One of the best of the early de Mille works - given that most of those films featured the same stable of actors. You get to see the last glimpses of that Golden Age before the stock market crash led to the Depression (when a relay comprised of women rolling themselves along a track inside giant hoops passed for racing excitement, probably since horse racing, like alcohol, had been banned in the US at that time) Stunning costumes and Art Deco details (lucite and sequins and pincurls, oh my!) provide welcome diversion from the inconceivable plot - although the two female leads and their society set planning one's divorce so the other can marry the ex-husband is racy!
Of interest especially is the fact that you can recognize the stage training of many of the actors brought to Hollywood with the advent of sound, and how wooden previously silent actors can be when given voice. Also interesting is the characters' flagrant flouting of Prohibition, which still had 4 years left - after all, this was "pre-Code" Hollywood when there wasn't a censor to be found!
Most significant is the sound. The scene which annoys modern viewers is the chaos in the jailhouse wedding scene. However, this is one of the first instances of layered sound: the hammering of the gallows over the prisoner's singing over the wedding vows was a first for a medium that had gone talkie only a year & a half earlier.
So watch it for the details, not the drama
Of interest especially is the fact that you can recognize the stage training of many of the actors brought to Hollywood with the advent of sound, and how wooden previously silent actors can be when given voice. Also interesting is the characters' flagrant flouting of Prohibition, which still had 4 years left - after all, this was "pre-Code" Hollywood when there wasn't a censor to be found!
Most significant is the sound. The scene which annoys modern viewers is the chaos in the jailhouse wedding scene. However, this is one of the first instances of layered sound: the hammering of the gallows over the prisoner's singing over the wedding vows was a first for a medium that had gone talkie only a year & a half earlier.
So watch it for the details, not the drama