Success at Any Price

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. stars in a version of John Howard Lawson's play done for the Group Theater. Knowing what I know about Lawson his original work on Broadway had to be different.

For one thing the Broadway cast character names were all Jewish, here they're ethnically neutral. Secondly Lawson was a future member of the Hollywood Ten and he never denied he was a Communist. What he wouldn't do was name other Communists. Knowing that I'm sure the original play was an attack on the big business structure of capitalism itself.

The ethnically neutral Fairbanks is a slum kid who was just witness to a brother shot to dead in the mean streets. He asks friend Colleen Moore to get him into an advertising agency where she works. Still frustrated and angry he comes to the attention of Frank Morgan who had not yet graduated to playing buffoons. He offers Fairbanks a chance to rise and Fairbanks does it with gusto.

Fairbanks even takes away Morgan's mistress Genevieve Tobin who he thinks represents success. In a way she does, a trophy wife who likes to spend with hubby all day at the office earning and accumulating what she does spend.

Watching Success At Any Price, it's title changed from Success Story, you can see where the Marxist polemics are dropped in the story. Still it's a powerful piece with Fairbanks as intense as he was playing Czar Peter in Catherine The Great with Elizabeth Bergner.

The end however is a total cop out and you know Lawson who did help in adapting his work to the big screen had something different in mind.

How different? Think of that film where Rock Hudson played John Wesley Hardin and you'll know what I mean.

...seems to be the moral of this Depression era tale of young Joe Martin (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) which begins at the time of the gangland death of Joe's mobster brother. Joe wants to get money, to be somebody like his brother was, but to do it inside the system so he doesn't wind up prematurely dead in a solid gold coffin like his brother did.

So young Joe goes to work as a clerk in the office where his girlfriend Sarah (Colleen Moore) works as a secretary. At first he chafes at the grind of office work, even gets fired, but the boss (Frank Morgan) likes Joe's moxy and promises him a higher paying position if he can straighten out the mess of an ad campaign he has dumped on his desk by 8PM that night. Of course Joe succeeds.

Joe quickly climbs the ladder of success. It doesn't bother Joe that he has to climb over the backs of other employees and people close to him as he scales that ladder either. Soon Joe has his eye not only on the boss' job but the boss' mistress, Agnes (Genevieve Tobin). He ultimately gets both the job and the mistress, even marrying her although she clearly doesn't love Joe or even care that much about Joe's wealth. She cares more about fun than money, and she has plenty of that since Joe is working late every night. So, in the end, Joe finds himself at the very place he started out not wanting to be - buried - although alive - in a solid gold coffin of wealth. He lacks no possessions but has nobody he can trust with whom to share it. What will become of Joe? Watch and find out.

This film is very well paced and I was particularly impressed with Fairbanks' snappy and gritty performance in a film I'd heard nothing about until it showed up on TCM. And that cast - you'll never see this bunch together in another film. Frank Morgan before he went to MGM, Fairbanks Jr. after Warner Brothers, fine supporting performers Edward Everett Horton and Nydia Westman as an unlikely office romance that leads to matrimony, and finally Colleen Moore. Ms. Moore was a huge silent star who turned her movie money into a fortune in the stock market and didn't really need to continue working in the sound era even though she had a great voice. I think what surprised me here was that she looked so unglamorous compared to her silent film roles. She really looked way too old to be Fairbanks' girlfriend. Part of the problem was her actual age - she was 10 years older than he was. The other part was that she was very plainly and drably dressed and made up such that she almost seemed more like a maiden aunt than anything else.

At any rate, a highly recommended little precode.

Fascinating if minor 30s look at a driven man who sacrifices all for success in business. Or does he? Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. is excellent as Joe Martin, whose brother, as the film opens, has been gunned down by the police. Fairbanks is determined to go straight and be somebody, but how to do it? He's uneducated and from the wrong side of town. But his girl friend (Colleen Moore) has a good job and she gets him hired as a grunt in an advertising agency. But Fairbanks bristles at being an underling to a bunch of talentless college grads who function mainly as yes men to the owner, Frank Morgan.

Morgan has a keen eye and appreciates Fairbanks' honesty and moves him up. But Fairbanks has an eye for Morgan's friend, Genevieve Tobin, a shallow but pretty woman who simply wants to be kept. Fairbansk goes into overdrive to win Tobin and destroy Morgan. But what does he gain? Really interesting premise and excellent performances by all make this a little gem not to be missed.

Allen Vincent is the college boy. Nydia Westman and Edward Everett Horton (small part here) are fellow workers. Henry Kolker, Bess Flowers, Florence Roberts, Theresa Harris co-star.

Moore (a huge star in silent films) is interesting even though she is 10 years too old for Fairbanks. This is her second to last film.

And I suspect the "happy ending" was tacked on......

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. plays an angry young man working at a large company. Many of his co-workers are college men and he has a strong sense of inferiority because of his high school education. On top of that, he's got a HUGE chip on his shoulder. It's so bad it almost gets him fired, but because he is very talented, he manages to shoot up the corporate ladder. It also helps that he's ruthless and wants to succeed more than anything. Through the course of the film, he manages to be very successful and a complete failure at the same time. How will it all end? Unfortunately, very, very poorly. In fact, it has one of the worst endings I can recall--which is amazing, as up until about a minute before the film ended, I loved it. But the miraculous ending just seemed VERY contrived. My wife suggested that perhaps this terrible ending was tacked on because the new Production Code was about to be implemented (only three months later) and this sappy ending would not upset censors. While I am not sure that this is the case, I do know that the film's miracle ending really annoyed me and Fairbanks' character getting a happy ending just made no sense at all....none.

Joe Martin (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is a poor guy who never gets any breaks. He sits and wonders what it'd be like to be rich with his girlfriend Sarah (Colleen Moore), but can't seem to plot a scheme to achieve wealth. Finally, he realizes that he can weasel his way into Sarah's office by taking advantage of Mr. Merritt's (Frank Morgan) taste for a good gamble. He achieves his goal, and skyrockets to the top so fast, Mr. Merritt isn't able to say a word before Joe steals his society girlfriend Agnes Carter (Genevieve Tobin). Agnes knows that Joe only wants her because she represents what he can't have, but she marries him anyway, and the more Joe gets what he thinks he wants, the more unhappy he becomes.

This film tries unsuccessfully to fully illustrate its point that happiness is not always achieved through the methods society glorifies. Joe does all he can to better himself thinking he'll be happier with Mr. Merritt's job when true happiness was his in Sarah all along. However, the movie is much too short, and although his motives are explained in short throwaway sentences, his actions do not always make sense from one moment to the next. If more time were given to shooting (this movie is less than 90 minutes long) and a little more dialogue added to the script, it could have been a much better film.