User reviews

It seems there was a curse on "Millie." Its four co-stars, Helen Twelvetrees, Lylian Tashman, Robert Ames and James Hall all died before they turned 50. As for the movie itself, its pre-code message is that all men are beasts who crave only one thing. The point is made through the saga of Millie Blake whom we first meet as a bashful bride on her wedding night (though even bucket loads of make-up can't hide the fact that Helen Twelvetrees is no teen-ager.) Nor is her paunchy husband an Adonis. Three years and a child later, she catches hubby canoodling with his mistress at a night club, files for divorce and valiantly (if stupidly) relinquishes the alimony she was entitled to. Plucky lass! From there on in, Millie fends off -- or gives in, depending on how you interpret the cutaways -- to a succession of over-age lotharios. But when one of them makes a play for her 16-year-old daughter, she has no choice. She has to shoot the dastard. By today's standards, Millie's sudsy exploits would be almost laughable. But by the standards of 1930/31, as movies were just learning to talk, it qualifies as an interesting (and sometimes downright entertaining) museum piece.

Millie is one of those pre-code drama which starts with a pre-World War I setting and takes us deep into the Depression. Helen Twelvetrees is in the title role, but in fact this one could definitely be called a woman's picture. First for the fact that the best roles are for the women and that the men here are mostly dogs.

Millie starts with Helen Twelvetrees as an eager young bride who's run away with the richest, handsomest boy in town. They have a kid, but he starts stepping out on her soon enough. She sacrifices in the way Stella Dallas did and gradually she goes through a variety of men all of whom disappoint her one way or another. Twelvetrees also has some gal pals like Joan Blondell and Lilyan Tashman always with an 'I told you so' for all occasions.

But the mother instincts are aroused when one of her men, producer and rake, John Halliday starts moving on her daughter Anita Louise. Then this film starts resembling Madame X.

Twelvetrees made a career of playing tragic parts like in Millie kind of mirroring her own life. There are some great lines coming from her, Blondell and Tashman. For them alone this film is worth a view.

"Work?!? You won't have any time for opportunity!"

This forgotten RKO drama has been rediscovered since Roan Group released their beautiful,spotless DVD of it. While not much more than a "B" programmer, it's still fascinating, especially in its depiction of the sexes.

Mille's character, as played by Helen Twelvetrees, is a neurotic and pouty plain jane, so it's hard to imagine why these three men relentlessly go after her. Maybe because the men are neurotic losers themselves (no one in this film is a glamorous beauty by any means). We barely even get to know them, so the suffering she endures from their infidelity does not convince. Still, Twelvetrees gets points for trying.

But Millie's tribulations aren't the real star of this film.

While it's easy to project gay subtexts onto older films, here it's pretty indisputable that Millie's pals Helen and Angie are more than just friends. Watch Helen gussy herself up when she sees Angie across the room in the club. And their relations with men are based solely on financial gain--they clearly turn to each other for their other needs. Both Lilyan Tashman and Joan Blondell are quite funny in the roles, the former a world-wise goldigger and the latter a young, mercenary bubblehead. In their world, men are mere objects to be used with total detachment--the opposite of Millie, who allows herself to be exploited by men and then wallows in self-pity for the next 3 reels.

While not quite the best of pre-Code, MILLIE is still an important footnote for early 30s movie-making, and worth a look for those (like me) who can't get enough of pre-Catholic League Hollywood.

Prolific director John Francis Dillon's 1931 "Millie" is a curiosity piece, a pastiche of poor editing and some sprightly acting vignettes.

Millie, Helen Twelvetrees, starts off as a swept-off-her-feet kid eloping with handsome and ambitious Jack Maitland, James Hall. Her shaking virgin-wedding night-do we have to go to bed?- scene is very funny, one of the best of its kind on old film.

Ensconced in Westchester County outside NYC, Jack makes big bucks and Millie, now three years on and with a little girl, is neglected, bored and angry at her absent husband. A reunion with two girlfriends at a cabaret brings an encounter with an errant Jack and his foul-mouthed paramour who gets a sock in the jaw from Millie.

