Worth Watching for the Supporting Players

Michael_Elliott

Roman Scandals (1933)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Eddie (Eddie Cantor) is a dimwitted but good-hearted man from Rome, Oklahoma who is kicked out of town. He ends up falling asleep where he dreams that he is in the actual Rome where he gets involved with a Princess (Gloria Stuart), an Emperor (Edward Arnold) as well as a rebel (David Manners).

ROMAN SCANDALS is a film that really hasn't aged well in a lot of areas but at the same time fans of Pre-Codes will certainly have a field day with some of the naughty parts that show up here. As you can tell, Cantor is the star of the picture and how much you enjoy this film will certainly depend on how much of the actor that you can take. Some have argued that if you've seen one of his films then you've pretty much seen them all because his "act" really didn't change much.

As far as this film goes, I thought Cantor was decent in the role but there's no question that not all of the one-liners work as well as I'm sure the star and studio had hoped. There are a couple funny sequences in the film but I thought Cantor was at his best during the early scenes in Oklahoma including the first song sequence where he leads some locals into building their own homes. The rest of the musical numbers by Busby Berkely were good and did I mention The Goldwyn Girls?

The film benefits from a very good supporting cast with Arnold stealing the picture as the bad guy. I thought he was a lot of fun and added a great bit of entertainment to the picture. I also thought Stuart and Manners were good in their roles as was Ruth Etting. With all of that being said, ROMAN SCANDALS is mainly remembered today for its Pre-Code nature and that includes a lot of sexuality, some dirty jokes and a lot of scenes with beautiful ladies barely wearing anything and only being covered up by the smallest of things.

Overall ROMAN SCANDALS is certainly a flawed picture and one that doesn't work overall but at the same time the supporting cast and the naughty parts makes it worth watching.

score /10

Michael_Elliott 26 September 2018

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4361875/