Unashamed (1932) User Reviews

Extremely melodramatic but quite interesting film about sexual mores and "The Unwritten Law"

[Michael-110 · 7/10 · 28 February 2000]

In "The Unashamed" the Ogdens are a wealthy family that is very close and loving. Jean falls in love with a crass fortune hunter named Harry Swift who is obviously after her money. Her father and brother try everything to dissuade her. To force the issue, Harry persuades Jean to spend the night in a hotel with him (horrors!) When they fling this unheard of behavior in the face of her father and brother, to induce them to consent to marriage, things go badly. Jean's brother Dick shoots and kills Swift. However, Dick wants only to protect Jean's honor so he insists to his defense lawyer, Trask, that Jean be kept out of it completely.

The latter half of the movie consists of Dick's trial, and Trask's problem in trying to save Dick from the electric chair while protecting his wishes not to tell the real story of what happened. Thus Trask is not allowed to use the "unwritten law" as a defense (that's the one that allows husbands to kills their wives and wives' lovers). In addition, Jean is extremely bitter toward her father and brother since they've ruined her happiness. So she's not about to cooperate in the defense. Until...

This picture is extremely melodramatic, in a style which seems rather alien to us today, and a lot of the acting and dialogue is too stagy for our taste. Nevertheless, for its time, it was quite well done. The issues of class, honor and gender that the film raises may seem quaint but there were very real to rich people of the 20's and 30's. Similarly, the courtroom scenes are quite well executed with a real attempt to observe appropriate legal proecdures. The ultimate twist ending is also quite effective and will remind you of a more recent (and classic) courtroom movie.

Still Potent

[Handlinghandel · 6/10 · 26 November 2005]

Helen Twelvetrees is a spoiled rich girl who falls for an obvious cad. He wants her money. She wants him. Her father doesn't approve. His hardworking father, Jean Hersholt, doesn't either.

Most of all, her brother doesn't approve. The brother is played by Robert Young. He gives an excellent performance that is not at all perky or cute. His character seems dazed but also driven.

Indeed, there is a strong hint of more than brotherly love in the feelings he shows for her. Notging like those in "Scraface," still shocking over seventy years later. But it's there.

The movie is very good and never gives in to sentimentality.

I like Twelvestrees. She was attractive and acted well. She ought not to have been shot from behind, which she is often in his movie. Her face, not her derrière, was her strong point.

Contrived ending ruins otherwise very good film

[JohnSeal · 6/10 · 18 November 2005]

This above average courtroom drama sinks under the weight of its Hollywood happy ending, which simply defies belief. The first hour of Unashamed is, however, a fine example of pre-Code film-making. Brash young Joan Ogden (Helen Twelvetrees) is in line for a $3,000,000 payday from her rich daddy (Robert Warwick), but she's in love with gold-digging Harry Swift (the delightfully named Monroe Owsley). Her brother Dick (Robert Young) disapproves, and after Joan and Harry spend a night of passion in a hotel, he shoots his sister's lover. Enter slick lawyer Trask (Lewis Stone), hired to save Dick from the electric chair. Unashamed raises fascinating questions of morality and social stratification, and it depicts the wealthy Ogdens as more than willing to perjure themselves from here to Sing Sing in order to avoid the oh so obvious truth, not to mention an all expenses paid vacation on Death Row. The final ten minutes prove that crime does pay, as long as you have the best lawyer in town on your side.

Is This Still Meaningful?

[boblipton · 7/10 · 24 June 2022]

Helen Twelvetrees loves Monroe Owlsley, who adores her, or at least the three million dollars she stands to inherit. He inveigles her to go to a hotel with him; her brother, Robert Young, finds out about it, tries to prevent her, and winds up shooting Owlsley. He is placed on trial for murder.

I think there are some fine performances here, in what is essentially a stage play. Miss Twelvetress plays the nitwit very well, expressing her spoiled character well. Monroe Owlsey plays his cut-rate Lowell Sherman rotter very well; his scenes with father Jean Hersholt are heart-breaking in his manipulation of the sentimental old man. Robert Young, as the murderer is appropriately callow.

