Heat Lightning - 1934

Heat Lightning (1934) is a study of independence and need, remorse and recklessness, and a profound yet subtle quest for redemption.  It is both gritty and yet surprisingly lyrical.  Aline MacMahon has one of her best roles as the dour, protective older sister running a desert truck stop.  The movie is not all hers, but all the characters moving around her like satellites never detract and sometimes don’t even complement her life that much—she is a true loner in heart and mind.  She seems to brush most of them off like flies. We will learn she didn’t start out that way.

This is my entry in the Classic Movie Blog Association’s “Cry Me a River: Tearjerkers Blogathon.”  I hope you’ll have a look at the other great participatingblogs.

As with really great movies, the setting is as much a character in the story as the actors, and director Mervyn LeRoy certainly knows this.  Here we have a weather-beaten diner with a ramshackle car repair garage and a gas pump out front.  There are a few cabins that comprise a small “auto court” of the day.  We are in the Mojave Desert, and just as traveler Jane Darwell remarks when she and her hapless husband, Edgar Kennedy, suffer car trouble and see the roadside café up ahead, “It’ll probably turn out to be a mirage.”

We may well imagine that motorists (or those pushing their enormous cars like Edgar Kennedy), will see the run-down road stop as a welcome respite.  All around them under the big sky is vast, dusty, and with nothing but a long, hot ribbon of highway leading them away from trouble, they hope.

Jane Darwell is the audience proxy when she discovers with surprise that the auto mechanic in the rough clothes is a woman.  She proudly remarks to her bumbling husband, “Only goes to show a woman can do anything she puts her mind to,” as the movie flashes a brief feminist message, though movies of the 1930s, tearjerkers or not, tended to show strong women more than films did in later decades when they mostly seemed to be reduced to victims or vamps.  Life is more complicated than that, and women are more complicated than that, and this is a lesson Aline MacMahon would like to teach to her younger sister, played by Ann Dvorak, but Aline has too many scars to be a graceful teacher.

Another carload of comic characters are the two young ladies boldly off to Hollywood and the middle-aged stranger who gives them a ride.  Played by Muriel Evans and Joan Dennett, they mostly manage to keep Harry C. Bradley diverted from pawing them, but they suffer his dull if smarmy company because it is a free ride.

Another comic trio that pops in but stays overnight are two wealthy divorcees just having left Reno, played by Glenda Farrell and the wonderful Ruth Donnelly (with the silly tongue-twisting name “Mrs. Ashton-Ashley”).  They bicker, insult each other, and make their chauffeur’s life miserable.  He is played by the reliable regular guy Frank McHugh, who has had just about enough of them. 

But lest we mistake this moody film for a comedy, we see early on that the oasis in the desert is not all relief and restoration, where one can guzzle Cokes and eat barbecued sandwiches while Aline MacMahon fixes your car.

Aline’s kid sister, Ann Dvorak, is champing at the bit.  She’s ready for adventure and romance and she’s not going to get it tucked away in this remote desert.  Aline’s contented refuge is Ann’s prison, and there is tension between them when Aline refuses to allow Ann to go to a dance in town with a ne’er-do-well young man, played by Theodore Newton.  He is older than she is, moves in fast company, and Aline knows that Ann would be getting in over her head.

Ann makes plans to sneak out at night and meet the guy down the road.

“You never had any emotions, you never had any fun!” Ann tells her.  But there’s more to Aline than meets the eye.

Enter two strangers, stopping for lunch and a cold beer.  They are city fellows, in suits and Fedoras, and one of them, played by Preston Foster, is friendly, easygoing and searching the place with the keen eyes of someone who knows how to case a joint.  His partner, Lyle Talbot, is less interested and would prefer they got back on the road.

We will learn, drip-by-drip, that they escaped from prison, robbed a bank in Salt Lake City and in the process, Mr. Foster shot to death a couple of cashiers.  He is cool as a cucumber, but Mr. Talbot is increasingly nerve-racked over their deed and the suspense of escape.

