Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. —Henry Fielding

22 October 2019

Valiant Is the Word for Carrie (1936)

Yet another combination of the mother with the fallen woman. This is, perhaps, the most beloved plot for the Best Actress category in the 1930s.

Gladys George is good in Valiant Is the Word for Carrie, but this is nowhere near her best work, and most of this plot is insipid stuff. Jackie Moran is great as little Paul, and I thought John Howard was fine as adult Paul, but Arline Judge, who is second billed here, is fairly terrible.

Valiant Is the Word for Carrie just isn't worth Gladys George. It's nice that she got her only Oscar nomination for this movie, but one does wish it had been for something better.

And at the end of the movie, a character actually says valiant is the word for Carrie, as if we didn't know what the movie was called.

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