Skip to main content

The Loretta Young Birthday Blogathon: "Private Number" (1936)

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Roy Del Ruth, Private Number (1936) tells the story of Ellen Neal (Loretta Young), a beautiful and upstanding girl who is hired as a maid in the house of the affluent Winfield family by their demonically creepy butler, Thomas Wroxton (Basil Rathbone). Wroxton is immediately smitten with her, but she rebuffs his every advance, much to his irritation. When the Winfields' son Richard (Robert Taylor) arrives home from college, he quickly falls in love with Ellen, despite her lower social status. Although she initially refuses to go out with him on the grounds that they are not social equals, Ellen becomes romantically involved with Dick during the family's vacation in Maine. On her 18th birthday, Dick and Ellen secretly marry and she falls pregnant by him shortly before he returns to college.

After his plans to marry Ellen himself fall through, Wroxton informs her in-laws, Perry and Maggie Winfield (Paul Harvey and Majorie Gateson), that she is pregnant. The Winfields confront Ellen, who admits that she is in fact expecting a child, but also that she is married. When she refuses to divulge the name of her husband, Mr. Winfield threatens to fire her, prompting her friend and fellow maid Gracie (Patsy Kelly) to reveal to the family that Ellen is married to Dick. The vengeful Wroxton then tells the Winfields that Ellen married Dick only to blackmail them and, to prove his charge, reveals that the girl has been arrested in a raid on a gambling house, where she was innocently taken to by a crook named Coakley (Monroe Owsley). Deciding that she is an unfit wife for their son, the Winfields offer Ellen a cash settlement, which she refuses in disgust, before leaving the house. Months later, after her baby is born, Ellen is dragged to court by the Winfields, who want to annul the marriage on the grounds of fraud. A lenghtly trial follows, but Wroxton's evil machinations leave Ellen with little chance to win her case. Luckily, Dick discovers the truth and gives the courtoom a moving speech in which he requests that the case be dismissed. After Ellen's name is cleared, Dick finds her at the farmhouse where she has been staying with their child and the two finally reconcile.

Richard Winfield: They're trying to break up a marriage which they say is based on social inequality. It is based on social inequality. Your Honor, I'm not worthy of being Ellen Neal's husband.

The social drama Private Number originated as a Broadway play by Cleves Kinkead called Common Clay, which was initially copyrighted in 1914 under the title Hush Money. Starring Jane Cowl and Orme Caldara, the play was only mildly received by critics upon its opening at the Republic Theatre on August 26, 1915, but it "packed the theatre for nearly a year," eventually becoming the biggest hit of Kinkead's career. In the wake of the Broadway success, Common Clay was published as a novel of the same name in 1916. Three years later, Pathé Exchange released a screen adaptation with Fannie Ward and W. E. Lawrence in the lead roles. Directed by George Fitzmaurice, Common Clay (1919) was well reviewed by critics, with The New York Times commenting that "the story is worked out more plausibly on the screen than it on the stage [...] the amazing adventures of 'that common clay girl' are still amazing, and Miss Ward and her company first wring and then cheer the hearts of their spectators."

With the advent of the "talkies," Fox Film Corporation purchased the rights to Kinkead's play and assigned Victor Fleming to direct a second film version of Common Clay, though the story was shrewdly updated so that it might appeal to Depression audiences. Starring Constance Bennett and Lew Ayres in his third film role, Common Clay (1930) was one of the biggest moneymakers of the year, establishing "the blueprint for a new screen genre, the 'confession' picture." The deprivation that Americans had experienced even this early in the Great Depression made audiences female audiences in particular responsive to a film heroine like Ellen Neal: a social outcast whose grit and integrity eventually lead her to redemption and a happy ending. The success of Common Clay turned the 26-year-old Bennett into "the first Hollywood-bred actress to become a major star in the sound era."