Preston Foster sees Aline MacMahon emerge from the garage in her overalls, work shirt, and bandana.  She stops short, stunned to see him.

Ahh, they know each other.

“What are you doing out here?” he asks.

“Making an honest living.  Something you wouldn’t know anything about,” she replies.  They not only know each other, they have a romantic past and it is the reason Miss MacMahon has self-exiled to the Mojave Desert.  Back in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the old days, she was a party girl, and Preston’s girl, and he done her wrong.

Ann Dvorak knows nothing about those days, and Aline wants to keep it that way.  We see that Aline’s admirable self-reliance and rigid work ethic might be penance, as much as a do-over.

Preston Foster takes a sly, calculated interest in rekindling their relationship, but perhaps not so much for love as for what use she can be to him.

When it becomes known that the flighty Ruth Donnelly and Glenda Farrell are traveling with some pretty hefty jewels, Mr. Foster sees his chance to bankroll his and Lyle Talbot’s escape.

But Aline, thinking only that he is pursuing her for herself, brushes him off.  “I’m happy here.  I know what living is about here.  I wouldn’t leave for anything.”  Though Aline gets some strong dialogue, she really doesn’t need it.  With her soulful eyes and quiet intensity, she commands every scene she’s in.  She could attract our attention by just tying her shoes.  “I left you and that whole rotten life.  Don’t you think I’m the same woman who used to eat out of your hand, because I’m not.  I’m a whole lot wiser.” 

Maybe.

Ann Dvorak is curious about her big sister’s relationship with Foster, but Dvorak is more preoccupied with the coming nightfall and her date with the bounder.

Night falls, and the men delay leaving, to Talbot’s increasing anxiety, particularly when the sheriff pops in to see if anybody heard anything of the escaping criminals.  The desert may cool off a bit, but heat lightning flashes in the distance.  A happy Mexican family camps out, and when a rancher from nearby shows up, played by Willard Robertson, who would be Aline’s suitor if she let him, we see another side to Aline MacMahon. She dresses up for the first time in probably many months, and entertains the two men interested in her, sitting outside in the night breeze, while her sister is away.  She is not flirtatious, but she is womanly and letting her beaus see that they each have competition.

Late that evening, when all is quiet, Ann Dvorak’s date brings her back, drops her off down the road. She is clearly infatuated with him, and he appears bored with her, and we might assume that he has taken his pleasure and now wants nothing to do with her.

She sneaks back into the rooms she shares with her sister behind the diner and catches Preston Foster sneaking out of Aline MacMahon’s bedroom.  Aha!  Ann smirks slightly.  It is a revelation about her stern, puritanical older sister.  Reportedly, this scene also got the film bad marks from the National Legion of Decency.

Having left Aline, Foster now purposefully goes to work on the safe with Lyle Talbot.  The safe in the diner is where Donnelly’s and Farrell’s jewels were put for the night.

Aline goes to Ann’s room, knowing that she sneaked out, and the sisters fight, and Ann throws Aline’s tryst with Preston Foster in her face.  But Ann is not triumphant over her sister's apparent hypocrisy; she is devastated, for as Aline begins to surmise, Ann is now, also, “a whole lot wiser.”

Aline, knowing the torture of resisting a man she really wants, tenderly embraces her sister, strokes her hair, understanding that her sister has also been ill-used by a man this night.  As she puts her crying sister to bed, and kisses her shoulder, she hears noise from the diner. 

Foster and Talbot are having trouble with the safe, and Foster is having trouble with Talbot.  Lyle doesn’t want to stay any longer and doesn’t want to do any more harm, but Foster is adamant. 

“You get that safe open. I didn't spend all that time with the dame for nothing.”

Uh-oh.

Miss MacMahon enters, with a gun, and shoots Foster.  After he drops, after a moment, she goes to him, her hair loose and long out of the familiar bandana.  She is quiet, shocked, and his last words, “I had it coming.”

Talbot asks, “What about me?”

She lets him go.

When others come at the sound of the shot, she wearily brushes them off, telling them she shot at a rat.

