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Writer's pictureSamantha Glasser

Nolan November: Big Brown Eyes (1936)

One of the unofficial mainstays of Cinevent and the Columbus Moving Picture Show is Lloyd Nolan, an extremely likeable actor who can deliver quips like no one else. This month we celebrate his work.



RODNEY BOWCOCK: Cary Grant stars in this one as Danny Barr, a tough New York police detective, deep in the throes of investigating a gang of jewel thieves. His girlfriend Eve Fallon (Joan Bennett) is working as a manicurist in a hotel barbershop, where in short order she fast-talks her way into a job as a reporter on the local newspaper. One of the jewel thieves inadvertently commits a murder (and a particularly heinous one at that), but due to the impunity of his gang, is not found culpable for his crimes. Disgusted by this, Danny and Eve join forces to entrap him.


SAMANTHA GLASSER: Big Brown Eyes is a nice-looking movie. Aside from the beautiful cast, the photography is creative. The courtroom scene is shot askew and entirely in close-up, showing how crooked the proceedings are. A man gets away with inadvertently killing a child. Raoul Walsh keeps the story moving at a fast clip with lots of interesting visuals to maintain interest.


RB: There’s a lot to be said for the visuals that Walsh uses in this film. While much of the dialog has a snappy, screwball comedy tone to it, the camera shots are often unsettling and serve to remind you that this is in many ways a taut drama.


SG: Joan Bennett’s character changes jobs twice during the 77 minutes, which is a bit confusing, but it will pay off if you roll with it.


RB: Bennett is in true Joan Blondell imitation mode here, and while I can’t deny that Blondell would’ve been a delightful addition to the film in this role, Bennett does really well here, in a film that pretty much falls right in the middle of the most prolific period of her career. Others disagreed with my assessment. C.F. Dean of Dunbar, West Viriginia’s Dunbar Theater expressed dismay at her presence in the film, stating, “Joan Bennett always puts them in the aisles – on the way out”.


SG: My only discomfort was in one scene in the salon: the black attendant feeds the gangster customer ice cream while he gets his manicure, which feels all the more demeaning because he has a huge smile on his face while he does it.


RB: That’s Fred “Snowflake” Toones, a talented character actor, who was often billed simply as Snowflake, and even more often not billed at all. It wasn’t usual for him to be seen as a porter in films, and while his roles often smack of stereotypes, when he is given a chance, he does provide a deft comic ability. At least for a time, the bulk of his salary came from actually running the shoeshine stand at Republic Studios. In spite of the roles he was given, I always find him to be a pleasant sight.


SG: There are lots of era cliches. The rich lady whose jewels were stolen (Marjorie Gateson) has a Pekingese, which she points out verbally in case you missed it, a common wealthy-woman trope in 30s films. You never see the dogs walking. They’re always being carried or pampered in someone’s lap.


RB: Those sorts of small dogs were stereotypical playthings of the rich; while more working-class people would have a sort of hound that would double as a working animal and faithful friend.


SG: One thing that took me aback while watching was the fact that in a skyscraper apartment, there were working windows with ledges outside where someone could stand. Do those exist?


RB: They also exist in the current season of Only Murders in the Building, so I assume so.


SG: Ooh, I haven't gotten that far yet. No spoilers please!


Walter Pidgeon looks impossibly young without his moustache.


RB: Pidgeon had been around for awhile but this comes fairly early in his career. I’m not expert on his catalog, but this was actually the earliest film he had worked in that I was aware of.


SG: When Nolan’s character is introduced in the opera box at the ballet, I imagined the Picture Show audience’s applause that would have erupted if this were a live screening. He’s the bad guy in this film, as illustrated by his line, “Yeah that’s alright for you, but me, I got a temper. When a mug gets me sore, I gotta blast.” He is excellent in this film. Watch him in the scene where he is casually listening to the radio in his apartment, and they announce that his accomplice has confessed. He doesn’t say a word, but expertly conveys boredom, then recognition, then fear.


RB: This is not the Lloyd Nolan that we know so well at the Picture Show, but I agree that he’s really great in this movie and displays a tough hardboiled persona that works well.


SG: Another appealing villain character is played by Henry Brandon, who is listed as Henry Kleinbach in this last role prior to changing to his stage name. He is very handsome playing a gangster. His biographers Bill Cassara and Richard Greene wrote, “Big Brown Eyes is a definite misfire, but oddly fascinating.”


RB: I disagree with that statement, but more on that soon.


