Chloe, Love Is Calling You (1934) is a weird, swampy mess of a movie

Look, if you are looking for a masterpiece of early cinema, keep walking. But if you have a soft spot for dusty, bizarre 1930s melodramas that feel like they were filmed in someone's damp backyard, Chloe, Love Is Calling You is worth a look tonight. Just don't expect it to make a whole lot of sense. 🐊

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Chloe, Love Is Calling You (1934) through its definitive frames.

The whole thing centers on a voodoo priestess coming out of the Louisiana swamps to get revenge on a white plantation owner. It has that ultra-cheap, early-sound era stiffness where people stand perfectly still so the giant microphone overhead can catch their whispers.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Chloe, Love Is Calling You (1934) through its definitive frames.

It actually reminds me a bit of other clunky releases from that era like The Drifter or even the dusty outdoor scenes in The Last Frontier, though those had slightly better budgets. This one feels like it was put together with spare change and sheer willpower.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Chloe, Love Is Calling You (1934) through its definitive frames.

The Swamp and the Music

The swamp sets are incredibly fake. You can almost see the studio walls behind the fake hanging moss, which honestly just adds to the charm.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Chloe, Love Is Calling You (1934) through its definitive frames.

And then there is the music. Out of nowhere, we get a performance by the Shreveport Home Wreckers. It is a neat little musical moment, but it feels like the movie just completely forgot it was supposed to be a dark story about revenge for about ten minutes.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Chloe, Love Is Calling You (1934) through its definitive frames.

Olive Borden plays Chloe, and she spends most of her screen time looking intensely worried. Her eyes get so wide in one scene I thought they might pop out. It is the kind of acting where you can see the director waving his arms off-camera, telling her to look more shocked.

Georgette Harvey plays the priestess, and honestly, she is the best part of the whole thing. She has this heavy, commanding presence that almost makes you forget you are watching a bargain-bin movie. Almost.

Some Weird Little Details

I noticed a few things that cracked me up while watching:

• The sound of "crickets" in the swamp sounds more like someone shaking a box of dry macaroni.
• One of the guys wears a hat that looks three sizes too big, and it keeps slipping down his forehead during a serious conversation.
• The dialogue has these massive, awkward pauses where characters seem to be waiting for the other person to remember their line.

It is definitely not a good movie by modern standards. But it has this strange, hypnotic quality that modern CGI-heavy stuff just cannot replicate.

If you are the type who likes digging up forgotten oddities from the pre-code era, give it a spin. Everyone else will probably turn it off after ten minutes, and I wouldn't even blame them.