In the morning, when the guests leave and Ann is back to work in the garage, rancher Willard Robertson returns, concerned for her.  She shows him the body and asks him to take care of it, to tell the sheriff.

He tenuously asks if Foster meant anything to her.  She is honest and says he did, once.

He offers, somewhat cruelly, “Must be a big help sometimes being like you, Olga, not having any feeling.”

“I wouldn’t know, Everett.”

A newcomer arrives, like so many others, pleased at finding the diner and garage and auto court and says, “This place is sure a lifesaver, lady.”

She agrees it’s a pretty quiet life.

The Hollywood studio system of the day gave us plenty of froth and fluff, but was extraordinary in its ability to turn out so many quiet stories of powerful substance, and describing what life was like during the Great Depression in so many, many ways.

Please have a look at the other blogs posting in the Classic Movie Blog Association’s “Cry Me a River: Tearjerkers Blogathon” here.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism and Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

My new non-fiction book, CHILDREN'S WARTIME ADVENTURE NOVELS - The Silent Generation's Vicarious Experience of World War II -- is now available in eBook here at Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a wide variety of other online shops.

Or here from my Shopify store if you want to buy direct from me and avoid the big companies.

And it is here in eBook, paperback print, and hardcover, from Amazon.

From Cherry Ames, to Meet the Malones, from Dave Dawson to Kitty Carter - Canteen Girl, the Silent Generation spent their childhood immersed in geopolitical events through the prism of their middle grade and young adult books.  From the home front to the battlefield, these books are a window on their world, and influenced their hard-working, conformity-loving generation. 

 

Publishers Weekly review of CHILDREN'S WARTIME ADVENTURE NOVELS

This year, 2025, we mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.  There are many stories of the war and that era, and some of them were meant for children.

My recently published book, Children's Wartime Adventure Novels: The Silent Generation's Vicarious Experience of World War II, has received the following review from BookLife and will be published in Publishers Weekly magazine on Monday the 12th.

"Lynch illuminates a fascinating, little-studied chapter of publishing history in this study of exactly what the title suggests: World War II adventure novels for young American readers, printed during—and in a few cases before—U.S. involvement in the war itself, in which protagonists in their late teens and early 20s set aside the anxieties of youth to do their part to stomp out fascism. In title after title, pilots and soldiers (the men, mostly) and nurses, reporters, WACs, WASPS, WAVES, and more (the women) evince courage, endurance, dedication to the cause, and a savvy sense for identifying fifth columnists. Lynch celebrates the novels’ sense of “spirited adventure” and ethos of “patriotic self-sacrifice” while digging into thorny questions of propaganda and indoctrination, including racial and ethnic stereotyping. Declares a radioman in Gregory Duncan’s Dick Donnelly of the Paratroops, judiciously quoted by Lynch, “When I shoot at the enemy, I’m not shootin’ at any one person. I’m just shootin’ at an idea I hate, an idea that will ruin the whole world if it isn’t stopped.”

Lynch writes with infectious enthusiasm for the subject, soaring through detailed summaries of the stories of dozens of books like Red Randall at Pearl Harbor, Nancy Blake, Copywriter, and the surprisingly grim nurse adventure Ann Bartlett at Bataan, which is frank about wartime surgery: “a tattered mass of flesh and bone.” Especially engaging are Lynch’s considerations of the differences between the novels with girl heroes—these stories of the “protectors of the homefront” sometimes boasted career advice and a “surprisingly feminist spark of independence and derring-do”—and the high-flying, battle-oriented novels starring boys.

While Lynch is always engaging, the many summaries can get repetitive, and readers wish for more insight into these books’ creation, sales, and cultural impact. Late chapters surveying questions of patriotism and stereotypes across a host of books, though, offer continual revelations and insights, a rich contribution to the study of American literature and propaganda. These books deserve serious study.

Takeaway: Fascinating study of WWII teen adventure novels and the American character."

You can get your copy in eBook, paperback, or hardcover from Amazon here.

Or paperback from Ingram here.  Or hardcover from Ingram here.

Or eBook and paperback from Barnes & Noble, or eBook from a variety of online shops including Apple and Kobo here.