SG: Isabel Jewell stands out as a witness who recants her statement after being threatened by the gangsters. She would go on to make two exceptional classics with Lost Horizon the following year and Gone With the Wind a few years later.


Bennett is lovely and lively as always. She seems to be actually drinking her pineapple soda, which makes me think they didn’t do many takes. I always hear modern era actors talking about barf buckets on set when they discuss eating scenes in modern shoots. They do so many takes that an actor risks become averse to the snack they’re having, even if it is something they like, unless they spit it out after every take. Watch next time you watch someone eating something and they’re usually just picking, not actually consuming--not the case with Bennett and the soda, and she’s rail thin. It might have been an especially unappetizing set because instead of shaving cream in the salon scenes, which dried too quickly under the hot studio lights, they used whipped cream, which I’m sure smelled terrible.


Bennet’s makeup by Harry Ray is beautiful. She looks cherubic, (in the silent era she would have surely only played ingénues), but her voice has maturity and intelligence which makes her able to properly play this role. Mary Anthony in Cleveland would disagree with me. She wrote to Photoplay saying, “One might as well put Titania in a red bathing suit as put Joan Bennett in so flamboyant a part. She had none of her old subtle charm, but was rather a poor copy of Carole Lombard. Not for an instant could I detect the appealing little Joan of Little Women. I hope she realizes that the hard-boiled type is not her type.”

She certainly wasn’t the hard-boiled type off-screen. She and her stand-in spent their downtime making hooked rugs.


RB: Reviews were certainly mixed on this film, which has gotten a far more positive reputation upon reassessment than it did on contemporary release. We’ve both noted some strong criticism for Joan Bennett’s performance, which I simply don’t see. Some exhibitors noted a similarity between the setting of this and other films. “Gangsters and manicurists and reporters. Okay enough, but little that is new,” opined A. Irwin of the Plance Theatre in New Hampshire. Henry Reeve of the Mission Theatre in Menard, Texas felt that he was completely missing out on what was so good about the movie: "This one for us was another to add to the list of the new style silly-smart comedies that Hollywood has been indulging in and that seem to be getting critical plaudits. The desperate efforts for laughs and Miss Bennett's attempts at wise cracking rather crashed by our crowd. There really must be something wrong with our sense of humor out here. Personally enjoyed it in spite of the things mentioned above. So did a few others."


SG: I loved the bit where Grant picks Bennett up and stands her on the bed to kiss her. As a short girl, I can relate to this scene, and it shows a sense of humor between the couple. They don’t emit fireworks, but they have a great rapport.


RB: There are definitely seeds here of what Grant was going to become in a very short time. In spite of the sometimes serious tone of the film, there is a lightness and snappiness to his dialogue that is the sort of thing that we now find irresistible about him.


SG: Paramount got $17,500 for loaning Cary Grant to Walter Wanger, the producer who four years later married Bennett.


RB: Grant had recently made a name for himself in a box-office bomb co-starring with Katherine Hepburn called Sylvia Scarlett. It was a bomb, but he stood out and Paramount capitalized on the attempt to make a little money on their investment.


SG: Scott Eyman said, “It’s basically a cheerfully disreputable pre-Code film unaccountably made after the code, with speedy cross-talk that prefigures His Girl Friday.


RB: There are definitely things about this movie that seem very, very pre-code. I’m surprised that it was permitted to be made without extensive revision.


SG: Movie Mirror’s reviewer said, “Joan Bennett is right cute as Miss Manicurist to the rescue. She has a flair for comedy and is even prettier than usual. Cary Grant gets a lot of real laughs out of his role and should rate your applause.”


RB: Indeed, there was a fair amount of positive response to the picture. "Another of the programmers which fills the bill to perfection. If we could have programs of this quality all the time, our people would be thoroughly satisfied," stated Horn and Morgan Inc., Star Theatre of Hay Springs, Nebraska.


SG: It is easy to take Cary Grant for granted because it is a given that he is great, and he is.


I had seen this movie years ago and enjoyed it but remembered nothing about it. It is a perfect representation of how enjoyable, well-cast, and stylish movies from this era could be. And because there are so many, even the good ones become forgotten. If it has been a while since you watched it too, I recommend a revisit. You won’t regret it. Four stars.


RB: This one was new to me, and it was chock-full of the things that make old movies so much fun and interesting for me to watch. Great performances, great writing and a runtime that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome? Four stars happily. I think anyone reading this will enjoy it.


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