Ajouter une intrigue dans votre langueThe lives of a number of the workers and executives in a Manhattan skyscraper are affected by the actions of a philandering and crooked company boss.The lives of a number of the workers and executives in a Manhattan skyscraper are affected by the actions of a philandering and crooked company boss.The lives of a number of the workers and executives in a Manhattan skyscraper are affected by the actions of a philandering and crooked company boss.
- Réalisation
- Scénario
- Casting principal
- Bank Executive
- (non crédité)
- Mechanic
- (non crédité)
- Young Mechanic
- (non crédité)
- Inspector Ned Connors
- (non crédité)
- Information Clerk
- (non crédité)
- Elevator Passenger
- (non crédité)
- Crook
- (non crédité)
- Janitor
- (non crédité)
Avis à la une
I had no idea this type of production could be so good.
As for the story, stick with it. The dialogue is funny in parts, the acting is fine and the director uses some interesting techniques. It's always interesting to see the period's fashions and there is even a zeppelin on show hovering above the tower. Noel Francis (Marge) makes good use of her role as the tarty secretary - check out her party dress - and secretary Nydia Westman (Miss Wood) has a funny scene when someone steals part of her lunch. The villain of the piece is played by Clay Clement. And his name in the film is Mr Burns. Just think of Mr Burns from "The Simpsons" and you've got a similarly heartless man at the top.
However, it's a poverty row film and there are no real surprises to the tale. In the overall 'building' genre of films from 1932, this one sits in the middle. The best is "Skyscraper Souls" and the worst is "Grand Hotel".
The plot concerns the free-wheeling industrial executive Burns who's not above using other people's hard earned cash to float his own misbegotten investments. These shenanigans eventually culminate in a run on a cash strapped Tower bank and hardship for the workers. At the same time, Burns chases anything in skirts, his beleaguered wife be darned. So how will things straighten out.
It's a low-budget, indie production with a largely lesser-known cast except for Bryan and Hall, and a few glimpses of an early Walter Brennan. The acting's okay, though, as others point out, the fistfight is amateurish, along with a cheaply done featureless sky in scenes from atop the tower. Also, the comedic scenes with the pill-popping secretary and the silly wandering drunk tell the audience that despite serious intent, it's only a movie after all. Besides, the occasionally clever innuendo provides all the chuckles needed.
Overall, as a product of its time, the cheap flick succeeds importantly in giving us a one-sided glimpse of that stressed out time in a largely entertaining way.
(In Passing-- in the year following this movie's release, namely 1933, Congress passed the New Deal's Federal Deposit Insurance legislation that insured bank deposits up to an elevated amount. The practical effect was to prevent 'bank runs' such as occur in the movie. Now depositors could rest easier if a bank got in trouble.)
Many stories overlap, and the movie uses a strange style of editing that appealed to me tremendously: scenes flow from one to the next with the device of the frame moving vertically, as the screen shifts from one floor to another, quite different to watch than the usual vintage device of a horizontal wipe. Literally we are moving from one in the 102-floor building like in a doorless elevator. The actual elevators in the building are monitored by men with castanet-type clickers, making an unusual noise throughout the movie as they monitor the capacity of elevators ready to move.
Central story is about a hard-working couple saving up to get married: Mary Brian a secretary for the film's heavy Mr. Burns, played with immense evil intent by Clay Bennett, and James Hall as Mary's boyfriend, a hot-headed manager working in the building's power department. Burns ends up embezzling Mary's nest egg (which is shared by Jimmy), while he's seducing her empty-headed, mean-spirited party girl fellow secretary played delightfully (in pre-Code dirty fashion) by Noel Francis; Hale Hamilton as Whitman, the bank executive who is in love with Mrs. Burns (Iris Rich in an emotional performance), and subject to horrible blackmail from Clay; plus other employees like Nydia Westman who is a real scene-stealer as Whitman's secretary.
Westman inadvertently starts a panic run on Whitman's bank that leads to a thrilling climax that captures the near-paranoia associated with the Stock Market crash just a few years before. It's a modest film but amazing in its own way.
I wanted to watch this movie because of curiosity about the director, Frank Strayer. He directed the early movies in the Blondie series and he was surprisingly adventurous for a b-movie director (one entry was even a musical). I was surprised that someone with so much artistic ambition was so forgotten.
Manhattan Tower may be a good explanation of why.
The movie starts very well, establishing the hustle and bustle of a skyscraper, with workers and business people toiling away and with birds-eye looks at the hectic streets below. There are quirky and original shots, most notably the way traveling through the elevator shaft is used to indicate height in the building.
Unfortunately, the movie is painfully dull, involving a bickering couple and a sleazy executive. The story is as thin as gruel, both unpersuasive and completely predictable (hence my confusion at the IMDB reviews). The acting is abysmal. The financial stuff is a bit unclear. The comic relief of the drunk guy and the pill-popping receptionist fails to work.
This, perhaps, is the difference between someone like Lewis Milestone and someone like Frank Strayer. They both liked to play with the camera, but the former understood that trick shots are nothing if you don't have a solid story behind them.
Le saviez-vous
- AnecdotesOne of a number of early 1930s films such as La ruée (1932) and Prospérité (1932) made on the subject of business corruption and banking practices in the wake of the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression. In many cases, when reviewing the screenplays of these films prior to production, the censors demanded that such films must instill "confidence in banking institutions" and "big business" in the average American. The studios begrudgingly obliged.
- Citations
Kenneth Burns: 'Brought that voucher for a thousand dollars?
Mr. Hoyt: I won't take the responsibility. I can't.
Kenneth Burns: Then you can take the consequences. You're through.
Mr. Hoyt: I worked hard for you and the company.
Kenneth Burns: Go on! Get out!
Mr. Hoyt: Before I go, I want to tell you something. Everyone who works for you hates you. But they haven't the courage to tell you. Men like you always have someone in their employ whom they can torment and persecute. Someone weak and powerless who can't fight back. Someone like me. I suppose when you were a child, you pulled the legs of grasshoppers just to see them wriggle and squirm.
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Détails
Box-office
- Budget
- 50 000 $US (estimé)
- Durée1 heure 7 minutes
- Couleur
- Rapport de forme
- 1.37 : 1