The World Gone Mad

An obscure dramatic thriller that captures and loses the viewers interest like a seesaw. Pat O'Brien is a hard-nosed reporter who gets a little too close for comfort to the story of a lifetime, a massive corporate scandal. With a District Attorney already killed for knowing too much, O'Brien rightfully fears the new D.A (Neil Hamilton) also has a bullet with his name on it. Can our reporter hero piece it all together for the hapless law enforcement authorities before it's too late?

While there are many moments of interest in "The World Gone Mad," it seems there are almost as many pointless scenes with no purpose other than to ruin the flow. It's also overly complex at times. Still, even if one doesn't cut this one the slack it deserves for being made in 1933, it's not all that awful. The performances are good, particularly from O'Brien and Hamilton. But a little further editing would have helped. By the way, I nominate this one for the "Title That Bears Little Resemblance To The On screen Product" Award.

This is a s-l-o-w crime drama. Not much of a mystery and it's definitely NOT a thriller nor a horror film. It's not the worst film in the world but there are much better crime-dramas from the 1930s. This one is not memorable.

The Internet Archives says this film's genre is drama/horror and the movie is also found in the 50 horror film collection. This film is far away from being a horror film.

Wikipedia has this film as a crime-thriller listed at the bottom of the page. Crime - yes. A thriller? - Debatable. I would argue NO this movie is not even a thriller film.

I think the genre tags on IMDb are correct for this film: crime, drama, mystery. That sums the film right up.

The movie is watchable but I have seen much more interesting crime-dramas from the 1930s than this particular film.

2/10

Most of these 30's thrillers/murder mysteries have been forgotten by now because, let's face it, they haven't got much to offer apart from – occasionally – a good story. This little film has a very decent story, fluently written dialogues and some really adequate acting performances, yet it simple can't be called memorable because of the shabbiness of the production. Pat O'Brien ("Hell's House") stars as an obtrusive reporter investigating the vicious assassination of a befriended District Attorney and unravels almost single-handedly an entire network of corruption, blackmail and political scandals. His performance is very good and he gets to say some very slick lines, yet the movie lacks a lot of action and continuity. There's one sequence near the beginning that I found particularly smart, showing how the assignment for murder is passed on to several involved parties and thus creating a complex structure that sadly never gets properly clarified. There are some more ingenious and dared ideas in the plot, but it all looks too poor for you to care. Feel free to avoid this one.

The District Attonrey has uncovered some wrong doings at a corporation and is about to blow the lid on the lot when he's whacked by a hit-man. His replacement (and friend) takes over, and much to the dismay of the bigwigs at the corporation he's determined to blow the lid on all the shenanigans too. What's an evil, greedy person to do? Well, whack the new DA too, obviously! Problem is, the new DA's friend is a reporter who seems to know everyone in the world, and he's also uncovering more and more evidence.

Although billed as a horror film on Mill Creek's 50 Horror Classics box set, A World Gone Mad is more of a crime thriller (although at one point some characters walk past an ad for the film The Vampire Bat!) with a lot of twists and turns thrown in. It's not majorly exciting, but it's not boring either, with plenty of that fast talking thirties mannerism ("Are you on the level?" ) and such like. It's also strangely relevant today, and just seems to show that nothing ever changes. They even mention pyramid schemes at one point.

It's no forgotten classic, but not as bad as other folks have made out.

Apart from some occasionally stiff acting by the leads, plus the usual enthusiastic reporter portrayal, this time by Pat O'Brien, this is a pretty terse and believable tale of Your Wrongs Will Eventually Find You Out. The overall technology was poor of course, but ignorable. Some cogent scripting was going off here, much too detailed to go into - take my word for it! However, Neil Hamilton as the D.A. says that if he could he would line up against a wall all crooked businessmen and shoot them ... if caught a fair trial was obviously guaranteed then.

Best bit: The two minute scene in the dark where Pat O'Brien and Evelyn Brent are lying on a bed both pretending to be drunk and playful for their own reasons. Your mind can run riot listening to them goofing around as shadows!

Out of dozens of similar early 30's films in this vein I've seen, TWGM must come near the top.