The World Changes

The World Changes is a little known film that has an epic Edna Ferber like quality with a Wall Street type message in the end. In that respect its about three generations ahead of its time. I wouldn't be surprised if Oliver Stone saw this film before he did Wall Street.

Paul Muni plays the son of a good Scandinavian farming family who pioneered in the Dakota territory and for who the town of Nordholm, South Dakota is named. But Muni is not content just to be a farmer and settle down and marry Jean Muir, daughter of the second family of the town of Nordholm. He's ambitious and wants to make money, see the world, and accomplish something.

Across the Nordholm saga also come such frontier characters as Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and General George A. Custer. It was the first that gets him into the cattle business, but its meat packer Guy Kibbee after Muni delivers the big herd from Texas like John Wayne and Monty Clift in Red River and Randolph Scott in The Texans who shows him that the real money is in combining both ends in one business. After that Muni marries Kibbee's daughter Mary Astor and eventually inherits the whole business when Kibbee dies.

Astor's a spoiled product of Eastern finishing schools and she likewise turns their sons into spoiled copies of herself. Muni's corporation eventually as they inevitably do goes public and starts selling shares and he gets out of it all together and just indulges his worthless sons Donald Cook who is a speculator on Wall Street with a brokerage house and Gordon Westcott who is content to be a playboy with a trust fund.

In the end the family Nordholm comes crashing down in all kinds of tragedy and Muni only finding some solace in one grandson William Janney who takes up with the granddaughter of Jean Muir's character also played by Jean Muir.

Real historical events are woven into the Nordholm story in the end the Stock Market Crash. Muni delivers one stinging indictment of his sons and their business very similar to what Martin Sheen told son Charlie Sheen what he thought of his Wall Street mentor Michael Douglas as the infamous Gordon Gekko. In that sense The World Changes is a timeless film which belies its own title. Some things never change.

The World Changes was not that well received and in some cases the film does descend into melodrama. But I think it's a whole lot better than the critics thought back in the day and Muni's indictment about Wall Street paper speculating and gambling versus an ethic of hard work is maybe more valid today than back then. I think professional film critics should give this one a second look.

THE WORLD CHANGES (First National Pictures, 1933), directed by Mervyn LeRoy, would be the studios' answer to the Academy Award winning "through the ages" saga of Edna Ferber's epic tale, CIMARRON (RKO, 1931) starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne, along with its similar theme to Richard Dix and Ann Harding in THE CONQUERORS (RKO, 1932) and Edward G. Robinson and Bebe Daniels for SILVER DOLLAR (Warners, 1932). THE WORLD CHANGES turned up to be an exceptional tale that, regardless of an impressive cast headed by Paul Muni, ranks one of those forgotten sagas (with some new passage elements introduced by title year superimposed over the rotating Earth), that deserves to be recognized.

The story begins in 1856 where Orin Nordholm (Henry O'Neill) and his pregnant wife, Anna (Aline MacMahon) are seen traveling with their wagon pulled by horses through unclaimed open spaces of Dakota Territory where Anna wants to stop and make this untouched area their home. Giving birth to a son they name Orin, the Nordholms build their home and develop the farmland with livestock. Living a isolated lifestyle, they soon welcome the Petersen family, Fred (Willard Robertson), his wife (Anna Q. Nilsson), son, Otto (Mickey Rooney) and their infant daughter, Selma, on their way to California. The Petersen's instead settle down and become their new neighbors in the area that's to be called Orinville. Following events that take place in 1867 and 1877, the Nordholms have high hopes for their now grown son, Orin (Paul Muni), to marry his childhood sweetheart, Selma (Jean Muir), but Orin has plans of his own. After encountering Buffalo Bill Cody (Douglass Dumbrille), Orin decides to leave Selma and his farm living existence for adventure in the outside world. After meeting with James Claffin (Guy Kibbee), a cattle buyer, Orin organizes cattle drives and forms "ice boxes on wheels." He eventually becoming partners with Claffin and president of Nordholm and Company in Chicago. By 1879, he marries Claffin's daughter, Virginia (Mary Astor), which produces sons, Richard (Tad Alexander) and John (Jackie Searle). By 1893, Orin becomes known as "the meat king of the world," but in spite of his successful business, the social-climbing Virginia looks down on her husband's profession. By 1904, the world begins to change for Orin as Virginia slowly goes insane and his adult sons, John (Gordon Westcott) and Richard (Donald Cook) preferring not to follow in family tradition. Richard marries Jennifer Clinton (Margaret Lindsay), who's just as snobbish as his mother was, settling in New York City while John prefers to get money the easy way by not working for it. Anna, a widow in her 90s, leaves her Orinville farm with Selma's granddaughter, Selma II (Jean Muir), to attend the wedding of a great-grandchild, only to find the three generations of Orins family to be nothing but disappointments to her. The world changes even further for the Nordholm's following a 1929 Stock Market Crash. Others in the cast include Patricia Ellis (Natalie Clinton); Theodore Newton (Paul Nordstrom); Alan Dinehart (Ogden Jarrett); Arthur Hohl (Patterson); William Janney (Orin Nordholm III); Alan Mowbray (Sir Philip Ivor), Marjorie Gateson (Mrs. Clinton), Samuel S. Hinds, Sidney Toler and countless others.

