Precode has that certain something at times.
“MANSLAUGHTER is a highly engrossing early talkie melodrama with very early film performances of two of the great players from Hollywood’s golden era, Claudette Colbert and Fredric March. Claudette Colbert stars as a spoiled heiress who believes there are two sets of laws, one for the rich and one for the poor. Young district attorney Fredric March believes quite the opposite – equal justice and punishment for everyone. They meet at a dinner party and romantic sparks fly and both are infatuated.
But trouble is around the corner. March learns Claudette has attempted to bribe a young cop after being caught speeding by dropping her diamond bracelet on the ground and driving away which leads to a scene between them and any romantic possibilities crushed. And then Colbert’s faithful maid Hilda Vaughn steals some of her jewels in a weak moment for her boyfriend and confesses.
Self-centered Claudette however can’t be bothered to remember the date of Vaughn’s trial which results in her receiving a sentence of up to 15 years. Horrified to learn of the results, Claudette zooms off to see what she can do belatedly but her speeding this time results in a fatality and her being charged for manslaughter – and with the prosecuting attorney set to be March!
This type of melodrama was extremely popular in the early days of talkies – Norma Shearer won much acclaim for THE TRIAL OF MARY DUGAN and a Academy Award nomination for A FREE SOUL, Mary Pickford won an Oscar for COQUETTE. Although I’ve never seen DUGAN, I can’t help but feel Claudette Colbert’s sterling performance even at this very early stage in her career topped them all.
Her pampered socialite is a fully three dimensional character – selfish yes, but not an obnoxious, unfeeling person even when she is successful at getting things her way. She is matched by the dashing young March as the young man with ideals who cannot compromise his integrity even if it means prosecuting a woman he knows he is in love with, even as it tears at his heart.
Emma Dunn is fine in a rare moneyed role as Colbert’s loving and supportive aunt, Natalie Moorhead, generally cast as a menace in films, does well with her small part as one of Claudette’s best friends but the standout in the supporting cast is the wonderful Hilda Vaughn who latter-day audiences surely know best as Jean Harlow’s maid in DINNER AT EIGHT (1933).
Ms. Vaughn has a startlingly similar situation here as the put-upon maid on a spoiled socialite (with a diamond bracelet playing a key role in the proceedings again!!) but this role even gives her more to work with than DINNER and she has two wonderful little scenes in the prison when she and her former boss are finally on equal ground.
(There’s also a brief bit of unintentional humor for movie buffs with Louise Beavers’ bit part as one of the inmates, seeing the two stars of the later IMITATION OF LIFE (1934) in jail side by side makes one wonder if that pancake corporation was on the up and up LOL.)
Claudette Colbert and Fredric March were the perfect co-stars for each other, it’s regrettable their only work together was so early in their careers and of their four films only DeMille’s SIGN OF THE CROSS is easily seen. It’s clear from MANSLAUGHTER that these were two stars who were wonderful from day one.”
