Kongo (1932)

For dark, rotting depravity, look no further than this sound remake of Tod Browning's 1928 collaboration with Lon Chaney, West of Zanzibar. Both tell the same story, but in Kongo, Walter Huston reprises the same role he originally performed on stage (and which West of Zanzibar was based) and he has a delicious time hamming it up. Huston looks like a deranged pirate with a wicked, mischievous glint in his eye, an insane prototype of Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth.

Huston is "King Deadlegs" Flint, a paraplegic planning revenge in an African swamp, manipulating the natives with magic tricks and living with man-hungry Lupe Velez and two Lupe Velez-hungry henchmen.

If you haven't seen West of Zanzibar or Kongo, I won't give away the plot's twists and turns here. I will say that drug addicted-Conrad Nagel and Virginia Bruce get caught in Huston's web and, like so many Tod Browning-related films, the ending is EC-like in its ironic justice.

All in all, Kongo is probably not as strong as the more tightly constructed West of Zanzibar. Where Kongo excels is in atmosphere; the sweaty and heated look of the film is downright claustrophobic.

Kongo has been released on Warner Archives DVD-R.

Gabriel Over the White House (1933)

Gabriel Over the White House is not a great film. In many ways, it's not even a good film. It is, though, an astonishing document; even if you've read about it, you still have to see it to believe it exists. Based on a fantasy novel which takes place in the future year 1950, it's a no-holds-barred argument for American totalitarian fascism, as subversive and incendiary a movie as could have been created by Goebbels.

Financed and produced by William Randolph Hearst, Gabriel argues that the response to the Great Depression needed to be an president who would trample the Constitution and the democratic system, sieze power and declare martial law in order to "get things done". Hitler and Mussolini might have loved this movie and the fact that it was created and released indicates the desperate measures which did then need to be taken. It also captures a small time period (it was released after F.D.R. had won the presidential election, but before he'd taken office) in which it seems possible that America could have gone the way of Italy or Germany. A temporary dictatorship in America was an option some were arguing for and critics rightly saw Gabriel Over the White House as a piece of propaganda that could prepare mass audiences for acceptance of the idea. In this sense, the film is an invaluable document of the public mood.

Walter Huston plays the bachelor President. At first he's a do-nothing, party-loyal sleazebag, having an affair in the White House with Karen Morley and determined to do nothing for the country that departs from his (unspecified), commerce and industry-loyal party.

After crashing while recklessly driving at nearly 100 MPH, Huston comes to near death and it's here that the movie reaches another layer of misguided looniness. The movie implies that Huston becomes driven by Godly direction to use his powers for "good". The film's mixture of weird spirituality and dictatorship is startlingly reminiscent of Nazi ideology. At first, Huston implements F.D.R.-like New Deal work programs, rallying the unemployed former WWI soldiers on the White House lawn (instead of shooting at them, as President Hoover shamelessly directed the U.S. Army to do). But then...

I leave the rest of the plot for those who haven't seen the film. In fact, Gabriel becomes increasingly plotless as the film goes on (I'm not the only one who thinks this film similar to H.G. Wells' Things To Come in this respect). Instead of dramatizing plot twists, Gabriel merely shows them, one after another, like a pageantry. For a better film of the period, also starring Walter Huston, which deals with some of the same issues, see Frank Capra's American Madness (Columbia, 1932).

MGM head Louis B. Mayer was furious at the completion of the picture and made many cuts of scenes which were even stronger than the final result. He also had Karen Morley fall in love with Vice President Franchot Tone to draw attention away from her tawdry actions earlier in the picture.

Gabriel Over the White House stars an array of character actors including Dickie Moore, Samuel S. Hinds and an uncredited Mischa Auer.

Gabriel Over the White House has served as ruckmaking fodder for political strategists and commentators for decades, with figures from both sides claiming this movies reveals the true goals of the other side. Yawn.

Gabriel Over the White House is available on Warner Archives DVD-R.

Night Court (1932)

For hard-hitting, even harrowing pre-code crime drama, look no further than MGM's Night Court. If the film had been made in the '70s, it would have been directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. (In the aughts, it could have been written by Neil Labute and directed by James Foley).

Walter Huston plays a relentlessly corrupt judge, so contemptuous of justice that he attempts to obliterate an innocent family just to suppress the mother's (Anita Page) inadvertent knowledge of his bank accounting!

I'll refrain from giving the details of the plot of a film that goes in some surprising directions. This severely overlooked film deserves the same company as Beast of the City and other early '30s crime dramas which have stood the test of time.

Night Court really has an all-star cast. It also features Lewis Stone, John Miljan and Jean Hersholt.

The now forgotten Phillips Holmes (he died in a mid-air plane collision in WWII) gives an interesting performance as Anita Page's husband. It's not a subtle one, but has a raw, emotional tinge that must have struck audiences at the time. In fact, some of the scenes in the film have such a spontaneity that it makes me, perhaps, rethink the work of the director, W.S. ("One-take-Woodie") Van Dyke, whose quick directing here has a freshness that a more fussy director may not have achieved.

