Made in the vein of her previous film, the Oscar-winning The Divorcee, Clarence Brown’s A Free Soul, MGM’s adult melodrama, was designed as a star vehicle for the studio’s reigning queen, Norma Shearer, who was married to production head Irving Thalberg.
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Though the reviews were lukewarm, “A Free Soul” was one of Shearer’s most popular films, a sensational success that could not have been made after the introduction of the rigid Production Code, in 1934.
The film is also known for featuring Clark Gable before he became a major star, when he was still playing brute gangsters.
In John Meehan’s scenario, based on the novel by Adela Rogers St. John, Lionel Barrymore plays Stephen Ashe, a brilliant criminal lawyer, who’s reproached by his family for his excessive drinking and unconventional conduct, to say the least.
One day, while drunk, Ashe brings Ace Wilfong (Clark Gable), a gambler and underworld leader, to the birthday gathering of his mother’s (Lucy Beaumont).
When they realize they are unwelcome, they leave along with Jan (Norma Shearer), a motherless daughter, who then becomes Ace’s mistress. When Ace wants to marry her, Ashe refuses to grant his approval, claiming it would ruin his daughter’s chances for happiness.
During a raid that night, while trying to hide, Ashe discovers Jan and Ace together. Jan consents to stop dating Ace if Ashe will stop drinking. But he cannot stop, and Jan goes back to Ace. As brutish as he always has been, Ace tries to molest her. Dwight Winthrop (Leslie Howard), Jan’s ex-fiancé, interferes. Ace gets killed, leading to Winthrop’s arrest.
The hysterical Jan gets her father to save Winthrop. When Ashe realizes what anguish he’s caused Jan, he confesses to the murder of Ace and is gunned down by one of Ace’s mobster friends. He dies with a prayer for forgiveness, and Jan and Winthrop leave together.
MGM conducted an extensive Best Actor Oscar campaign for Lionel Barrymore, as Shearer’s alcoholic lawyer-father, and it paid off. The studio publicized the fact that Lionel had shot the climactic trial scene, at the end of which he drops dead, in one uninterrupted take.
Even by 1930s standards, Barrymore’s performance was hammy and overbaked, but a speech in which he takes the blame for not taking a firm enough approach with his daughter proved effective in its theatrical impact.
Cast
Norma Shearer as Jan Ashe
Leslie Howard as Dwight Winthrop
Lionel Barrymore as Stephen Ashe
Clark Gable as Ace Wilfong
James Gleason as Eddie
Lucy Beaumont as Grandma Ashe
Credits
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Directed by Clarence Brown.
Produced by Clarence Brown, Irving Thalberg
Screenplay and dialogue by John Meehan, Adaptation by Becky Gardiner, Philip Dunning, Dorothy Farnum, John Lynch (uncredited), based on A Free Soul, 1927 novel by Adela Rogers St. Johns; A Free Soul, 1928 play by Willard Mack (uncredited)
Photography by William Daniels.
Edited by Hugh Wynn.
Release date: June 20, 1931.
Running time: 91 Minutes.
Budget $529,000
Box office $1,422,000
