Born to Be Bad ** (1934, Loretta Young, Cary Grant, Marion Burns, Jackie Kelk, Henry Travers, Russell Hopton, Mary Forbes) – Classic Movie Review 4797

Loretta Young stars in the 1934 pre-Code drama film Born to Be Bad as Letty Strong, a skimpily clad unmarried mother who tries to seduce married millionaire ‘Mal’ Trevor (Cary Grant), The film got into big trouble with the US censor. 

Loretta Young stars in the Twentieth Century Pictures 1934 American pre-Code drama film Born to Be Bad as Letty Strong, a skimpily clad single woman and unmarried mother who tries to seduce married millionaire Malcolm ‘Mal’ Trevor (Cary Grant), the man who has adopted her naughty son Mickey (Jackie Kelk), born out of wedlock.

But Mal (Grant) tells his wife Alyce (Marion Burns), who promptly rescues the boy from a watery grave. Eventually, touched, Young reforms when Grant shows her that she is responsible for the boy’s wickedness and that he and his wife are the good guys in the story.

Despite the efforts of the two first-rate stars in director Lowell Sherman’s struggling 1934 film, screen-writer Ralph Graves’s moralistic, tedious story was just born to be bad.

Though Young is at least in her tearful element, an unusually lost, miscast Grant can do nothing to save it.

Also in the cast are Henry Travers, Russell Hopton, Mary Forbes, Andrew Tombes, Howard Lang, Harry Green, Paul Harvey, Charles Coleman, Matt Briggs, Eddie Kane, George Irving, Edward Keane, Guy Usher, Wade Boteler and John Marston.

The film got into big trouble with the US censor because Letty is a young woman who is pregnant, unmarried and on the streets at 15, and because Young wears skimpy clothes. It was rejected twice by the Hays Office and only given a certificate after several cuts and retakes (directed by Sidney Lanfield). Letty’s character of unmarried mother who entertains wholesale buyers to secure contracts for her friend was re-written and re-filmed so her occupation is only hinted at. Producer Darryl F Zanuck had to cut shots of Young in her underwear and of her legs exposed to the hips.

After all that, it flopped at the box-office and recorded a loss of $50,000.

Writers: Ralph Graves (story and screenplay) and Harrison Jacobs (continuity).

It runs just 62 minutes.

It has no link to the 1950 film Born to Be Bad with Joan Fontaine.

The cast are Loretta Young as Letty Strong, Cary Grant as Malcolm ‘Mal’ Trevor, Jackie Kelk as Mickey Strong, Marion Burns as Alyce Trevor, Henry Travers as Fuzzy, Paul Harvey as Attorney Brian, Russell Hopton as Steve Karns, Etienne Girardot as Claim Adjustor J. K. Brown, Geneva Mitchell as Malcolm’s Secretary Miss Crawford, Guy Usher as Judge McAffee, Charles Coleman as Trevor’s Butler, Wade Boteler as Guard at Trevor Estate, Harry Green as Letty’s Lawyer Adolphe, Andrew Tombes, Howard Lang, Paul Harvey, Matt Briggs, Eddie Kane, George Irving, Edward Keane, and John Marston.

All 72 Cary Grant movies

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4797

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