Had I never seen "Three On a Match" I would probably think this is a decent melodrama, but the original is one of the most vivid, powerful pre-code movies I've ever seen, and this is weak tea by comparison. Not sure why they even chose to do a remake so soon after the original, unless they saw it as a good story and thought the 1932 original, which openly showed marital infidelity and drug usage, would be offensive to 1938 sensibilities. Did audiences change that much in 6 years?
You can probably do a side-by-side comparison of these two movies to illustrate the differences between pre and post code. In the original, it's made clear that the bored society wife (Ann Dvorak in the original, Margaret Lindsay here) cheats on her husband with the gangster, and that the big attraction is that they have great sex. This is sanitized in the remake, and you're not even sure why Lindsay leaves her husband, except that someone says the gangster is handsome. (which to me, he wasn't). And in the original we see in vivid terms how Dvorak debases herself in the relationship, and hits rock bottom due to her cocaine addiction. (Bogart, in one of his early slimy hood parts, makes fun off her by repeatedly wiping his nose). The scene in which Dvorak asks her old friend for money really grabs at your heart because you see how low she's sunk. In this version, Lindsay just looks like she's had a couple of sleepless nights, and the scene has little impact. Also, I really like how in the original we first meet the three women as young girls, which for some reason this version does away with.
In terms of the two casts, I love Ann Sheridan, and she looks really sexy here, but the original had the great Joan Blondell, so I call that a wash. A mousy looking Marie Wilson replaces a mousy looking, restrained Bette Davis, also kind of a wash. John Litel is okay as the husband, but I thought Warren William in the original was stronger, and had a more significant role. But the big difference is that Margaret Lindsay, while a decent actress, doesn't come close to conveying the tortured emotions and intense pain Ann Dvorak makes us feel. That pain is what gives her final act of redemption, when she leaps to her death to save her child, so much impact. In this version, with Lindsay, that ending feels contrived and overly melodramatic. (There is also none of the pathos of the kidnapped child seeing the condition his mother is in. Probably something else considered too disturbing post-code. In the original, we see the child dirty and underfed, which the drugged out mother is barely aware of. In this version, the child, now a saccharinely sweet little blonde girl, never even gets her perfect hair mussed)
One other point. "Broadway Musketeers" is a truly terrible and misleading title. It makes it sound like one of those '30s musicals about plucky showgirls. If this comes on TCM I would say go ahead and watch it, but definitely keep an eye out for the original!!
You can probably do a side-by-side comparison of these two movies to illustrate the differences between pre and post code. In the original, it's made clear that the bored society wife (Ann Dvorak in the original, Margaret Lindsay here) cheats on her husband with the gangster, and that the big attraction is that they have great sex. This is sanitized in the remake, and you're not even sure why Lindsay leaves her husband, except that someone says the gangster is handsome. (which to me, he wasn't). And in the original we see in vivid terms how Dvorak debases herself in the relationship, and hits rock bottom due to her cocaine addiction. (Bogart, in one of his early slimy hood parts, makes fun off her by repeatedly wiping his nose). The scene in which Dvorak asks her old friend for money really grabs at your heart because you see how low she's sunk. In this version, Lindsay just looks like she's had a couple of sleepless nights, and the scene has little impact. Also, I really like how in the original we first meet the three women as young girls, which for some reason this version does away with.
In terms of the two casts, I love Ann Sheridan, and she looks really sexy here, but the original had the great Joan Blondell, so I call that a wash. A mousy looking Marie Wilson replaces a mousy looking, restrained Bette Davis, also kind of a wash. John Litel is okay as the husband, but I thought Warren William in the original was stronger, and had a more significant role. But the big difference is that Margaret Lindsay, while a decent actress, doesn't come close to conveying the tortured emotions and intense pain Ann Dvorak makes us feel. That pain is what gives her final act of redemption, when she leaps to her death to save her child, so much impact. In this version, with Lindsay, that ending feels contrived and overly melodramatic. (There is also none of the pathos of the kidnapped child seeing the condition his mother is in. Probably something else considered too disturbing post-code. In the original, we see the child dirty and underfed, which the drugged out mother is barely aware of. In this version, the child, now a saccharinely sweet little blonde girl, never even gets her perfect hair mussed)
One other point. "Broadway Musketeers" is a truly terrible and misleading title. It makes it sound like one of those '30s musicals about plucky showgirls. If this comes on TCM I would say go ahead and watch it, but definitely keep an eye out for the original!!