User reviews

A surprisingly fluid talkie that blows the theory that

widespread primitive filmmaking returned after the coming of

sound. The long opening tracking shot down a street populated

with colorful characters ending within the interior of a saloon

is a real jawdropper when one realizes that this gutsy melodrama

is from 1930. It also boasts superb camerawork and is a sheer

joy to watch. This film is NOT easy to see as of this writing (I

viewed a rare print in a private collection) and I fear is in

desperate need of preservation.

It is probably notable - although this is a side story -for showing what happened older prostitutes as they began to trade on rapidly diminishing assets. The very first scenes are Annie (Marjorie Rambeau) leaving the Havana bar where she has probably been for decades and leaving a ship with the cops recognizing her and telling her to go back onboard. That with her criminal history she cannot come into the US. Then you just see her feet and legs from the knee down, walking wearily along the street, back to the Havana bar that is her home.

The central story is about a young prostitute, Frankie (Helen Twelvetrees), her pimp, Johnnie (Ricardo Cortez), and a young sailor, Dan (Phillips Holmes) who sees the good in Frankie and wants to take her away from all of this. The film portrays Frankie as a pickpocket, but nobody dresses in such a ridiculous gaudy fashion just to empty the pockets of drunks, so her true profession is merely implied. What Frankie doesn't know is that Johnnie is a killer and will do anything to keep her in the bar and working for him.

There is some comedy thrown in that actually works. I say that because during Prohibition it seemed that filmmakers thought that just having someone publicly drunk was supposed to be funny when today it is tiresome. But the duo of Harry Sweet and James Gleason as Dan's two continuously drunk sailor companions is truly funny. So is Franklin Pangborn as a rather distinguished fellow with a bowler hat that the two drunk sailors want to steal. It's odd seeing Pangborn depart from the snooty effete fellows that he usually played. Slim Summerville is a drunk who continuously tries to knock hats off of people's heads. What is this obsession with hats?

I'm not spoiling anything, because the movie doesn't say this or even imply it, but because Frankie says she doesn't even know her birthday or her folks and has been living a life of cheating and stealing as long as she can remember, I rather wonder if Annie was her mother? Annie seems to focus on Frankie's welfare more than on the other girls in the bar, and if Annie grew up knowing nothing more than what Frankie knew -stealing and prostitution since childhood - maybe she thought that what little she did was what motherhood looked like. The sins of the fathers being visited on the third and fourth generation may not be God being vindictive as much as it is the statement of an unpleasant truth.

I'd recommend this one. It has good camera work and natural performances for it to be an early sound film.

A good start: the credits are written in the sand and washed away by waves, with only the sound of the surf. The story starts with Rambeau being met at the bottom of the gangplank in New York by the law, and told to return directly to Havana, do not pass go. When we get back to Havana we find that the film's not about Rambeau, but about 12trees, who is under the thumb of Cortez. In an early scene, Cortez's henchmen stage a fight to draw attention while he surreptitiously kills an enemy by throwing a knife; a well managed, cold blooded murder. Holmes, in one of his best performances, is a sailor on leave who is taken with 12trees, even though she plays her best B-girl routine on him. That's the set-up, and it's really well played out all the way to the end. The plot structure is good, with Cortez getting poetic justice, and with no false moves. The atmosphere is great, particularly in a bravura street set, which a moving camera travels down twice, through crowds of drunks, whores and assorted riffraff. One of these tracking shots has 12trees bouncing along behind Cortez, the perfect image of a floozie following her pimp. The camera is fluid throughout the film, prowling around the huge bar set as well as the streets. And 12trees shows that she can deliver a performance that's a bit different from the put-upon wives of MY WOMAN and NOW I'LL TELL. Although some of the dialogue is a bit primitive, one can well see why this film "has its adherents" (per Halliwell). Unfortunately, all this great stuff is interspersed with a series of simple repeating burlesque blackouts: Gleason losing--and his pal winning--at the one-armed bandit; Summerville and drunks bashing (or not bashing) a hat; Pangborn challenging others to a fight, etc. The mechanical nature of the gags, and their constant reiteration, tends to defeat the suspension of disbelief needed for the serious drama in the foreground. Even so, this one is a pre-Code era must-see.

