Cast:
Walter Huston … Wickland Snell
Kay Francis … Myra May (as Katherine Francis)
Charles Ruggles … Charlie Haven
Betty Lawford … Dorothy Snell
Norman Foster … Ted Hanley
Duncan Penwarden … Mr. Higgenbottom
Lawrence Leslie … Red
Harry Lee … Copy-desk editor
Directed by Millard Webb.
Produced by Monta Bell.
Based on the play by Ward Morehouse.
Screenplay by Bartlett Cormack.
Cinematography by George J. Folsey.
Film Editing by Mort Blumenstock.
A Paramount Picture.
Released May 4, 1929.
About the film:
“So we all immediately went to Tony’s,” remembered Ward Morehouse, writer of Gentlemen of the Press, years later. “And in the haze of that famous backroom we found Kay Francis. She was resting comfortably behind a Tom Collins. She was tall, dark, and interesting-looking but had made far more appearances at Tony’s than she had on the Broadway stage…Her career began that very day.”
Actually, there are a few stories about how Kay Francis received her film debut. The Morehouse version is one. Another states that Kay, already romantically involved with the director (Millard Webb), just asked for it. Another states that Walter Huston (Kay’s “Elmer the Great” costar) got it for her. Whatever the case, Gentlemen of the Press was Kay Francis’ movie debut. What a strong impact she had on moviegoers of the time.
Kay’s stage career had been legit. Though she clearly was no Ruth Chatterton or Ethel Barrymore, her pre-Hollywood stage career was actually busier than that of Bette Davis, and hits like “Crime” and “Elmer the Great” had made her popular enough with reviewers and audiences to draw attention from Hollywood.
But make no mistake. Katherine Francis was by no means a star.
Her affair with the director of the movie had a lot to do with her impact in the production. Kay was given a great deal of camera time, second billing, and great scenes with Walter Huston, as well as her other costars. The “office vamp” had made such an impact with a reviewer for Photoplay, the magazine credited her with one of the greatest film debuts in the history of the movies.
Strangely enough, Kay wanted no part of fame from the very beginning. She was convinced her screen test was hideous, and that her voice was too harsh. What she didn’t understand was that her intense looks and personality made her the perfect candidate for the “vamp of talking pictures.” Silent screen legends Theda Bara and Pola Negri (the latter being Kay’s favorite movie star) became popular with the vamp image approximately fifteen years earlier. With both ladies a thing of the past, Kay Francis was one of the stars who turned the popular character type into something completely different in talking films. Now they were out of the exotic locations and into the heart of every-day American life.
For one reason or another, audiences loved this stuff at the time. It was typecasting from then-on for Kay Francis.
Gentlemen of the Press was produced by Monta Bell, the same director at Metro Goldwyn Mayer who had made a major star out of Norma Shearer in films like The Snob (1924), Lady of the Night (1925), and Upstage (1926). The film, a minor production, scored well with critics, though most agreed that it lacked a real climax. The Huston-Francis teaming worked so well, though, that they were teamed again in three more movies: The Virtuous Sin (1930), Storm At Daybreak (1933), and Always in My Heart (1942).
As for Millard Webb, his affair with Kay ended soon after the film’s completion, and he directed five more movies before his death on April 21, 1935 of an intestinal ailment.
Images:
Below: From the March 1929 issue of Photoplay. On the set of Gentlemen of the Press. Notice the sound recording technology.
Below: A screenshot from Yasujirō Ozu’s 1930 silent film, That Night’s Wife (Sono yo no tsuma). A poster from Gentlemen of the Press is shown several times throughout the movie. This was the best shot of it.
What the Picture Did for Me:
Exhibitor Herald-World‘s long-running column for theater owners to tell each other what type of business was made and what the quality of the product was for newer films.
October 19, 1929:
Special cast — Good from every standpoint. Speaking is clear (sound-on-film), and patrons praise it to their neighbors. — Carl Veseth, Palace theatre, Malta, Mont. — General patronage.
Walter Huston— September 25-26. An excellent picture that lost plenty of dough for us. Paid too much for it. However, it seemed to have pleased what few turned out. Disc recording good. Do not believe this type of a picture will go over in the majority of the small towns. Ten reels. — Walker & Donnell, Leroy theatre. Lampasas, Tex. — Small town patronage.
January 11, 1930:
Special cast — November 9-10. Not a bad picture, but it appears that some of the country folks did not understand newspapermen stuff. In general, I think it was enjoyed, although not so much of a small-town picture. Disc recording from fair to very good — that is, in a few scenes fair, rest good. Eight reels. — George J. Rhein, Manchester theatre, Manchester, Wis. — Small town patronage.
July 12, 1930:
Special cast – June 20-21. A good talking program picture. The star great. Story good. But picture did not draw at box office. – Bert Silver, Silver Family theatre, Greenville, Mich. – General patronage.
Contemporary Reviews:
Published in Photoplay, June 1929. (Click image to read.)
A generally amusing and creditable piece of talking film fiction has been produced from Ward Morehouse’s play, “Gentlemen of the Press,” in which the rôle of the inevitable dyed-in-the-wool rewrite man, Wickland Snell, played on the stage by John Cromwell, is acted by Walter Huston. It is a dialogue effusion in which the players appear frequently to be waiting for a signal before they speak their lines. These hushed interludes, brief though they may be, cause some discomfort, for it is quite evident that the characters are not thinking of what they are going to say.
The setting of the city room is more reminiscent of that of a very small country paper rather than that of a metropolitan daily. The reporters and others are an improvident lot, sneering at life, greedy and eager for food and alcohol. Of course, no newspaper man by any chance ever refers to a “death watch” without cracking jokes about the dying individual, and once a reporter is intoxicated he stays intoxicated, this being an expedient that permits one of the culprits in this talking version of the romantic sketch to forget on which paper he is working. It is an incident that recalls Richard Harding Davis’s story, “The Derelict,”
This film generated laughter in the Paramount Theatre, particularly when one of the reporters gathers in enough sandwiches to last him for three or four meals.
Wickland Snell staggers his colleagues with the big news that he has been offered a publicity job at $15,000 a year. One can readily imagine how the writers who have been passing a $5 bill from one to another feel on hearing that the speedy Mr. Snell is coming into his own.
Mr. Higginbottom, the real estate operator with ulterior motives, is impersonated by Duncan Penwarden, who also played the part before the footlights. Here he is working frightfully hard to get the public interested in having mausoleums instead of cemetaries. He doesn’t quite trust his “big story” to his publicity promoter and the idea is a flop. Mr. Snell gives Mr. Higginbottom a piece of his mind and then the rewrite man decides to return to his old job.
Mr. Penwarden gives a clever performance. Mr. Huston also does well in the major part. His voice registers naturally and he lends enthusiasm to the rôle. Betty Lawford is attractive and competent as Snell’s daughter. Katherine Francis overacts the conspiring Myra May.
Rudy Vallee and his band are seen in the surrounding program in Jack Partington’s stage offering, “Fifth Avenue.”
A Newspaper Play.
Published in the New York Times, May 13, 1929.
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