I like Wallace Ford. Sometimes he can come off as a little annoying, but I think that’s because he’s usually playing a pretty nice guy when you come across him in the early 1930′s, and besides finishing last nice guys can also rub me the wrong way in classic film. In My Woman Wallace Ford plays a complete lout and he’s really good at it!
Just 24 years old at the time of My Woman’s release, Helen Twelvetrees had been in films since 1929 with some stage experience back home in New York prior to that. While there’s no doubt Twelvetrees character’s attraction to Victor Jory is supposed to be the heart of this story, Ford as her husband does such a fantastic job of driving her to Jory that he manages to steal the show!
My Woman opens in Pop Riley’s portside cafe in Panama where his daughter Connie (Twelvetrees) sings for the crowd passing through. The President of ABC Radio, John Bradley (Jory), happens in, along with his assistant, Mr. Miller (Hobart Cavanagh), and Connie wrangles an introduction to them from a sailor in the know. She plays herself off as single while her husband Chick (Ford) skulks around in the background unaware that Connie is securing an invitation for an audition in New York from Bradley.
Chick needs some convincing to leave the life of Riley in Panama–he’s learned good living from Connie’s Pop and spends his days lounging in a hammock–but when Connie explains the audition isn’t for herself but Chick’s comedy act he’s game. Lazy Chick in Panama is funny, but once he hits New York Chick’s the real, less pleasant, slowly emerges. First he turns down work with an old buddy because he doesn’t know how ABC would feel about it (this is before Bradley even meets with Connie to set him up!), but he takes his pal’s card because he thinks the low rent show seems like a good fit for Connie.
Meanwhile Connie is doing all she can to try and meet up with Bradley again, but his studio flunkies, led by Mr. Miller, are blockading her at every possible point of entry. Finally she tracks him down out on the street and is quickly invited up to his apartment. While viewer and Connie alike wait for Victor Jory to turn wolf he actually turns out to be a very nice guy, so nice that Connie cracks, confesses she’s married and explains that the true purpose of her game is to get work for Chick.
Bradley being a good sport gives Chick an audition anyway. In the lead-in to Chick we’re treated to a few other performers, one of whom is Walter Brennan making animal noises before being cut off and declaring “Nerts to you.” Chick nails his spot though and from this point forward manages to become a greater ass with each passing scene, really ratcheting it up when he’s drinking.
During his journey up the ladder Chick hooks up with socialite Muriel Bennett, played by the always perfectly bitchy Claire Dodd, which leads to Twelvetrees best scene in My Woman, a slightly unusual woman wronged sequence where she appears at Bennett’s home, confronting them not with outrage but to let Chick know he can do whatever he wants until his eyes open up to Muriel playing him for the fool.
In the end My Woman comes down to who winds up with who, but I left wondering about the fate of Chick. While watching this an image of Andy Griffith’s Lonesome Rhodes from A Face in the Crowd crept into my head, and once there continued coming to mind in every Wallace Ford scene. No, Chick didn’t make it as far as Lonesome did, but there did seem to be a natural common progression in that direction cut off sharply by Chick’s early flame-out and firing.
As obviously enjoyable as I found Chick, I was disappointed with aspects of My Woman as a whole. It failed to live up to pre-code expectations with Jory very safely courting Twelvetrees, who’s spunky but could’ve used more sass, and the Ford and Dodd characters hanging around together but making it somewhat clear even in scenes together alone that that’s all they did–hang out. Lots of hormones but very little sex in this one leaving me to wonder what would have emerged had Warner’s made this one instead of Columbia.
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Helen Twelvetrees