The value of this movie, ninety years later, is showing people trapped in their own little society, secure in the mistaken belief that they are invulnerable. Not a one of them can conceive of any bad consequences to their selfish, thoughtless actions. I doubt that a modern audience would take that message away from the film. Many pre-codes seem to concern a society so alien to modern thoughts that one has to dig to get any instruction from them. Still, under the direction of the highly capable Harry Beaumont, every actor inhabits his character fully.

Crime of (Incestual?) Passion

[LeonLouisRicci · 7/10 · 24 January 2014]

One of the Interesting Things about Pre-Code Films is, of course, the Frankness and Non-Skirting way the Story and Dialog go about the Business of such things as Pre-Marital or Promiscuous Sex. It's just there, not Avoided like Post-Hays Movies. Here it is Actually the Central Part of the Storyline as the "in love" Couple check in to a Hotel.

The Next Morning, after Making Whoopee the Lovers use this as a Way to get Her Father to "force" Them to Marry (something the Dad did not want), because it is the Accepted Thing to do. But if that isn't Complicated Enough, Enter a "Loving" Brother who Despises His Sister's Cad Boyfriend and then there are Fireworks.

The Remainder of the Movie is set in a Courtroom where things get a bit Dicey about the Spicey Love Making and Crime. The Movie has a 1932 Mindset and looking at it Today might seem Difficult or a bit Strange with all the Talk about Unwritten Law and so forth, and the Ending may come Across as a Little more than Strange.

Overall it is Worth a Watch for the Dated Dialog, Social Mores, Incestual Overtones, and the Bizarre Conclusion.

pre-Code drama

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 24 June 2022]

Debutante Joan Ogden is in love with playboy Harry Swift. His father wants him to stop borrowing money from him, come home, marry a sweet German girl, and work in the family store. The two fathers have a meeting and her wealthy father threatens to take away her money. Harry refuses to let her go. With her reputation at stake, he is willing to marry her but only with her father's permission and thereby restoring her money. In the confrontation with her father, her brother Dick shoots him dead.

This is a pre-Code drama. There is pre-marital sex although they are careful to not say it directly. The subject matter is taboo for its time. Despite Harry's gold digging, his father's vengeful wish is the only truly rooting interest in this movie. He is the voice of reason time and time again. There is certainly no rooting interest for either of the siblings. That's why there is a perfect dark ending to this tug-of-war over a girl's virginal reputation and this film doesn't go there.

Harry is a jerk and everyone but Joan knows it....oh, and it's perfectly fine to lie under oath.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 30 October 2016]

Harry Swift (Monroe Owsley) is an awful young man...and without an ounce of character. He's been spoiled his entire life by his idiot father (Jean Hersholt) and he's been wooing Joan Ogden (Helen Twelvetrees). His interest isn't strictly honorable, as his interest really is in her money as she comes from a wealthy family. When his father learns of their relationship, he approaches Joan's father and tells him that his son is just no good. Not surprisingly, Joan's father forbids her from marrying Harry. As for Joan's brother, Dick (Robert Young) he knows Harry and thinks he's a cad. So to try to force them to allow the marriage, Harry spends the night with Joan...in a hotel room (after all, this is a Pre-Code picture)! Despite that, the family still won't budge...they won't condone this awful marriage. In fact, the brother is so against the marriage that he kills Harry! Soon Dick is on trial for his life...and Joan seems oddly indifferent to his fate.

This is a very strange movie in that you see Dick murder Harry. Sure, Harry was a terrible person but the film seems to imply that Dick and his lawyer lying in court was okay and that Joan SHOULD have lied for Dick! That's all very weird...as is Dick's almost incestuous feelings towards his sister. What's weirder? Joan doing a 180 late in the film...and not conceivable reason for this. Overall, a strange, muddled plot...though the film is oddly entertaining despite the writing and overly dramatic moments. In essence, it's watchable and enjoyable crap.

