Thinking Aloud About Film - Her Man (Tay Garnett, 1930)

https://notesonfilm1.com/2023/09/14/thinking-aloud-about-film-her-man-tay-garnett-1930/ A ‘pre-Code’ film set in Havana, probably so lots of drinking could take place during Prohibition, and based on the Frankie and Johnny song about a prostitute who falls in love with a sailor and kills her pimp(see below). The roving camera in HER MAN challenges many of the pre-conceptions of cinema at the beginning of the sound period. Costs of on-location shooting split with W. S. Van Dyke’s CUBAN LOVE SONG, with Havana street-scenes of the period being a major attraction in. the film. In the podcast we discuss the mobile camera, the subject-matter in relation to the Code, how music is mainly restricted to the diegetic, the opening titles, the connection of the comic gags to Garnett’s training with Hal Roach, and the performances of Phillips Holmes, Helen Twelvetrees and Marjorie Rambeau. Many thanks to the Film Foundation for once more offering an opportunity to see such a great restoration.