Laughter (1930)

Harry D'Abbadie d'Arrast doesn't hang about with this tale of rags to riches that has loads of emotional baggage thrown in for good measure. "Peggy" (Nancy Carroll) is let down by her true love and takes the easy option by marrying the dull and staid millionaire "Gibson" (Frank Morgan) who guarantees her an easy, if uninteresting life. She's too restless a spirit for all of that, and although she resists the advances of the boyish and unstable sculptor "Ralph" (Glenn Anders) she is ready to jump ship when the carefree "Lockridge" (Fredric March) re-emerges into her life with a plan for her to escape her silk-clad drudgery and head for la Vie Parisienne - via some high jinx and a bit of burglary. Tempted, her life is thrown into turmoil by the daughter of her husband, "Marjorie" (Diane Ellis) who has a few designs of her own! This tries hard to straddle a few genres here, and whilst the dramatic aspects work well enough, the comedic ones prove a little beyond everyone to convincingly pull off. As the story progresses, even the usually reliable Morgan looks a little uncomfortable with the increasingly contrived nature of the plot within a plot within a plot. Also, by the end I'd rather concluded that "Peggy" was no great shakes as an human being either. The production could fairly be described as embryonic and the photography seemed framed at times as if to allow the actors to read cue cards off-set the cameras - that looked a bit squinty. Still, it's all quite light-hearted and enjoyably enough paced to pass ninety minutes effortlessly.