Divorced and working in New York City, Millie leads a socially active life with fast-track friends and wild parties. Reflecting the hesitancy of many directors and script writers at the time it's never really clear if Millie goes beyond gay partying to hop into the sack with rabidly panting, pursuing men, some already married.

Millie has one true male admirer, a reporter named Tommy, played by Robert Ames. A drunken twit tells Millie he's fooling around with another woman and she believes her, ending the best relationship she's had. Tommy's a sad case.

The story turns melodramatic when an older man-about-Manhattan, long obsessed with Millie, shows an unhealthy interest in her now gorgeous teenage daughter, Connie. The denouement is predictable but there's a nice trial scene to wrap things up.

"Millie" skirts on the border of dealing openly with adultery and promiscuousness. What is unusual is that the film has a clear sapphic subtext depicting Millie's two girlfriends as sexually involved - the first scene they're in shows them in bed in nightclothes. THAT was very unusual for the times. I wonder how many 1930s moviegoers picked up on that.

Most of the cast isn't well known other than to aficionados of pre-war films. Joan Blondell, whose career was in the ascendancy, is young Angie, a flighty friend of Millie and probable lover of her other girlfriend.

Better direction and editing would have improved a basically interesting story. It's a museum piece worth seeing if you care about how Hollywood portrayed extramarital flings, lechery, boozing and partying in the grand old Pre-Code Days.

5/10.

Pretty racy when it was released but rather tame by today's standards. Uneven production with some very good moments but more that will catch your mind wandering. If you are interested in pre-code movies, this one should be seen. Story involves a mother who gives up child and falls from grace only to be redeemed at the end. It is also a movie about a strong woman who exercised choice and refuses to live the kind of life that destined for most young women who were married at the time. Not a great film and probably only worth your time if looking for historical examples or as a classroom project.

Helen Twelvetrees (Millie) stars as the title character in a soap opera story of her life. We follow her as she gets married to wealthy James Hall (Jack) as an innocent girl and we end up almost 20 years later. How does she change during this period? Pretty drastically.

The supporting cast are good despite every character being portrayed as deceitful - the men are cheaters and the women are gold-diggers. Lilyan Tashman (Helen) and Joan Blondell (Angie) have the most entertainng parts and they are funny with their dialogue. They also provide some glamour with their outfits and the sets are interesting. We also get creepy John Halliday (Jimmy) who keeps trying his luck with Twelvetrees over the course of the film. Well, if the girl doesn't wanna play what's a man to do?

It's a woman's film from the early 1930s and is of historical interest as that.

As a pre code example of movie making i recommend this. adult script. all those who say the two female friends were 'obvious' lesbians..........I actually feel that they were intimating that they were prostitutes. who knows. the two friends to me were the entire movie. and i had never seen anita louise so young before. interesting flick, but not for the millenials.

This creaky antique reworking of Madame X is of interest mainly for its pre-code ingredients, blatant lesbianism, unpunished sex outside marriage etc., than any real value as a film. A lot of the film techniques are reminiscent of silents showing the growing pains of films continued into the early thirties. Part of the problem with the film is that all the men talk about how the heroine gets under a man's skin and they can't get over her but Helen Twelvetrees exudes none of the magnetism that makes that believable. The supporting players add more to the picture than the leads with Lilyan Tashman having the most fun as a party girl with Joan Blondell and Frank McHugh both starting out but already stealing scenes with their patented personas firmly in place. Except for the three of them the acting is extremely florid, especially towards the end. An almost unrecognizable Anita Louise, still beautiful but so young, is cast as Millie's daughter.

Very typical of its time, "Millie" stars Helen Twelvetrees as the title character, a woman who starts off as a respectable young mother married into a rich family. Soon enough, she divorces, gives up her child and descends into a shameful streetwalker's life. Before the final frame, she tries to get her daughter and her dignity back. The most notable thing about it now is the presence of a young Joan Blondell as one of Millie's slutty friends. Helen Twelvetrees herself is fascinating to watch - sort of a cross between Clara Bow and Glenda Farrell, very vivacious and totally unlike the stuffy, victorian-era images that the her name conjures up (the big joke at the time was that she was Rin Tin Tin's favorite actress!).

