Bed of Roses *** (1933, Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, John Halliday, Pert Kelton) – Classic Movie Review 6725

The scandalous 1933 pre-Production Code Depression-era comedy drama film Bed of Roses is a sharp and amusing story of ‘the girl who took a shortcut down the primrose path’. Constance Bennett and Joel McCrea star. 

Director Gregory La Cava’s 1933 film Bed of Roses is a sharp and amusing little pre-Production Code Depression-era romantic comedy drama. This is the story of ‘the girl who took a shortcut down the primrose path’, considered scandalous at the time.

Constance Bennett and Pert Kelton star as Lorry Evans (Bennett) and Minnie Brown Oglethorpe (Kelton) who have come from a reform school and become prostitutes who like to get their male admirers drunk and rob them. Released from a Louisiana prison, they take a steamboat down river and Lorry steals $60.

But eventually it is Lorry succumbing to the alternative charms of principled Mississippi cotton barge captain Dan (Joel McCrea) and rich publishing magnate Stephen Paige (John Halliday) that really reforms her in Wanda Tuchock’s entertaining screenplay.

It failed to help to boost Bennett’s falling star rating though, especially as Kelton is very funny, and she and McCrea steal the show from the star. However, Bennett’s film career carried on till 1951, followed by TV work, and a final movie, Madame X, in 1966.

Also in the cast are Samuel S Hinds as Father Doran, Franklin Pangborn as floorwalker, Tom Herbert [Tom Francis] as salesman Ogelthorpe, Robert Emmett O’Connor, Arthur Hoyt and Jane Darwell.

The film was released by RKO Radio Pictures on 14 July 1933 and is preserved in the US Library of Congress collection.

Bed of Roses is directed by Gregory La Cava, runs 70 minutes, is an RKO Radio Pictures film, is written by Wanda Tuchock, Gregory La Cava (dialogue) and Eugene Thackrey (dialogue), is shot in black and white by Charles Rosher, is produced by Merian C Cooper and Pandro S Berman, and is designed by Van Nest Polglase and Charles M Kirk.

It was the last of four films with Bennett starring alongside Joel McCrea.

The cast are Constance Bennett as Lorry Evans, Joel McCrea as Dan, John Halliday as Stephen Paige, Pert Kelton as Minnie Brown Oglethorpe, Samuel S  Hinds as Father Doran, Franklin Pangborn as floorwalker, Tom Francis [Tom Herbert] as salesman Ogelthorpe, Wade Boteler as River Boat Purser, Eddy Chandler as River Boat Steward, Jane Darwell as Head Prison Matron Mrs Webster, Arthur Hoyt as Paige’s Secretary Hoyt, John Larkin as Black Man Meeting Released Prisoner, Matt McHugh as Jones, Robert Emmett O’Connor as River Boat Captain Scroggins, George Reed as Dan’s shipboard cook Alice, and Mildred Washington as Lorry’s maid Genevieve.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6725

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