Socialites were the order of the day it seems in the 30's. I guess it makes sense. I recently saw a statistic that pointed out that wealth disparity today hadn't been this large since the roaring 20's. With the 20's being such a period of superfluous money it would stand to reason that many movies would be about the people who enjoyed that tremendous amount of wealth.
In "Tarnished Lady" Talullah Bankhead plays Nancy Courtney, a once wealthy daughter of a deceased millionaire who can't let go of her lifestyle. She and her mother were flat broke, but the Courtney name had to be maintained.
To maintain her current spending habits she reluctantly opted to marry Norman Cravath (Clive Brook), a millionaire who was in love with her while she loved DeWitt Taylor (Alexander Kirkland), a writer. After a few months or more of Nancy playing house with Norman she left him for her true love, except her true love was now dating Germaine Prentiss (Phoebe Foster), Nancy's rival.
Nancy had such pride that she refused to go back to Norman, then six months later she discovered she was pregnant (I don't know how it took her six months to find out she was pregnant). She went from a kept woman to a working single mother in a matter of months.
It was hard to feel any pity for Nancy. She was one of those proud and mean women of wealth who like to have people fired for the smallest infraction. She fell on hard times, which you would think would humble her. It may have humbled her a bit, but not nearly as much as she should've been. And even her "hard times" weren't that hard. She had to work, like so many women in the world had to do. It may have been humiliating for her, but it was a job and it wasn't that tough.
In the end she got back with Norman and the implication was that she was trying to make amends for how she treated him. Maybe. Or maybe she was tired of being a working mother and going back to her rich husband was the easiest way out.
Free on YouTube.
In "Tarnished Lady" Talullah Bankhead plays Nancy Courtney, a once wealthy daughter of a deceased millionaire who can't let go of her lifestyle. She and her mother were flat broke, but the Courtney name had to be maintained.
To maintain her current spending habits she reluctantly opted to marry Norman Cravath (Clive Brook), a millionaire who was in love with her while she loved DeWitt Taylor (Alexander Kirkland), a writer. After a few months or more of Nancy playing house with Norman she left him for her true love, except her true love was now dating Germaine Prentiss (Phoebe Foster), Nancy's rival.
Nancy had such pride that she refused to go back to Norman, then six months later she discovered she was pregnant (I don't know how it took her six months to find out she was pregnant). She went from a kept woman to a working single mother in a matter of months.
It was hard to feel any pity for Nancy. She was one of those proud and mean women of wealth who like to have people fired for the smallest infraction. She fell on hard times, which you would think would humble her. It may have humbled her a bit, but not nearly as much as she should've been. And even her "hard times" weren't that hard. She had to work, like so many women in the world had to do. It may have been humiliating for her, but it was a job and it wasn't that tough.
In the end she got back with Norman and the implication was that she was trying to make amends for how she treated him. Maybe. Or maybe she was tired of being a working mother and going back to her rich husband was the easiest way out.
Free on YouTube.