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IMDbPro

The Match King

  • 1932
  • Passed
  • 1h 19min
CALIFICACIÓN DE IMDb
6.9/10
653
TU CALIFICACIÓN
Lili Damita and Warren William in The Match King (1932)
Unscrupulous Paul Kroll, uses graft to finance a trip to Sweden where by trickery he gains control of his uncle's small match factory. There, he parlays this into a match monopoly, expanding over many countries. Finally he meets a woman so gorgeous she turns his head away from a business that needs constant financial manipulation to survive.
Reproducir trailer2:29
1 video
29 fotos
CrimeDrama

Agrega una trama en tu idiomaUnscrupulous Paul Kroll, starting as a Chicago janitor, uses graft to finance a trip to Sweden where by trickery he gains control of his uncle's small match factory. By expert manipulation o... Leer todoUnscrupulous Paul Kroll, starting as a Chicago janitor, uses graft to finance a trip to Sweden where by trickery he gains control of his uncle's small match factory. By expert manipulation of everyone and employment of femmes-fatale, he parlays this into a match monopoly, expandi... Leer todoUnscrupulous Paul Kroll, starting as a Chicago janitor, uses graft to finance a trip to Sweden where by trickery he gains control of his uncle's small match factory. By expert manipulation of everyone and employment of femmes-fatale, he parlays this into a match monopoly, expanding over many countries. Finally he meets a woman so gorgeous she turns his head away from ... Leer todo

  • Dirección
    • Howard Bretherton
    • William Keighley
  • Guionistas
    • Einar Thorvaldson
    • Houston Branch
    • Sidney Sutherland
  • Elenco
    • Warren William
    • Lili Damita
    • Glenda Farrell
  • Ver la información de producción en IMDbPro
  • CALIFICACIÓN DE IMDb
    6.9/10
    653
    TU CALIFICACIÓN
    • Dirección
      • Howard Bretherton
      • William Keighley
    • Guionistas
      • Einar Thorvaldson
      • Houston Branch
      • Sidney Sutherland
    • Elenco
      • Warren William
      • Lili Damita
      • Glenda Farrell
    • 18Opiniones de los usuarios
    • 8Opiniones de los críticos
  • Ver la información de producción en IMDbPro
    • Premios
      • 1 premio ganado en total

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    Elenco principal40

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    Warren William
    Warren William
    • Paul Kroll
    Lili Damita
    Lili Damita
    • Marta Molnar
    Glenda Farrell
    Glenda Farrell
    • Babe
    Juliette Compton
    Juliette Compton
    • Sonia Lombard
    Claire Dodd
    Claire Dodd
    • Ilse Wagner
    Harold Huber
    Harold Huber
    • Scarlatti
    John Wray
    John Wray
    • Foreman of Janitors
    Spencer Charters
    Spencer Charters
    • Oscar
    Murray Kinnell
    Murray Kinnell
    • Nyberg
    Hardie Albright
    Hardie Albright
    • Erik Borg
    Alan Hale
    Alan Hale
    • Borglund
    Edmund Breese
    Edmund Breese
    • Olaf Christofsen
    Robert McWade
    Robert McWade
    • Mr. Larsen
    Oscar Apfel
    Oscar Apfel
    • Uncle Gustav
    • (sin créditos)
    Irving Bacon
    Irving Bacon
    • Messenger with Bracelet
    • (sin créditos)
    Harry Beresford
    Harry Beresford
    • Christian Hobe
    • (sin créditos)
    Ed Brady
    Ed Brady
    • Prisoner Wanting Match
    • (sin créditos)
    Wallis Clark
    Wallis Clark
    • Erickson's Associate
    • (sin créditos)
    • Dirección
      • Howard Bretherton
      • William Keighley
    • Guionistas
      • Einar Thorvaldson
      • Houston Branch
      • Sidney Sutherland
    • Todo el elenco y el equipo
    • Producción, taquilla y más en IMDbPro

    Opiniones de usuarios18

    6.9653
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    Opiniones destacadas

    Michael_Elliott

    Worth Watching for William

    Match King, The (1932)

