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William Powell is at his peak in this madcap financial comedy. His high-voltage energy eclipses the other actors, although most are more than competent. From the brief synopsis I read, I was expecting more of a screwball comedy, centering on the relationship between Powell and Evelyn Brent. The movie turned out to be more of a hard-hitting satire, focussing on the deep economic troubles of 1932. How funny is it to hear references to "bank presidents committing suicide"? Evelyn Brent seems completely mismatched to Powell. Totally lacking charisma in this movie, she seems more like a depressed, real-life person than the incandescent beauty without whom Powell cannot perform his flimflam miracles. Great movie for Powell fans, but seems a bit too much of a history lesson, overall. Slightly risqué pre-Code touches are entertaining.

This is an easy film to forget if it weren't for yet another very nice performance by William Powell. In fact, without Powell there just wouldn't be much of a film as he single-handedly carries the movie. And, for that reason, it's a decent time-passer worth seeing.

Powell plays a sharp-talking salesman type--a guy who can sell practically anything to anyone. While he's been pretty willing to hawk just about anything, this time he becomes excited as this time he starts to believe in the product--a new synthetic rubber. But, over the course of the film, he starts to realize that all his VERY high-pressure salesmanship might just be for what could be an outright fraud. What's he to do? In many ways, this film is reminiscent of "Boiler Room", as in part of the film you see a huge room filled with slicksters on the phone--saying just about anything to sell shares in this company. Interesting and worth seeing.

boiler room

High pressure was based on the play "Hot Money" by Aben Kandel. Seems to be the first thing he did in "show biz"... The leads, William Powell, Evelyn Brent, George Sidney, Evalyn Knapp had all been making films for years, although Powell is probably best known for the "Thin Man" series, a couple years after this one. The girlfriend, lovely, 25 year old Knapp certainly was a busy girl; she was in twelve films in 1932 alone! Lots of clever jokes written into this con-man farce, and the timing is great. Show has a fast pace, mixups like taxi-drivers and taxidermists, and fun characters like Alison Skipworth , who plays the rich, silly Mrs. Miller, (who had worked with W.C. Fields on FOUR films... I was guessing she might have worked with the Marx brothers, but it appears not) They all keep this Warner Brothers shortie (72 minutes) moving right along! A jealous girlfriend, a competitor, Mr. Banks, and the Attorney General all keep Gar Evans (Powell) on his toes. Of course, what madcap show is complete without a zany professor?? Can Powell get out of trouble with the law? and it all stays pretty clean, in spite of being made prior to enforcement of the Hays code. Fun!

High Pressure (1932)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Nice comedy from Warner has William Powell playing Gar Evans, a fast-talking promoter who builds up interest in a company that claims to be able to make rubber out of sewage. Soon Evans gets everything in place except for the inventor of this special rubber who has gone missing. With his neglected girlfriend (Evelyn Brent) about to leave him and still no inventor in sight, the entire thing appears to be a scam. It's funny to think that Warner pretty much let Powell walk away to MGM because they felt he was getting too old and yet it would turn out that the high points of his career were just about to happen. This film here certainly isn't a classic and while there are many problems with the actual story I think the cast members are so good that you can't help but recommend it to their fans. It should go without saying but this is the type of role that Powell could play in his sleep. The fast-talking con man who has plenty of charm and wit. Powell has no problem doing the part and he manages to make you care for the character even if he does things that you might not agree with. George Sidney plays the man who brings Powell the scheme and he too is very effective as is Frank McHugh who plays his typical supporting role. Apparently Powell fought to get Brent the role here and while she's not too bad I do think that one problem with the screenplay is the entire relationship between the two. There's actually very little chemistry between Powell and Brent and I'd say some of this might be blamed on the screenplay because there's just not enough spark to their relationship. With a satire like this it's common for there to be mostly dialogue. For the most part the spoken words are funny but I still thought that a majority of the jokes fell flat. There were a few darker gags that worked including a bit about there being a bank president shortage because all of them were killing themselves. Obviously this was a joke aimed at the hard times the country was in when the film was made. HIGH PRESSURE isn't a classic and it's not really a good film but fans of the cast will want to check it out.

William Powell has a great time in this Pre-Code comedy about a promoter who gets involved with an invention that can supposedly turn sewage into rubber. Powell's pretty much the entire movie has he hawks this "too good to be true" product, making many false promises along the way. When it turns out the scientist who invented the product is crazy, Powell appears to be in big trouble.