"Her Man" is a very enjoyable old film. However, as I watched, I couldn't help but think that it was a bit like a Popeye cartoon--a very sleazy and adult Popeye cartoon at that!

The film is set somewhere where there is a port--perhaps on a Caribbean island. The summary on IMDb says that the leading lady, Frankie (Helen Twelvetrees) is a Parisian but the location is definitely NOT Paris (there is no large port there and very few palm trees). Plus, neither Twelvetrees nor any of the other actors have any sort of French accent or make any mention of France. Regardless, this 'lady' works at a clip joint--a bar where they cheat sailors and the women are definitely NOT ladies! The place is run by a scum-bag named Johnnie (Ricardo Cortez) and he oozes with sleazy and menacing charm. In many ways, he seems like a homicidal pimp---promising HIS women the world but forcing them into lives of quiet desperation.

One day, a nice sailor named Dan (Phillips Holmes) enters the place and Frankie is expected to do her routine--steer him to alcohol while drinking water disguised as gin. In other words, she gets him to buy her these expensive drinks and who knows how much, if anything, he'll be left with at the end of the evening. However, Frankie feels sorry for the guy since he seems pretty decent and she rescues him from the place. Despite her cold outer shell, he sees her as a decent woman--stuck in a hellish life. So, he offers to take her away from this dump. The problem is that the last guy who tried that was killed by Johnnie. What's next?

This is an amazingly gritty and sleazy sort of film. Oddly, however, they also threw in some comic relief that really distracted from the plot. Perhaps they thought the film would be too gritty and too depressing otherwise. Regardless, the film has some fine acting and is far less stilted than most early talkies. In particular, I loved the opening scene with Marjorie Rambeau walking through the streets as the camera moved with her. It was a difficult shot technically and it really impressed me as I watched this camera-work. Worth seeing and available for free at the internet archive website.

This isn't the safe, sanitised Cuba we see in HAVANA WIDOWS. No, this is a much darker, dirtier and dangerous place. Hugely underrated director Tay Garnett has gone for gritty, grimy realism here - this is certainly not the sort of place you'd find Joan Blondell! It's surprising therefore to find Helen Twelvetrees, the epitome of purity and sweetness here as one of the seasoned prostitutes servicing and fleecing the sailors on shore leave.

She might not have been as great an actress as some of her contemporaries but in this she is absolutely magnificent. Her dissolute character is so believably real and yet her face is so impossibly pretty and innocent that your brain explodes with the cognitive dichotomy of it all. If you've only ever seen her playing stereotypically mistreated young women constantly crying, this will be a revelation for you. Had she not got pigeonholed she might have been a great actress - who knows!

Interestingly this is one of those rare talkies made by Pathe before it was taken over by RKO. It's a superbly well made film and had the Depression not happened just as they were getting going, Pathe might have been one of the great studios - who knows!

Besides Helen Twelvetrees' remarkable acting masterclass, Ricardo Cortez is also great as her semi-psychopathic pimp. You can see why Garnett used him a year later to play the crazy, evil mob boss in his impressive gangster picture, BAD COMPANY. Overall, this is a surprisingly exciting and quite riveting drama. Some commentators have said that there's an annoying amount of irritating comedy - I disagree, I think the blend is just right making this a very entertaining film.

This pre code film is from the early days of cinema. Yet its production values are not creaky. This spruced up version of the movie has a rather stylish credit sequence of waves washing over the sand.

The story begins with a woman who tries to disembark in America but she is sent back presumably labelled as an undesirable because of her criminal record, she is a prostitute.

The tropical island she is returned to is in the Caribbean, maybe Cuba. Set in the raucous, sleazy harbour area.

Frankie (Helen Twelvetrees) is a good time girl. She get the sailors in the bar drunk, pop in a Mickey Finn so they can lose their wallets. Maybe a little bit more is given if the price is right

Johnnie (Ricardo Cortez) controls the girls and he can turn nasty when provoked.

Dan (Phillips Holmes) is a sailor who understands Frankie and the path she has taken is not by choice. He has fallen in love with her and wants both of them to run away together.

Frankie knows that leaving Johnnie will not be easy. He will set his thugs on Dan. Maybe Dan's two drunken sailor friends will help him out.