Young and Taylor in a publicity still
Both Fitzmaurice and Fleming's versions of Common Clay stuck close to the original story of an underpriviliged, attractive young girl, Ellen, who decides to change her life after being arrested in a raid on a speakeasy. She takes up a job as a maid in a wealthy family and falls in love with her employers' son, Hugh Fullerton. When she becomes pregnant, Hugh refuses to marry her, so the case goes to court. At it turns out, the judge presiding at the trial is actually her father he had impregnated an actress in his youth, who committed suicide after her baby was born. Father and daughter are reconciled and with this sudden social advancement, Ellen becomes wife material after all.

When Darryl F. Zanuck, head of production at the newly formed 20th Century Fox, hired Gene Markey and William M. Conselman to write a third screen adaptation of Kinkead's play, the Production Code had been fully enforced for two years. Consequently, the entire illegitimacy storyline, as well as Ellen's biological father, Judge Filson (played by John Barrows in 1919 and Hale Hamilton in 1930), had to be eliminated. To appease the Breen Office, Zanuck and co-producer Raymond Griffith invented a secret marriage between Ellen and the hero, Richard Winfield, as he was now called, which makes their child legitimate. Inexplicably renamed Private Number, the film also introduced characters and storylines that were completely new. One of these was the comic subplot of Ellen's fellow maid and confidante Gracie and her boyfriend Smiley Watson. In addition, the role of the "sexually simmering butler," whose named was changed from plain Edwards to the more aristocratic-sounding Thomas Wroxton, was enlarged to the extent that he, rather than Ellen's father-in-law, becomes her chief antagonist throughout the film.

Loretta Young and Basil Rathbone
By 1936, the Production Code Administration was also devoting more attention to set design, performance and what Joseph Breen called "tone." To Breen, "low tone alone may render a whole production unacceptable. The location of scenes and the conduct, the demeanor, the attitude of the players enter very much into the question of the flavor of the appeal of the right or wrong presented." In Private Number, Ellen's fall is precipitated by a man, Coakley, who takes her to what the script calls a "gambling house," where she is consequently arrested on a morals charge. This house is never referred to as a house of prostitution, but Breen objected: "The house is operated by Grandma Gammon, a lady suggestive of an elderly madam. There is the trim colored maid who looks through a peephole before opening the door, Cokely's winking at the maid, the drinking of champaign in a private parlor and the painting of a voluptuous lady in a harem. All tend, in our judgement, to give this house the color and flavor of a house of ill fame." Thus, even though  the word "prostitution" is not mentioned, Breen made sure that the representation of this idea would be blocked at the level of performance and decor. 

To play Ellen Neal in Private Number, Zanuck selected Loretta Young, one of Fox's brightest young stars. Young had begun her professional career at the age of five, when she and her four siblings were employed by the Famous Players-Lasky Studio, soon to be Paramount, as extras in silent films. In 1927, director Mervyn LeRoy gave her first real chance at the movies by casting in a small role opposite Colleen Moore in Naughty But Nice (1927). Moore was so enchanted with the 14-year-old actress that she convinced First National Pictures to put Young under contract. By the early 1930s, she was already a film star in her own right. In 1933, after Zanuck left Warner Bros. to found Twentieth Century Pictures, Young was one of the first stars he brought to the studio. As a sign of his trust in her, Young was one of the only two actresses (the other was Constance Bennett) that Zanuck took with him when Twentieth Century merged with Fox Film Corporation to form 20th Century Fox in mid-1935. 

Patsy Kelly and Robert Taylor
For the role of Richard Winfield, Zanuck borrowed the dashing Robert Taylor from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Like Tyrone Power, Young's co-star in five successful pictures, Taylor "had a masculine beauty that complemented Loretta's shimmering feminity." Although he was an MGM contract player, Taylor had actually made his screen debut on loan-out to Fox Film Corporation in the Will Rogers vehicle Handy Andy (1934). By the time he was cast in Private Number, the 25-year-old Taylor was already an international star, mostly due to the massive success of John M. Stahl's Magnificent Obsession (1935).