Soap Opera following the exploits of Millie Blake (Helen Twelvetrees) and her "love parade" of heels. This film spans nearly twenty years as we watch our Millie go from jittery young girl scared to face her honeymoon bed (as her new hubby presses "Are you sleepy yet?"), to rich, bored, and lonesome wife and mother, to divorcée working the counter of a cigar stand fending off "offers" from men, to mother who will stop at nothing to help save her teenage daughter's virtue. Millie soon realizes that "all men are tramps" - and it's true, at least in her world - all the men in this film are just complete womanizing cads, and one man goes even further than that when he attempts to pursue a very innocent sixteen year old girl (who calls him "Uncle"), rubbing her ankles, ladling her with "cider", and getting her to put on one of his assortment of "Mandarin Coats".

This pre-code film has it all - from a montage of a day at Coney Island to cat fights to divorce to bootleg cocktail parties to two blondes in negligees sharing a double bed all the way to the schemes of a lecher. It is really fun to watch the scenes with Millie's two blonde gal pals, childhood friend Angie and her bed friend Helen, a feisty, tough, wisecracking sort of gal - these two women run through men, booze, and outlandish fur, satin, and chiffon gowns like water. There is a nice musical number in one nightclub scene, a rendition of "Millie, the Red Head". This film actually becomes quite serious in later scenes, bringing it to a satisfying climax. Very good.

Millie is a well-made, well-acted early talking picture, but like many of these "pre-code" melodramas, it is not going to seem very entertaining to most classic movie fans because it is so unremittingly grim and sleazy. It works overtime to portray life in early 20th century urban America as a nightmarish merry-go-round of boozing, empty partying and infidelity. Not a single strong, moral major character lightens the dark immorality and hedonism. All the men are cheaters, womanizers, child molesters, and drunkards. The women all victimized weaklings, whores, dumb broads, cats, and lushes. Nevertheless, the tone is ultimately cautionary rather than exploitive.

The title character Millie (Helen Twelvetrees) starts as a timid, chaste small town girl who marries a well-off New Yorker (James Hall). A few years later, she is living in luxury, has a beautiful daughter, and a kind-hearted mother-in-law who adores her. But she is unhappy because hubby no long pays much attention to her. He is always going away "on business" -- oh! oh! Presently, while in a nightclub visiting with old home town pal Joan Blondell and Joan's equally slutty cohort Lilyan Tashmn, poor Millie catches hubby with his "business" -- a dame. She divorces the cad but inexplicably lets him have custody of the kid without even demanding a settlement. Any other woman would have socked it to the bum, but our Milly is a hopelessly weak, wavering, unstable type. Her modest job at a hotel tobacco counter gives her contact with lots of men, but only one who interests her, a reporter played by Robert Ames. She thinks he is a nice guy in spite of his guzzling too liberally of prohibition bathtub gin. After all, he is a reporter, and in old movies press men are expected to be drunks. Alas, he turns out to be two-timer as well, the cad! Helped along by the unwholesome influence of professional floozies Blondell and Tashman, Millie descends into wild partying, empty affairs, alcoholism, and a date with a murder trial.

Even though this picture is loaded with drinking, promiscuity, infidelity, bawdy language and behavior, it may not be such a bad one for young people to view with proper supervision. The drinking and other dissipation is not glamorized as in other movies of the era, notably the first two Thin Man movies. Millie in fact shows exactly where such a decadent lifestyle leads -- how disgusting intoxication is, and the harm sleeping around and cheating does to oneself and others.

Though much immorality and freewheeling lifestyle is shown in Millie, there is in fact no hint of a lesbian relationship between the floozies played by Blondell and Tashman as some others have alleged -- except in the diseased imaginations of the homophobes and homophiles who find such under every rock. The two girls are shown in the same bed together all right, but simply because they are renting a cheap room furnished with only one bed. It was common in those days for both male and female room mates on an economy budget to do so -- with no hanky-panky.

Again Millie is a well-made movie with an engrossing story, but it is simply peopled with too many unredeemed losers to be enjoyable to those with a wholesome outlook. The only strong, moral character is Millie's mother-in-law (Charlotte Walker), but she is given only three brief appearances. If her character had been beefed up with a little more screen time, it would have helped.