By the way, it's odd that Robert Young's character was referred to as a boy! In one scene, someone even says "...the boy is a minor"...and yet Young was 25 when he made this film.

Excellent trial drama, but weird and slightly creepy

[audiemurph · 8/10 · 31 July 2014]

Overall, a good offering from MGM, with above average script and a fast pace, racing to a quite interesting and unexpected twist of an ending.

But having said that, the movie has some creepy undertones that set it apart even from other pre-Code films. Most obvious, right from the beginning, is the weirdness of Helen Twelvetrees, the beautiful star of Unashamed (her career unfortunately over by 1938), kissing everyone in sight in the first 10 minutes of the film. A lot. Her boyfriend; her brother; her father; on the lips; on the cheeks; did I say "a lot"? Robert Young, normally normal, is weirdly obsessive over his sister. They hug and hold and kiss a great deal, and it's unnerving a little, being brother and sister and all. I wonder if audiences in 1932 felt the same way. But he just wants to "protect" her, he says.

Fascinatingly, the pre-Code element of open pre-marital sex is not just one that goes along for the ride here; rather, publicly acknowledged pre-marital sex, and the shame that is supposed to be concomitant with it, are the CENTRAL drivers of the plot. We should be grateful that films like this were made before the Hayes Commission came to pass.

There are some other surprises and weird diversions along the way. The German father is quite graphic in his resentment over Robert Young's murder of his snotty and selfish son, looking forward to being present when Young burns on the electric chair. A jury member cannot hear the proceedings, and asks Lewis Stone to speak louder; weird - not sure of the reason this is in here.

And sadly, when Louise Beavers, playing the African-American housekeeper, takes the stand at the trial, we cringe as she is forced to misunderstand "perjury" to mean "polygamy", although I had to listen to the lines several times to understand what she was getting at. This is supposed to be funny.

Finally, pay close attention to Helen Twelvetrees' left arm, about 3 minutes into the movie, when she is standing with her boyfriend on what appears to be a dock or a pier. As she turns away from the camera and then back again, her left arm stretches out, and it hyper-extends by a shocking amount, bending backwards by a good 20 degrees. As my wife, a nurse, said, when I showed it to her, Yikes!

An excellent movie to spend 75 minutes watching and thinking about.

"Honor" Killing

[kapelusznik18 · 5/10 · 25 October 2016]

***SPOILERS*** Based on the true life murder of Francis Donaldson III the year before by the brother Eddie Allen of the woman he supposedly deflowered "Unashamed" has hot headed Dick Odgen, Robert Young, in a fit of rage gun down gigolo and degenerate gambler Harry Swift played by Monroe Owsley. That after him bragging that he spent the evening together with his pure as the morning snow sister Joan, Helen Twelvetrees,in some sleazy $5.00 a night hotel room in the city's red light district. What the two did is anybody's guess, they could have been playing cards for all we know, but just being alone together with a man she's not married to is enough to ruin Joan's standing in the social register as well as church she attends.

It's Swift's dad grocery store owner Heinrich Schmitd, Jean Hersholt, who had no use for his rotten and no good son anyway that wants revenge for his son's murder and wants to be at the scene when Dick is fried in the Sing Sing electric chair and it's Joan who's testimony at Dick's trial that will put or strap him into it. Joan had a quick change of mind later on when she realized that her brother killed Swift not just in self defense or for revenge but to save her honor in Swift turning or trying to turn her into a slut or loose woman by insinuating that she willingly spent the night with him for, something never mentioned in the film, casual sex.

***SPOILERS***It's Dick's lawyer Henry Trask,Lewis Stone,who tells Joan that the only way to save her brother's life is to testify in court about just what a wild and crazy about sex women she is to show that she in fact is guilty for what Dick was forced to do! It's by making herself look as bad an immoral as she was that the jury voted to acquit Dick of the murder charge. And at the same time have Joan run out of town on a rail for dragging her family's good name through the mud. Was Joan really the low life that she made herself out to be in order to save Dick from getting fried or did she do the right thing in making herself look so bad that no one would feel sorry for her to save his life? That's a question for the jury, or the audience watching the movie, to decide and Joan to live with.