Playing the ruthless butler Thomas Wroxton was the South-African born English actor Basil Rathbone, who was also under contract to MGM. Beginning his Hollywood film career in 1925, Rathbone was known at the time for his portayals of suave villains in costume dramas and swashbucklers, including David Copperfield (1935) and Captain Blood (1935). Another memorable role in Private Number was that of the wisecracking maid Gracie, played by the "Queen of Wisecracks" herself, Patsy Kelly. A vaudeville performer since the age of twelve, Kelly had achieved widespread notoriety when producer Hal Roach hired her to appear as Thelma Todd's brash sidekick in a series of short-subject comedies in the early 1930s.

Making his screen debut in Private Number was Joe E. Lewis, a comedian and singer from New York's Lower East Side who had been a popular nightclub performer in Prohibition-era Chicago. By the late 1920s, he had become a fixture at the Green Mill, a notorious speakeasy partly-owned by "Machine Gun" Jack MGurn, a lieutenant in Al Capone's Chicago Outfit. When Lewis accepted an offer from a rival speakeasy in August 1927, McGurn promised he would "never live to open." Despite constant threats from the Capone syndicate, Lewis lived to open at the New Rendezvous on November 2. A week later, however, he was assaulted by McGurn and his men in his room at the Commonwealth Hotel. Unconscious from a blow to the head, Lewis was then mutilated by McGurn, who cut his throat and part of his tongue, leaving him for dead. Miraculously, Lewis recovered from this brutal attack and, acquiring the sobriquet "The Man the Mob Couldn't Kill," became "one of the most extraordinary sights of Chicago." He resumed his career, though his voice never regained its lush sound.

Young and Taylor in a publicity still
Under the director of Roy Del Ruth, Private Number was filmed in a month starting March 26, 1936 on the Fox studio lot, with long shots and plates being captured by a second unit at Lake Arrowhead, California. Del Ruth had begun his Hollywood career as a writer for the renowned comedy director Mark Sennett in 1915. In the early 1920s, he made he transition to directing and achieved great success at the end of the decade with Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), the second two-strip Technicolor all-taking feature released by Warner Bros. Having successfully segued into the sound era, Del Ruth became the second highest paid director in Hollywood between 1932 and 1941. He had previously worked with Loretta Young in Taxi! (1932) and Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back (1934) and with Robert Taylor in the MGM hit musical Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935). The following year, Del Ruth would direct Taylor again in Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937).

By 1936, audiences had become somewhat tired of the so-called "class distinction film" either rich boy/poor girl or vice-versa a plot template that was common to both serious drama and screwball comedy earlier in the decade. Perhaps because of that, Private Number received generally negative reviews from critics upon its premiere at the Radio City Music Hall in New York on June 5, 1936, though it did turn in a small profit at the box-office. The New York Times described it as "a sermon on a social problem that may conceivably have disturbed some of the upper 5 per cent of our population and a few amorous members of the lower classes before the advent of that great leveler, the depression." Despite the "creaking" plot, he considered that "the picture is well-acted throughout. Mr. Rathbone is as hateful as Miss Young is charming, and Mr. Taylor is manly to a fault. Worthy of special notice are Patsy Kelly, as another maid, and her steady fellow, Joe Lewis, who supply much needed comic interludes." 

Young and Taylor in a publicity still
Although Private Number does not occupy a noteworthy place in Loretta Young's shining career, the film proved to be a special one to make, as it allowed her to take on a role that she could not yet portray in real life: a mother. In early 1935, Young had enjoyed a love affair with the then-married Clark Gable while the two were working on William A. Wellman's The Call of the Wild (1935). Young soon became pregnant, but due to the "morality clause" that gave Hollywood studios the power to annul an actor's contract in the event of social scandal, she had to conceal her condition in order to avoid damaging her career (as well as Gable's). 

