The Unholy Garden

RONALD COLMAN spent a fair share of his early career as a criminal on the loose. RAFFLES and THE UNHOLY GARDEN are some prime examples. Unfortunately, neither one of these films is rated high on any list of Colman's film resume.

THE UNHOLY GARDEN gets its title from the swarm of criminals and thieves residing at a seedy hotel in the Sahara Desert, where a beautiful young girl (FAY WRAY) is trying to keep her father's hidden wealth from the prying hands of a bunch of hoods determined to get their hands on the loot. Along comes gentleman RONALD COLMAN, himself a thief, who charms the girl but makes the mistake of falling in love with her. He finds his conscience before the final reel.

It's all played in a wildly overacted fashion with actors given to the kind of emoting that went out with silent pictures. Colman is credible in the lead but everyone else seems to be playing to the balcony.

The plot is similar to many other such crime capers, one in particular being a film made around the same time called SAFE IN HELL, whereby a young woman runs away from authorities to a South Seas island and must stay at a run-down hotel surrounded by unsavory criminals.

Nothing distinctive here about the story's treatment. Its only interest is giving the viewer a chance to see the young Ronald Colman playing a romantic lead.

This is a pretty oddball film, plot-wise and characters. I've seen it a few times now and still can't make up my mind on how good it is - or not. It is dated of course, but who cares when you can be ogling Fay Wray at her peak!

Just how unlikely is the basic situation - a hotel in the middle of the Algerian desert full of cut-throats and thieves plus one trigger-happy old blind man and his beautiful daughter sitting on but protecting a useless fortune for years. The brainy fugitive rascal Colman appears and the cut-throats' plans to rob the old man suddenly coalesce and are dependent upon our dashing anti-hero finding the loot for them. All of the characters without exception are dislikeable but I'm afraid I don't know how faithful this is to the original book, or whether it was simply designed for the movie that way.

Never mind, Colman uses the opportunity splendidly to woo Wray, and the two couldn't look more beautiful as when splashed by the Goldwyn moonlight - others would have burst into song! He later goes Noble in a tortured climax, but hey that's Love!

To the Faithful: well worth watching - after "Raffles" it's definitely my next favourite Goldwyn Colman potboiler. To the Unbeliever: you won't get it, wait for a violent remake.

The suave criminal Barrington Hunt heads for a hideout in the Sahara Desert. In the crumbling old moorish palace he meets a gang of desperados and the divine Camille. A plan intended to relieve Camille of her hidden loot misfires when Hunt begins to fall for her ....

Ronald Coleman plays his stock role of gentleman thief, and Fay Wray is Camille. Wray was a busy star at the time, averaging seven features per year between 1927 and 1934, though of course her name will always be associated with "King Kong", made two years after this crime thriller. "Don't worry - I'm rather good at this," says Coleman as he takes the wheel of Elize's sporty open-top car. He might have been talking about his handsome roue performance. In a long crescendo, the film builds towards the climax of the kiss in the ruined mosque. Coleman is very effective as the cad who is ennobled by love, and his look of regret as Camille leaves is harrowing. If Wray is guilty of an overly declamatory acting style, it can be conceded that this was the vogue of the time. Estelle Taylor as the sexy Elize has a voice that grates, but her performance grows on the viewer as the film progresses.

George Barnes' photography is beautiful, with Coleman backlit at crucial moments, almost like a saint with his halo. The set of the 'palais royal' is superb, deliciously seedy and rambling. There are nice glimpses of desert dunes, and the moorish architecture has an authentic look.

"The place is crawling with lizards," we learn, and this could just as well describe the human inhabitants of the palais royal. Fortunately for Camille, Hunt is cunning enough to outwit the pack of villains who haunt this remote lair. Hunt is able to turn his wasted life into something good and useful in a heroic gesture of self-denial.

Criticisms are limited to minor implausibilities. In such a forsaken spot, would the men all be clean-shaven every day? And would de Jonghe dress formally for Christmas Dinner? Would a disgraced German wear a military uniform out here?

Verdict - Stylish adventure, with Coleman at his most urbane

Setting aside all the implausible elements in the story, it's a pretty good, briskly told yarn, made exciting by the way the plot actually becomes more complicated as the film careens wildly to its conclusion. So it's easy to watch, first of all, this garden of unholy criminals in the middle of nowhere working through their mutually broken honor among thieves. Pre-code, you'll find only the hint of a bosom flashing from a very minor female character. Otherwise the sexual innuendos are largely verbal. Like another reviewer, I too appreciated the hotel-in-the-desert ambiance and its effervescent symbolism. And the strangely obsequious Arab natives flitting about never intrude upon the Westerners. Meanwhile Ronald Colman and ever-pleasantly baby-fatty Fay Wray may not be the last word in chemistry, but they do get the job done nicely.

I taped THE UNHOLY GARDEN (1931) off TCM a while back and I don't remember why. I probably wanted to see Ronald Colman and Fay Wray together in what seemed like a rare pre-Code film. The tape sat on my shelf for a while before I finally decided to give it a look, and I was pleasantly surprised. This is a great little movie from the wild world of early talkies.

Colman, ever charming and sophisticated, plays an notorious international criminal who holes up in a desert inn. There he meets a cast of unsavory characters of dubious repute. When it's discovered that the cranky blind man upstairs has stashed away a fortune, Colman agrees to win over the old man and his daughter (Fay Wray) in order to locate the loot.

The motley group of thieves and murderers is played by Kit Guard, Henry Armetta, Ullrich Haupt, Mischa Auer, Lawrence Grant, and Warren Hymer. Grant in particular leaves an impression as a Vincent Price-y doctor character, the cool-headed intellectual of the group. (The brief conversation Grant has with Colman about his three dead wives is a delightful bit of black humor.) There's something about these characters in this secluded setting that reminds me of SAFE IN HELL (1931).

RAFFLES (1930) meets SAFE IN HELL (1931), perhaps?

This film has an interesting pedigree, written by the prolific Ben Hecht (UNDERWORLD, SCARFACE, THE FRONT PAGE, NOTHING SACRED, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, NOTORIOUS, KISS OF DEATH, etc.) and his frequent writing partner Charles MacArthur.

This is a quick little film (75 minutes long), and it's enjoyable all the way through. The cast (also including a sultry Estelle Taylor and Tully Marshall as the dotty old man) is full of interesting characters, all staying together at the inn.

A kind of romance blooms between Colman and Wray, who is young and lovely, but cut off from the world by her reclusive father. Colman is her window into Paris and the glamorous outside world. The film mixes romance and caper thrills while cultivating an atmosphere of danger. Certain scenes give the film a dark pre-Code edge. (In one scene Wray tells Colman what kind of life awaits her at the inn among the cutthroats. She wants to "start" with him, so she could have something nice to remember later on.)

When things start to heat up, will Colman go through with his plans to swipe the cash? Will he double-cross the gang of crooks? Will he rescue the damsel and ride off into the sunset? Will he be tracked down by the French police?

At 75 minutes, THE UNHOLY GARDEN is exciting, creepy, oddly charming, sexy, spooky, and even a little sweet. Ronald Colman is a dashing hero, even when he's playing an outlaw. Fay Wray is very lovely and sympathetic. This little-known pre-Code flick should interest any fans of early talkies. Check it out if it comes your way.