Untamed (1929 film)
- Joan Crawford: Alice " Bingo" Dowling
- Robert Montgomery: Andy McAllister
- Ernest Torrence: Ben Murchison
- Holmes Herbert Howard Presley
- John Miljan; Bennock
- Gwen Lee: Marjory
- Edward Nugent: Paul
Untamed is an American feature film with a few songs from the year 1929 and is the first sound film of Joan Crawford. The film was shot in front of The Hollywood Revue of 1929, however, brought only a few months later in the rental.
Action
Alice Dowling, called Bingo, grew up in the oilfields of her father in the jungle of South America. Bingo knows no rules, and lives only for her pleasure. When her father dies, the girl inherits the entire empire without being even slightly prepared for the responsibility. Ben Murchison, her father's best friend, Bingo takes you to New York, where she will learn good manners and appropriate behavior in public besides accounting. On the ship to learn bingo Andy McAllister know, a poor but decent engineer. On impulse, both want to get married, but Ben demands that bingo still should wait a year to test the sincerity of their feelings. Time passes, bingo turns into a cultured young lady of the best society and the love for Andy threatens to class differences to fail. Bingo finally decides prefer to forgo the millions as Andy. Both pull back to the jungle and live poor, but happy.
Background
Joan Crawford was since 1928 swinger with her portrayal of young ladies, then called Flapper, come in such films as Our Dancing Daughters to fame. Mid- 1929, she was faced with the challenge of mastering the transition from silent films to talkies. Unlike most of the other studio Metro -Goldwyn -Mayer initiated the transition wisely. While competitors such as Paramount Studios lost by a hasty transition to the new medium a lot of their established stars, managed at MGM all established names the changeover. Middle of the year was The Hollywood Revue of 1929 in the rental, almost all the top stars presented in a loose sequence of musical numbers and skits except Greta Garbo in speaking roles. The film marked the official debut sound film of Joan Crawford, although Untamed has already completed a few weeks earlier.
Untamed varied the popular image of Joan Crawford as a fun-loving, rich girl celebrating omitted, has many admirers and in the end finds true love. The actress was preparing himself intensively to the challenge of the microphone. Compared to Roy Newquist, she described her simple but effective method:
" Mostly I 've read aloud [ ... ]. When I had problems with the pronunciation of a word, I repeated it again and again. I have talked a lot with myself. I have read the newspapers aloud. ' Untamed ' started with my singing, ' Languid and plain -tive, hear the chant of the jun - gle! ' I was horrified to Paul Bern told me that my husky voice was exactly what people expected from a girl with my wild appearance. "
The finished result, she was, however, less agreement and said in retrospect succinctly:
" [ ... ] Silly but funny - Bob Montgomery was great, I, however terrible, mainly because I was miscast. "
Theatrical Release
With production costs of 229,000 U.S. dollars Untamed was a low-cost production. Revenues were in the U.S. with 718,000 U.S. dollars something about the previous films of the actress. With foreign revenue of 260,000 U.S. dollars and a total score of 974,000 U.S. dollars, the studio was able to realize a profit of 508,000 U.S. dollars at the end, a sign of the rapidly growing popularity of Joan Crawford
Reviews
In the New York Times, Mordaunt Hall complained about the film:
"Miss Crawford has a good voice, but as a girl who has lived most of his life outside of civilization, it is not convincing. "
The critic of the Brooklyn Eagle was less critical:
"If" Untamed "something for Miss Crawford does, then to prove that she is an actress who do not have to fear the microphones. Your pronunciation is clear and unaffected [ and ] she manages the impulisve heroine of the story a bit more believable than it would even be necessary. "
Sources and literature used
- Roy Newquist (ed.): Conversations with Joan Crawford. Citadel Press, Secaucus, N. J. 1980, ISBN 0-8065-0720-9.
- Lawrence J. Quirk: The Complete Films of Joan Crawford. Citadel Press, Secaucus, N. J. 1988, ISBN 0-8065-1078-1.
- Alexander Walker: Joan Crawford. The Ultimate Star. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1983, ISBN 0-297-78216-9.