Or eBook from my own shop here.

I'd love to hear your review.

Employee's Entrance (1933)

Employees’ Entrance (1933) is a study of cutthroat capitalism and the depravity that can sometimes exude from a ruthless employer.  If the Great Depression was no time to be out of a job, it could also be a stressful time to actually have one. So many hoops to jump through for the boss, and not one of them safe.

The boss is Warren William, who we last saw as the villainous employer in Skyscraper Souls (1932) here, made the previous year.  The two roles are not exactly the same, however, Mr. William might be headed for typecasting by this point.  In Employee’s Entrance, he is the manager of a large New York City department store, and his character, despite the vigor of his scenes, is less interesting than in the previous movie.  The banker of Skyscraper Souls was smooth, seductive, and devious in a psychological way.  In Employee’s Entrance, the department store manager is just a mean guy.  He takes delight in pushing up the sales numbers any way he can, including removing the deadwood in the office by firing longtime employees at whim.  His sexual pursuit of female employees is more a game of conquest than desire—he dislikes women and distrusts them.

Movies that take place in department stores are always fun, they give us a world unto themselves, a world that, in large measure, no longer exists in many towns.  But this story presents the store with less a sense of showcasing the marvel of American commerce and more a sense of dread for the corruption we do not see when we shop.

The movie begins with a montage of sales figures, always climbing through the 1920s, that decade of wonderful nonsense and consumerism, under the helm of Warren William’s successful regime, but then falling during the early years of the 1930s.  It is now 1933 and we are at rock bottom, and he has to work hard to pull a rabbit out of a hat.  We don’t feel sorry for him; he feels no compassion for his workers.  He tells his board of directors, who dislike him and want to replace him, that “There’s no room for sympathy,” and that to be successful, one must, “smash or be smashed.”

He does that immediately with a vendor, a manufacturer of menswear played by Frank Reicher.  Mr. Reicher tells him the order for coats will be delayed because he is having labor issues, but Warren William walks all over him, canceling the order to punish him. It will ruin Mr. Reicher and put him out of business.

Later on, Mr. William will toss out longtime employee Charles Sellon, a man who, probably like the actor, is in his mid-60s and will not be able to find employment anywhere else.  He will leap to his death from store’s fifth floor.  Waren William will remark, “When a man outlives his usefulness, he ought to jump out of a window.”

Another older employee getting the ax is Edward McWade, whom you may remember as Joe the linotype operator who gets the ax, along with most of the newspaper staff, in Meet John Doe (1941). There’s something more unbearably tragic about an older worker left without any hope of self-support, and it is this reason that Social Security was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935.  The first recipient was sent a check in 1940, for $22.54, which was enough to rent a cheap room for a month.  Mr. McWade and Mr. Sellon, in the movie, were seven years away from any such benefit, and with little hope of finding a job when there were so many younger people, unless they had family to take care of them or a local or state almshouse had a cot for them, would be living under bridges until they died.

Ruth Donnelly plays Warren William’s secretary, who always enters with a stricken expression as if embarrassed and horrified at the behavior of her boss, and seems particularly sorrowful at the firing of Mr. Sellon.  She knows the cruel odds.  Miss Donnelly had been in films since the silents of the ‘teens, and had no such worries about work herself in the Depression.  A dependable character actress, she appeared in 15 films and shorts just in 1933 alone.

We have Alice White in a flashy role as hard-bitten yet kittenish Polly, a woman who works in the store and has been trying for some time to turn Warren William into her sugar daddy, but Warren is too smart for her.  He brutishly puts her down, and directs her, quite seriously, to turn her attentions to the ineffectual and somewhat befuddled member of the board left in charge in the owner’s absence to monitor Warren William’s cutthroat operation.  He wants Miss White to divert the old gent to get him out of his hair, she, getting well paid for this mission, turns her little girl flirtations onto Albert Gran, who is reticent at first as if he doesn’t know what to do with her, but then succumbs to her charms.  Scene-stealing Alice is a delight to watch.  The Depression-era tune, “Million Dollar Baby” is heard in the background.

