“Under Eighteen,” (1932) a pre-code movie directed by Archie Mayo is a great movie. I just watched this movie a few nights ago. It was my first time seeing the striking Marian Marsh in a movie. Incidentally she died last month at the age of 93! I was captured by the movie’s plot. Pre-code movies dealt with the vices of the day and its effects on society and this movie depicted the plight many women had in those days. It lets us see the choices that many women had to make in order to survive. Times were tough; many women couldn’t afford an education, they settled for menial jobs because they had to. Some had to settle for prostitution and this is what this movie is about.
Marge Evans, a teenager (Marian Marsh) works in a shop as a seamstress. She does this work to support her widowed mother. Marge is a nice girl, and she is in love with a grocery truck driver named Jimmie (Regis Toomey). As much as she loves Jimmie, she also realizes that love won’t pay the bills. She sees beautiful models in her job with beautiful clothes and gifts that their lovers have given them, and talking of the high life they are living. Not a care in the world, so it seemed to Marge. She begins to envy them. She wants to be like them. She wants, she needs money and quick. You see, Marge not only has her mother to worry about, but she has a pregnant sister (Anita Page) and her husband who have also moved in. Her sister’s husband has lost his job and just doesn’t want to bother getting another one. What a loser!
Sophie (her sister) and her husband fight horribly in front of Marge about money, and his inability to find work. Marge realizes she can’t commit the same mistake her sister has. She can’t marry into poverty. Just by chance one afternoon the models go out for lunch and Marge stays a little longer. The shop owner Francois(Paul Porcasi) is screaming frantically for his model who is out to lunch. One of his pesky clients needs an outfit modeled. In his haste he asks Marge to do it. Marge agrees. Raymond Harding a very wealthy playboy, played splendidly by Warren Williams, is the pesky client. Marge makes an impression on him. He likes what he sees and starts to sweet talk her. Marge is just delighted with the attention and her prospects.
Jimmie finds out about her modeling and doesn’t like it one bit—he asks her to marry him. Marge agrees, but is somewhat ambivalent. When she gets home that night with the exciting news a crying Sophie tells her she has had it with her husband and wants to divorce him. But there is just one problem–money. There is no money to pay the lawyer. Marge agrees to help her. She tries to borrow the money from a friend, and Francois, and they refused. She even asked Jimmie who was going to give it to her until he finds out what it is for.
She gave up the idea of living a quiet life with Jimmie and decides to get the money any which way she can. She becomes desperate. She decides to pay Harding a visit in his penthouse. When she gets there, there is a wild party going on. People are drunk, women and men are in shadowy corners necking, drunk women are being carried away to rooms filled with shame, others are jumping into the palatial marble pool with clothes on in search of precious jewelry thrown into the pool by a drunkard. A bunch of empty lives with glitzy clothes.
When Harding spots her in the party he is eager to see her and intends to seduce her. He makes her change into “something more comfortable.” She agrees to do this with such naivety and incorruptibility. Harding is affected by this. He can’t seem to find it in himself to corrupt such an innocent girl. He found her to be, as he said “refreshing,” and told her he’d give her the money without any ulterior motive. Jimmie walks in to this and suspects the worse of Harding. He doesn’t give Marge a chance to explain. He punches Harding in the stomach. They think he is dead and run away, but they soon find out that Harding isn’t dead and is still willing to give her the money. Then the landlady walks in with some money from Francois who has reconsidered. But then none of this is needed when Marge is told that her loser brother-in-law, who has now reconciled with Sophie, has come into big money when he won a pool tournament.
The choices Marge had to make at a very young age are mind-boggling. The burden she had to carry was a lot. This movie let you appreciate the hardships women had early on. The camera angles were used creatively to bring the story to life. Marian Marsh shines in this movie. She captured the character’s youth, innocence, and courage to the hilt. I saw this on TCM and the restoration was impeccable. Because the film shows life as it was in the 30′s for young women, I find it to be historically important. I highly recommend you see this great movie.
