Watched STATE'S ATTORNEY (1932) based on the recommendation of @NitrateDiva and LORD ALMIGHTY JOHN BARRYMORE IS WILDING
Bachelor mob lawyer Barrymore defends hooker Helen Twelvetrees, shacks up with her, then switches to prosecutor and goes straight but keeps Twelvetrees
UNTIL
Barrymore's political ambitions put him in circles with society gal Lilian Ulrich, who tells him she had a serious relationship at nineteen, and when he asks how serious her response is to *whisper*
to which he replies, "That makes things much easier!"
cut to: a parked car
headlights pass as they sit up and she talks a drunk Barrymore into going to find a judge or the mayor and get married
which they do
Barrymore then goes to tell Twelvetrees and then elects to sleep it off at a bachelor hotel
a frustrated Ulrich can't get him out of the bachelor hotel so goes home...
...where she hooks up with his until-then competitor Raul Rollen, whose character is a celebrated Spanish tenor!
The tenor shows up at the hotel to announce he is here for his honor, and that he has been walking all night in the park
BARRYMORE. "...for your honor?"
that would be a 1932 joke about gay cruising
The tenor confesses that he loves Barrymore's wife and Barrymore agrees to an annulment -- he doesn't like divorce but annulment is fine! -- and he promises the tenor the wife is untouched
which, I guess is TECHNICALLY true
*as a wife* she is
EXCEPT ADULTEROUSLY BY THE TENOR
but it is WILD what pre-code movies could get away with
Barrymore *absolutely* banged this gal, but it was BEFORE they got married (by like twenty minutes), so it doesn't count and annulling the marriage is a-okay and still within 1932 standards
DIRECTOR. "Sure audiences will be okay with that?"
SCREENWRITER. "It'll be fine! Sure, the bluenoses'll kick, but what can they do?"
WILL H. HAYS.
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