White Shoulders (1931) review - Delightfully petty pre-code trash

If you have a soft spot for dusty pre-code melodramas where nobody acts like a normal human being, White Shoulders is a weirdly fun time. But if you need characters to have actual brain cells, you will probably want to throw your shoe at the screen. 🥂

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of White Shoulders (1931) through its definitive frames.

The setup is incredibly goofy. Gordon Kent (played by a very stiff Jack Holt) strikes it rich in the mines and decides he needs a classy city wife—or, as the movie puts it, "white shoulders."

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of White Shoulders (1931) through its definitive frames.

He meets Norma (the lovely Mary Astor) and proposes the exact same night. She says yes because she is broke, but then she immediately gets annoyed during their honeymoon because he is too nice to her.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of White Shoulders (1931) through its definitive frames.

Honestly, her logic is hilarious. She literally gets mad at him for buying her things and being too affectionate because he didn't "romance" her enough first. 🤷‍♀️

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of White Shoulders (1931) through its definitive frames.

So, naturally, she runs off to Paris with a greasy professional womanizer named Marchmont. Ricardo Cortez plays him, doing his usual slimy thing, and if you saw him in Millie, you know exactly what kind of trouble this guy is.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of White Shoulders (1931) through its definitive frames.

But this is where the movie gets wonderfully petty. Instead of just getting a divorce like a normal guy, Gordon decides to absolutely ruin their lives.

He discovers that Marchmont is actually a wanted embezzler, and that Norma's first husband never actually divorced her. He tells them: if you two ever separate, I am sending you both to jail.

So he literally forces his cheating wife and her broke lover to stay together in New York, hiring detectives to watch them. It is so deliciously toxic. 🍿

There is this one scene where Mary Astor is back working as a showgirl to support her lover's drinking habit, looking utterly miserable, while Jack Holt just watches from the shadows like a satisfied gargoyle. It goes on a bit too long, but the sheer spite of it is amazing.

Then some guy gets shot while trying to rob a safe, there is some blackmail, and somehow... we are supposed to believe these two main characters still love each other at the end. The final scene feels so incredibly rushed, like the actors had a train to catch.

Some things I wrote down while watching:

• Jack Holt’s mustache deserves its own billing in the credits.
• The way Ricardo Cortez pours a drink is incredibly aggressive.
• Norma’s roommate has the best lines but she just disappears for half the movie.
• The safe-cracking scene has zero tension because the background music is so loud.

It is not a masterpiece by any stretch, and the copy I watched was pretty crackly. But for a quick dose of vintage 1930s spite, it is definitely worth a look.