The Film Foundation Restoration Screening Room Resource Guide for
HER MAN (dir. Tay Garnett, 1930)
Presented in The Film Foundation Restoration Screening Room in September 2023 in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Table of Contents
1) Film Description
2) Special Features
-Miriam Bale Interview
-Martin Scorsese discusses HER MAN
3) EXPLORE Page Materials
-Video Extras
-Reading List (Books)
-Reading List (Online)
-The Film Foundation on Letterboxd
4) Pavane pour Helen Twelvetrees by John Ashbery
5) Live Screening Commentary Script
HER MAN begins at a seedy Havana dancehall, where Frankie (Helen Twelvetrees) plies her trade as a showgirl and con artist, stealing the wallets of drunk patrons. Working alongside her is Johnnie (Ricardo Cortez), her brutish lover who doesn’t shy away from using blackmail and physical force to keep her in line. When Frankie falls in love with a sailor on holiday, she sees it as an opportunity to start a new life. Her only roadblock to happiness is Johnnie, as he and his dancehall gang set out to stop her in the film’s thrilling climax, which is one of the most technically astounding set pieces of its time.
Filled with a frank sexuality and dark themes, HER MAN is an excellent example of the complexity and diversity of pre–Code American cinema, which would end in 1934 with the adoption of the prohibitive Hays Code. Star Helen Twelvetrees shines in her breakout performance as Frankie, giving depth and a feminist bent to a role in which she would be pigeonholed for the rest of her career. Critically acclaimed upon its release, HER MAN remains influential as one of the first sound pictures to reach the same artistic heights as the most iconic films of the silent era.
HER MAN was restored using the 35mm original picture and optical soundtrack negatives in the Columbia Pictures Collection at the Library of Congress. Inspection, repair, and 4K scanning was done at Cineric, Inc. in New York, and the digital image restoration was completed by Lowry Digital. Conforming, additional image restoration, DCP, and color correction was done by Deluxe Culver City. Deluxe Media Audio Services performed the audio restoration.
Restored by Sony Pictures Entertainment, in partnership with The Film Foundation and RT Features.
Miriam Bale Interview
Martin Scorsese discusses HER MAN
HER MAN (1930)
Video Extras
Actor Ralph Bellamy discusses working with director Tay Garnett via YouTube.
"LISTEN TO THIS" (1978, Periscope FIlms) - The histoy of sound films and the transtion from the silent era via YouTube.
HER MAN (1930)
READING LIST (BOOKS)
Light Your Torches and Pull Up Your Tights, Tay Garnett, Arlington House, 1973
Directing: Learn from the Masters, ed. Tay Garnett, Scarecrow Press, 1996
Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934, Thomas Doherty, Columbia University Press, 1999
Helen Twelvetrees, Perfect Ingenue: Rediscovering a 1930s Movie Star and Her 32 Films, Cliff Aliperti, Createspace Indepedent Publishing Platform, 2015
Forbidden Hollywood: The Pre-Code Era (1930-1934): When Sin Ruled the Movies, Mark A. Vieira, Running Press Adult, 2019
Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood, Mick Lasalle, St. Martins Press, 2000
HER MAN (1930)
READING LIST (ONLINE)
"Her Man (1930)" by Farran Smith Nehme for Film Comment
"‘Her Man’: A Relic of a Bygone Hollywood, Now Restored" by J. Hoberman for the NY Times
"MR. GARNETT SEES THE WORLD" for the NY Times in May 1938
"LAST CALL: HER MAN (1930)" by R. Emmet Sweeney
"CRACKING THE CODE" by Nick Pinkerton for ARTFORUM
"When Tay Garnett Met Frankie and Johnnie: Her Man (1930)" by John Andrew Gallagher for FIlmInt
HER MAN (1930)
THE FILM FOUNDATION ON LETTERBOXD
HER MAN (1930)
Pavane pour Helen Twelvetrees
a poem
______
I
Abrasive chores were a specialty.
Then, suicide at fifty.
Not a back street that didn’t reflect
meanness, and somehow, candor.
To be clasped by the awkwardly handsome Phillips Holmes
in an open carriage in Havana:
“St. Patrick’s Day, don’t it make you feel great?”
There were fiery landladies to cope with
and the usual drunks. Otherwise,
time passes, assuring vulnerability.