The story is so-so and over the years become cliched being copied by other movies. Being set before the Hays Code, the sleaziness works well but a lot of it is implied such as the prostitutes in the harbour.

There is a lot of slapstick with Dan's drunken friends over the ownership of a bowler hat that has been stolen. There is a running gag as they play a slot machine where one wins money and the other does not.

Actually the slapstick becomes tiresome. There is a lot of visual flair by director Tay Garnett who has given a lot of thought to planning his shots.

I did think the look of Dan would now be regarded as camp. He looks like something dreamt up by Jean Paul Gaultier.

As others have said, this is pretty cinematic for its early-talkie moment, though you might wish it left the main set (a tropical-island saloon) more often. And yes, it is pretty raunchy even by pre-Code standards--even if the main business onscreen seems to be more doping and ripping off johns than actual prostitution, there is no doubt that the women here are practicing the "oldest profession," and that Ricardo Cortez is the classic sleazy pimp. I'm not sure I'd seen Helen Twelvetrees before, though I'd certainly heard her name, and while her acting is OK in the context of the era, you can see why her career didn't last. (Her main two expressions are "snooty" and "noble," both requiring nose to be lifted skyward--mannerisms that would rapidly look dated.) Philips Holmes isn't terribly convincing as a roughneck sailor, but he's got a pleasant, humorous, relaxed personality. We also get to hear him sing a couple times, and that is a real pleasure, in a style that is unusual for this time. (He's not at all a crooner in the Rudy Vallee etc. Mode, or an operatic type, but rather has a delivery that would have worked just fine in musical comedy forty or fifty years later.)

There's maybe more comedy relief among subsidiary characters (all saloon patrons) here than necessary, but it could be worse. The main drawback to "Her Man" is that as vividly sleazy as its atmosphere is (many of the characters are falling-down-drunk practically all the time), the story is a little too simple, and doesn't advance much. We spend nearly 90 minutes just waiting for somebody to off the evil pimp so Love can Triumph. The leads don't have the kind of chemistry that, say, Joel McCrea and Constance Bennett had in "Bed of Roses" (a slightly more disguised "sailor meets prostitute" tale), largely because Twelvetrees is so artificial. (She's entertaining, but she's one of those actors who seems to be very much acting solely to the camera, as opposed to acting WITH her fellow performers.) Plus, there's not much snappy patter here--the script definitely could have used more hardboiled wit. So, an interesting find, in a "They let this screen in 1930?!?" way (and apparently it WAS considered pretty envelope-pushing then). But still more an enjoyable curio than a good movie you'd want to see more than once.

This outstanding pre-code melodrama cinched Phillips Holmes as a matinée idol. It's one of the earliest and certainly the best rendition of the Frankie and Johnny story...Frankie (Helen Twelvetrees) is the young prostitute on the Havana waterfront who is exploited by her nasty pimp (Cortez)and befriended, then beloved by an innocently angelic, poor young sailor (Phillips Holmes)(He even sings for her!) The Cuban government of the time protested the sleazy portrayal of its major port and the film was withdrawn after it's initial release. Thanks to the Hays code,it was never seen again and languished in film vaults. Holmes later starred in many more films in his tragically short career; "Broken Lullaby","Stolen Heaven", and "An American Tragedy" notably among them, but it was this film that raised him to luminary status. The gallant quality of the two young leads to rise above their tawdry environment and depressing circumstances is somehow still very touching and the film is an exceptional example 1930 film-making.

It's a variation of the Frankie and Johnny story with the same cast names and even a Nelly thrown into the mix courtesy of Thelma Todd. Bad guy Ricardo Cortez (Johnny) pimps out Helen Twelvetrees (Frankie) to steal from drunken visitors in a seedy dive on the waterfront in somewhere like Cuba. It's a rough bar that is frequented by sailors and people generally looking for a fight. Occasionally, if a customer gets too friendly with Helen, then that's the end for him - knife in the back.

As in the song - "He was her man and he was doing her wrong" - Cortez has a friendship with Todd. He doesn't seem too nice a person when he's around Twelvetrees. Into the bar strolls a new crop of sailors headed by Phillips Holmes (Dan) and it's love at first sight on his part leading him to dangerously pursue this 'taken' woman.

