Extravagance (1930)
A film that starts out looking like a gold digger picture turned on its head; poor little rich girl marries poor, prudish milquetoast, finds she hates wasting away at home, and sets off on a mission to find her fabled sable coat in the pocketbook of another man while the unsuspecting husband toils the hours away in the office.
All the usual Poverty Row fixings are here and piled on thick, though the film has its bright moments with the typical pre-Code allusions to sex; cutting from an embrace to two pairs of shoes at the side of the bed, et cetera; and of course, June Collyer gets to yell “That’s none of your damn business!”
Collyer plays the oblivious Alice Kendall unsympathetically, and her efforts are ironically elevated by her ingenue demeanor (and, unintentionally, the static early talkie environment). Her cloyingly sweet and shallow performance cannot be fully judged or appreciated until the denouement, when the Gods punish Alice for her selfishness.
After gambling and investing her way to her desired station with the help of a rich ‘friend’, Alice serves her husband Fred (Lloyd Hughes) with divorce papers and plans on sailing to Paris to feather a nest with her sable sponsor; but not before being confronted by Esther (Dorothy Christy), the sponsor’s other woman.
Esther’s husband Jim (Owen Moore) enters at the most opportune moment, in the middle of a heated argument over another man, and underscores the soullessness of dishonest wealth by shooting his bride and then himself. Infidelity is not presented as the biggest sin here; money is!
Alice, disgusted, turns tail and heads for home; we find out her mother is destitute (her own daughter didn’t know?), and her hum-drum husband, of course, has been keeping Mom’s lights on by paying the bills. What a little fool she’s been!
The film ends with a moment that can sum up its entire hour. Morrell, Alice’s affluent lover (Jameson Thomas), waits for her at the dock and grabs a fresh copy of the news from a passing paperboy. The MURDER-SUICIDE headlines are shown to us in bold; Morrell looks to the distance, knowingly, then drops the paper to his feet like simple trash and shuffles away as if ready to forget not only everything that has happened within the picture, but the picture itself.
There’s a nearly silent romantic exchange in Extravagance which is a highlight; the chemistry between the leads is so-so until they’re seated together at a dining table, refusing to talk to each other. Suddenly they come alive. Alice starts whistling; Fred finds an article in his paper about a beaten ‘Whistling Wife’, laughs, then turns on the radio to drown her out. No words are spoken—the successful utilization of sound and no dialogue in a 1930 scene is quite charming, and a great demonstration of the pace at which Hollywood was moving.
+1 brownie point for a singular gorgeous sleepwear item in particular; a one-piece silk-pajama with buttons at the pockets worn by June as Alice.