    ** 1/2 (out of 4)

    Based on the life of tycoon Ivan Kreuger, who would become known as Match King, this Warner film was rushed into production after Kreuger killed himself on March 12, 1932 and would be released before the end of the year. In the film Warren William plays Paul Kroll, a poor man working as a janitor who cheats countless people before eventually getting a hold of a match company, which he plans to use to take over the world. As Kroll sees it, gold is only valuable because man makes it so but matches are needed by everyone from the rich to the poorest in the world. I wish THE MATCH KING were a better movie but you can tell it was rushed because the screenplay isn't nearly as good as it needed to be and it also gets bogged down in a love story with Lila Damita playing a Swedish beauty who goes to Hollywood and pretty much breaks the heart of Kroll. Apparently this part was based on Greta Garbo but this doesn't add any value to the movie. The main thing this film has going for it is the performance by William who is downright terrific in the part. There wasn't anyone in the pre-code era that could play sleazy characters better than William and he once again delivers the goods here. The coldness to this guy is perfectly brought to life with William who just has a certainly smile that you can see in his eyes when he gets one over on people. It could be getting a friend fired to that he can make more money or pretending to love his best friend's wife so that she will take her husband's life savings and give to him. William delivers the goods and makes this one of his most memorable performances. Damita is also good in her part but the screenplay does very little for her outside of a few quick lines. The supporting cast includes Claire Dodd, Glenda Farrell and Juliette Compton as well as Harold Huber, John Wray and Alan Hale. The film starts off pretty good as it seems to have fun showing off how greedy and crooked this guy is but it loses itself during the middle with the silly love story and things don't pick up much during the final half. The film is certainly still worth viewing for fans of William due to his performance but you can't help but think the thing could have been much better had the studio taken their time with a better story. It is worth noting that the movie has a pre-credit sequence, which was very rare for its time. Also fascinating is that there's a sequence in the film where the legend of "three on a match" gets started by Kroll to help sales and William actually appeared in the Warner film THREE ON A MATCH also released in 1932.
    10gerrythree

    Great Movie Making From Warner Brothers

    TCM aired The Match King yesterday morning at 3:00 AM, shown as one of the last movies in its Thursday night series of October movies from the Great Depression. Its previous showing on TCM, as I recall, was in 2005 as one of the favorite movies of guest programmer Stephen Sondheim. The Match King demonstrates a mastery of editing that puts this movie in a class of its own, with the final montage of mini-scenes decades ahead of its time.

    In The Racing Form, the capsule description for a horse winning a race by pulling away from the others at race's end is "driving." That describes this movie, which moves at a headlong pace throughout, as it describes the career of crooked businessman Paul Kroll, a fictional version of Ivar Krueger, the real-life match king, who just died in 1932. The same year The Match King was rushed into production at Warner Bros., Hal Wallis the uncredited supervisor, Darryl Zanuck the studio production chief doing his usual job of making movies ripped from the newspaper headline pages of the time.

    At the movie's end, Kroll's partners are at a meeting where they now realize they all face economic ruin as Kroll's business empire is about to collapse. Their first though is, sell all their shares before the public finds out. The cynicism in this scene is a capper for what went on before, as Kroll sells down the river almost everyone he has dealings with, including going as far as murder and getting one problem person locked up for life in an insane asylum to shut him up for good. This movie shows the influence of 1932, the bottom year of the Depression, when many people though all businessmen were thieves and crooks who wrecked the world's economy. The more things change, the more. . .

    Even with all the technical mastery available now to Hollywood filmmakers now, no studio can come close to the greatness of The Match King, made only two years after Warner Bros. scrapped its Vitaphone sound discs to switch to sound on film cameras. The Match King shows there is something to be said for a movie studio run like Warner Bros., a real slave labor operation where quitting time was not 5 or 6 PM, but when the day's scheduled work was done, which could be 2:00 AM the following morning. A studio where the words "income security" did not exist, as Jack Warner strove to cut everyone's salary, actors' employment contracts be damned (with no worry for craft union contracts, there were none then in non-union Hollywood).

    There was a downside to Jack Warners' cheapness. One of the hardest working actors on the Warners lot was Warren William, but apparently when his contract was up in 1936, he went off the Warner Bros. studio payroll. William joined a parade of other acting talent in the repertory company that Zanuck created when he was in charge of hiring actors before he quit in 1933. Looking back now, it seems incredible that the Warner Bros. dream factory could make one high quality movie after another in 1932, usually with a 3 week production schedule (6 day work weeks with no overtime pay) on a budget of around $150,000.

    In this year of 2009, as the financial world is again enmeshed in worldwide economic downturn caused by thieves in business suits, thieves now who sold near worthless derivatives to investors on a massive scale, Hollywood turns out hit movies dealing with robots and teenage vampires. A far cry from 1932, cinema wise. There are no movies in fast production now involving the Madoff Ponzi scheme, the strange death of Madoff investor Jeffrey Picower or the subprime mortgage meltdown. The big corporations that run the Hollywood studios are not about to produce movies that remind moviegoers about the real life wreckage of the U.S. economy. Ripping movies from current headlines is not done anymore, especially making grim movies like The Match King. That is just too bad for moviegoers. Good thing there is TCM to finally show The Match King again, a movie about a real world in 1932 that does not seem that far away today.
    10Ron Oliver

    Warren William Sparks Taut Crime Drama

    A totally unscrupulous cad plots & schemes to finally become THE MATCH KING of the world, oblivious to the many lives he's destroyed. But with blackmail & murder part of his personal arsenal, how long can it be until avenging fate topples him from his throne?