George Sidney, Guy Kibbee, and Frank McHugh offer good support. Evelyn Brent is not a particularly strong leading lady for Powell but she does okay. It's a talky movie but it moves along at a quick pace with fun dialogue from Powell & company. A great showcase for William Powell's talents.

William Powell is Gar Evans, a man who knows how to dress for success and how to create a successful company out of promotion and wishfulness. When the promise of a revolutionary new product comes to his attention, he puts all his talents in action and brings all his friends along for the ride.

The problem is that the inventor of the new process has disappeared. While his minions search for the missing Dr. Pfeiffer, Evans corrals investors and builds his company.

Powell is terrific as Gar Evans. He has an infectious energy that drives the film. He is surrounded by a talented cast of supporting actors. Especially notable are George Sidney who plays Colonel Ginsburg, the primary backer of the new enterprise, and Frank McHugh as Mike Donhey, playing his usual persona---the reliable sidekick.

The writing is clever, especially in the first half of the film. Director Mervyn LeRoy keeps things moving and there are plenty of laughs, especially for the viewer with an attentive ear.

William Powell has his latest company to promote when Frank McHugh and George Sidney bring him a man with a process to turn garbage into rubber.... except they can't find the man.

It's based on a Broadway comedy, and Powell gives an air of setting the pace with his stately flow of words and broad gestures, while Warner's large company of contract players, including Frank McHugh, Guy Kibbee.... well, everyone, it seems except Cagney, Arliss, O'Brien, and Joan Blondell show up to take or be taken. It's so chock full of character comedians that leading lady and second-billed Evelyn Brent gets about four minutes of screen time.

The pace lets up in the final twenty minutes, as often happens with comedies; after all, there's a plot to be resolved. However the first half hour is tremendously funny.

Another wonderfully fast-moving early 1930s comedy with Powell in his element as a pushy promoter, this one is based on a stage play. As anticipated, it's rather talky, but the dialogue surfeit doesn't slow down the pace a single bit thanks to the masterful direction of Mervyn LeRoy who keeps the movie moving at such a rapid pace, it leaves the viewer begging for more as soon as "The End" flashes on the screen.

Assisted by Kurrle's fine photography and Grot's superlative sets, LeRoy has staged the movie using the full resources of the now mature sound cinema. Sequences like that in which a dialogue exchange between Powell and Brent is underscored by the tumultuous din of a salesmen's convention where the participants are growing more and more impatient by the second, have never been equaled, let alone surpassed. In fact, if anything (perhaps due to the dead hand of censorship), mainstream Hollywood seemed to grow more timid and less inventive as the 1930s advanced.

Powell has a great supporting cast to contend with, but still comes out on top.

I'm not sure what Warner Brothers thought they'd be doing with William Powell when they signed him between his stints at Paramount and MGM. Here he's in a film that probably James Cagney was offered and rejected.

Not that High Pressure doesn't have its moments. In fact it's pretty funny in a lot of spots. But I hardly think that even Powell would waste his time and flirt with fraud by trying to sell synthetic rubber made from sewage.

The film opens with George Sidney and Frank McHugh trying to locate Powell off on a Prohibition style toot. They find him dead drunk in a speakeasy and spend some time trying to sober him up. Why? Because Powell has the reputation of putting over schemes with his High Pressure sales tactics. As a motivational speaker Powell anticipates the get rich quick schemes that start in the Eighties by fifty years.

As I said, it's synthetic rubber made from sewage. George Sidney has discovered a doctor with a formula for it played by Harry Beresford. Instead of getting away as fast he could, Powell gets entranced with the idea. He embarks on a sales campaign to beat all and sells thousands of shares of stock in this company. Then he's got to produce.

All this while his girl friend Evelyn Brent is tired of the carousel and just wants out of the relationship. Powell's going to have to do plenty to salvage this situation.

Naturally this whole thing is a fraud and how the partners Powell, Sidney, and McHugh discover it is the heart of the whole movie. I wouldn't dare reveal it.

There's a very nice performance by Guy Kibbee whose function in the group is to be Powell's perennial front for the various schemes he's involved in. He's made the company figurehead president and his job is to go around and speak and present a respectable front. In that role Kibbee is the Warren Harding of the business world, an army of pompous phrases in search of an idea.

