Dramatic School (1938)

Sadly Over-hyped

From my favorite movies..

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Strangely, it's set in France, yet features a bevy of American actresses playing girls with names like Nana, Yvonne and Simone. It's not as good as the similar Stage Door, which was released by RKO the year before, and the story takes a while to get going. Lovely, dark-eyed Luise Rainer stars as the young woman who aspires to be a great actress; Paulette Goddard is cast to type as a cynical, knowing classmate; Gale Sondergaard is the teacher who resents Rainer for her youth and talent; and Alan Marshall is the wealthy cad who misuses Rainer, thus allowing her to experience the suffering required for her to achieve great dramatic success. It's not a bit credible but, when all is said and done, it's fairly entertaining. With Lana Turner in an early role, Virginia Grey, Ann Rutherford and Margaret Dumont, Henry Stephenson, Genevieve Tobin, John Hubbard, Marie Blake, Erik Rhodes and moist-eyed Rand Brooks.

It seems like I am the big meanie with this review. While several others were also not in love with this film, my views are the most negative. This film, despite its budget and MGM luster just didn't do much for me--mostly because the central character was rather tough to like.Luise Rainer played, or shall I say "over-played" the role of a young student in film school who works late at night to pay for schooling AND has an over-active imagination (i.e., she likes to lie a lot). One reviewer who loved this film (whitedudekickin) loved Ms. Rainer for exactly the same reasons I disliked her. He said that she was "...almost like a silent screen star with her exaggerated facial expressions". I just couldn't help but feel that the character she played wasn't real in any sense--like Rainer was pretending to be a young star-to-be instead of a real person. For example, when she talked to people, she tended to stare off in space and talk in a very detached way--like she was trying out for a play with each conversation. This performance was much more affected even than Garbo in CAMILLE. I would have MUCH preferred she acted more like a real person.An aspect of Rainer's character that was tough to take was that he was a habitual liar. Now had she panicked and lied (thus triggering a funny series of events), this could have worked. But Rainer lies throughout the film and yet the film wants the viewer to care about this lady. While Paulette Goddard's hard-as-nails character comes off as vicious, most of the time she is attacking Rainer, it is well-deserved--she IS a liar. Yet, time and again, the film rescues and rewards the waif-like Rainer from the quagmire created by her own lies. A great object lesson for the audience, huh?! As for the other actors, most actually did very well. Henry Stephenson is his usual affable self, Blossom Rock ('Grandmama' from "THE ADDAMS FAMILY" and also Jeanette MacDonald's real-life sister) has one of her best supporting performances and the ever-smooth Alan Marshal did so well as the handsome Marquis that you wonder why he didn't go on to stardom. But even with decent performances, they just couldn't make up for the film's inadequacies.A film that is often annoying and hard to take--you may just find yourself turning it off when the film becomes too schmaltzy and over-played. Do yourself a favor--skip this one and try finding STAGE DOOR. It tackles pretty much the same subject matter but in a much more enjoyable and realistic manner.

Dramatic School is a kind of French version of Morning Glory with Luise Rainer as a continental version of Katharine Hepburn's Eva Lovelace. Luise sacrifices all for a career, going to the prestigious Paris School of Drama and working the night shift at a factory to make ends meet. She doesn't want fellow students like Paulette Goddard, Lana Turner, Virginia Grey, and Ann Rutherford to know what she's doing so she makes up stories about a more interesting life Luise wishes she were leading.One day during class when a very strict acting coach Gale Sondergaard is giving a lesson she passes out and then tells the whopper of all time about going out with a well known man about Paris town in Alan Marshal. That sets off a nice chain of events that culminates in an ending typical of all backstage stories, I need not spell it out for you.This was the last film Luise Rainer did under her MGM contract, it was dissolved by mutual consent between Luise and Louis B. Mayer. What Luise wanted and might have gotten at another studio were roles that were more challenging for her talent. She wanted what Greta Garbo had over at MGM and for Mayer there was only room for one Garbo on the lot. If Irving Thalberg had lived things might have been different, but who can say. In any event she and the rest of the cast acquit themselves admirably.If anyone stands out though, for me it's Gale Sondergaard. She has a great part as a great actress who also teaches and is jealous of all the young ones coming through the school, especially Rainer. The acting profession is especially unkind to older women and Sondergaard channels a lot of resentment into her part.Dramatic School was not a bad film for Luise to leave MGM on. It's not Camille or Ninotchka, but L.B. Mayer made it clear only one actress gets those parts on his lot.

DRAMATIC SCHOOL was obviously designed as a star vehicle for LUISE RAINER, the European actress whose career fizzled after winning two Oscars in the mid-'30s. Her acting here is even more mannered than usual, aside from seeming eccentric as compared to the more natural acting styles of others in the cast. And it's quite a cast--a whole bevy of up-and-coming young stars on the Metro lot.PAULETTE GODDARD gets most of the footage as a glamorous and scheming bad girl while LANA TURNER, VIRGINIA GREY and ANN RUTHERFORD play more conventional types.But oddly enough, in a film concentrating on its young female talent, the picture is stolen by ALAN MARSHAL in the film's only substantial male role--elegant, debonair, sophisticated and as handsome as any matinee idol. And the other scene stealer is none other than GALE SONDERGAARD as a drama instructor who lets jealousy get the upper hand in dealing with her students.It's all formula stuff, interesting only for the cast and offering very little in the way of a credible plot. LUISE RAINER's "magic" as a performer eludes me. I never cared for her artificial poses and her Joan of Arc sequence is ludicrous.Worth noting is RAND BROOKS (he was Charles Hamilton in GWTW) as a young actor who can't act. A clever bit of typecasting.