    Warren William dominates this splendid, albeit neglected, crime drama. As in some of his other roles of the same period, William displays his talent for portraying characters simultaneously repulsive & appealing. With his sophisticated good looks & deep, interesting voice, Warren William was the perfect embodiment of the corporate climber, the crook, the conniver. It is a shame this fine actor is generally forgotten today.

    Although the plot is firmly centered around William, his co-stars all do a fine job. Brassy Glenda Farrell appears all too briefly as William's first betrayed lover; this was an actress who could really light up the screen, but she's only given two scenes here. Lili Damita is fetching as the movie actress who attracts William. Hardie Albright is a younger relative of William's who gets pulled into his orbit. Blink your eyes and you'll miss Alan Hale as a timber baron. Movie mavens will recognize Charles Sellon as an elderly Match Company executive.

    The film makes good use of an intriguing series of short opening scenes, showing various classes of people around the world using that indispensable enabler of civilization, the match.

    There was a real life Match King upon whom this drama was based. Ivar Kreuger (1880-1932) was a financial genius whose Swedish Match Company controlled more than half the world's output of matches by 1928. This was accomplished through amazingly speculative deals involving long-term loans to poor nations desiring US dollars, in exchange for match monopolies. As a result, Kreuger's empire grew immensely rich and diversified in many ways. The bubble was soon to burst. World wide depression hit in 1929 and economic pressures mounted steadily. Rather than wait for his holdings to collapse in bankruptcy, Kreuger shot himself in a Paris hotel room on March 12, 1932, aged 52. Subsequent investigations showed his companies to be riddled with fraud & forgery.
    7raskimono

    Rise and fall - the scarface of the business world

    This gangster-styled story set in the world of business shows the rise of a janitor Paul Kroll, who as a janitor in the US returns to Sweden and rises to own and become a monopoly in the world matches business using unscrupulous and immoral antics. You know he has to fall. Good acting by the always good Warren William and an extremely beautiful LIly Damita as the "woman". The difference between making the movie today, than back then, would be the lack of melodrama between the William and Damita character (heck! it was the era of the woman's picture) Formulaic stuff but good formula all the same with an unusually expensive look (good cinematography, tons of location shooting, great sets, lots of wide shots) for a WB thirties picture tells you this was probably an expected blockbuster in the year of 1932.
    dougdoepke

    Cagney Without a Gun

    It's a Warren William showcase that should be seen along with his other ruthless tycoon triumphs, such as Employees Entrance (1933) and Skyscraper Souls (1932). Cagney personified the street tough with a gun and the guts to power his way into the penthouse. William personifies the unscrupulous aristocrat with the charm and polish who's already in the penthouse. What both have that makes each so convincing is total self-assurance. When Kroll (William) says: Wait till it (the bad) happens, then I'll take care of it-- we believe him, just as much as we believe Cagney's snarl. Today, Cagney is still a household name, while William has unfortunately been forgotten, the victim of an A-picture career that peaked during the forbidden pre-Code era that never turned up on popular TV.

    Here William plays a real life character (Swedish match king Ivar Kreuger) who schemes and manipulates his way to the top of Europe's financial empire. Oddly, the schemes and shenanigans remain illuminating of our own time some 80 years later, as other reviewers point out. After all, it looks like Kroll relies on a Ponzi setup in assembling his empire much in the way Bernie Madoff swindled billions from investors before finally taking a fall. In fact, a viewer can probably learn more about the anatomy of our own recent financial meltdown from this antique than from anything on the current screen.

    All in all, this celluloid obscurity remains both broadly topical and a fascinating glimpse of capitalism's perils and attractions at the top. It's also a chance to catch one of Hollywood's most compelling actors in a tailor-made part. William may be unknown to the broader public, but it looks like a new appreciation is building among old film buffs.

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    Argumento

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    • Trivia
      The film is loosely based on the Swedish industrialist Ivar Kreuger, who killed himself 9 months before this movie was released.
    • Errores
      In the meeting between Kroll and Scarlatti, Kroll blows out four of the five candles in a candelabra. The very next scene shows two candles still lit.
    • Citas

      [repeated lines]

      Paul Kroll: Never worry about anything 'til it happens. Then I'll take care of it.

    • Bandas sonoras
      Liebefreud (Love's Joy)
      (uncredited)

      Music by Fritz Kreisler

      Played on the phonograph

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    Detalles

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    • Fecha de lanzamiento
      • 31 de diciembre de 1932 (Estados Unidos)
    • País de origen
      • Estados Unidos
    • Idioma
      • Inglés
    • También se conoce como
      • Tändstickskungen
    • Locaciones de filmación
      • Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, Estados Unidos(Studio)
    • Productora
      • First National Pictures
    • Ver más créditos de la compañía en IMDbPro

    Taquilla

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    • Presupuesto
      • USD 165,000 (estimado)
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    Especificaciones técnicas

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    • Tiempo de ejecución
      1 hora 19 minutos
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Mezcla de sonido
      • Mono
    • Relación de aspecto
      • 1.37 : 1

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