Bed of Roses

Another pre-code favorite is Gregory La Cava's Bed of Roses, made for RKO in 1933. Set on a Mississippi River cotton barge, the lackluster-named Bed of Roses starred Joel McCrea and Constance Bennett. La Cava, who later made the brilliant comedy My Man Godfrey with William Powell and Carole Lombard, seems to have infused his best movies with a keen attention to class differences, social climbing, and the value(s) of masquerading. Constance Bennett was superb as the wise-talking prostitute Lorrie Evans who will do anything for a life of luxury. Bennett and fellow parolee Pert Kelton (who was later blacklisted in Hollywood) leave reform school and sneak aboard a fog-lined steamer bound for New Orleans. After robbing a drunken, lecherous businessman of his money, Bennett jumps overboard rather than risk a return to jail, but loses her money in the muddy waters of the river when she is fished out by the crew of the cotton barge. McCrea (whose later work included Sullivan's Travels by Preston Sturges, Foreign Correspondent by Hitchcock, and Ride the High Country by Sam Peckinpah) was excellent as the barge captain. But Bennett refuses to settle for McCrea's catfish dinners and escapes to a posh set-up with a rich older man in New Orleans just in time for Mardi Gras. Though it once debuted at Radio City Music Hall, there does not now seem to be copies of Bed of Roses available on dvd or video. I taped a copy off late night cable about 10 years ago.