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Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. I believe is remembered today as an extremely attractive and sophisticated older man. In truth, he was a wonderful, underrated actor who distinguished himself in films beginning in 1916 and ending in 1989.

Like John Barrymore, Fairbanks Jr.'s performances hold up well today. He had an acting technique that does not come off now as hammy or melodramatic (Barrymore was only melodramatic when the part called for it, as in Twentieth Century).

In "Success at Any Price," he plays Joe, a young man who came from a bad neighborhood, where his brother was shot and killed in 1927.

Joe wants to be in a legitimate business and make a lot of money. However, he's not a member of any old boys' network unless you want to count Murder Inc., and he has no real education.

His girlfriend Sarah (Colleen Moore) gets him hired at the advertising agency where she works. Of course, since he's a young man in a hurry, he forgets that you at least should be polite, which he is not.

Eventually as he moves up, he throws Sarah over because he wants his boss' (Frank Morgan) girlfriend, the shallow and greedy Agnes (Genevieve Tobin). This proves an unfortunate mistake, like a few other of his desires.

Good movie with brisk direction and good performances. This was silent film great Colleen Moore's second to last film. She was about 33 here, three years past the sell date for women in Hollywood. She retired, lived until she was 88 and was very successful writing about investing, which she had done very well on her $12,500 a week salary in the '20s -- equivalent to nearly $170,000 a week today.

Genevieve Tobin was the same age as Moore and lived into her '90s - and they were both 10 years older than Fairbanks and looked it. I wonder what the rationale was behind their casting, though they were both good.

Fairbanks is always worth seeing, so I enjoyed this film.

Typical rags too riches tale with Man and Women from the wrong side of the tracks trying to make it BIG in N.Y.C. Joe Martin (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) and Sarah Griswold (Colleen Moore) climb the corporate ladder by two (2) separate routes. SARAH works her way up the secretarial pool becoming personal assistant too the boss Raymond Merritt (Frank Morgan), who spends his free time with his main squeeze Agnes Carter (Genevieve Tobin).

Hard driving JOE may lack sophistication but has a ruthless drive and will too win that his College breed competitors cannot match. He sets his eye on not only on taking over the company from MERRITT but also AGNES. He succeeds in both but loses SARAH in the shuffle and he drives AGNES away. Only at the end does he realize the error of his ways and is reunited with SARAH, nuff said.

I watched this film because it stared fourth billed Colleen Moore. Five (5) years earlier Ms. Moore was the toast of Hollywood and one of the highest paid stars of 'Tinsel-Town'. She is barely recognizable here, looking closer to '55' then the '35' she was. The elfin sprite that delighted audiences in the 20's looked more like a middle-aged house-wife. Ms. Moore would make one more movie then retire, THE SCARLETT LETTER (1934).

Unlike some of her contemporaries Ms. Moore though had a bonus talent. She was REALLY good with her money and built a considerable fortune and enjoyed a very comfortable retirement. Those with a interest can see her doll house 'The Enchanted Castle' at the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago. It is worth seeing, just as her silent pictures are.

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.

Here is a picture that not only deserves recognition for its considerable merits, but is one whose existence remains largely unknown, even to those with more than a casual interest in film. Its characters are sharply and honestly drawn, defined primarily by crackling dialog that is both earthy and literate. These are real people, with no illusions about themselves or the world they move in; they speak from the heart, revealing their needs, longings and frustrations. The performances are rock-solid by all the players (and how refreshing to discover one of Frank Morgan's few roles in which he does not dither and sputter). Fast-paced and seamless, the direction is also deserving of special praise.

Admittedly (or arguably?) the ending is less than totally convincing, what with Joe's change of heart occurring too quickly and without sufficient motivation. Similarly, his determination to succeed (yes, at any price) is presented at the start as a result of his gangster brother's having been murdered. This appears unnecessary, and more than a little contrived. He wants to break out of a poor, aimless existence, and has a loyal, loving girlfriend encouraging him to do so. That's more than enough.

Even with those weaknesses punctuating the first and last five minutes of this picture, it remains a first-rate drama that can easily hold its own with a host of better-known films.

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.

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.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr's brother was a gangster. He was gunned down. His reward was a gold casket. Fairbanks wants money, success, Gebevieve Tobin, all respectably. He gets it, but trample everyone around him.

It's a pretty straightforward handling of John Howard Lawson's morality play, without much fun involved. Despite the lack of leering visuals -- the themes are definitely pre-Code, but even the marriage bed is a twin set -- it makes its points plainly and sometimes even succinctly; Fairbanks' rise from clerk to Master Of The Universe is charted by the same nameplate on increasingly exalted doors. It's also ill-tempered, not just in its disapproval of Fairbanks, but in its casting. Colleen Moore, in her penultimate screen appearance, has her key role as the good girl Fairbanks should have married trimmed exhaustively. Still, J. Walter Rubens ably directs a fine cast that includes Frank Morgan, Edward Everett Horton, Nydia Westman, Henry Kolker and June Brewster in a manner that would have gladdened my Marxist grandfather's heart.

Stars twenty five year old douglas fairbanks, frank morgan (the wizard!), edward horton. When his brother is killed in a gun shootout, joe martin decides he will do whatever it takes to get rich quick. But unlike his brother, he wants to do it the honest way. Martin manages to work his way up the ladder, not worrying about who he steps on along the way. Co-stars genevieve tobin, who was the it girl, until she left the business to get married at 40. When all his co-workers start raising families, martin wonders if scratching his way to the top was worth the sacrifices. It's okay. Seems to be a message about goals, and getting what you wished for. Sacrifices. Priorities. And just as the film production code was getting enforced. Directed by walt ruben, for rko. Died so young at 43 from a bad heart. Story from the play by john lawson. It's good, but with all these huge names, it's too bad they didn't have a better script for them.

...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.

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.

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......

I am sure some think it's above the B-movie genre and I must say it sits pretty high no matter in the classic era of film noir. This is a sharp bit of celluloid darkness. I'd have to say it's Ann Savage's devil may care performance that catapults it beyond the best of the B's. When Savage enters she takes over and if Roberts had trouble before it just got exponentially multiplied. This is a ride and Roberts is an unwitting passenger who falls deeper into the mire when Savage's Vera takes a seat in his "borrowed" car. This movie really kept me wondering how it would all end...until the end. Highly recommended.