pre-Code
Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorshi ...
romantic comedy film co-written and directed by
Gregory La Cava
Gregory La Cava (March 10, 1892 – March 1, 1952) was an American film director of Italian descent best known for his films of the 1930s, including ''My Man Godfrey'' and ''Stage Door'', which earned him nominations for Academy Award for Best ...
and starring
Constance Bennett
Constance Campbell Bennett (October 22, 1904 – July 24, 1965) was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress and producer. She was a major Hollywood star during the 1920s and 1930s; during the early 1930s, she was the highest-paid ...
. The picture was released by
RKO Radio Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orphe ...
with a supporting cast featuring
Joel McCrea
Joel Albert McCrea (November 5, 1905 – October 20, 1990) was an American actor whose career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adventures, and Westerns, for which he beca ...
and
Pert Kelton
Pert or PERT may refer to:
Ships
* - see List of United States Navy ships: P
* , a World War II corvette, originally HMS ''Nepeta''
* ''Pert'' (sidewheeler), a 19th-century steamboat that operated in British Columbia, Canada
Statistics
* PER ...
.
The film is preserved in the Library of Congress collection.''Catalog of Holdings The American Film Institute Collection and The United Artists Collection at The Library of Congress'', p. 13. Los Angeles, California: AFI, 1978.
Plot
Lorry (
Constance Bennett
Constance Campbell Bennett (October 22, 1904 – July 24, 1965) was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress and producer. She was a major Hollywood star during the 1920s and 1930s; during the early 1930s, she was the highest-paid ...
) and Minnie (
Pert Kelton
Pert or PERT may refer to:
Ships
* - see List of United States Navy ships: P
* , a World War II corvette, originally HMS ''Nepeta''
* ''Pert'' (sidewheeler), a 19th-century steamboat that operated in British Columbia, Canada
Statistics
* PER ...
) are a pair of rollickingly wanton prostitutes who occasionally get hapless male admirers drunk before robbing them. After being released from a Louisiana jail they head down the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
on a steamboat. Lorry steals $60 from a "Mr. Smith" she entertains in her room, and when she is confronted by the boat's captain, who accuses her of the theft, she escapes by jumping off the vessel into the river. She is soon rescued by cotton barge skipper Dan (
Joel McCrea
Joel Albert McCrea (November 5, 1905 – October 20, 1990) was an American actor whose career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adventures, and Westerns, for which he beca ...
), but she robs him too.
Once in New Orleans, Lorry disguises herself as a newspaper writer in order to meet publishing magnate Stephen Paige ( John Halliday). She then gets him drunk, takes him to his home, and the next morning blackmails him into supporting her, including renting a lavish apartment for her. She returns to the cotton barge and repays Dan his "loan" and they fall in love. Minnie now arrives at Lorry's apartment, soon followed by Stephen, who threatens to expose her sordid past, causing her to leave him but not to return to Dan, whom she had agreed to marry. When Stephen cannot persuade her to return to him, he realizes that she really does love Dan, and he brings about their reunion with the help of the now-married Minnie.
Cast
Reception
The film in 1933 received generally mediocre reviews in leading newspapers and
trade paper
A trade magazine, also called a trade journal or trade paper (colloquially or disparagingly a trade rag), is a magazine or newspaper whose target audience is people who work in a particular trade or industry. The collective term for this ...
s. The one consistent exception in the print media's rather lukewarm reaction to the production was Pert Kelton, whose performance was widely praised. In his review for ''The New York Times'', critic
Mordaunt Hall
Mordaunt Hall (1 November 1878 – 2 July 1973) was the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for ''The New York Times'', working from October 1924 to September 1934.Hall, Mordaunt (1933) "Constance Bennett Appears in 'Bed of Roses,' a New Film at the Radio City Music Hall" review, archives of ''The New York Times'', June 30, 1933. Retrieved March 18, 2019. Hall, however, does recognize Kelton for doing "remarkably well as the slangy Minnie".
''The Film Daily'' in its July 1, 1933 issue judges ''Bed of Roses'' as "average entertainment" and describes Bennett as moving "through her part without any distinction.""Bed of Roses" review, ''
The Film Daily
''The Film Daily'' was a daily publication that existed from 1918 to 1970 in the United States. It was the first daily newspaper published solely for the film industry. It covered the latest trade news, film reviews, financial updates, informatio ...
'' (New York, N.Y.), July 1, 1933, p. 3.
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
, San Francisco, California. Retrieved March 20, 2019. On the other hand, Kelton's performance also impressed the trade paper. "She fits the hard-boiled part perfectly", ''The Film Daily'' observes, "and scores repeatedly with hearty laughs."
Abel Green Abel Green (June 3, 1900 – May 10, 1973) was an American journalist best known as the editor of ''Variety'' for forty years. Sime Silverman first hired Green as a reporter in 1918, and Green's byline first appeared on May 30, 1919.
Biography ...
in his review for ''Variety'', another widely read entertainment paper at the time, refers to the "so-so flicker" as "tawdry and unwholesome in the main".Green, Abel (1933) "Bed of Roses" review, ''Variety'', July 4, 1933, p. 16. Internet Archive. Retrieved March 18, 2019. He too preferred to focus on Kelton: