Escapade (1935) User Reviews

I wish this film which survives could get shown! Only old reviews are accessible so far...

[larry41onEbay · 7/10 · 12 December 2018]

"If "Escapade," the new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film at the Capitol, goes down in cinema history at all-which is doubtful-it will be remembered only as the occasion of Luise Ranier's Hollywood début. The dark-haired actress from Vienna, whose mannerisms and inflection are bound to suggest Elisabeth Bergner, joins forces with William Powell in a foredoomed attempt to pull a heavy screen vehicle out of the mire of its own tedium.When a story gets under way as a frothy Viennese, farce and then is sidetracked into heavy tragedy, one can only commiserate with the players. What they did, they did for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and there is no greater love than this.Here again, after he had been spared the type for several moons, Mr. Powell appears as the debonair breaker of hearts. As Fritz Heideneck, well-known Viennese artist, his arrival at any public gathering is a signal for husbands to collect their wives, assume their sternest manner and begin speaking in loud tones of their deadly aim with pistols at twenty paces.When one flirtatious wife poses for him in a mask, chinchilla scarf, muff and a warm smile-and when the revealing sketch finds its way into the papers-there is a great to-do. The husband of the errant model is convinced that the lady of the mask really is his brother's fiancée. He insists the brother get the truth from Heideneck or challenge him to a duel, perhaps both.Heideneck, to save the lady's reputation and his own neck, chooses a name at random and identifies a Miss Major as the model. You must have guessed, at this point, that there really is a Miss Major who, becoming involved in the plot, wins the artist's love, but not until after the romance has been watered by bitter tears, pruned by the sharp tongues of the defeated rivals and almost severed by a pistol bullet.The picture manages to keep its head above the waters for about the first third, but thereafter its story thread is so tortuous and Miss Rainer's tears and hysterics so abundant that interest is bound to droop.As a test flight for Miss Rainer, "Escapade" gives the attractive newcomer a fairly wide range. Alternately shy, demure, vivacious, petulant, happy, miserable, tragic and broodingly maternal-which is a broad sweep for any one picture-Miss Rainer justifies at least the conservative estimate of "promising." We should have been happier had the story chosen to limit its emotional range a bit, but Metro unquestionably wanted to show off its newest find from every conceivable angle.Mr. Powell, in one of his less interesting rôles, appears willing to give the newcomer every possible advantage, even at some disadvantage to himself. Reginald Owen comes through with some comedy relief, of which there should have been more. Frank Morgan, Mady Christians and Virginia Bruce do well enough in the lesser rôles.The stage show features Sid Gary, Florence and Alvarez, Paul Gerrits, Helene Denizon, Georgie Tapps, Prosper and Meret and the Danny Dare girls." It survives at UCLA.