Corruption

... made so by a strong cast and a good script with a most unconventional conclusion.

Tim Butler (Preston Foster) is a newly-elected mayor who annoys the influential crook who helped him get elected by being a crusader against corruption and cleaning house. He becomes involved with the crook's daughter Sylvia, played by Natalie Moorhead, who is her usual seductive but bad news persona. Of course, Butler is oblivious to the fact that his loyal secretary of five years, Ellen Manning (Evalyn Knapp), is in love with him. But Sylvia isn't oblivious to it, and the two exchange catty remarks every time they cross paths.

Tired of all of this housecleaning, local mobster Regan sets things up to look like Butler is visiting a lady of the evening, complete with photographs for the newspapers. He's tossed out of office and is back in private practice. But then Regan is killed by an unknown assassin's gun as he and Butler are arguing and the corrupt forces in the city use the opportunity to get Foster sent up for life for Regan's murder.

Complicating factors include the fact that the medical examiner can find no bullet in Regan's body and that the denouement includes a mad scientist angle. Mischa Auer is featured in a rare serious role.

In a truly precode moment, Butler's close friend and associate decides he can't give the crooked pol who first put Butler in office a hand, but can spare a single finger.

The cast in this film - Preston Foster, Evalyn Knapp, Natalie Moorehead, Tully Marshall - had seen better days, not so much because they were not good actors, but because the industry was in such flux in the early 30s. It often meant that some of the poorer studios could get good actors for their productions.

If you've seen the story of Corruption before you certainly have. Six years later Frank Capra took this story once again before the movie going public and it went from City Hall in your average American city to the Halls of the U.S. Senate in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.

A corrupt political party who is headed by Tully Marshall and Warner Richmond thinks they've found themselves a naive young man in Preston Foster as their town's new Mayor. But Foster fools them and starts reforming things. That's something the local machine won't stand for and Foster is soon out as Mayor and first framed on a morals charge and then when that doesn't stick, he gets framed for Richmond's murder.

Foster is Jefferson Smith if he was a mayor instead of a senator. Bright certainly and honest to a fault, but a bit of a fathead as well in not seeing these obvious temptations put in his path. He passes up good girl Evelyn Knapp who is his loyal secretary for the charms of Natalie Moorehead who is Marshall's secretary. And the frame the bad guys put him in with Gwen Lee, I mean really Preston, you're supposed to know about the birds and the bees.

Marshall has a most interesting role as the millionaire/philanthropist who provides the veneer of polish the machine needs. His observations on the nature of man are interesting. And Mischa Auer as a dedicated immigrant doctor are worth noting.

Corruption is a poverty row studio product, but its parallel to the Frank Capra classic are unmistakable.

Young attorney Preston Foster has made a name for himself. Political boss H.B. Warner runs him for mayor and he wins; he's also engaged to Warner's daughter, Natalie Moorhead. However Foster is not interested in business as usual, so he is framed in a sex scandal and thrown out of office. He's also framed for the murder of party strongarm Warner Richmond. The only one who stands by him is loyal secretary Evalyn Knapp.

Miss Knapp was born in 1906. By 1929 she was appearing in short subjects, and her feature debut in SINNER'S HOLIDAY boded well for her career. By 1933, however, her career wason the downslide, with work in serials and B movies. Despite a fine screen presence and delivery, her career never recovered. By the early 1940s she was reduced to bits in major movies. She retired in 1942 to become one of Tinseltown's leading yachtswomen. She was married for more than forty years and died in 1981, less than a week shy of her 75th birthday.

Despite a strong cast and a good first half -- watch until this one provides its PreCode credentials by having a cast member give another the finger -- the second half slides into a silly B-movie conclusion. Even so, it remains watchable to the end.

Here is a typical indie city crime drama of the early 30s with an assortment of "name" players doing a paycheck job with a fairly dull script. There is a mystery killer plot tied in, with a fairly inventive gimmick to his method of killing. The print is better than many an Alpha release, although, annoyingly, someone has dubbed in extra sound effects. They occur during the two scenes in Mischa Auer's laboratory, and I assume Alpha Video is the culprit, since similar predations occur on other 30s releases by this company. Auer has test tubes bubbling, and someone has dubbed in what sounds like the largest witch's cauldron ever. The bubbling and popping is so loud as to make the dialog hard to hear in spots. The film's real claim to fame, I feel, occurs in the last 20 seconds as the corrupt Gorman stalks out of Preston Foster's office. He is flipped off by the wiseacre reporter (Charles Delaney) in a full middle-finger salute. I replayed this to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Apparently this gesture was contemporaneous to '33 -- but perhaps its translation into words wasn't universally agreed upon. Unless I misapprehended the finger he used, this moment deserves mention in a social history of 20th Century America, or at least a history of rude gestures.

1933 was one of Hollywood's golden years - so many good films made then are just as enjoyable today as they were ninety years ago. This unfortunately isn't one of those but maybe because it was made in "the golden year" that it's better than most poverty row flicks. But with so many excellent films still around from then, why waste your time with also-rans?

The magic of early thirties movies is that they can transport you to a different world - one like ours, one that's familiar but also very strange. To some extent this succeeds but it succeeds more so in highlighting that it doesn't do it as well as X or Y or Z. These days our TV and films are filled with clever conspiracy stories, murky corruption in government or bent coppers - it's interesting to see how this film dealt with corruption but the plotting and the intrigue is very superficial and simplified. One thing it isn't is boring - no, this is exciting stuff - it's pretty much non-stop action even though it reminds me of the 1960s comic book inspired BATMAN tv show.

Pictures like this, especially ones with limited budgets are character driven so rely on you being to engage with those people on the screen, believing that they are real people. I'm not sure you can with this.... apart from Evalyn Knapp....almost. She single-handedly saves this cheaply made also-ran. Her pretty face and bubbly personality keeps you watching and although she's certainly no great actress and not in any way believable, she is kind of sweet. Preston Foster however is a bit of a non-entity.

Preston Foster....does he sound vaguely familiar? Maybe and this is one of those films where you'll recognise everyone but not know any of their names or know where you've seen them before. Sadly for independent film makers like William Berke outside of the studio system, all they could afford were z-listers, has-beens and the sort of actors whom today would be doing supermarket ads. Were this made at a big studio, you could imagine Paul Muni or Fredric March as the mayor and Joan Blondell would have been amazing as the sassy secretary - imagining how good this could be with big stars and a big budget somehow only serves to make this more disappointing.

For a bargain bucket movie it's not too bad. It is directed with zip, the acting is ok and the story is intriguing enough to keep your attention but other than being able to say: Evalyn Knapp, she was quite cute or wondering whether X or Y or Z was the butler in that thing you watched last month...what's the point?