Nobody suffered like Helen

[kidboots · 8/10 · 16 February 2009]

Nobody suffered in movies like Helen Twelvetrees - those quivering lips, her big eyes, always ready to brim over with tears. Even the titles of her films tell all - "Bad Company", "A Woman of Experience", "Broken Hearts", "Disgraced", "Unmarried" - even with "Young Bride", you knew she wasn't going to be happy and starry eyed for long!!! On the other hand who couldn't adore Helen, with her wistful and fragile beauty, plus she was also a very fine actress.

The film starts with a wild society party, complete with an indoor swimming pool and a huge bubbling fountain. Joan Ogden (Helen Twelvetrees) is completely in love with Harry Swift (Monroe Owsley), a shady "businessman" - he is completely in love with her $3 million dollar inheritance. Dick (Robert Young) Joan's very affectionate brother (Gertrude Michael has the small and thankless role of Marjorie, his fiancée) is convinced that Harry is a cad and just not good enough for his little sister. Monroe Owsley plays his usual stock in trade - a slimy villain who is not above taking the heroine to the gutter. How could Helen fall for him - hasn't she seen any of his movies!!!!

Joan's father (Robert Warwick) threatens to disinherit her if she continues to see him, but she doesn't care. One day Mr. Ogden is visited by Heinrich Schmidt (Jean Hersholt), a Jewish delicatessan owner, who claims Harry Swift is really his son. He says Harry changed his name because he was ashamed of his heritage.

When Harry is warned off by Joan's father he persuades Joan to run away for a "naughty week-end". He hopes that Joan's dad will then instantly give his consent to the marriage to avoid a scandal. The father still refuses to give permission and then Dick comes in. He has been up all night looking for Joan - in the hospitals, in the morgue. In the scuffle Dick shoots Harry.

Dick goes on trial for his life but Helen refuses to help him, After all he did kill the man she loved. John Miljan is very good as the barn- storming district attorney. Things look pretty hopeless - Dick is insisting that it was an accident. Joan is needed to confess her part in this sordid story so Dick's lawyer can plead "the unwritten law". At last Joan has a change of heart and goes on the stand for a powerful finish. This was shocking stuff, but fans of Helen Twelvetrees knew what to expect.

I don't know what happened to her but she made her last film, "Unmarried" in 1939. She definitely deserved a longer film career.

Highly Recommended.

Freud would have had a blast with this incestuous family drama!

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 10 April 2018]

There's no justice for murder in this pre-code shocker, even if struggling poor boy Monroe Owsley is allegedly out to marry wealthy Helen Twelvetrees for her money. The daughter of powerful Robert Warwick, Twelvetrees believes that Owsley loves her for herself, even though her brother Robert Young and father feel that his intentions are not honorable. Owsley, a friend of Young's, takes Twelvetrees away for the weekend, and when they return, Warwick and Young are horrified and refuse to allow her to marry him. A fight breaks out between Young and Owsley, and Young rushes back in with a gun, shooting Owsley dead. He goes on trial and faces the electric chair, and the embittered Twelvetrees must face her anger as well as the truth, pretty much manipulated by Young's attorney, played by the future Judge Hardy, Lewis Stone.

When I first saw Young interacting with Twelvetrees in this movie, I felt right away that they didn't seem like brother and sister. There was something a little too close for comfort between them, as if he had sexual feelings for her and wouldn't allow her to marry anybody. That subject has been dealt with in films before, but it was never as blatantly obvious as it is here, and the explanations of how the two siblings were raised without a mother and that Twelvetrees became sort of a mother figure to Young just never rang true to me. While it's obvious that money was the goal of Owsley's desire to marry Twelvetrees, there did seem to be an affection there, and if a poor girl can marry a rich man and later fall in love with him, why can't a poor boy (the son of immigrant grocer Jean Hersholt) marry a rich girl if the potential to fall in love is there as well?

