THE GAY BRIDE (1934)

I will make no double entendre pun on the title and simply note that no matter what meaning of "gay" you apply, none seem quite right as a way to describe the bride in this movie, Carole Lombard, a minxy, gold digging show girl out to marry for money alone. She gets gangster Nat Pendleton, who has helped finance her Broadway show, to marry her, then goes about fleecing him by draining his bank account, not realizing that he's not as rich as she assumed. Chester Morris is Pendleton's assistant (he goes by the name Office Boy) who stays clean and legal and who figures out right quick what Lombard is up to. Pendleton winds up getting bumped off and Lombard takes up with the man responsible (Sam Hardy); when he gets his, she gravitates toward another alpha thug, Leo Carillo. Along the way, she and Morris have an antagonistic but bantering relationship, which in movies like this means that they wind up together at the end. Zasu Pitts is Lombard's friend; Gene Lockhart, in only his second sound film, has a small uncredited role, as does Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson. There's an elaborate musical number, "Mississippi Honeymoon" that is really the high point of the film. Morris is fine, but I remain unimpressed with Lombard--I think she was fine in NOTHING SACRED, but otherwise I'm not a big fan of hers. The movie, though made after the implementation of the Production Code, has a pre-Code morality feel to it. While it's classified as a comedy, and does have a light tone, it's not very funny, perhaps partly because it's rather difficult to warm up to any of the characters.