Success at Any Price

...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.

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.

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.

This is a pretty routine gritty early thirties drama which looks like a Warner Brothers picture although it's from RKO. It's pretty well made, reasonably entertaining but nothing special.

I can see what they were trying to do with this: make a gangster picture but without gangsters. Although this is set in the world of business - a marketing company advertising beauty cream, it is a gangster movie without guns. There's the big boss, who's worked his way up to the top but now his future is uncertain. There's his moll, an ultra-glamourous opportunist who is only with him because he's the boss and can shower her with gold and gifts. There's the other members of the gang or rather company licking their boss's boots and making sure their firm is more successful than their rival across town. And then there's the new kid on the block - a rough, tough, fast-talking guy from the streets who doesn't respect nobody including the boss and maybe not even himself. He's ruthlessly going to force his way to the top and he ain't taking no prisoners on the way, see.

This picture almost works, the characters are almost believable and the story is almost exciting but although it's trying quite a clever and original idea, it still feels a little stale. There's nothing wrong with this, it simply doesn't stand out from the pack. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Gets a little annoying after a while with his constant machine-gun style delivery of his words being used for every single line of dialogue. Whether he's ordering an underling to do some dirty work, ordering some flowers or telling someone he loves them, it all sounds like it's coming out of a tommy gun. This is meant to show his focus, his determination, that nothing is going to change the way he looks at life - it doesn't however make him likeable though. You can't grow to care about a caricature.

Colleen Moore is remarkably dour and uninteresting but she's another caricature and is there only to contrast with Genevieve Tobin's over-the-top gold-digging glamour puss. Genevieve Tobin seems to give her character more depth than perhaps even the writers envisaged. Her accent, her mannerisms, her attitudes are all so absurd that you think at first, you're going to absolutely hate her but the talented Miss Tobin turns this potential pantomime villain into a very real person with real vulnerabilities. She is someone you feel you'd like to know more about. Fairbank's character is however just what you see on the screen - nothing more.