This film has a gritty, seedy setting which holds an interest with realistic characters. However, the film has to lose marks on 2 counts especially. The first is Phillips Holmes and his attempt to portray a tough sailor. He really doesn't need to puff out his chest when he walks. It's the blueprint for Popeye. Secondly, there was way too much attempted comedy with drunken sailors that just got tiresome. The women, in particular, in this film are good so it's a special mention for Twelvetrees, Todd and drunken lush Marjorie Rambeau (Annie).

This really is one of the grittiest films I've seen. Almost all of it takes place in a sleazy bar, but without the charm of a film like Docks of New York. A lot of cheap routines and low ball humor. Many of the characters play drunks and that takes up about a third of the picture. The redeeming ending takes a long while to get there. I think it could have been done better. Seems to me often the people that like certain movies might not have the same standards as many, and so you find people giving 10 star ratings to movies that are really poor compared to truly fine movies. I've seen over 500 movies from 1910 to 1950 and so although this one does have a lot of charm, it has a lot of flaws and wasn't that pleasant to sit through during much of it.

This is a superb rarity, a period piece with a terrific lead performance by Helen Twelvetrees, who plays Frankie Keefe, the Frankie of the 'Frankie and Johnnie were lovers' story. (Her lover plays this song on the piano throughout the film in true honky tonk fashion.) The film is mostly set is a large seedy waterfront bar named Thalia, in Havana. Frankie works as a hostess in the bar, trying to lure seamen in to having another gin. One of her recurring lines is: 'Two gins', one of which is water for her and the other is real for the sailor. Her boyfriend Johnnie, pianist at the Thalia, is a ruthless amoral pimp, who takes all her tips from her clients every night and generally abuses her and beats her up sometimes. Frankie has about as much sense of self-worth as a flea, but is a charming fairylike creature underneath. She dreams of getting away from 'the joint', having been born in one just like it and never known any other existence. Tay Garnett wrote the original story and did an excellent job of directing this atmospheric film. He does some excellent and daring shots sometimes. In one case he puts a camera on a high dolly and follows a tray with two gins on it, held aloft by an agile waiter, from the bar through a teeming crowd to the table on the other side of the room. Helen Twelvetrees was an actress with real depth to her. She conveys the wistfulness and dreams of Frankie in those rare moments where she dares to let down her guard for a moment, and then suddenly slips into her assumed tough-gal mode which is her usual manner. The two personalities of Frankie battle it out as she vacillates between hope and despair throughout the story. She portrays Frankie as a truly pathetic abused waif. Johnnie is played by Ricardo Cortez, with heartless cunning and psychopathic intensity. He likes to kill people with his small knife. Marjorie Rambeau plays a washed-up elderly prostitute who is a hopeless alcoholic but who loves Frankie and tries to save her. She features in a unique twist in the last shot of the film, which adds a sudden and unexpected insight at the end of the story, which I cannot reveal. The ray of sunshine which offers Frankie the promise of escape comes in the form of a young cheery sailor played by Phillips Holmes, a very handsome and delightful fellow, who gets round Frankie's tough pretences by laughing at her and knows exactly how to draw her out and eventually gain her confidence. He wants to save her and take her away to a new life and marry her, but Johnnie cottons onto this and has other ideas, and turns to his usual solution, his knife. Will she or won't she escape? Will the film end as a tragedy or will everything turn out all right? Helen Twelvetrees is so entrancing as the waif Frankie that we really care. She was only 21 when she made this film, and by the age of 30, her career was over. She took an overdose of pills and died when she was only 49. She seems to have had an all too genuine and profound melancholy deep within her, which makes her performance shine with such pathos here. This film has remarkable beginning and end credits, with everything written in the sand and then repeatedly washed over and erased by the surf, which is very original and effective. The film is well worth seeing.

A young prostitute in Havana sees a possible escape from her thankless life and cruel pimp in the form of a handsome sailor. An unjustly overlooked pre-Code movie that oozes atmosphere like sweat from a drunk's pores. Helen Twelvetrees nails the spirit and despair of her character, and Ricardo Cortez exudes dangerous charm. Together, they overshadow hero Phillips Holmes (a forgotten actor in a near-forgotten movie) who nevertheless copes well in the miscast role of the heroic sailor. The fluid cinematography makes a mockery of the notion that sound imprisoned the camera, while the preoccupation with sex and booze leaves us in no doubt that it was made before the Production Code began to bite. Unfortunately, the comic relief repeatedly intruding on an otherwise agreeably dark tale creates an uneven tone that prevents Her Man from being a bona-fide classic.

