The Mouthpiece

source: The Mouthpiece

Moviecut—The Mouthpiece

The Mouthpiece

I enjoyed watching this film recently on the Turner Classic Movies channel, and I think the other reviews here describe it pretty well. I would just like to add that a few weeks earlier I had seen another movie on TCM called "Lawyer Man", starring William Powell and Joan Blondell. It was more breezy (and with more sex), but "Lawyer Man" and "The Mouthpiece" were both released in 1932 from the Warner Brothers studio, with the irony being that the plots are so extremely similar, and even some of the plot devices are the same. I've known competing studios to release films with the same theme at the same time, but to have two such similar movies from the same studio in the same year is rare to my experience. It would be interesting to know the story behind that. Anyway, I heartily recommend both of these films for your viewing pleasure.

As a retired lawyer i would have loved to have the great art deco office in which Williams luxuriates.Also if only i could have had a secretary like Aline MacMahon!Obviously Williams doesn't realise what a gem he has in MacMahon and decides he would try the lounge lizard approach with innocent Fox.Now why she wants to marry her simpering boyfriend rather than enjoy a life of luxury with Williams is a mystery.After all going up to his flat to work in the middle of the evening seems a bit strange,and to find your boss in a smoking jacket even stranger.In my view this is a hugely entertaining film,which i had seen only once before at the NFT.I cannot understand why BBC and Channel 4 in particular are quite happy to show Randolph Scott and Audie Murphy westerns for the umpteenth time but cannot give air time to this film and other classic films of the era.

One of the best 1930's pre-code films. The innuendo and risqué situations add realism that later old movies lack (and that any movie about unscrupulous lawyers should have). "The Mouthpiece" also has gangland involvement without gratuitous violence. These are two big reasons why the movie works. Warren William is the prototype film cad and has yet to be outdone in the callous cad role. Sidney Fox looks vulnerable and fragile (as apparently she was in real life) but is OK as the girl employee. Aline MacMahon is simply outstanding as secretary/girl Friday. Fast-paced, good plot, clever legal shenanigans. Works as a Courtroom Drama but on a personality level its really hard to believe that such a hardened cad as Vincent could change his ways.