One employee that Warren William can count on is our favorite, Wallace Ford, who also had a minor role in Skyscraper Souls.  Here his role is much larger as the up-and-coming assistant who comes up with clever marketing ideas.  He is given an office next to Warren William, and his fortunes are looking up.

We don’t know if Wallace Ford would, in the course of his burgeoning career, turn into another Warren William.  He may be headed that way, if not for a young woman who’s looking for a job.

Enter Loretta Young.  Warren William, inspecting his store, discovers Miss Young spending the night like a squatter in the store’s “model home.”  She does not know Mr. William is the big boss when she flippantly invites him to her “home” and confesses she has sneaked in to camp out and apply for a job in the morning.  He seems interested in her, amused at her ingenuity, much as he seemed interested in Wallace Ford for his marketing ideas, and knowing she has not eaten, invites her to dine.

Warren William has his way with her, gives her a job as a model in the women’s clothing department, and apparently has no further interest.  As he tells Wallace Ford, “This is no job for a married man,” and “Love ‘em and leave ‘em.”

But Wallace Ford meets Loretta Young and they date in secret, and then marry in secret.

Frank Reicher, the menswear manufacturer whom Warren William ruined is back, working in the store’s shipping department, but he is not bowed.  He openly hates Warren and is learning to be hard and ruthless, which impresses Mr. William, who hands him a $5,000 check to start his own business to partner with him, but Mr. Reicher rips it up in his face.  Spite is preferable to any business dealings with Warren William.

Interestingly, a stock of new toys crosses Mr. William’s desk and he examines them, noting that the “made in Germany” stickers might not sell well and he suggests putting on “made in Japan” instead.  “They’ll sell better.”  While it’s true Germany had moved over to the dark side in 1933, Japan’s imperialist machinations were not yet bold enough for Warren William to predict the future.

The climax of the story hits during an annual employees’’ welfare association ball held in the store after closing.  Warren William has no interest in partying with employees or their welfare, but he notes Loretta Young, a little tipsy after a fight with her husband, Wallace Ford, and helps her to get drunk, encourages her to go to his apartment in an upper floor and lie down.  Stupidly, she does.  He follows, and rapes her.

We do not see the crime, of course, but it is implicit since she has stated she hates him after her first encounter with him (which she never told Wallace Ford about), and she is in no condition to consent, and we already know he is not one for charm, only taking what he wants.

Wallace Ford has had too much to drink at the party as well, and wakes up literally under a table the next day, feeling terrible about his fight with his wife and wanting to make up with her. 

She leaves him a note that she is leaving but does not explain why.  She is shamed.  Warren William wants her to come to him and offers her a promotion, but is blunt that he will not marry her.  He wants a mistress.  She blurts out that she is already married to Wallace Ford.

Cue Warren William to tell Alice White to shift her attentions from Albert Gran to Wallace Ford to get him away from Loretta Young, but Miss White, a good egg, refuses.  He offers her $150 per week, and she turns him down.  Disgruntled, he asks her where she got her principles.

“I saved a couple out of the Crash.”

Great line.  Alice White has moxie. “Why don’t you go keep your nose out of other people’s lives before somebody smacks you down.”

He fires her, but she remarks that Albert Gran will not fire her “not as long as I can play chess.”

Eventually, Wallace Ford will stand up to Warren William, too, though Loretta Young will take poison to attempt suicide.  She’ll recover, and they will start over.

Frank Reicher, meanwhile, after Wallace Ford quits, has become Warren William’s new assistant, but will never kowtow to him.  “If I get the chance, I’m going to break you,” he tells Mr. William.  Success in business seems to be a Faustian endeavor.

The movies of the 1930s seem sometimes astonishingly frank about this, perhaps because the business world let so many people down, but the class war that seems ever on the brink never really materializes beyond guerrilla ridiculing of their betters by the working stiffs.  At least they were working.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism and Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

My new non-fiction book, CHILDREN'S WARTIME ADVENTURE NOVELS - The Silent Generation's Vicarious Experience of World War II -- is now available in eBook here at Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a wide variety of other online shops.

