracted significant notice in the movie industry, came before he ever did any film with Mae. It was in Blonde Venus with Marlene Dietrich in 1932.

Yes, his 2 film with West were successes, but they were only 2 out of a handful of hit films Grant starred in before Born To Be Bad. Those in order were- The Devil And The Deep, Blonde Venus (which I mentioned), Hot Saturday, She Done Him Wrong (his 1st film with West), The Eagle And The Hawk, I'm No Angel (2nd film with West), and Alice In Wonderland, were his was included in the cast made specifically of Paramount's biggest and most popular stars at that time. (Achiving that status would have been hard to do on simply 2 hit films with Mae West alone.)

It's a terrible shame Mae West's myth of being the only source of Grant's successes during his early years has been so long and so widely perpetuated. And it's especially unfortunate because it devalues all the other good films Grant did in that time.

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I kept thinking how different they both were here than they were 13 yrs. later in the delightful The Bishop's Wife. Obviously, their screen personas improved since Born to be Bad. Having said that, it was nice to see Loretta Young cast against type.

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If the reality TV show "Jersey Shore" was someone's pet dog, and brought to the vetinarian to be neutered, the ending result would be this movie.

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Kind of a dopey premise also. Cary Grant had already told Loretta Young he'd do anything for the kid and would provide a big settlement, so why did they need to go to court other than to show the obnoxious Jewish lawyer and create the device whereby Loretta Young gets found out so Cary Grant could adopt the kid.

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I loved Loretta's performance, but he was terrible.

Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop

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