I was saying, you never get over
some of these lumps, that’s what they’re for.
Otherwise, you can abide in discretion,
or just plain bawl.
The clients are coming back. Quick, the moustache cup.
II
All around us tides, provocation
of abstracted sky and water.
Praise bellies the azaleas. Yeah, praise
them too while we’re at it, everything
deserves a modicum of praise, except those
who don’t get it. There’s more, in a sequel
God will ultimately be writing.
He turns the pages of a vast
octavo volume, brings forefinger
to chin. H’m, that one might have turned out
differently, if I’d been paying attention.
Let’s revamp the casting call
in the sky, see whose talent effloresces. That way
there’ll be something to talk about next millennium.
The birds hear and drop to the grass.
Fireflies communicate spottily, but accurately.
The whole project is plain.
The rushes look good.
It was for this you spun your little web,
dear, and have somehow been rewarded. It is written
that only the unlikeliest take hold.
Tomorrow there will be fireworks, and then,
back to the chain of living and dying,
pleasing and ornery. The process-shot whereby
scenery overcomes tedium, porch-sitting.
Tonight we have tension and oneness,
arcane, arousing. Forgotten starlets
and minor nobility are apt to turn up in it.
And so he said not to go,
is standing stuttering there
fluffier than a dream in the park setting
where we were accustomed to dwell.
HER MAN - Live Screening Commentary Script
9/11/23
Welcome to The Film Foundation Restoration Screening Room! Tonight we’re screening HER MAN (1930, d. Tay Garnett).
You can stay with us here in the chat to learn more about the film as you watch or you can view the film full screen on-demand at 7pm.
In this chat mode the screening is live and picture controls (rewind/fast forward/pause) will not be available. If you miss anything or need to take a break, that functionality is available when watching on-demand.
Thanks for being here and we hope you enjoy our live commentary. We also encourage you to share your thoughts on the film as we go, making this a communal virtual viewing experience!
00:00:00 - 00:10:00
In his documentary A PERSONAL JOURNEY WITH MARTIN SCORSESE THROUGH AMERICAN MOVIES (1995), Martin Scorsese discussed how innovative Tay Garnett was as a director and described this tracking shot in HER MAN:
“Most Tay Garnett movies of the early 30s feature fluid camera moves and even very long takes. Watch how skillfully the camera follows the tray across the dance floor. The choreography looks effortless but believe me, this shot must have been very hard to achieve.”
To hear more from Martin Scorsese, please watch the complete clip from his film A PERSONAL JOURNEY WITH MARTIN SCORSESE THROUGH AMERICAN MOVIES, available on this page.
00:10:00 - 00:20:00
Edward Snyder was the cinematographer on HER MAN. He was a credited cinematographer from 1927-1939 but in the 1940s he started working as a special effects artist doing transparency process shots.
He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on Henry King’s DEEP WATERS (1948) but lost out to the team that worked on William Dieterle’s PORTRAIT OF JENNIE (1948).
00:20:00 - 00:30:00
Director Tay Garnett, born William Taylor Garnett in 1894, got his start in Hollywood in 1920 writing for comedic producer and director Mack Sennett. He went on to write for Thomas Ince, Hal Roach, Stan Laurel, Frank Capra, and Cecil B. DeMille, among others.
In 1928, while working at Pathe/RKO, he directed his first feature film, CELEBRITY, which he also co-wrote. It was here that he also made HER MAN. He would go on to work at Universal and 20th Century Fox, making some 48 odd feature films over the course of his career.
To learn more about the films that Tay Garnett directed, be sure to visit the Film Foundation’s Letterboxd account, linked to below:
https://letterboxd.com/tff/list/directed-by-tay-garnett/
00:30:00 - 00:50:00
Star Helen Twelvetrees was born in 1908 in Brooklyn, NY as Helen Marie Jurgens. She met her husband, Clark Twelvetrees, while attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Notably, Mr. Twelvetrees tried to commit suicide by jumping out of a Manhattan hotel room in the middle of a dinner party. His fall was broken by two awnings and a taxi cab and he survived. Helen would divorce him in 1931, citing alcoholism and domestic violence.
