Manhattan Tower

This is a highly entertaining artifact from my favorite year for movies: 1932! Taking plot twists and inevitability of peril over the top, it's a fascinating drama about the inhabitants of the fictional NYC skyscraper, all hurtling to an amazing climax. The details and coincidences here, not to mention strange comic relief, is the apotheosis of specifically Depression Era filmmaking.

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.

In its defence, nobody involved with the production of this had ever seen a motion picture before and the verb, 'to act' was not one which any of the cast had ever come across. Alternatively, this might just be inexcusably awful.

This has to be one of the worst pictures I've ever seen. That something can be this atrocious defies logic. The world is fortunate that Remington Pictures was so short-lived if this example is anything to go by. Apart from those clicking elevator noises which fascinate me in early thirties movies, the only thing which made me watch this to its absurd denouement was to satisfy my morbid curiosity to see how it managed to get increasingly worse with each passing minute. Quite an achievement.

The only picture I can think of that's worse is MURDER AT MIDNIGHT and that's also directed by this guy, Frank Stayer...hmm. OK, he uses some interesting wipes between scenes but unfortunately these lead to the scenes if you can call them that. If you want to put someone off ever watching a 1930s film, show them this.

This was a cheap rip-off of the excellent SKYSCRAPER SOULS (1932) but made apparently by amateurs. It's so awful however that it's almost insulting to real films like SKYSCRAPER SOULS to mention this in the same breath or be on the same IMDb site. Imagine you showed the Mona Lisa to a six you'd child and said 'copy that.' The child might be able to create something which looks like the real Mona Lisa but you'd hardly exhibit it in The Louvre!

This is yet another story from 1932 about the lives of various people within a building. In this film, which borrows heavily from "Skyscraper Souls" (1932), the young lovers are played by Mary Brian (Mary) and James Hall (Jimmy) and they do a better job than their counterparts in "Skyscraper". Indeed both Mary and James don't have to learn to respond to a different name. It's been made easy for them by calling their characters Mary and Jimmy. I wonder if this was to help James and his drinking. It's sad to notice that he looks a fatter version of himself in "Hell Angels" two years previously. My wife and I both recognized his face but thought it must be a fatter actor that looks the same. Nope. Again, it is sad to learn of his drinking problem and fate and to then find out that this was also his final film. We both feel sorry for him and really like him now.

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".

Entertaining period piece, but little more. It's 1932 and neither banks nor the stock market are trusted, thanks to the financial crash of '29. On the other hand, the shots of Manhattan Tower resemble a soaring temple to the movie-makers confidence in both business and the future, despite the recent calamity. The tower shows level after rising level of bustling business people, also providing a good chance to catch ladies fashions of the day as they hustle in and out of offices. Too bad there's no glimpse of the impoverished masses that truly epitomize the age.

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.)

Surprisingly entertaining B-movie about intertwined lives during a typical day in a downtown office tower. The cast is attractive, and there's a suitably despicable villain who gets what he deserves. Starts out looking like it's going to be a Grand Hotel knock-off but only one story is covered. Later a hint of the bank run of American Madness is thrown in sketchily. Like other such contemporary lower case pictures with similar styles & themes (such as Hotel Continental from the same year, which really IS a Grand Hotel knock-off), it has no street exteriors --saving money -- and moves satisfyingly fast with second-tier actors showing their stuff. But this one is distinguished by a really unusual scene-changing device making use of the skyscraper's vertical architecture really well. Made by a no-name company with a Gower Gulch list of techs and creative talent behind the camera.

I had no idea this type of production could be so good.