Pre-Code Parade: ALIAS FRENCH GERTIE (1930)

Veteran silent comedienne Bebe Daniels proved she had a voice with the 1929 hit musical Rio Rita.  Alias French Gertie, directed by George Archainbauld, was the first test of whether Daniels could carry a talking picture without songs. It's a romantic crime comedy co-starring Ben Lyon, whom Daniels would marry shortly after the film's release. She first appears as a society matron's careless French maid, but we soon learn that she's an American crook who insinuated her way into the household in order to get a crack at its safe and its jewels. Ace safecracker Jimmy (Lyon), who boasts of needing no tools in his trade, has the same idea, but is surprised to find the maid holding a gun on him. In the course of meeting cute and talking shop, these master criminals somehow forgot about a butler still hanging around the place. When that worthy calls the police, Jimmy chivalrously agrees to take the fall, after snatching a diamond necklace from out of Gertie's blouse, while allowing her to pretend to be a mere victim rolled up in a carpet. After serving some relatively easy time, Jimmy hooks up with Gertie again, but both are under the sentimental scrutiny of veteran detective Kelcey (archetypal pre-code cop Robert Emmet O'Connor). That doesn't stop them from building a nest egg by stealing from others', but when a social opportunity turns into a business opportunity, Gertie convinces Jimmy to go straight and invest their $30,000 worth of plunder into a straight partnership. The saps: they wanted to go straight, but their legit partner was really crooked. Jimmy and Gertie never bothered checking the books, apparently, so it comes as a major shock when they learn that their partner never invested any of his own money in the venture and was merely biding his time until he could skip off with their money. This understandably cools Jimmy on the idea of going straight, but Gertie doesn't want to go back to the old life. In a preposterous climax, as if reading Jimmy's mind, Gertie resumes her French-maid act and returns to her old employers in order to prevent Jimmy from returning to the scene of their first crime together and throwing his life away. Having already tipped off Kelcey on the basis of her psychic powers, Gertie decides to end Jimmy's criminal career once and for all by shooting him in his safecracking hand. Jimmy proves to be a remarkably good sport about this, and so does Kelcey, who decides that no crime has happened and lets our lovers start over somewhere else. While Daniels proves a charismatic performer, one can understand after watching this why RKO dropped her contract once her musicals started flopping. Daniels and Lyon bounced around Hollywood for several years more, with Daniels getting a small but prominent part in 42nd Street as the star eclipsed by Ruby Keeler, before finding their most enduring success on British radio. She probably deserved better than this film.