Twelvetrees got to Hollywood in 1929 and started working for the Fox Film Corporation on Lewis Seiler’s THE GHOST TALKS. She was then signed to Pathe/RKO where she would eventually make HER MAN, which set the tone for the rest of her acting career. She would make over 30 films until her death in 1958 from an overdose of sedatives.
To learn more about the films that Helen Twelvetrees made, be sure to visit the Film Foundation’s Letterboxd account, linked to below:
https://letterboxd.com/tff/list/starring-helen-twelvetrees/
Also featured here, in the section above, is a poem by the great poet John Ashbery entitled “Pavane Pour Helen Twelvetrees.” Ashbery wote:
“To be clasped by the awkwardly handsome Phillips Holmes
in an open carriage in Havana:
“St. Patrick’s Day, don’t it make you feel great?”
There were fiery landladies to cope with
and the usual drunks. Otherwise,
time passes, assuring vulnerability.”
00:50:00 - 01:00:00
Star Phillips Holmes was spotted in the crowd during the filming of Frank Tuttle's VARSITY in 1928 and went on to screen test in Hollywood, where he would soon become a popular leading man of the early 1930s. One of the first directors he worked with was Dorothy Arzner for the film THE WILD PARTY (1929).
Notably, Holmes also worked with Howard Hawks on THE CRIMINAL CODE (1930), Josef von Sternberg on AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY (1931), and Ernst Lubitsch on his film BROKEN LULLABY (1932).
Holmes was no stranger to scandal. In 1933 he was driving with actress Mae Clarke and he crashed into a parked car. Clarke suffered bad facial injuries and sued Holmes. He ended up paying her medical expenses. In 1942, he was killed in a mid-air collision after joining the Royal Canadian Air Force at the start of WWII.
To learn more about the films that Phillips Holmes made, be sure to visit the Film Foundation’s Letterboxd account, linked to below:
https://letterboxd.com/tff/list/starring-phillips-holmes/
01:00:00 - 01:10:00
We were very lucky to have programmer and critic Miriam Bale speak with us about Tay Garnett and pre-code cinema:
“He is a really interesting filmmaker and whenever I see his name, I want to see what’s going on, they’re very different. He has a background in comedy writing with Mack Sennett and Hal Roach. But something that really differentiates him for me, and what you can see in the opening credits, he had a real interest in real place. So, when you’re hearing those waves, you’re capturing a real place.”
To hear more from our conversation with Miriam Bale watch the complete video interview, available on this page.
01:10:00 - 01:20:00
There’s an incredible supporting cast in HER MAN, featuring some of the best character actors to ever grace the silver screen.
Annie is played by Marjorie Rambeau. HER MAN was Rambeau’s first sound film. She started acting on stage at age 12 and was nominated for two Academy Awards—for PRIMROSE PATH (1940) and TORCH SONG (1953). The Reuben Sandwich was also said to have been invented for her!
Slim Summerville played “The Swede.” He met Edgar Kennedy while working in a poolroom and thus began his prolific comedic on-screen career. Summerville acted in a few dramatic films like HER MAN, Lewis Milestone’s ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930) and Henry King’s JESSE JAMES (1939), as well. He also directed over 50 short films!
The great Franklin Pangborn played Sport. His roles were small and comedic in nature but very very memorable. Known for playing somewhat uptight and prissy characters, Pangborn often worked with comedy greats Preston Sturges and W.C. Fields.
Nelly is played by actress Thelma Todd, affectionately known as "The Ice Cream Blonde" and "Hot Toddy." Todd was a very active comedic actress in the silent and early sound era, appearing alongside the Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, and Joe E. Brown, among others. In 1935 she was found in her car dressed to the nines and dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. Despite suspect circumstances, her death was ruled an accident.
01:20:00 - 01:25:00
Thank you so much for joining us! HER MAN was restored by Sony Pictures Entertainment, in partnership with The Film Foundation and RT Features using the 35mm original picture and optical soundtrack negatives in the Columbia Pictures Collection at the Library of Congress. Inspection, repair, and 4K scanning was done at Cineric, Inc. in New York, and the digital image restoration was completed by Lowry Digital.
Conforming, additional image restoration, DCP, and color correction was done by Deluxe Culver City. Deluxe Media Audio Services performed the audio restoration.
We look forward to seeing you next month on Monday, October 9th for a screening of Roger Corman’s THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964).
