Bachelor's Affairs
UCLA Festival of Preservation.
Me and the Boys (Victor Saville, US 1929, 7 min., 35mm)
British-born Victor Saville—a contemporary of Alfred Hitchcock at Gaumont—directed this early “soundie” featuring an American cast, including Estelle Brody who croons “Mean to Me” and “My Suppressed Desire” with alluring panache. Although uncredited, the “hot” jazz sound of Chicago’s Ben Pollack Band, whose members include a 20-year-old Benny Goodman on clarinet, will delight viewers.
Preservation funding provided by Dudley Heer, Frank Buxton and Cynthia Sears, Hugh Hefner, and Mark Cantor.
Bachelor’s Affairs (Alfred L. Werker, US 1932, 64 min., 35mm)
“Middle-aged playboy Andrew Hoyt (Adolphe Menjou), who had previously been a staunch bachelor, gets sucked into marrying a beautiful but vacuous young blonde, after her older sister has expertly set the bait. Realizing pretty quickly that he is not up to the vigorous physical activity demanded by his eager twentysomething spouse, he conspires with his best friend and his loyal secretary to find a new plaything for the soon-to-be ex-wife. . . . Based on a play by James Forbes, Precious, that opened and closed on Broadway in January–February 1929, this unsentimental pre-Code film features some of the crispest and fastest-paced dialogue of any film coming out of Fox; indeed, its cynical tone and rhythm rivals anything produced at Warner Brothers in that period.” – Jan-Christopher Horak, UCLA
Preservation funding provided by the Packard Humanities Institute.
35mm preservation prints courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.