A final note. Several of the players in Millie met sad ends. Helen Twelvetrees' career ended early, mainly because the directors and studio bosses got fed up with her tantrums and her otherwise unstable personality. Forgotten for many years, she died of a drug overdose, an apparent suicide, at age 49. Lilyan Tashman died of cancer three years after Millie was released. As Millie's booze-soaked reporter boy friend, Robert Ames was apparently playing himself. A year later he died at 42 of -- get this --delirium tremens! Don't drink, kiddies.

This movie is not at all well made: scenes fade in and out far too slowly, the camerawork is pedestrian in the extreme, and some of the plot twists are never satisfactorily dealt with. But the storyline still manages to engage, in spite of its slow pace, and those interested in the culture of the 30's will enjoy seeing what a "woman's weepie" of the time was (not to mention the clothes). The plot also has a few surprises: protagonist Millie admirably insists on working for her independence, but gold-diggers Lilyan Tashman and Joan Blondell are also portrayed as likeable. A bonus: Frank McHugh, in a bit role, does a fine job singing a little number. But overall the film is not for those with low reserves of patience.

Poor Millie! She marries for love - not money - and still ends up unlucky in love. There's something intriguingly contemporary about her consistently entering into bad relationships. Also contemporary is her decision to live with her boyfriend instead of marrying him - even though he does offer to marry her.

Helen Twelvetrees has the ability to make the heroine's story somewhat compelling despite the film's plodding structure. John Halliday is very appealing as Twelvetrees' suitor until his character turns surprisingly into a cad.

So what's the moral of this "woman's picture?" Millie is so hurt by her broken marriage that perhaps she errs in writing off her unfaithful husband so quickly. In him she may have found the only decent male character in the story.

Helen Twelvetrees martyrs and mopes through a couple of decades of men in this creaky melodrama. Helped immeasurably by the presence of two gold digger bisexuals played by Lilyan Tashman and Joan Blondell along with the sophisticated depravity of John Halliday it is a well mounted picture that unashamedly injects a fashion show for the ladies from end to end. With clothes to admire and men to despise Millie probably did not need a free china night to pack them in at the Bijou.

Popular Millie runs off with Jack Maitland to marry. She gives birth and he's wandering in no time. The marriage ends and she falls for a reporter, no better than Maitland and with less money. A long time pursuer (Halliday) gives up on Millie and instead devotes his seductive attentions to her teenage daughter.

Millie is a misandrist field day with nearly every male a drunk, a cheat or both and both Tashman and Blondell providing sardonic commentary whether in bed together or draped in elaborate finery reinforce it with their terse, comic insight. Halliday simply oozes unctuous respectability, his perverse voyeurism drawing him to a Sunday service to ogle Millie's teen.

The film ultimately implodes in the overwrought court scene finale but not before an elaborate fashion show and some entertaining cynical girl talk from Tashman and Blondell that carry MIllie up until that point.

This is a long sprawling soap about the life of a rather uninteresting girl called Millie. She's an independently minded girl which in the mind of the film's writers means that she will have to pay for that!

Although the film spans twenty years of Millie's life from innocent young thing to a being just a damaged shadow of life, you never really get to know who she is. The writing is much too shallow to understand any character development. It pretends to be a woman's film; a film championing women's struggle against a world ruled by men but its subplot seems to portray the complete opposite theme. The story has no positive message, it has a very pessimistic outlook on life. It exists seemingly just to allow us, the viewer to take some sort of punitive delight in making poor, sweet Helen Twelvetrees suffer for what the writers would like us to imagine is her sinful and amoral life. What is baffling is that her life is neither sinful not amoral, indeed the whole plot is how the men in her life have caused all her problems....but had she expected less from life....

The writer, Harvard educated Donald Henderson Clarke's stock in trade were salacious, racy novels about ladies of easy virtue. With this, he has tried to redress the balance by taking a woman's point of view but his traits are still there. Millie's friends, a couple of 'ladies of the night' played particularly unconvincingly by Joan Blondell and Lilyan Tashman are there just to prove that in the world beyond Clarke's ivory tower, these male fantasies do exist - there's no explanation why they end up in this predicament, they just fit into an unfortunate view the world of the late 1920s had about people from different backgrounds. Joan Blondell incidentally only has a very small supporting role, she had not yet developed into the sassy, sexy dame character we all love (well I do!), in fact, as it pains me to say, she's pretty awful in this. Terrible acting however is a common trait of this whole picture - especially the men - except for Frank McHugh who is always great and adds some much needed fun to this otherwise gloomy dirge. Even Helen Twelvetrees who is usually ok (and was brilliant in HER MAN) is a little 'school play' at times. Just because this was filmed in 1930 is no excuse for the poor direction and poor acting and poor story development. There were plenty of superb films made that year year but there were however much more which were like this.