As her pregnancy began to show, Young informed Zanuck that she and her mother Gladys were going to take a "European holiday." Upon their return to America, Young retired to a small house that she and Gladys owned in Venice, California, where she could stay secluded and under the care of the family doctor. Finally, on November 6, 1935, Young gave birth to a blonde, blue-eyed daughter that she named Judith. Young returned to work in January 1936, leaving Judy at the house in Venice under the care of a nurse. A few months later, Young placed her daughter in St. Elizabeth's Infant Hospital, an orphanage and home for unwed mothers run by the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul in San Francisco. In June 1937, when Judy was 19 months old, Gladys picked up her from St. Elizabeth's and Young subsequently announced to gossip columnist Louella Parsons that she had adopted the girl. Few in Hollywood were fooled by the story, however; Judy's striking resemblance to Gable revealed her true parentage right away. 

Private Number was released a month before Judy's removal to St. Elizabeth's. Insiders must have exchanged smiles when they heard Patsy Kelly describe Robert Taylor as being "as handsome as Clark Gable." Young laughed knowingly, but innocently, and replied, "I'll say so." The one scene Young has with her newborn baby in the film is executed with "uncommon tenderness." Judy was about five months old when Private Number started production, so in a way Young transferred the affection that she could not yet lavish on her own daughter to the infant in the picture. According to Bernard K. Dick, "In that one scene, Loretta displays the kind of maternalism that transcends mere acting."

Private Number is hardly the greatest film ever made. The plot is somewhat outdated, even for 1936, and like the Times critic remarked, there seems to be no "connection between the cryptic title and the tale itself." Still, I count it as one of my personal favorites, mostly because it was the film that made me a Loretta Young fan. I had seen about two or three films of hers prior to watching Private Number, but for some strange reason I could not bring myself to like her. (Robert Taylor was actually the only reason why I decided to watch it in the first place.) For the first half of the picture, I barely paid any attention to Loretta, but when that demon Wroxton brought the whole world down on her, I started to get really angry at all the people that were doing her wrong. During the trial scene, I even found myself shouting "Objection!" whenever the prosecuting attorney went over the line. I saw the film for the first time over a year ago and I still have not been able to figure out why I reacted to it so strongly, but I did, so there you go. Despite whatever flaws it might have, Private Number is an excellent film. Loretta Young and Robert Taylor are beautifully matched and Basil Rathbone is the perfect villain. If you happen to have 80 minutes to spare, give Private Number a try. I think you will love it.


This post is my contribution to The Loretta Young Birthday Blogathon hosted by Cinema Dilettante, Now Voyaging and The Young Sisters Appreciation Group. To view all entries, click HERE.



___________________________
SOURCES:
American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1914-1930 by Gerald Bordman (1995) | Capone: The Man and the Era by Laurence Bergreen (1994) | Clark Gable: Biography, Filmography, Bibliography by Chrystopher J. Spicer (2002) | Controlling Hollywood: Censorship and Regulation in the Studio Era edited and with an introduction by Matthew Bernstein (2000) | Hollywood Madonna: Loretta Young by Bernard K. Dick (2011) | Mothers, Mammies and Old Maids: Twenty-Five Character Actresses of Golden Age Hollywood by Axel Nissen (2012) | The Bennetts: An Acting Family by Brian Kellow (2004) | TCMDb (Notes) | The New York Times review for Common Clay (1919) | The New York Times review for Private Number

Comments

  1. I downloaded this off youtube. I'll read your post after I watch it :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Golden Couples: Gary Cooper & Patricia Neal

It was April 1948 when director King Vidor spotted 22-year-old Patricia Neal on the Warner Bros. studio lot. A drama graduate from Northwestern University, she had just arrived in Hollywood following a Tony Award-winning performance in Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest . Impressed by Patricia's looks, Vidor approached the young actress and asked if she would be interested in doing a screen test for the female lead in his newest film, The Fountainhead (1949). Gary Cooper had already signed as the male protagonist, and the studio was then considering Lauren Bacall and Barbara Stanwyck to play his love interest.          Neal liked the script and about two months later, she met with the director for sound and photographic tests. Vidor was enthusiastic about Patricia, but her first audition was a complete disaster. Cooper was apparently watching her from off the set and he was so unimpressed by her performance that he commented, « What's that!? » He tried to con

