Well folks, I’ve decided that I’m going to do a series on William Powell and Myrna Loy. I started with their film The Thin Man, and altogether the two made thirteen or fourteen pictures together–depending on whether or not you count Loy’s cameo at the end of Powell’s film The Senator Was Indiscreet–so it makes sense to go ahead and discuss all of their pictures while I’m at it. (Also, I enjoy watching them together, and this is my blog, so this is what I’m going to do.)
Next up on the billing is Evelyn Prentice. Although it was made in the same year as The Thin Man and the two stars are the same, this film is very, very different. Powell and Loy do play a married couple, John and Evelyn Prentice, but their marriage is very different from Nick and Nora’s. This is one of their few forays into dramatic territory, and what’s more, the film focuses more on Loy’s character than on Powell’s–a very rare occurrence indeed.
Check out the original trailer (yay original/awful quality!), and check back this week for my discussion of the film.
What! That was entirely misleading! Who came up with trailers for these old movies? Had they even seen the movie first? They featured the little girl like she was an important plot point, and I don’t even remember her from the movie. And as for the plot…they made it sound like a completely different movie. *grumpy face*
I believe that the studio publicity departments were responsible for the trailers. This one, like many at the time, is very, very misleading. They probably included the little girl to appeal to the emotions of the audience–children do that, and especially children of unhappy marriages. And plot-wise, yes, it is very misleading. The story itself was dramatic enough as portrayed in the film, and for the trailer it seems like they picked the most dramatic moments–and some that I think were cut from the final version of the movie–and stuck them all together. It’s somewhat incoherent and makes it seem like the film veers into melodramatic territory, which it doesn’t do. Drama, yes. Melodrama, no. They already did that one, thanks. :-p
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