AT IL CINEMA RITROVATO - Lowell Sherman's THE GREEKS HAD A WORD FOR THEM (USA, 1931) and more

Lowell Sherman & Ina Claire, The Greeks Had a Word for Them

Not having access at the moment to Andrew Sarris's book American Cinema I cant off the top of my head recall whether Lowell Sherman was grouped under Expressive Esoterica or Oddities and One Shots. Whatever, he was down among the also ran categories, a minor figure with some qualities that compared him to Lubitsch. His brief period of prominence coincided with pre-Code freedom and in The Greeks Had a Word for Them he used 79 rapid fire minutes to exploit it  to the hilt.  

The presenter, someone from the Library of Congress I think, didn't go very far into this specialist discussion but she did ask for a show of hands as to whom in the audience had not seen The Greeks Had a Word for Them.  A forest of hands, including mine, was raised.  According to Wikipedia Sarris, described Lowell Sherman's direction as having a "civilized sensibility" that was "ahead of its time." He also noted the "sophistication of his sexual humour" as being "notably free of malice"

Whatever, The Greeks Had a Word for Them  is a raucous comedy about three young women looking for men who will provide them with a lifestyle to which they would like to become accustomed. The women swap partners, bicker and compete but ultimately, sentimentally, go for gender solidarity over the attractions of catching rich husbands. Towards this end the farce gets ever more frenetic...The crowd loved it, especially I suspect those who had never seen not merely it, but quite likely the likes of it. It may be among the most vulgar pre-code manifestations of what Hollywood got away with before the wet blanket and blue stocking enforcers of the Hays Code got to have their way and stifled American film-making for a generation. Needless to say at least for me it's the hit of the season thus far...

I must confess that what the Greeks had a word for remains mysterious to viewers which may be why the title of the film was changed to Three Broadway Girls for subsequent bowdlerised releases. Sherman's sophisticated film-making did not get much more opportunity. He died of pneumonia in 1934.

My morning started with Dorothy Arzner's Christopher Strong, continued with Jocelyne Saab's 1985 Lebanese/French Ghazl El-Banat/ The Razor's Edge through to an unknown Spanish film from 1957 El inquilino/The Tenant (Jose Antonio Nieves Conde), a comedy about the housing shortage which in the light of recent events at the Sydney Film Festival had a ring of familiarity.

Fernando Fernan Gomez, Maria Rosa, Salgado
The Tenant

That film, while more than a bit of plod through its story, did have one notable feature, a concluding "Appendix" which detailed all of the censor cuts and edits made to the film after some thin-skinned bureaucrat at the Department of Housing saw it during its first run and went to war demanding changes that were designed to eliminate any criticism of the Fascist Franco Government of the day. The film was withdrawn, hacked to pieces and re-released to general indifference. Its new fantasy happy ending was of course totally unconvincing given the realist story line and setting of the original.