Wed 6 Oct 2021
An Archived Movie Review: WHIPSAW (1935).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[9] Comments
WHIPSAW. MGM, 1935. Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy. Director: Sam Wood.
There are other members of the cast, but the only other name I recognized was John Qualen, and he was so far down in the list, I decided to mention only the two leading stars. They’re all that’s needed, though, to make this the best movie I’ve seen in quite some time. If it ever comes on in your area, don’t miss this one.
She’s a lady crook, working for a gang of jewel thieves, He’s a cop, pretending to be a tough hoodlum to gain her confidence. He doesn’t know she’s onto him, but she needs him to help shake the members of a rival gang who are on her trail.
It’s a pleasure to watch a movie written with some intelligence behind it. The people in it are thinking, and none of the usual ploys in your usual run-of-the-mill crime caper seem to work as well here as they do in every other film you sit down to see. What’s more, it may be corny, but it’s also a pleasure to watch a picture in which even the crooks (well, some of them) have moral standards.
And it’s not enough that Myrna Loy can act cool and disinterested and obviously be falling deeply in love at the same time; she’s also beautiful and charming, and she simply fills the screen with her presence every minute she’s on it, Spencer Tracy tries hard, with an intensely casual portrayal of a policeman caught between his job and a woman he begins to care for more and more, but I think this is the lady’s picture, all the way.
October 6th, 2021 at 9:03 pm
Though Loy is in more than one picture with Tracy this is one of the only (the only?) one where they are playing off of each other as a romantic pair and they work really well.
This one snaps, avoids a lot of cliches while playing with others, and is altogether a much more entertaining film than its realative minor status suggests.
This is one of those films that justify the whole idea of the studio system, just a good movie that needed to be made and there were the stars there to make it work.
October 6th, 2021 at 10:06 pm
I don’t know why, but this movie is not very well known. There are only five external reviews on IMDb, for example, including this one.
I must have watched it back in 1990 on TCM, and it’s been released since then by Warner Archives on DVD, so what’s going on?
October 7th, 2021 at 5:52 am
One more for the want-list.
Interesting to think how the availability of old films like this has changed since you wrote this review.
October 7th, 2021 at 10:27 pm
Myrna Loy was sensational whenever cast as a bad girl. Daughter of Fu Manchu, and whatnot. Her nude swim scene, wherever/whatever that was.
I also liked her in that sand-dune romp with Tyrone Power …’Rains of Ranchipur’? where the Pow Man led her to iniquity, fumbling hubby Nigel Bruce none the wiser.
And there’s even another one similar: did she also star as a dissatisfied wife lured out to an oasis by moonlight, by French Legionnaire Ronald Coleman?
That fine, porcelain face of hers is never better than when contemplating some Act of Skullduggery.
October 8th, 2021 at 10:14 am
The Rains Came and no sand dunes.
October 8th, 2021 at 10:15 am
Oh, Claudette Colbert with Ronald Colman in Under Two Flags.
October 8th, 2021 at 9:42 pm
aha, thanks
October 8th, 2021 at 9:55 pm
Favorite scene from ‘The Thin Man’ series
In a swank uptown nightclub, a waiter seats Nick and Nora Charles. Nick orders a couple of drinks for him and his wife.
“Two Bacardis”
Waiter turns to Nora.
“The same”
October 17th, 2021 at 8:32 pm
The nude is in THE BARBARIAN where she takes a bath wearing nothing but clear water and a few floating flowers in sheik John Gilbert’s walk in tub.
She is also Yasmini in THE BLACK WATCH based on KING OF THE KHYBER RIFLES, the Eurasian killer in THIRTEEN WOMEN, and her wild dance in RED DESERT. I can’t recall the title, but she’s the randy sister in the Maurice Chevalier/Jeanette MacDonald musical. Bad girls were the thing ironically for the woman typecast as Hollywood’s sexiest wife and mother.