HONOR AMONG LOVERS (1931)

High-powered businessman Jerry Stafford (Fredric March) is expected at a meeting but when he fails to show up, his secretary Julia Traynor (Claudette Colbert) takes the reins and gets Jerry's agenda passed without him. We soon learn that Jerry and Julia spend a lot of time together which fires up the jealousy of her boyfriend Philip (Monroe Owsley). One working Saturday, Jerry asks Julia to break her lunch date with Philip for lunch with him, followed by attending the big college football game. She agrees to lunch (in his office at his desk) but says she must go to the game with Philip. Reluctantly Jerry calls a rather slatternly looking woman from his little black book to go to the game. Both couples wind up at a roadhouse after the game and the jealous Philip decides to marry Julia the next day. When Jerry finds out, he fires Julia but hires Philip as a business consultant. By their first anniversary, Philip and Julia are financially comfortable, but Philip has a mistress, and he is awaiting word on a big deal that Jerry was against. At a dinner party, Jerry sees Julia, intuits how unhappy she is, and kisses her, asking her to go on a cruise with him. That night, Philip confesses to Julia that his big deal went badly, and he's lost money that he stole from others, including Jerry. Julia goes to Jerry to ask for the money to bail out her husband; he gives it to her while also comparing her to a common whore: "At least the women in the streets don't pretend to be decent." The situation among the three grows more unsettled until gunplay enters the picture.

This melodrama plods along with unsympathetic characters and predictable plot turns, but the pre-Code aspects of the film may prove interesting to fans of that era. Morally, no one is exactly a paragon of virtue here, as the possibility that Julia would have had sex with Jerry in exchange for money is strongly implied. March is the best actor here, looking fairly dashing with a mustache and slicked-back hair. The more I see of Colbert, the less impressed I am. She's adequate here, but never makes her character feel emotionally involved enough to care much about. Monroe Owsley, looking at times like Pee-Wee Herman, continues his string of passive, dissipated men. Better is Charles Ruggles in a fairly well fleshed-out comic relief sidekick role. The small role of his scatterbrained girlfriend is played by Ginger Rogers, whom I did not recognize at all. The film's pace is on the slow side until the ending which feels a bit too fast. Directed by Dorothy Arzener, one of the era's few female filmmakers. Watchable but not a must-see. Pictured are March and Colbert. [Criterion Channel]