Or here from my Shopify store if you want to buy direct from me and avoid the big companies.

And it is here in eBook, paperback print, and hardcover, from Amazon.

From Cherry Ames, to Meet the Malones, from Dave Dawson to Kitty Carter - Canteen Girl, the Silent Generation spent their childhood immersed in geopolitical events through the prism of their middle grade and young adult books.  From the home front to the battlefield, these books are a window on their world, and influenced their hard-working, conformity-loving generation.

 

 

Skyscraper Souls (1932)

Skyscraper Souls (1932) is an example of the ironic sense of fun teased out of terrible times—a hallmark of enduring the Great Depression—and the audacious bemusement over immorality that contributed to the adoption of The Code. 

A rift in the timeline of cinematic history was torn, and movies like Skyscraper Souls were afterward deemed Pre-Code, not merely to suggest they were of a lesser standard but that they were emblematic of an era of don’t-give-a-damn long before Clark Gable was ever given official, one-time-only, permission to utter the phrase.

We were on our way down in 1932, a few years after the 1929 Wall Street Crash, and not yet hit rock bottom, but we could see which way we were headed.  It made many people fearful and others, especially filmmakers, fearless.  The setting is a New York City skyscraper, notably a bit taller than the only other building rivaling its height—the real-life Empire State Building, which was finished the previous year.  

The fictional building is owned by Seacoast Bank, which is owned by Warren William, whose financial buccaneering life is centered on this massive monument to his investment prowess.  His sexual prowess is another thread to the tale.

In this huge building are many businesses, and the several minor roles comprised of fellow financiers and the massive support system to their lives including clerks, secretaries, waiters, and elevator operators, make up the cast of characters.  We don’t get to know all of them well, most are given only a thumbnail sketch, but we know them because for the most part, they are us, the little guys.  Some ride the coattails of the big shots, others are gullible enough to think that emulating them will make themselves big shots, too.  There is comedy in the mix, and tragedy.

The story centers on Maureen O’Sullivan, only two years into her Hollywood career and already this was her 12^th movie (she had even made one Tarzan film by this time—and will be forever remembered as Jane).  She plays the secretary to the assistant of Warren William.  The assistant is Verree Teasdale, herself only a few years in Hollywood and her 7^th film.  She is intelligent, polished, runs her department with efficient and no-nonsense authority, clearly Mr. William’s trusted right-hand man.  She has a somewhat motherly relationship with Maureen O’Sullivan, whose family she knew, and so she has taken a protective interest in the young woman, alone in the wicked city.  Heaven may protect the working girl, but not if she doesn’t want to be protected, and this is the case with Miss O’Sullivan.

Her boss, Warren William, has designs on her.  First, he must dispense with her self-appointed chaperone, Miss Teasdale.  Verree Teasdale is his current mistress.

By the way, if you’re new to this blog, there are going to be so many spoilers it will make your head spin, so discreetly look away if you don’t want the sordid details and your innocence shattered.

Warren William, tall, so handsome, with sudden surprising dimples and a twinkle in his eyes, reminds one of John Barrymore, but there is even something more suave and impressive.  A charming seducer, unrelenting in the chase, but not so lustful as rather being amused by life, as if it is one big joke.  Eventually, we will see that his charm disguises a deep and arrogant lack of empathy for others, and that winning is everything no matter what it takes.

This is one of the surprises in the movie and of the Pre-Code era, in that a character who is essentially a villain can be so likable.  He is not the only one who shows more than one flaw, and yet we can forgive the flaws because everyone here is human.  We may not, by the end of the movie, wish to associate with any of these people, but cannot be angered or repulsed by them, because they are just people in the rat race.  If the big building is a monument, it is also a trap.

We get our first lesson in flawed character when we see that Warren William, who also has an apartment in the building, shares breakfast with his right-hand…mistress.  Verree Teasdale sits across from him in a negligee, chuckling that she will be late for work and need to make excuses, while Mr. William, in his robe, shares companionable conversation in front of a sheer curtain which does not hide the bed in the background.  The scene is deftly accomplished with a wink and a nod to the audience. 

