His Woman

Veteran Sloman's long career was winding down in 1931, but he shows a steady hand in this cliché tale of a stern but naive young sea captain (Cooper) who falls for the "entertainer" (Colbert) who, desperate to escape from a South American port, bluffs her way on board as nurse for a foundling baby dumped in the ship's dinghy. Romance takes second place, however, to scenes stolen by the engagingly vivacious and good-natured baby (Richard Spiro), and by the ship's African-American servants, played in Amos and Andy-style cross-talk by Hamtree Harrington and Sidney Easton. (Journeyman director of photography William O. Steiner went on to light a number of films featuring African American entertainers.) HIS WOMAN is a respectable B movie, worth seeing for the almost exaggeratedly tall young Cooper and the detail of Colbert's tramp friends, who lounge around their shared apartment in pre-Production Code undress. Colbert's first appearance, arriving by boat at night in search of a nightclub job, and some byplay in the cantina between Cooper and dancer Raquel Davidovich, who tempts him by kissing a flower, both recall Marlene Dietrich and Cooper in the previous year's MOROCCO, suggesting Paramount may have hoped to trade on that film's success.