Finishing the passable 57 minute "Adult" flick Lei'd in Hawaii,I decided to make it a double bill,and go for another movie with a run time of under an hour. Being in a Pre-Code mood recently, I decided it was time to go to the office.The plot:After getting author Kate Halsey to write a book about a secretary who acts like a wife to her boss, businessman Larry Fellowes finds fiction to become reality,when his secretary Andrews faints after learning Fellows is getting married to Linda. Returning from his honeymoon, Fellows meets new secretary Anne Murdock, who causes Fellows to act like a husband to his secretary. View on the film:Made in the very early days of the "talkies", director Lloyd Bacon (with uncredited Michael Curtiz) and cinematographer William Rees are unable to hide the marks of the era,with loud creaks from the floor as the cameraman moves,and long dialogue scenes being shot in stage- bound wide-shots. Steaming up the screen for 58 minutes, Bacon and Curtiz step into the risqué world of Pre-Code with eye- catching dissolves over Anne Murdock's sexy legs,and some of the ladies being given a suggestive "butch" short haircut and one size too small suit.Torn from the pages of Faith Baldwin's the prize Cosmopolitan magazine serial, the screenplay by Charles Kenyon makes the office sizzle with playful, double- entendre dialogue tightening the romance between Fellowes and Anne.As the romance fizzes away, Kenyon dives into areas that would be lost in the Hays Code, as (most of) the office staff and their families are charmed by the feel-good Rom-Com infidelity of Fellowes,and the ladies are given the impressively modern sexual freedom that the men have. While they have a very noticeable age gap, Lewis Stone and Dorothy Mackaill give sparkling performances as Fellows and Anne,thanks to Stone's very funny manner of being tempted by an eyeful of Anne,smoothly blending with Mackaill making Anne a nervous flirt for an office romance.

Larry (Lewis Stone) has a wife Linda (Natalie Moorhead) but the appointment of a new secretary Anne (Dorothy Mackaill) throws a spanner in the works. Larry and Anne fall in love with each other while Linda drifts away from him. It is up to Katherine (Joan Blondell) to let Larry know what the real deal is.The acting is sometimes stilted and the basic idea of Larry and Anne getting together is utterly ludicrous. He is more like her grandfather, ie, they are 2 generations apart. Set against this there are positives such as the roles played by Joan Blondell and Blanche Friderici as "Kate". Friderici is the best lesbian I have seen and I was quite surprised to see that women could be so outwardly gay in 1930. She smokes a cigar and dresses like a man but there is absolutely no attempt to feminize the look as there was with Dietrich. This girl is all man! And it's brilliant.The film is OK, nothing more, and it's interesting to see that the women of the time seemed to favour that short haircut which makes them look a bit severe. Joan Blondell's hair is the nicest coz it looks the most fluffy.

It's interesting how Lewis Stone looks the same in every film I've seen him in from 1925 to 1945. In this very short little drama, a secretary decides to go after her new boss, the owner of a publishing company, for the purpose of moving up in life. He has just gotten married, but this is no impediment to the girl. Her little scheme works, but unfortunately for her, she falls in love with him. There are two kinds of pre-codes 1. Those in which the players start bad and stay bad or get worse. 2. Those in which the players start bad and reform by the end of the film. This picture is in the latter category.The main attraction in this film is Joan Blondell. Her opening scene of getting up and going through her morning routine pretty much steals the picture from anything the actual female lead winds up doing from that point on. Then there is the mannish female author that is writing a book for the publishing company that pretty much mirrors what is going on in the film. I'm not sure what the reason is for her presence in the film, but it is certainly an example of what you couldn't find at the movies after 1934. Not a bad way to spend an hour.

This is a very good film for 1930, as the sound quality is excellent--something that CAN'T be said of all American films of the time. Plus, while the film generally takes place in an office, it doesn't have that "stagey" feel many early sound films have. Additionally, there's a gorgeous moonlight beach scene and so much of the camera-work was stellar--and the use of special lenses and filters made the lead look luminous. So, technically speaking, this is a very good film for the time.The film begins with the owner of a publishing house talking with a very masculine female writer about writing a book about office romances. This very manly lady seems to be a stereotype, of sorts, for writers--sort of like a variation on Gertrude Stein. Well, this character is only used as a sort of introduction--the rest of the film revolves around the boss (Lewis Stone) and his new secretary, Dorothy Mackaill. While she is quite efficient, she also has designs on her boss--even though he recently married a lovely young lady. Over time, the workaholic boss does find himself falling for Mackaill, though her "sleep her way to the top" ideas lose out to her sense of decency--setting up a rather predictable but satisfying conclusion. Being a Pre-Code film, this adultery is all worked out to everyone's satisfaction and the film ends with everyone (or practically everyone) living happily ever after.The film is actually pretty good apart from its technical merits. While the story was a tad predictable at times, the story was pretty adult and interesting. While titillating, it also had quite a bit of depth and is well worth a look.By the way, in one of her earliest films, Joan Blondell plays the role of Mackaill's sister. Oddly, and true to the Pre-Code ideals, she spends almost all the film either in her underwear or naked in the tub. While they don't show anything that explicit, her scenes are quite steamy!