Man of Iron

Barton MacLane stars as Chris Bennett, a shop foreman in a machine shop who gets promoted to Vice President of the company; chosen over a jealous executive (Ed Tanahill played by John Eldredge). Tanahill is a snake in the grass who is able to manipulate his new boss into neglecting the business side of his job, which eventually leads to a walk-out by the workers and a minor riot in which Bennett is injured.

The contrived plot is an insult to your intelligence as Bennett is a total caricature, too good to be true as the foreman and completely over-the-top as a pretentious executive. MacLane's performance itself is fine, it's not his fault that the director wanted a character that rings this false. Dorothy Peterson is excellent as his put-upon earthy wife Bessie. Eldredge is excellent as the slimy villain, appropriately sporting a pencil thin mustache. Fans of Mary Astor will be disappointed, although receiving principal billing she has little more than a bit part as Vida, a secretary who seems to be in league with Tanahill.

"Man of Iron" is a fairly high budget production with some nice location shooting and above average production values. But this silly story must have seemed tired even in 1935. There is some historical interest in the realistic machine shop scenes and in the shots of Bennett's new house being built. If there had been a little more of this kind of stuff the film would have had some value as a documentary.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

This script is pretty much paint by numbers - foreman Chris Bennett(Barton McLane) gets promoted from blue collar foreman to vice president, his head swells to the size of his salary, and his tastes in expensive things swell beyond the size of even that. Meanwhile, a slimy little weasel who thinks the vice-presidency should have been his plays Iago to McLane's Othello, giving him bad advice and deliberately causing miscommunication at every turn. Bennett doesn't make things any better by being distracted by building a huge estate for himself and thus not keeping his eye on the ball when it comes to work. Dorothy Peterson plays Bennett's loving, loyal, and level-headed wife Bessie, and Joseph Crehan plays the boss who gave Chris his big chance. Mary Astor is completely under-utilized and hardly figures into the plot at all.

This is a nice time passer, neither good nor bad and thus hard to review. It's one of the few films I've watched that is almost exactly a five out of ten - no more no less. It was probably made as a second feature which is something that became extinct after the proliferation of television, just as manufacturing plants operating in the United States such as the one described in this film have become virtually extinct. Watch it for the performances. Barton McLane is the biggest name in the film and he does a first rate job as always of playing tough bull-in-a-china-shop fellows such as this.

Man of Iron (1935)

** (out of 4)

Chris Bennett (Barton MacLane) works the floor at a factory where everyone of the blue collar workers love him. He's eventually promoted to General Manager and then Vice President but he starts to lose focus of the real job when a dirty couple (John Eldredge, Mary Astor) start to fill his mind with the wrong stuff. Soon Bennett loses his friends and his job is at stake when the workers decide to go up against him. MAN OF IRON is mildly entertaining thanks in large part to MacLane's performance but there's still no question that its story is quite stupid and just continues to grow dumber from one scene to the next. There's no question that the biggest problem is the screenplay. It seems pretty clear that Warner was wanting another hard-hitting drama where the working men looked great while money was shown as being something evil. All sorts of Warner pictures handled this subject and most of them weren't as far-fetched as this one here. The biggest problem is that Bennett is such an idiot that he never catches on to even the smallest things and this really hurts the film and his character. You'd think he'd have at least a little common sense but in order for the story to move the screenwriters had to turn him into an idiot and in the end this just becomes annoying and keeps the film from being as powerful as it wants to be. MacLane is extremely good in his role and I thought he certainly kept the picture moving. Eldredge is also very good in the role of the snake and we get Astor who is pretty much wasted in a thankless role. MAN OF IRON clocks in at just 63-minutes so it moves fast enough but it just needed a bit more.

Labor and Management will get along if Managers come from Labor and don't wear fancy clothes. Simplistic handling of important issue in which the conflict arises when a humble foreman becomes a pretentious executive. Barton MacLane hams it up, but Joe Sawyer, Mary Astor, John Qualen and other familiar faces acquit themselves well. Fun but not exceptional.

"Man of Iron" is not a bad film, but it should have been a lot better. The basic idea is very good but the writing of the characters leaves a bit to be desired.

The film is set in a factory. Chris Bennett (Barton McLane) is in charge of the men doing all the production work. However, his boss loves Chris' work and how the men adore him and decides to put him in charge of everything--not just the machinists but EVERYTHING. Now Chris is a big-time executive and his assistant, Ed Tanahill (John Eldredge) is secretly furious as HE expected that he'd be given Chris' new job. So, covertly and cleverly Tanahill undermines his boss while outwardly appearing to be a loyal man.

One way that Tanahill undermines Chris is by changing him into a new person. Chris is earthy and a hands-on worker. But Tanahill introduces him to the country club set and tells Chris he needs to act more like an executive. In addition, when the employees come to Chris with their concerns, Tanahill dismisses them and does his best to breed discontent. So how is all this going to work out? If you care, see this film.

I really liked this plot and the film easily could have earned a 7. However, Chris' character was to one-dimensional and a bit like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde! When he's working with the men, he's practically perfect in every way. When he's distracted, he's an annoying butt-head! A role like this COULD have helped McLane to play more leading men parts--but instead he's today mostly known as a bad guy. As for Eldredge, he was effective--playing a well-mannered weasel with gusto!

Overall, the film manages to take a good idea and make it not so good. Not terrible but at best this film is a time-passer.