I watched this film out of curiosity after reading good reviews about it, since its restoration. The great "discovery" for me was the pleasant leading man Phillips Holmes as sailor Dan, who passed away young during Second World War. He starts as a singing sailor and ends up resembling Flash Gordon! This is the second movie I see with Helen Twelvetrees, and this time I was a bit intrigued because she seemed to be acting in a comedy. Both actors have all their best scenes together, and it is really a pleasure to watch them in their early 20s, interacting in a very tender, romantic moment by the beach.

The pair of comics (James Gleason and Harry Sweet) almost spoiled the movie for me, with their long routines with a hat and a slot machine, but Ricardo Cortez brings the needed balance with his usual suave mean guy, while Marjorie Rambeau spends almost all the movie drinking gin and has little to do until the last 10 minutes of the action.

It is not great, but it works as an easy-to-take version of the often filmed story of a prostitute's redemption, with two endearing young players.

Her Man is a 1930 love story involving a young woman named Frankie and a sailor named Dan. Frankie lives and works in a Havana bar, doing her best to separate the patrons from their money. When Dan arrives on shore leave he meets Frankie and conflict arises as the young woman tries to reconcile her lifestyle with her dreams.

This is a light film with a few moving moments. The casting is done well and a few of the jokes still work today.

Unfortunately, there are several flaws in the film. The acting at times is bad, the display of drunken behavior is cartoonish, and there is an occasional glance at the camera. The dialogue and writing are silly at times and most of the humor is not funny. The fighting choreography is simply goofy. The ending is full of odd and sloppy choices, but by then, you'll be so bored that you won't care.

Overall, Her Man is a poor film. Empty and expected, I would recommend skipping this one.

The Wexner Center for the Arts screened the 4K restoration of this film on May 24th as part of their Cinevent preview. For such an early talkie, the camera is surprisingly fluid and the sound is ambient. The impressive movement makes this decent story better than average.

The story is very loosely based on the song "Frankie and Johnny." Frankie (Helen Twelvetrees) is a prostitute working in a saloon called the Thalia in a seedy island town. She frisks drunken sailors and characters of ill-repute and her pimp Johnny (Ricardo Cortez) takes all her money. Frankie is described as a "good girl," which may mean she has not completely lost her innocence yet, but it is clear that that day is not too far in the future. One day a young sailor (Phillips Holmes) and his friends come to the bar and his youthful optimism makes Frankie see that he could help her escape her depressing life.

Twelvetrees is undeniably beautiful, and her acting is fine although slightly dramatic. Holmes truly shines in this role. He is boyish and charming and much less wooden than in some of his rich guy roles. With his hair down and his shirt torn he seems to truly breathe. Franklin Pangborn makes an appearance as a well-dressed drunk sans his trademark effeminate delivery, and he gets laughs anyway.

Helen Twelvetrees is excellent as a poor waif in a dirty tavern. She is really a prostitute forced by Ricardo Cortez to keep the men entertained. Phillips Holmes (an underrated actor) bolts in and rescues her from her despair. This is no creaky early sound film. The camera work is brilliant and the cast (kudos to Marjorie Rambeau) is first rate. In tragedy, there is always comedy, and the two work together very well. I'd love to see a proper DVD release of this wonderful film. The setting is somewhat reminiscent of 'Anna Christie'. Helen Twelvetrees and Phillips Holmes deserve recognition to early sound films. This is truly classic Pre-Code cinema.

It sounds like a great precode film as was explained by reviewer in 2004. I would love to see this old antique. Are they going to make VHS or DVD copies? I enjoy old talkie films made in late 20's and early 30's. I know there were plenty made during this period. This review sounded very interesting. Just to see the great Franklin Pangborn, Marjorie Rambeau, Slim Summerville, Ricardo Cortez, James Gleason, the young Helen 12 trees, Phillip Holmes are really a treat besides all the fancy camera-work going. Sounds like a visual delight. The switching from serious to comedy must have been jolting but the rest of the frolics must have been worth the time. I can't wait until someone gets this one on DVD.