Evelyn Prentice - 1934

Evelyn Prentice - Released Nov 9, 1934. Directed William K. Howard

John Prentice (William Powell) is a successful lawyer with a busy schedule that rarely allows him to be at home where his wife Evelyn (Myrna Loy) is usually patiently waiting for him to attend various social functions and even simple events like a family dinner. When it appears through circumstantial evidence that on a week-long business trip to New York City that John Prentice has been romantically involved with a female client, Evelyn unhappily responds to the invitations from a young man (who claims to be a poet, among other things) which begins a brief friendship that soon slips into blackmail and murder.

Powell and Loy are usually seen as a prime comedic pair from the golden age of screwball comedies, but they also made a few melodramas together, and Evelyn Prentice might be the best of them. A great backing cast with Una Merkel, Rosalind Russell, and Isabel Jewell helps to spread the tale across more than just the dysfunction of the marriage between the Prentice's, but also a small insight into how court cases are developed, and the trust (or lack of it) between attorney and client contributes to how a case is presented before a judge.

Loy and Powell do have a few moments that are jovial, despite the heaviness of the story, and their playfulness is of the sort that shows up in their Thin Man movies, and comedies like Libeled Lady and I Love You Again.

AMAZON STREAMING: Evelyn Prentice 1934

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Myrna Loy: The Only Good Girl in Hollywood

424 Pages

"From the beginning, Myrna Loy’s screen image conjured mystery, a sense of something withheld. “Who is she?” was a question posed in the first fan magazine article published about her in 1925. This first ever biography of the wry and sophisticated actress best known for her role as Nora Charles, wife to dapper detective William Powell in The Thin Man, offers an unprecedented picture of her life and an extraordinary movie career that spanned six decades. Opening with Loy’s rough-and-tumble upbringing in Montana, the book takes us to Los Angeles in the 1920s, where Loy’s striking looks caught the eye of Valentino, through the silent and early sound era to her films of the thirties, when Loy became a top box office draw, and to her robust post–World War II career. Throughout, Emily W. Leider illuminates the actress’s friendships with luminaries such as Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and Joan Crawford and her collaborations with the likes of John Barrymore, David O. Selznick, Sam Goldwyn, and William Wyler, among many others. This highly engaging biography offers a fascinating slice of studio era history and gives us the first full picture of a very private woman who has often been overlooked despite her tremendous star power."

Original Page June 2015

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