Night Court also benefits from co-writer Mark Hellinger who, as a journalist at the New York Daily News and Hearst's New York Daily Mirror, had a better view of the New York criminal underworld than most Hollywood writers and was friends with Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel.

Night Court isn't available on DVD, but has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.

The Wet Parade (1932)

A weird downer of a movie (the poster above shows just how weird; Durante's slayed at the end of the film), MGM's adaptation of Upton Sinclair's novel is like a glossy version of a D.W. Griffith preachathon. It's nearly epic in scope (118 minutes), but bogged down by hammed-up acting and a melodramatic script that couldn't have warranted many raves when the film was new.

The Wet Parade begins in the south, where gentleman Lewis Stone slowly drinks himself to death, his last stop a pig sty. When his son, played by Neil Hamilton, moves to the north, the story and his sister, played by Dorothy Jordan, follow him.

There the binge drinking continues in a hotel best described as Alcohol Central.The owner of the hotel, overplayed by Walter Huston, is a non-stop lush and when alcoholic Neil Hamilton moves in, he's right at home. Robert Young, the most naturalistic and fresh actor in the film, plays Huston's teetotalling son.

Things get worse from there: after prohibition is instituted, alcoholics turn to bad liquor purchased from bootleggers. When Huston kills his wife in the throes of this stuff and Neil Hamilton goes blind from it, Young and Jordan dedicate their lives to irradicating bad alcohol from the planet Earth.

Then it gets even more odd: Jimmy Durante, portraying a treasury agent, is beamed into this movie from another planet, playing his role as if he were teamed with Buster Keaton instead of Robert Young. There's a lot of "ha-cha-cha"s and lame jokes while busting bootleggers!

Without having read Sinclair's novel. it's hard to determine if the story is more anti-alcohol or anti-government intervention (it could be both). Both are shown as very, very bad. Sinclair's politics banned him from the MGM lot when the film was being made, and he wasn't allowed to speak at the film's premiere (though the audience was expecting it). That's cold.

The one scene in the film that really works (and is probably straight from the novel) methodically and with no dialogue shows an assembly line of criminals packaging alcohol unfit for drinking as if it were name brand product. With the exception of this scene, Victor Fleming's direction is rote stuff.

Side note: The film ironically shows footage of Woodrow Wilson signing the 18th amendment into law, when Wilson had actually vetoed the act (thanks for this info, Mary).

The film also features Clara Blandick, Myrna Loy in a small part and Max Davidson in a short, uncredited role. MGM missed the boat in not fully utilizing his talents.

An amusing review of The Wet Parade on Booze Movies.com: http://www.boozemovies.com/2007/07/wet-parade-1932.html
The Wet Parade is not available on DVD or VHS, but has been broadcast on Turner Classic Movies.

The Beast of the City (1932)

Another attempt to go head to head with Warner Bros. with a hard-hitting crime tale, The Beast of the City succeeds where MGM’s The Secret Six had mostly failed. Though not as radical as the competition (both Scarface, United Artists, 1932, and Little Caesar, Warner Bros., 1931 featured the criminals as protagonists), The Beast of the City has an ending every bit as violent and depressing, and a plotline just as involving. (A connection between the three films is noteworthy: Beast was co-written by pulp writer W.R. Burnett, who co-wrote Scarface and wrote the novel Little Caesar was based on).

Following a plea for cooperation with the police by President Herbert Hoover (!), The Beast of the City plunges the viewer into the world of the policemen: the crowded halls, the squad cars, the mundane assignments, the investigation of deaths, the annoying reporters… These scenes strive for, and mostly attain, a chaotic “realism” which not only draws the viewer into the world of policing, but also displays a new mastery of sound and editing techniques which movies only one year earlier could not display.

Eventually the film zeroes in on family man Walter Huston attempting, but continually failing to convict the Capote-esque top criminal Belmonte, played by Jean Hersholt. The more Huston fails, the more determined he is to accomplish this. He has an Achilles Heel, though: his co-worker brother, played by Wallace Ford, whose weakness for Jean Harlow, Belmonte’s sometime moll, jeopardizes the mission. The higher Huston climbs in his quest to carry out justice, the more deeply entrenched his brother becomes in Harlow’s world.

This is a timeless plot (one can imagine Scorsese or Sam Mendes filming it today with Leonardo DiCaprio and Shia LaBeouf as the brothers and Javier Bardem as the heavy). For a dated, 1932 film, it’s quite good, and perhaps one of the most unjustly forgotten crime films. The acting is mostly just adequate; Mickey Rooney, in an unbilled role, shows more life and spontaneity than most of his adult co-stars, and Jean Harlow also stands out; she has a raw and vibrant sensuality which makes the stuffiness around her seem even stuffier - it's as if she walked in from a different movie. In the end, though, it’s the plot and attention to detail that propels the movie and makes for above-average entertainment.

The Beast of the City has been relased on Warner Archives DVD-R.