Golden Couples: Henry Fonda & Barbara Stanwyck

In the mid- and late 1930s, screwball comedy was in vogue and practically every actress in Hollywood tried her hand at it. Barbara Stanwyck never considered herself a naturally funny person or a comedienne per se , but after delivering a heart-wrenching performance in King Vidor's Stella Dallas (1937), she decided she needed a « vacation » from emotional dramas. In her search for a role, she stumbled upon a « champagne comedy » called The Mad Miss Manton (1938), originally intended as a Katharine Hepburn vehicle. Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda as Melsa and Peter in The Mad Miss Manton .   Directed by Leigh Jason from a script by Philip G. Epstein, The Mad Miss Manton begins when vivacious Park Avenue socialite Melsa Manton finds a corpse while walking her dogs in the early hours of the morning. She calls the police, but they dismiss the incident — not only because Melsa is a notorious prankster, but also because the body disappears in the meantime. Sarcastic newspaper editor

Golden Couples: Clark Gable & Jean Harlow

  At the 3rd Academy Awards ceremony, MGM's hugely successful prison drama The Big House (1930) earned writer Frances Marion an Oscar for Best Writing. Hoping that she would be inspired to repeat that accomplishment, Irving Thalberg, head of production at Metro, sent Marion to Chicago, Illinois to research story ideas. While flicking through the pages of The Saturday Evening Post , she found an article revealing that, in a city where people distrusted the police, a small group of leading citizens met in secret to arrange their own justice for criminals. Marion took inspiration from that story and wrote The Secret Six (1931), in which Wallace Beery and Lewis Stone, stars of The Big House , play two mobsters prosecuted by a half a dozen vigilantes. Thalberg was pleased with the leading roles Marion wrote for Beery and Stone, but asked if she could also fill out one of the minor leads for Clark Gable , a tall, dark and handsome 30-year-old actor whom Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had recen

Film Friday: «Who Was That Lady?» (1960)

Theatrical release poster Directed by George Sidney , Who Was That Lady? (19 60 ) begins when che mistry p rofessor David Wilson (Tony Curtis) is caught by his wife Ann (Janet Leigh) kissing one of his female st u de nts. To stop her from divo rcing him , he a sk s for hel p from his good friend, television writer Michael Haney (Dean Mart in), who invents a crazy story that Davi d is working undercover with the FBI and kissed the student — a foreign agent — in the line of du ty. To convince Ann, Mi ke tricks Schult z (William Newel l), a prop man at the T V studio, into fabricating an FBI identification card for David and s up plying him with a g un. Ann is so t hrilled by the idea of being married to a secret agent t hat she forgives David. Meanwhile, Mike sets up a date wi th the Coogle sisters, Gloria (Barbara N ichols) and Florence ( Joi Lan sing), and takes David along , telling Ann that the girls are foreign agents. Just as Ann realizes that her h usband ha s

Christmas in Old Hollywood

The beautiful Elizabeth Taylor with an extremely cute little friend. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall with their son Stephen (early 1950s). Here they are again. What an adorable picture! Paulette Goddard looking rather uncomfortable next to her Christmas tree. Boris Karloff and Ginger Rogers at a Hollywood Christmas party in 1932. The adorable Shirley Temple chatting with Santa. Here she is again with a dolly friend. Look how cute she looks here, modeling a new Christmas dress (1935). The fur-tastic Joan Crawford. Doris Day asking us to "do not disturb until Christmas." Don't worry, Doris, we shall not. Though it's past Christmas now, so I'm sure Doris won't mind if we disturb just a little bit. Priscilla Lane looking sparkling drapped in her garlands. A VERY young Carole Lombard sitting next to her tree (1920s). Jean Harlow looking stunning as always. Janet Leigh looking extra cute unde

