The Office Wife (1930)

This was a very good movie, with a fantastic cast, but like always Natalie had too little screen time, but believe me, she made the most of it. But what a cast, it stars the extremely beautiful Dorothy MacKaill, the always great Lewis Stone, Joan Blondell, and of course Natalie Moorhead. This story is about Lewis Stone who runs a business(I’m not sure what it was) who has a secretary who falls in love with him, as does he with her, but he is married, well I think you know how this goes, so no need to go into it any further. Dorothy plays the secretary, let me just say it’s hard not to keep your eyes on her and concentrate on the story, wow she was so beautiful and just a lot of fun, it’s a shame she didn’t have a longer career in the talkies, an absolute tragedy. Oh, no she didn’t die young, she passed away in 1990 at the young age of 87, if you ever get a chance to catch one of her movies do so, you won’t be disappointed. As for Natalie she played the unfaithful, yet understanding wife of Lewis Stone, she doesn’t love him anymore, neither did he love her, so they talked about it and they agree to get a divorce, no fighting, just perfect understanding, ha, only in Hollywood. Let me just state a fact, Natalie never looked better, she was stunning, just perfect, I don’t know about her acting here, I wasn’t paying attention. To be on the serious side, the scene with her and Lewis when they discuss the divorce was well done, kind of a sweet scene. I do have one complaint, what was with Natalie’s bathing suit in the one scene, what year is this, that was about the most unattractive outfit I have ever seen, it looked like something out of the 1910’s, very disappointing. Seriously though, this was a fun movie, very predictable, but fun, and that’s all I ask for.

The Runaway Bride (1930)

Disappointment, that’s it, just a big disappointment. When I saw that this movie stared Mary Astor, and that Natalie Moorhead had a bigger role, I thought this is going to be great, oh was I wrong. I love Mary Astor, one of my all time favorites, but this was bad just bad. First lets get the basic story over with, it was about Mary who went to elope with her fiancé, but before they get married they find out they don’t agree on a lot of things and maybe they shouldn’t get married. The guys leaves the apartment for a second and crook running from the cops jumps through the window and gets shot just as he shoots the cop. Mary freaks out and runs away, the police think she did it, she hides out a rich guys house, soon they fall in love , and well I think you get the idea. It’s a pretty lame story, but the acting was awful, the dialogue was rough and at times there were pauses between lines, like they had to think about it before they said it. They only real good acting was when Mary was kidnapped by the crooks, she did a great job of freaking out. As for Natalie Moorhead, she played one of the crooks who helps frame Mary. I’m not being bias, but I thought she did great, at first she was a maid in the apartment, being real dumb and slow, but that was all fake, then we see her for real as the moll, a real crooked woman, I thought she was the only shining part of this terrible movie.