The Lady Lies

Claudette Colbert is a shop girl. She helps widower Walter Huston pick out a birthday gift for his daughter, Patricia Deering. Later, they run into each other and Huston takes her to lunch so he can read her the enthusiastic letter his daughter has written. Miss Colbert becomes Huston's kept woman and things go along very nicely until the night Huston has his children home -- Tom Brown plays his son -- and a couple of their New England relatives. They endure a Sodom-and-Gomorrah rant, and matters come to a head.

Huston certainly hit the ground running in the movies in 1929. Besides this movie and THE VIRGINIAN -- I've yet to see GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS -- he also appeared in three shorts, one as Jean Valjean and one as Abraham Lincoln! In this movie he gives the most naturalistic performance in an early talkie I have ever seen. The opening scene has him trying to get some paperwork done while Charles Ruggles natters on; Huston's distracted, muttered replies are pitch perfect.

The story, despite its rather standard plot, has some fine situations, and director Hobart Henley takes advantage of the superior sound technicians in Paramount's Astoria studio to produce a lovely scene in a restaurant. It's shot wild, letting the camera move freely, while the soundtrack is filled with the babble of a large room's conversations. Henley had entered the movies in 1914 as an actor, and soon became a successful director. He retired from the screen in 1934, even though he was only 47; he lived another 30 years. Like many a now-obscure director, I have no idea why he quit so young.