Films I Saw in 2020

For the past four years, I have shared with you a list of all the films I saw throughout 2016 , 2017 , 2018 and 2019 , so I thought I would continue the «tradition» and do it again in 2020. This list includes both classic and «modern» films, which make up a total of 161 titles. About three or four of these were re-watches, but I decided to include them anyway. Let me know how many from these you have seen. As always, films marked with a heart ( ❤ ) are my favorites. Sherlock Jr. (1924) | Starring Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire and Joe Keaton The Crowd (1928) | Starring James Murray, Eleanor Boardman and Bert Roach Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) | Starring Henry Fonda, Alice Brady and Marjorie Weaver Brief Encounter (1945) | Starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard and Stanley Holloway The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) | Starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman The Girl He Left Behind (1956) | Starring Tab Hunter and Natalie Wood Gidget (1959) | Starring Sandra Dee, Cliff Robertson an

Wings of Change: The Story of the First Ever Best Picture Winner

Wings was the first ever film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Since then, it has become one of the most influential war dramas, noted for its technical realism and spectacular air-combat sequences. This is the story of how it came to be made.   A man and his story The concept for Wings originated from a writer trying to sell one of his stories. In September 1924, Byron Morgan approached Jesse L. Lasky, vice-president of Famous Players-Lasky, a component of Paramount Pictures, proposing that the studio do an aviation film. Morgan suggested an «incident and plot» focused on the failure of the American aerial effort in World War I and the effect that the country's «aviation unpreparedness» would have in upcoming conflicts. Lasky liked the idea, and approved the project under the working title «The Menace.»   LEFT: Byron Morgan (1889-1963). RIGHT: Jesse L. Lasky (1880-1958).   During his development of the scenario with William Shepherd, a former war correspondent, Morga

80 Reasons Why I Love Classic Films (Part II)

I started this blog six years ago as a way to share my passion for classic films and Old Hollywood. I used to watch dozens of classic films every month, and every time I discovered a new star I liked I would go and watch their entire filmography. But somewhere along the way, that passion dimmed down. For instance, I watched 73 classic films in 2016, and only 10 in 2020. The other day, I found this film with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. that I had never heard of — the film is Mimi (1935), by the way — and for some reason it made me really excited about Old Hollywood again. It made me really miss the magic of that era and all the wonderful actors and actresses. And it also made me think of all the reasons why I fell in love with classic films in the first place. I came up with 80 reasons, which I thought would be fun to share with you. Most of them are just random little scenes or quirky little quotes, but put them together and they spell Old Hollywood to me. Yesterday I posted part one ; her

Top 10 Favourite Christmas Films

Christmas has always been a source of inspiration to many artists and writers. Over the years, filmmakers have adapted various Christmas stories into both movies and TV specials, which have become staples during the holiday season all around the world. Even though Christmas is my favourite holiday, I haven't watched a lot of Christmas films. Still, I thought it would be fun to rank my top 10 favourites, based on the ones that I have indeed seen. Here they are.  10. Holiday Affair (1949) Directed by Don Hartman, Holiday Affair tells the story of a young widow (Janet Leigh) torn between a boring attorney (Wendell Corey) and a romantic drifter (Robert Mitchum). She's engaged to marry the boring attorney, but her son (Gordon Gebert) likes the romantic drifter better. Who will she choose? Well, we all know who she will choose.   Holiday Affair is not by any means the greatest Christmas film of all time, but it's still a very enjoyable Yule-tide comedy to watch over the holi

The Sinatra Centennial Blogathon: Frank Sinatra & Gene Kelly

  In January 1944, MGM chief Louis B. Mayer happened to see a young crooner by the name of Frank Sinatra perform at a benefit concert for The Jewish Home for the Aged in Los Angeles. According to Nancy Sinatra, Frank's eldest daughter, Mayer was so moved by her father's soulful rendition of « Ol' Man River » that he made the decision right then and there to sign Frank to his studio. Sinatra had been on the MGM payroll once before, singing with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in the Eleanor Powell vehicle Ship Ahoy (1942), although it is very likely that Mayer never bothered to see that film. Now that Frank was «hot,» however, Metro made arrangements to buy half of his contract from RKO, with the final deal being signed in February of that year. Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in  Anchors Aweigh Being a contract player at the studio that boasted «more stars than there are in the heavens» gave Frank a sudden perspective regarding his own talents as a film performer. The «g