This film basically allows somebody to get away with murder, even with a supposedly honorable motive twisted by the screenwriter to get the character off. It is a disturbing film in so many ways that I'm surprised that this wasn't a notoriously banned film like the same year's "Freaks", also from MGM. I'm surprised that a moral tyrant like Louis B. Mayer would allow a film with such insinuations and a slap in the face of justice to be released. Irregardless of the motives and the twists and turns with a writer's pen, Young's character did kill Owsley intentionally, and he purged himself on the stand. There's a funny cameo by Louise Beavers as the family cook which makes her character seem like a total buffoon, even if she is a lovable one. Twelvetrees adds so many inconsistencies to her characterization that at times it seems that she's two different characters. In summary, I too am unashamed to call this one of the great bombs of the pre-code era that is almost too bizarre for words.

Everyone Involved Should be Ashamed

[view_and_review · 2/10 · 15 February 2024]

I'm convinced that Hollywood was secretly trying to make us hate rich people. There were so many movies in the 30's that featured rich, high society folks and their culture--romance, partying, mannerisms, morals, etc. I can say that I've disliked just about all of them. They come across as so fake, phony, and artificial--from the way they talk, their everyday life, and their interpersonal relationships. "Unashamed" has added to the already overflowing vault of society movies.

There were seven principle characters in "Unashamed" and I didn't like a single one of them.

Let's begin with August Schmidt aka Harry Swift (Monroe Owsley). He was the ashamed son of a German immigrant hence he went by the name Harry Swift instead of August Schmidt. He was also a gambler, conman, and wannabe ladies' man. His latest mark was the main character Joan Ogden (Helen Twelvetrees).

Joan was the daughter of Mr. Ogden (Robert Warwick), a wealthy businessman. Helen was head over heels in love with Harry to the point she ignored all warnings from her father and her brother Dick (Robert Young). She was getting played and I couldn't even care less.

Mr. Ogden and Dick Ogden tried their best to prevent Joan from being involved with Harry. Daddy Ogden even threatened to withhold her inheritance which was clearly the only card he had to play. Dick, whom she had a strangely close relationship with, could only verbally warn her.

***Sidebar***

Why was it normal for brothers and sisters, mothers and sons, and fathers and daughters to kiss each other on the mouth? Grown daughters would sit in their fathers' laps and talk to him almost as if he were a lover. And this wasn't Alabama!

***End Sidebar***

The Ogden men found an ally in Heinrich Schmidt (Jean Hersholt), Harry's father. He was a fairly successful grocer and he didn't want his son parading around with rich girls who he saw as a bad influence and as taking his boy away from him. Both he, Mr. Ogden, and all rich fathers for that matter, hold on to their adult children too long and too hard. Their kids will be well into their twenties yet they speak and behave around their parents as if they're still minors. It's another weird rich custom displayed on screen.

Harry (Monroe Owsley) devised a scheme in which he spent the night with Joan in a hotel. He was hoping that such a move would prompt Mr. Ogden, Joan's father, to demand the two get married. The plan didn't work. Even if Joan spent the night with a man and even got pregnant, his answer to their union was still "no."

As Harry became more impertinent toward Mr. Ogden, Dick, Joan's brother, aggressively stepped to Harry like an angry little chihuahua. Harry knocked Dick on his ass. Dick's response was to go get a gun and shoot Harry. It was a weak move by a stupid youngster who had a little too much concern for his sister's good name. Dick was arrested as a result and forced to stand trial for murder.

Mr. Ogden and his lawyer, Henry Trask (Lewis Stone), went into emergency rescue mode. They had to save dumb Dick from the electric chair even if that meant ruining Joan's good name.

And that's exactly what it meant.

Initially, Joan refused to play ball. She was so broken up and angry she was willing to let Dick fry. She wouldn't provide a way out for her nineteen-year-old brother who killed her lover of a few months.