Warren William is, however, married to Hedda Hopper, who breezes into his office later on for a fill-up on her allowance.  They also have a happy relationship, but it is much more open and honest than the one he has with Verree Teasdale.  Hedda Hopper knows he has relationships with other women and laughs at him, and takes his money, and they part as good friends.  She knows, as she will explain much later in the movie to Miss Teasdale, that Mr. William is not the sort of man who can be tied down, and he will not divorce her because she is his convenient excuse to never get caught in a real marriage.  He can always say his wife will never give him a divorce.

This is what he tells Teasdale, and she accepts the arrangement, until a chance meeting with Hedda Hopper compels her to ask why she will not give Warren a divorce so that she can marry him.  Hedda schools her on the reality of their marriage arrangement, and Teasdale is shocked. 

But there is more gnawing at her.  Warren William has, in the meantime, taken a liking to Maureen O’Sullivan, luring her to his apartment during a party where he (and his silly drunken pal played by George Barbier) plies her with champagne to get her drunk.  A few scenes later, we see she has accepted the post as his new mistress.  This is not a case of an honest girl led astray by love.  She doesn’t particularly love him, but he is charming, fun, and…rich.

It's the Great Depression, Charlie Brown, and everybody in the building is in survival mode.

It’s why she is reticent to marry her new beau, played by Norman Foster, who is a teller in Warren William’s bank on a lower floor.  He is a fast-talking wiseacre with a habit of bumping into people, store displays, and generally bumbling his way through the magnificent Art Deco lobby of the building.  He is pushy in the manner of early 1930s film boyfriends, to the point where we can understand Maureen O’Sullivan’s annoyance with him.  Especially when he does the particularly creepy ploy of calling the security guard to bring her to him so he can find out her name and address under the guise of investigating a theft.  Why she suddenly thinks he’s cute and wants to date him is a mystery to any sensible person, but it is necessary for the plot, so we accept it.  Why she holds out marrying him is largely due to his $50 per week salary (which was actually pretty good), and his $1,800 in the bank.  It’s not enough to live on. Millions of others were living on far less, but they are not Maureen O'Sullivan.

Warren William offers furs, jewels, money, and a trip on his yacht.  She’s raring to go.

We meet one of my favorites, Wallace Ford, as another working stiff in the building, who, in vying for the attention of Helen Coburn, will join a frantic mob at the stockbroker’s office, also conveniently in the building, to attempt to make a killing.  Money is everything, and for these folks, the sure path to love.

But not to Jean Hersholt, a mild-mannered jeweler who is trying to woo Anita Page, a street-wise woman of easy virtue, also desperate for cash.  In the movie’s most touching scene, she confesses to him her sordid past, and he says he knows but does not care, and she is moved and shamefacedly asks for a dollar so she can buy something to eat.  Later, we are told they are on their honeymoon.  There seems to be such need and open honesty between them, that we cannot help but believe they are the only ones in the movie who will succeed in finding contentment.

But even they are touched by scandal when Wallace Ford, who has lost a bundle on the market, sneaks into Jean Hersholt’s open jeweler’s vault but gets caught there when Hersholt, who does not know he’s there, shuts and locks the door.  Helen Coburn knows he’s stuck in there, she was helping to create a diversion so he could sneak in.  She was going to share the loot with him.  In a story of scamps and miscreants, she, a minor character, pulls off the most venial act by walking away and knowingly letting Wallace Ford suffocate in the vault overnight because she does not want to be implicated.  We see her afterward parasitically attaching herself to a new prospective suitor.

It is not the only death.  But we’ll get to that in a minute.

