While "Beauty and the Boss" isn't a total loss - no movie with Warren William and Charles Butterworth could be - it's darn close, and the fault, dear Brutus, lies with its leading lady, Marion Marsh.
I'm a connoisseur of bad performances, and always held Wheeler Oakman's wooden acting in "Lights of New York" as the gold standard, but Marsh has taken the title in a first-round knockout.
Either director Roy Del Ruth was too busy to direct Marsh or was deliberately trying to end her contract, but the decision to let her speak all her lines as rapidly and with as little inflection as possible was fatal. Every time she's on screen, she kills the picture with her lack of ability to act.
Mary Doran, who plays the "other woman" is so far superior to her in terms of personality and intelligence that it's baffling how William's character throws her over for such a dimwit.
I blame Del Ruth, ultimately. Any director who let Marsh get away with that performance -and- cuts away from Butterworth doing the tango is clearly having a bad time of it.
I'm a connoisseur of bad performances, and always held Wheeler Oakman's wooden acting in "Lights of New York" as the gold standard, but Marsh has taken the title in a first-round knockout.
Either director Roy Del Ruth was too busy to direct Marsh or was deliberately trying to end her contract, but the decision to let her speak all her lines as rapidly and with as little inflection as possible was fatal. Every time she's on screen, she kills the picture with her lack of ability to act.
Mary Doran, who plays the "other woman" is so far superior to her in terms of personality and intelligence that it's baffling how William's character throws her over for such a dimwit.
I blame Del Ruth, ultimately. Any director who let Marsh get away with that performance -and- cuts away from Butterworth doing the tango is clearly having a bad time of it.