Then she had an epiphany. After giving a damning testimony that all but cemented Dick's fate, she had the sudden realization that her brother would be executed by the state, and she couldn't have that on her conscience. So, in line with how fickle she was, she gave a testimony under cross-examination that made her look like a harlot and made Dick look like a protector of her honor. The people loathed her as did the jury. Dick was acquitted which meant he could avoid the electric chair and uncomfortably kiss his sister.

* It was uncomfortable for me as the viewer, all too comfortable for him. If they were poorer and from Alabama then words like "incest" would have been used, but they were rich yankees so it was just regular affection.

I said at the beginning that there were seven dislikeable characters. 1.) Joan because of how fickle and naive she was. Even if I dismissed how ready she was to believe Harry was a good guy, her behavior in court with her brother's life on the line was pitiful. 2.) Harry. He was a shyster. 3.) Harry's father Heinrich. He was a pathetic pushover for his son. Harry told him he needed $2000 to help scheme Joan out of $3M and he gave the money to him! 4.) Mr. Ogden. Just another rich stiff who thinks money solves all problems. 5.) Dick Ogden for turning to murder just because he got his ass handed to him. And also for being questionably close to his sister. 6.) Henry Trask because he's a lying lawyer. He had Dick blatantly lie on the stand to beat his murder wrap. 7.) The DA (John Miljan) because of his treatment of Amanda (Louise Beavers), the Ogdens cook, and his cockiness.

A movie has to have likable characters for me to like the movie. Even if they're bad guys, I have to like them, as in, respect them. There was no such character in "Unashamed" which the writers should have been ashamed of.

Free on Odnoklassniki.

Attend this intense court room drama and watch the Classy Classic called "Unashamed". You will LOVE Twelvetrees!

[ronrobinson3 · 9/10 · 16 May 2024]

Once again, if you don't know who Helen Twelvetrees is, then you had better get acquainted. She was a big star in the early thirties. With a name like "Twelvetrees", how is it I never heard of her before either?? I have now seen her in over 9 films, "State's Attorney" (1932), "A Woman of Experience" (1931), "Her Man" (1930), are just a few examples, with "A Woman of Experience" being excellent!

The reason I recommend this film is so you can experience the great acting job Helen Twelvetrees does in her transitioning between types of personalities in her life. It is almost as if she is playing four different characters.

First she plays a young innocent in love and blind to what she is getting into. Then she has to play cold and hard and a woman who would turn her own brother over to death row. Then she becomes crazed and frantic as she starts to see the error of her ways. And finally she does the best performance of all when she takes the witness stand and becomes a lady with no morals and brash.

The plot is "simple". She loves a man (Monroe Owsley) who is only after her for her money. Everyone sees it but Twelvetrees. Her father (played very well by Robert Warwick) forbids the marriage and so the Owsley takes her to a hotel over night, knowing it will ruin her reputation in society and her father will then force them to marry. Twelvetrees' brother (Robert Young) tries to help her out of the situation but she insists her lover is good and she loves him. Finally Young turns on Owsley and exposes him for the mercenary liar he is. The lover punches Young. Young returns with a gun and in a rage shoots the lover dead.

Twelvetrees, still in love, turns on her brother and says that she will see him go to the electric chair for what he has done. Lewis Stone plays the defense attorney for Young. But when Twelvetrees takes the stand and swears it was cold blooded murder, it looks dark for Young.

I won't spoil the end. Watching for the first time, I truly did not know if Twelvetrees was going to come through and do the right thing. You will have to see for yourself. It makes a good ending!

As a footnote, I have also been seeing a lot of Louise Beavers too in recent films. She makes an appearance in the court. It is a small part and almost unnecessary, but the studios seemed to like putting her in films wherever they could. They even had a publicity photo done with her behind Young that is not in the film. But it is good to see them promoting her either way.

So attend the intense court room drama and watch the Classy Classic called "Unashamed". You will LOVE Twelvetrees!