Dynamit

Dynamite (1929)

*** (out of 4)

Cecil B. DeMille's first talkie was the first of three pictures that the legendary director would make at MGM. The filthy rich Cynthia (Kay Johnson) needs to be married on her birthday or else she'll lose millions from her grandfather's will. The only problem is that her boyfriend (Conrad Nagel) is already married to a woman who doesn't mind her husband dating Cynthia but she refuses to marry him unless the money is right. On the other side of the tracks, convicted killer Hagon (Charles Bickford) is about to be put to death and offers his body for $10,000 so that his kid sister will be taken care of. Cynthia decides to marry the death row inmate so that she can be "married" on her birthday and since she'll be a widow soon after she can get back to her normal life. The only problem is that after the marriage the real killer comes forward and Hagon is set free.

Is that enough plot for you? DYNAMITE features enough plots for about ten different movies and everything I wrote above is just the opening forty-minutes and that leaves eighty-seven more minutes of craziness. This is without question an incredibly bizarre film but there's no question that it's highly entertaining on so many levels. One such level is that it's just downright nuts from start to finish and I just sat there watching it in a complete amazement that anyone could actually pull it off. DeMille proves what a genius he was by taking this outrageous stories and making them work. If any other director had tried this we'd laugh them right out of the theater. I'm not sure what DeMille's secrets were but he makes us care about the characters and their fate. It also doesn't hurt that we're given some excellent performances with Bickford leading the way as the tough coal miner. This is the type of role he could play in his sleep and he pulls it off wonderfully. Johnson is very believable and good in her part as is Nagel. Julia Faye plays his wife and we get supporting performances from Joel McCrea and William Holden.

DYNAMITE features some very campy moments including the scene where the killer confesses to the crime. I dare you not to laugh during this sequence. I also found it rather hilarious how casual the wife, her husband and the lover were at hanging out with each other. I think this threesome relationship is something that even Jerry Springer would roll his eyes at. Still, this is so entertaining that it really doesn't matter and it would make a great double feature with DeMille's other 1929 film, THE GODLESS GIRL.

Utterly insane story but so phenomenally well made, even though it's from 1929, it's brilliantly entertaining. This experience completely changed my opinion of De Mille - ok, it seems he was a genius after all!

Maybe because of his pompous and pretentious vats of nauseating drivel such as SIGN OF THE CROSS, I instinctively avoid the self-professed great man's movies. But his excellent FOUR FRIGHTENED PEOPLE and MADAM SATAN tempted me to give this ago. So glad I did - it's fantastic, honestly it's a million times better than I was expecting.

There's exceptions of course but I'd normally expect a 1929 talkie to be terrible. Early talkies are generally static and stagey with theatrical actors taking it in turns to enunciate their lines very, very slowly huddled around a hidden microphone. This displays absolutely none of those tell-tale traits. You'll not believe it's De Millie's first talkie! It's so dynamic and as far removed from a studio bound film as you can imagine. Clearly hours and hours of preparation went into this to get it just perfect. Like much more modern films, the camera doesn't simply point at whichever character is speaking. You get cut-always to bystanders showing and hearing their reactions. It's a proper film, not a filmed stage play.

These are people from the 1920s, real people from 1929 so don't expect them to be like us (which is part of the appeal of watching old pictures) but nevertheless the acting in this is natural with characters speaking normally and as in Mamoulian's APPLAUSE, sound is employed virtually another character. An example of that is the portentous beating of the hammer making 'Derk's' scaffold as he's waiting on death row which ominously returns in the dramatic climax.

This is not typical 1929 acting. You're drawn into believing that you're not watching actors but somehow glimpsing into the lives of real people. I've never really rated Charles Bickford before but under a skilful director he's a revelation. A pretty odd sort of guy but one who captivates your attention.

Being as I am, Mr Shallow, my inclination is to watch films with sexy ladies like Joan Blondell or Alice White so I wouldn't normally go out of my way to watch Kay Johnson but like with Charles Bickford she's thoroughly outstanding here. She's a sort of less sexy version of Norma Shearer but in my opinion a more modern and naturalistic actress - dare I say a better actress? I've already enjoyed her performance in MADAM SATAN but now that I've unexpectedly become a fan, I'm going to search out the rest of her work.

A great director, excellent acting and exceptionally high MGM production values make the maddest, silliest story into something quite amazing. Sorry Cecil for doubting you for all these years!

Being made in 1929 we even get the extended roaring of Leo the lion at the start.