Warren William, pressed by his associates as well as his business rivals, is in danger of losing his bank and his building.  He smoothly cuts out his associates and makes a backdoor deal with George Barbier.  It’s a fun series of shots where they talk business first thing in the morning—to recover from a night of drinking—in the fitness center in the bowels of the building.  They talk furtively in the gymnasium, in the steam room, get massages by rough masseurs, and swim together in a large pool, floating on their backs and finalizing their verbal pact to create a merger.  To really capitalize on their new arrangement, they will launch a stock market scheme that was once called “painting the tape.”  They will send the bank stock soaring, and then dump it, shorting the market.  Warren William’s character actually reminds one of Jesse Livermore, in his piratical market maneuverings and his sexual appetite, but I don’t know if he was patterned on Livermore or only a type.

Later that day, Verree Teasdale, still working on the problem of keeping Warren William away from Maureen O’Sullivan, takes Norman Foster to lunch in the grand restaurant on an upper floor and urges him to continue his relationship with Maureen.  When he complains that she will not marry him because of his lack of wealth, Miss Teasdale gives him the tip about putting his cash into the Seacoast stock.  Thrilled, he rushes down to the broker’s and buys shares.  Wallace Ford observes him, and copies him, doing the same.  Jean Hersholt, normally reticent about stock speculation, also joins in, and a crowd of people clamor at the broker’s to get their Seacoast shares as the stock rises and rises throughout the afternoon.  It is a fury of greed and high hopes for a high life and dreams coming true.

Then the nightmare.  Warren William skillfully pulls out, the stock tumbles, and so do the life savings of many a little guy. "More margin!" is the old familiar cry.  We see Norman Foster sobbing into a handful of tickertape.

The next day, Wallace Ford, left with nothing, dies in Jean Hersholt’s jeweler’s vault he has attempted to rob.

Anita Page confesses her sins to Jean Hersholt, who cares nothing about his stock losses and everything about her.

Maureen O’Sullivan, blithely jumping over to Warren William’s caresses and enormous wealth, increased by the merger and the stock swindle, plans her new life as a pampered mistress.

In Mr. William’s case, it is also out with the old and in with the new.  We see him tell his manager to arrange for a house in New England for Teasdale and to pension her off.  She’s retiring, he says.

When Miss Teasdale becomes aware of her forced “retirement,” especially with Mr. William’s cold explanation, “A man needs youth.  Without it, life is stale, meaningless.”

She tells him to give up Maureen O’Sullivan or she will kill him.  He laughs at her, and she takes the pistol from his desk and shoots him.  Is it out of hurt and jealousy or is she really just protecting Maureen?  Both, I expect.

But he seems not seriously hurt; he is shocked, chuckles, takes the gun from her when she apologizes, and sits in a chair.  When his manager enters, he does perhaps the only unselfish act in his life when he says it was all an accident, that he shot himself when he dropped the gun.  The manager runs to get help, and Mr. William takes his handkerchief and wipes her fingerprints off.

Then he slumps over, collapses to the floor, and dies.

Verree Teasdale, in shock, goes to the roof of his magnificent building, stands precariously on the ledge, and allows herself to fall into oblivion.

In a previous scene, Warren William boasts of the grand accomplishment in life this skyscraper means to him.  “A million men sweated to build it.  I hate to tell you how many men dropped off these girders when it was being built, but it was worth it.”

We have barely enough time to catch our breath when the next scene is many months later, snow is falling softly in the city, and Hedda Hopper breezes by again, happily concluding a deal to sell the building and carry on with her immensely privileged life.

Maureen O’Sullivan chases Norman Foster for a second chance, and after some pouting, he agrees.  His fifty bucks a week salary is good enough now.  They are so shallow, we have a hard time caring about them.  Sometimes the very rich and the very poor have a lot in common if all they value is money.

  *******************************

Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism and Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.

My new non-fiction book, CHILDREN'S WARTIME ADVENTURE NOVELS - The Silent Generation's Vicarious Experience of World War II -- is now available in eBook here at Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, and a wide variety of other online shops.

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From Cherry Ames, to Meet the Malones, from Dave Dawson to Kitty Carter - Canteen Girl, the Silent Generation spent their childhood immersed in geopolitical events through the prism of their middle grade and young adult books.  From the home front to the battlefield, these books are a window on their world, and influenced their hard-working, conformity-loving generation.