Lazy River (1934) User Reviews

We're No Cajuns

[utgard14 · 5/10 · 14 January 2014]

A trio of ex-convicts (Robert Young, Nat Pendleton, Ted Healey) come to Louisiana bayou village intending to rip off the family of a dead inmate. But they find he exaggerated about his family's wealth. While there, Young falls for a pretty Cajun girl (Jean Parker). Before long the three are helping this family fight off a gang of Chinese criminals, led by C. Henry Gordon.

Young is pretty good in an atypical role. Pendleton and Healey play to their strengths very well. Famed cinematographer Gregg Toland worked on this, though I wouldn't have guessed it. Meandering story that has some good points. Likable characters and pleasant tone helps.

Smuggling in the bayous

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 14 January 2014]

MGM used their B list players in this story about three convicts coming to a shrimping village in the Louisiana bayous. Robert Young, Ted Healy, and Nat Pendleton play our convicts and the film Lazy River bears some resemblance to a much better and better known classic Three Angels. This one without the snake.

Listening to the bragging of one of their fellow convicts George J. Lewis who is killed in an escape, Young goes to the village where Lewis is painted himself to be a big shot. He's just a poor working Cajun shrimper like the rest only his family has a dock that the sinister C. Henry Gordon wants to get a hold of.

Lewis also has a cute sister in Jean Parker and Young who was thinking in terms of a con game instead stays to help and defeat Gordon and his nefarious schemes. Although they're comic relief, Pendleton and Healy actually prove useful.

As for Gordon he's a smuggler and that dock that Parker's family owns is something Gordon needs very badly. He's not too squeamish about how to get it either.

Lazy River may be a B film, but at MGM that meant a lot more than at any other studio, some nice scenes of shrimping life and the Cajun culture are presented here. Maude Eburne is also good as the matriarch of the clan. And Young's "wife" Ruth Channing shows up nearly killing the romance between Parker and Young.

Lazy River is a fine B film and was good on the back end of double bills in the Thirties. Holds up well for today.

About as Cajun as Chop Suey!

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 22 January 2014]

The film begins with a prologue in prison that really isn't necessary. Suffice to say that three oddly matched guys are recently out of prison (Robert Young, Nat Pendleton and Ted Healy) and head to Cajun country in Louisiana. This is a 1930s Hollywood version of Louisiana--where most of the folks have normal, everyday Hollywood accents and a few have odd French-inspired accents that still don't sound very Cajun or Creole. Heck, Jean Parker, who was one of these ersatz Cajuns couldn't even correctly pronounce 'Jambalaya'!! This is like a German who has no idea what sauerkraut is!! Had this casting and attention to details been better, the film would have worked a lot better and not come off as so phony.

Back to the story. The three walk into a bit of a fishing and shrimping war. A local family is being pushed around by some Asian gang*--with many of their employees being hired by the gang or ending up dead. The gang clearly means business and so it's up to the three ex-cons to aid the nice locals. In many ways, this aspect of the story is a bit reminiscent of the Humphrey Bogart film "We're No Angels"--though in that case, the three men were escapees from Devil's Island. So overall, is it any good? Well, it's not terrible and is pretty much a time-passer with a few good moments scattered throughout. It also has quite a few bad ones, however--such as the magical way the story gets all wrapped up at the end.

*Like the Cajuns, some of the Asians in this film are just white folks made up to look kind of Asian (these are the leads, whereas many of the non-speaking Asian roles are often played by Asians). As this film illustrates, Hollywood had SERIOUS issues when it came to ethnic characters in the good 'ol days!

Fine film about Louisiana

[truwarier · 7/10 · 14 January 2014]

While the movie doesn't have all that much of a plot, it is definitely worth watching. Nice shrimping montage. Multiple instances of quality rear projection of river scenes while characters are talking or doing stuff on boats. Great underwater scene. Good prison segment at the beginning. Some funny, Bowery Boysesque dialogue, like when one guy is saying he knew another character since she was little, he says "I knew her since infantry." Also a funny bit where a character is offered jambalaya and gets offended, though I'm not sure if he was just offended by the sound of it or thought it sounded like some other offensive thing. Standard, quality performance by Robert Young; everyone else is solid to good. Lots of very Chinese people who are pretty interesting/colorful. Very well done rumble. Solid and somewhat limited romance/love triangle. Overall good movie.

In old Louisiana

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 6 June 2024]

In some ways this MGM production is not really trying to adapt Lea David Freeman's play, the original source material; but rather, the studio is just using the setting and a vague facsimile of the story to place stereotypes about working class folk in the old south. It contains the usual down-on-their-luck tropes that had already been explored in several Marie Dressler vehicles like MIN AND BILL and TUGBOAT ANNIE.

Dressler was nearing the end of her life and unable to handle the workload required, so the part of a tough Louisiana matriarch was assigned to May Robson. However, Robson balked at the decreased importance of the role, since the love story involving the young couple (Robert Young & Jean Parker) would ultimately receive more prominence; so, she bailed. After Robson's departure, the producers hired Maude Eburne to take over. Eburne has an earthier persona than Robson, but despite her wearing a bonnet like Dressler had worn on screen, she lacks the gravitas required.

The story's main drama revolves around Young, just recently paroled from prison, who goes down to bayou country to look up the relatives of a pal who died in prison. He quickly learns that the pal had exaggerated tales of the clan's wealth. In fact they are barely getting by, about to lose their dock platform, facing the foreclosure of their business and home. Young is not exactly a reformed con, and he's gone there to bilk the family out of its money.

Seeing they have no funds, Young decides to leave but then gets drawn into helping Eburne and her daughter (Parker) hold on to their livelihood. He becomes an unlikely hero, and soon he has given up his old ways. Two other ex-con friends (Nat Pendleton and Ted Healy) show up who have a tougher time reforming. They're around mainly for comic relief.

Complicating matters is the fact that Young has been married before, and his estranged wife (Ruth Channing) suddenly appears on the scene, intending to get her grubby paws on Young's new fortune as a shrimper. This upsets Young's blossoming romance with Parker, but these problems are neatly resolved at the end, when it is learned Young's marriage to Channing is no longer valid.

There's a strange subplot involving some Chinese immigrants (played by white actors in yellow face) who are being brought up to the docks by way of Mexico. Young and his buddies thwart a smuggling ring, which allows for some cliched action scenes on a boat, as well as a few moments submerged underwater when Young gets tossed overboard. The Chinese subplot seems borrowed from United Artists' I COVER THE WATERFRONT (1933) which did a better and more coherent job of dramatizing a crooked ring.

All in all, this isn't a terrible motion picture. Parker's role had been intended for Joan Crawford, but Crawford wisely passed on it. The character might have had a bit more pizzazz if Maureen O'Sullivan, Young's romantic interest in TUGBOAT ANNIE, had been cast. But Parker does a decent enough job, and she does enjoy some nice chemistry with Young.