One of the best of the early de Mille works - given that most of those films featured the same stable of actors. You get to see the last glimpses of that Golden Age before the stock market crash led to the Depression (when a relay comprised of women rolling themselves along a track inside giant hoops passed for racing excitement, probably since horse racing, like alcohol, had been banned in the US at that time) Stunning costumes and Art Deco details (lucite and sequins and pincurls, oh my!) provide welcome diversion from the inconceivable plot - although the two female leads and their society set planning one's divorce so the other can marry the ex-husband is racy!

Of interest especially is the fact that you can recognize the stage training of many of the actors brought to Hollywood with the advent of sound, and how wooden previously silent actors can be when given voice. Also interesting is the characters' flagrant flouting of Prohibition, which still had 4 years left - after all, this was "pre-Code" Hollywood when there wasn't a censor to be found!

Most significant is the sound. The scene which annoys modern viewers is the chaos in the jailhouse wedding scene. However, this is one of the first instances of layered sound: the hammering of the gallows over the prisoner's singing over the wedding vows was a first for a medium that had gone talkie only a year & a half earlier.

So watch it for the details, not the drama

There is no doubt that this is movie, resurrected by the Turner Classic Movie network, which reminds us all that fine cinematic entertainment was being made at the very beginning of "the Talkies." The plot was fairly clever for that day and time, and it simply shreds conventions.

The in-between-the-lines context of this movie is also remarkable. Recall that Prohibition of alcoholic beverages had been in effect as a federal mandate for nearly ten years, and that many States had been "dry" with Prohibition for longer than that. But "the glittering society" depicted in this movie was positively soaking in booze. Clearly this movie was written and filmed well before the banking crisis of 1928-29 turned into the bank failures and bank runs of the early 1930s. The pace of the language, the styles, the ways of talking and relating expressed in "Dynamite" show the viewer -- now seventy-five years later -- that the Roaring '20s were very frenetic, indeed.

Prohibition was something for the small towns and rural areas, or so it was said, then. It came into being because activist female leaders made their case that drunken behavior and alcoholism were twin punishments on women and on their children. The majority of bad and abusive drunks in that era, 1880 to 1920, were men, of course. The ones who suffered from their abusive behaviors were their women and their children, or others in their families.

This is a movie which is all about women and men. The lead character, Buddy Derks, is about to be executed for a murder he didn't commit. In a drunken carouse, the young man who committed the murder assaults his drinking buddy with a knife, and this fellow in his turn shoots his friend, fatally wounding him. Before he dies, on the floor of the swank club where they're drinking, he confesses to the murder which Derks has been saddled with. Justice is swift, surprisingly so, and Derks is suddenly released from death row.

He goes then to confront the society 'dame' who paid him $10,000 to marry her, in a jail cell ceremony. The why and wherefore of this marriage of convenience are really extraordinary and that twist makes the movie worth seeing, alone. But suddenly the "dame" has a husband that she really does not want, and that's where the fun begins ....

Bickford is amazing in this movie. He clearly overacts, but it seems somehow so natural for him to do so. Everybody in this moving is either dancing or roaring, it seems, so now we know something about how the Roaring '20s roared !

This "Dynamite" is pure dynamite. TCM has done film buffs a great service by showing it all, and there's every reason to petition them to show it again and again, and not just in the middle of the blooming night !! This movie earned an * 8 * for my vote and I would have given it higher marks if the sound track was made more clear, all the way through. As it stands, it is a unique and appealing cinematic treat.

I recommend it most highly and without mental reservations.

Please also go into the external reviews on the IMDb for this extraordinary film and read the fascinating and informative page from 'moviediva'... this person/site offers excellent insights with great photos and production history not found elsewhere... this has been every time I find information from Moviediva... so thankyou whoever you are. MGM's exciting and technically innovative 1929 production DYNAMITE is exactly that... a moral fable of a vulgar wealthy woman and her immoral flighty glamor friends learning about the hard working honest poor side of life. This is all of course, an excuse for Cecil B De Mille then at MGM for three films to showcase the latest in talkie production methods. I agree with the other positive comments on this page that DYNAMITE is a 20s art deco masterpiece and an absolute feast of Jazz age wildness and lavishness. You will also find this level of breathtaking snazzy art deco 20s life in "The Divorcée" of 1929 and the 1930 Douglas Fairbanks film from united Artists "Reaching For The Moon".... each film absolutely essential for early talkie art deco astonishment for anyone who loves this early talkie period before The Depression stopped the party. DYANMITE is a good film with a compelling story... and the pre code language and sex topic at the peppy sports party (with the wheel race with the women spinning about) in the latest in art deco swimming costumes will re set your dial for 20s party frankness. See handsome Joel MacCrea as an almost-extra. This has been screening on a daily loop on TV in Australia so we can see it and examine it repeatedly. Well worth your time.