A Free Soul *** (1931, Lionel Barrymore, Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, Clark Gable) – Classic Movie Review 6420

Director Clarence Brown’s creaky but enjoyable 1931 courtroom crime romantic drama is most memorable for its cast – Lionel Barrymore, Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard and Clark Gable – and for Barrymore taking the Best Actor Oscar.

Lionel Barrymore plays the alcoholic criminal lawyer Stephen Ashe who defends notorious gangster Ace Wilfong (Clark Gable) on a murder charge, and Norma Shearer (in gowns by Adrian) plays Barrymore’s wayward, free-spirited daughter Jan Ashe who promptly falls for Ace Wilfong, upsetting her father. Jan is so free-spirited that she believes that strangers can kiss!  Leslie Howard plays Dwight Winthrop and James Gleason plays Eddie.

Even if this early sound pre-Code film has understandably faded, the luminous cast and the MGM production retain their potent appeal. Barrymore’s quarter-hour final speech, filmed in brio fashion in just one take, helped to land him his 1931 Best Actor Oscar. He gave up his directing career and acted at MGM for the rest of his life as one of the studio’s most beloved stars and favourite of its boss Louis B Mayer. However, he received no further Oscar nods.

The film also turned out to provide a key star-making role for Gable, who then went on to become the King of Hollywood.

Shearer and Brown were Oscar nominated as best actress and best director.

The source book’s author Adela Rogers St Johns modelled the Barrymore character on her own father.

It is produced by Shearer’s husband, Irving Thalberg. It is shot in black and white by William H Daniels, scored by William Axt and designed by Cedric Gibbons.

John Meehan is credited for dialogue continuity and Becky Gardiner is credited for adaptation of Adela Rogers St Johns’s book. There is also a play version by Willard Mack.

Also in the cast are Lucy Beaumont, Charles Sullivan, Carl Stockdale, Lee Phelps, Sam McDaniel, George Irving, Henry Hall, Francis Ford, James Donlan, Bess Flowers, Edward Brophy, Roscoe Ates, Ann Brody, Edward Le Saint, Frank Sheridan, Larry Steers and Claire Whitney.

It was remade in an updated, much altered version as The Girl Who Had Everything (1953), with Elizabeth Taylor and William Powell.

Howard and Gable or course starred in Gone with the Wind together.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6420

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