"Fast and Loose" Review

 

by Daniel White

Egads! I'm going to make a (possibly) controversial statement: Miriam Hopkins was the sexiest Pre Code actress. That is, if you consider talent, brains, wit, and sophistication ingredients that make a woman sexy, which I certainly do. With her tousled hair, and caramel-simmered with peach pits voice, Miriam Hopkins makes for an exciting screen presence in her first film, Paramount's Fast and Loose (1930).

She plays Marion Lenox, a spoiled Long Island heiress, who falls in love with the family mechanic (the strapping Charles Starrett) after a night time chance encounter on the beach. The movie is okay, a bit static and stagy, but Hopkins is so alive, such a unique leading lady, that she elevates it, making it memorable only because she's in it.

There is a scene where she and the virile Starrett go swimming together in the moonlight that is as sensual a moment in Pre Code film as one will find. Their flirty banter before and during the swim is a fine balance of sexy and sweet.

A spirited, contradictory, and self-confident heroine, the movie concludes with Marion being corralled and tamed by the conventional Henry (Starrett). However, if a sequel to the film were ever made, it might find our willful Marion/Miriam struggling to break free from the constraints of domesticity. Even to such a stud as Charles Starrett.

I often think that Mae West was the actress who suffered most when the film industry decided to enforce it's censorship rules in 1934, but Miriam Hopkins' career was affected as well. That, and a reputation for being difficult to work with, ended her stint as a leading lady by the early forties. She would continue to act in character roles right up until her death. But never would she be as free, freewheeling, alluring, and provocative, as she was in her Pre Code period.

There is another free spirited actress in this film, Carole Lombard. Lombard plays Alice, a straight-laced show girl in love with Marion's alcoholic brother (Henry Wadsworth). It's a thankless role, that prevents the vibrant actress from shining. Not until 1934's Twentieth Century would Carole Lombard get a chance to strut her stuff, becoming the undisputed queen of the screwball comedy.

With the wonderful Frank Morgan providing solid support as Miriam's sympathetic, if perplexed father, and the gangly Ilka Chase as Lombard's girlfriend, Fast and Loose is available on YouTube.