While Paul Muni might have followed up his prior success of I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932) with another social melodrama, THE WORLD CHANGES provided Muni not a repeat of previous movie roles but a move forward to something best suited for his talent. It allowed Muni's character to age considerably from blondish youth to very old man with white mustache, glasses and bushy eyebrows. Under heavy make-up, Muni is almost unrecognizable (looking almost like silent movie actor, Lon Chaney). Mary Astor stands out in her one terrifying scene, sporting shoulder-length hair and no make-up, and going insane. In spite of this being a showcase for Paul Muni, it's Aline MacMahon, who is also allowed to age from young to aging great-grandmother, giving a standout performance that's most remembered long after the movie is over.

Fortunately not a two-hour plus epic scale as CIMARRON, THE WORLD CHANGES, at 91 minutes, is satisfactory entertainment. Over the years, it had limited television revivals, including Philadelphia's WKBS, Channel 48 in 1974, along with cable television's Turner Network Television (1989) and Turner Classic Movies (since 1994) often as part of Paul Muni tributes. A worthy look of old-style "through the ages" film-making sagas indicating as how the world changes. (***)

... and this film explains the run up to the stock market crash in the person of Orin Nordholm, Jr. (Paul Muni), born in Dakota territory to Swedish immigrant parents looking for a place to build a farm. When another family arrives there, they decide seven people are enough for a town and christen it Orinville.

As Orin grows to manhood, he decides to seek his fortune in the multitude of cattle in Texas, and the multitude of meat hungry folk in the northeast, leaving Orinville and his fiancee Selma (Jean Muir) behind. Orin is hard working and enterprising, cagey when he has to be, and tragically partners with James Claffin. It's not tragic because Claffin tries to cheat him, but because he introduces Orin to his daughter, Virginia (Mary Astor),a terrible ungrateful snob. They inexplicably marry, and Orin is ultimately an unhappier man because of it. Claffin dies shortly thereafter, leaving the business for Orin to ably run.

We are shown absolutely nothing of the Orin/Virginia courtship, so the audience has no idea what he sees in her. They must have never had a conversation for him not to see she was bad news. Or maybe Virginia was as good an actress during courtship as the actress that played her. Two sons are born to the marriage and they are both as snobby as their mother, whom she ruins by spoiling them, not letting them see that all of their money is not just heaven sent.

The rest of the film plays out like a Greek tragedy or maybe the decline and fall of the Roman Empire with the subsequent two generations just getting more spoiled, reckless, entitled, worthless. Orin has long sold out his interests in his meat packing empire. One son is a professional loafer and lady's man. The other has married a girl just like dear old mom - not a good thing - and owns a brokerage firm where he and his son are involved in embezzlement Madoff style that in better times they could probably cover up, but then comes the crash of 1929.

Orin was a hard worker, always as honest as you can be in big business, his biggest sin seeming to be marrying the woman that he did. And yet it seems like this film is trying to say- and rather obviously at that - that his sin was to leave Orinville in the first place. What kind of place would America have become if nobody had big dreams and followed them? Questions not asked or answered. But maybe not popular questions at the height of the Great Depression.

Kudos to Aline McMahon as Orin's mother who credibly ages from a teen bride in 1856 to a 90 something widow in 1929. I just love her subtle acting style, her natural beauty. Interesting factoid here is that MacMahon actually lived into her 90s. She is as credible in her aging process as the more famous Paul Muni is in his.

A few funny things. Somehow the Nordholms manage to run into three famous western figures - George Custer, Buffalo Bill, and Wild Bill Hickok. Also director Mervyn Leroy always had trouble transitioning between scenes to the point that early in his career he actually had a curtain lower and rise like he was changing scenes in a play. Here he uses a globe turning with the years ticking by to indicate the passage of time.

I'd recommend this one for Muni's as well as MacMahon's acting.

I didn't think there was a vintage Warner Bros. or First National movie I hadn't heard of -- but then "The World Changes" turned up on Turner. Had to be a clunker, right? Wrong. It's a saga that surges through some fifty years of American history, following a farm boy to the stockyards of Chicago and prosperity thanks to the invention of refrigerated cattle cars. His challenges? A wife who is going mad, a pair of wastrel sons and ultimately the 1929 Wall Street crash. Paul Muni in the starring role is superb, subtly changing from eager innocent to troubled tycoon. It's Muni's show but he's ably supported by Mary Astor, Guy Kibbee and even a moppet Mickey Rooney in a small role. There's a touch of "Citizen Kane" about "The World Changes." It's a terrific "lost" movie, well worth your time.

Mervyn LeRoy was working pretty frantically in 1933, turning out five big features for Warner Brothers, and this social history-drama was as far from its LeRoy predecessor "Gold Diggers of 1933" as you can imagine. It's a rags-to-riches epic of Orin Nordholm (Henry O'Neill) and his wife (the always superb Aline MacMahon), founding a town in Dakota territory in 1856 and watching their namesake son (Paul Muni) become a meat tycoon with Guy Kibbee, marrying Kibbee's difficult and pretentious daughter Mary Astor, and raising a family of ingrates and opportunists. It's lavish, with big montages (the market frenzy is especially well done) and a big Warners cast, and there are some wonderful scenes--loved Custer informing Orinville in 1865 that the war is over, and MacMahon asking, "What war?" But the Muni-Astor love story (he unwisely abandons Jean Muir for her) is unconvincing, with a love-at-first-sight we don't buy (Paul Muni was many things, but sexy was not one of them), and the parade of greedy, unprincipled relatives--Donald Cook, Margaret Lindsay, Alan Mowbray--somewhat monotonous. Muni's fine, with some impressive aging makeup, and Astor, while playing a character we don't quite believe, never gave a bad performance. It's consistently entertaining and sprawling, and I love this 1930s genre of multigenerational American epics, but there are neater entries than this one.