Although its a pretty poor picture, it's almost interesting to get a feel of the prejudices and injustices of this age. Even a film purporting to put over a female point of view gets bogged down in the ingrained judgemental misogyny of the age. There are dozens of early 1930s women's films so much better than this with actual stories and believable dialogue, this is essentially just a pointless daytime soap.

Fun to see a young Joan Blondell. She and Frank Mc hugh would make TONS of great films over the next 20 years. The sound and picture quality are surprisingly good for such a seldom seen film. Sure, it ain't no Gone with the Wind, but they packed a lot of story into this early love triangle, or quadrilateral, as the case may be.

Gal (Helen Twelvetrees is "Millie") falls in love, and keeps getting shafted by the men in her life. She is determined to be strong and independent, and protect herself and her daughter, Connie, played by Anita Louise. We see the daughter at the beginning, and again near the end, but she kind of disappears for most of the story. She and her two best friends get together and "help" each other whenever there is a crisis. Help is a relative term here... her two friends take a little too much delight in giving her bad news about her husbands and the guys who "done her wrong".

Good fast moving script for the most part. Granted, there are a couple scenes that don't really need to be there (the "drunk" scene, where the two gal pals console each other, and a couple others.) Takes on some bigger issues, way ahead of its time, but watch it for yourself to see what I mean. I think they are showing all kinds of true life "things", if one reads between the lines, that weren't normally talked about in films. I'm really surprised at the lower rating of "6" as of today, but with only 211 votes, I guess it hasn't been seen much. Directed by John Dillon, who had started EARLY on in the silents. You can tell this was a relatively new talkie, since they use title cards here and there. Novel written by Donald Clarke, who also wrote "Female", another story of an early, independent woman, made into film.

Here is an early-talkie that I have never before seen until I received the DVD as a gift. This is a fun movie from the "pre-code" era which stars the little-known (these days) Helen Twelvetrees. She had a reputation for playing "wronged women" and she plays one here. Miss Twelvetrees was indeed a beautiful woman and a competent actress. The story is something of a cross between "The Women" (which had not been written yet) and "Madame X", with it's bitchy dialog and it's finale celebrating Mother love. A surprising part of the film shows what is most likely a lesbian relationship between Joan Blondell (in one of her earliest roles) and the amazing Lilyan Tashman. It is truly tragic that Miss Tashman died so young (in 1934) for she could have gone on to play wonderful parts in many later films. My "what if?" scenario would be to cast "The Women" as an RKO film with Miss Twelvetrees playing the Norma Shearer part, Miss Tashman in the Roz Russell role, and Miss Blondell as Phyllis Povah. I adore the original cast, but who knows what my reverie could have been like? This film is also notable as one of the best-preserved (or is it restored?) of it's era. The print is sharp and clear and the sound recording is crisp and distinct, making every word audible. This is one of Alpha's finest quality DVDs, available at a bargain price and most satisfying to view and listen to.

I'm surprised that no-one has commented yet on the amazing lesbian sub-text in the relationship between the characters played by Joan Blondell and Lilyan Tashman (who was an "out" lesbian in real life). Sometimes it's not even sub-text - especially as the first shot of the couple has them in bed together, half-dressed! And Lilyan is obviously most annoyed when Joan runs off with a rich man. It's also interesting that Millie assumes that Lilyan has never been in love, with a man! Lilyan says she has, but I think she might be talking about a woman.

All film buffs, and lesbians especially, need to re-discover Lilyan Tashman - a remarkable actress, and an even more remarkable person. Her early death is probably responsible for her relative obscurity today, but there are still enough of her films around for us all to hunt out and enjoy. Long live Lilyan!