Though I liked it in spots, High Pressure is ultimately too silly to be cast as a great screen comedy. And William Powell does a good job in a role that either James Cagney or Pat O'Brien would have phoned in the performance. In fact seeing Powell in this, I'm not so sure that wasn't the reason Warner Brothers would soon sign Pat O'Brien.

Oddly enough synthetic rubber would soon be a reality forced on us by World War II. It was not made of sewage though.

What sort of idiot would compare this 1932 picture with Scorsese's masterpiece, WOLF OF WALL STREET? Someone who spends far too much time watching pre-code movies and can't understand why everyone doesn't know who Joan Blondell is, that's who.

Making a film with the theme of exploiting naive investors into get-rich-quick schemes, like 'Wolf of,' relies on making the star likeable, otherwise it might just come across as a cruel mistreatment of innocents. Like DiCaprio, you simply cannot dislike William Powell, he was undoubtedly Mr Cool and whatever he's in, he always seems the nicest man in the world. In this film, he's a less than on-the-level marketing guru who can charm money from anyone, convincing them of huge returns.

To be fun and entertaining, a film like this and indeed 'Wolf of,' has to be quite light-hearted. Fortunately the comedy in Mervyn LeRoy's picture is subtle and gentle enough not to disrupt the flow or to make the story stupid, it's just enough to keep you smiling.

As you'd expect from LeRoy, the direction is perky and faultless. What's not so good is the writing; not the script, the story. There's too many people not really contributing to the core story. Powell's secretary and her boyfriend for example don't serve any purpose but in a better written film, they would. After all they loose their life savings to Powell's scheme but we don't learn anything about them whatsoever.

Powell is easily as talented and watchable as DiCaprio in this film but what this film sorely lacks is a a decent supporting leading lady. Obviously there's not many people as amazingly brilliant as Margot Robbie (well, there's Joan Blondell of course!) but Evelyn Brent is pretty terrible in this. Considering this was only William Powell's second film at Warner Brothers, you'd have expected them to pair him with someone decent, not Evelyn Brent. Whereas Powell is instantly likeable, she's instantly dislikeable. There's zero chemistry between them, he doesn't really seem to like her and to be honest, who could blame him! The rest of the supporting cast are fine and it's nice to see Guy Kibbee pop up in one of the seventeen pictures he made that year!

It all makes a reasonably entertaining picture but it's definitely not a classic. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET doesn't really have any competition.

This a fine little film with a wonderful cast of comic actors. McHugh does his always solid right-hand-man bit and Sidney is a scream as a befuddled patsy pulled into Powell big plans for making millions by manufacturing artificial rubber. Powell shines, as always, as a the salesman of all salesmen. Don't miss this one if you like Powell or even if you don't...watch this and maybe you will...

I'm not sure I would have been as amused by this movie if had seen it much earlier, but seeing it in 2021, all I could think was, "What's different now? NOTHING!" The film is worth watching for William Powell alone - he's just amazing. But the con by these guys is so much like what you hear about Bitcoin these days - soaring profits, just give a little real money now and you'll be a millionaire soon, no, really! Is it any different than any dot com bust that comes around, where companies pay millions for a tech start up that operates at a loss for years? The side stories aren't that interesting, but the main story, and the execution of the con, is solid. Actually, some of the office decoration is worth watching the movie for - 1930s decoration is glorious!

William Powell plays a New York business promoter who we soon find is simply a fast-talking con man in this Depression era pre-Code film. After hearing about a process to make artificial rubber out of sewage and without meeting the inventor or seeing the product, he quickly mobilizes a team of salesman to sell not the rubber but the stock in the company, often using a technique akin to a pyramid scheme. He gives the men a pep talk not about anything of substance, but about the greatness of America and figures like Columbus and Daniel Boone. He employs a secretary because he likes her looks, and in subtle, thinly coded ways, we're informed that her work after hours probably involves playing around with him. Later we also find that in his past, he ran a sham university that essentially sold diplomas.

There are so many parallels to another high-profile promoter/con man in the present day that it's a little off-putting (hmm who could I be thinking of), especially because this is the ever-charming William Powell, and he's clearly the protagonist. The film doesn't fully commit to the concept either, because in critical moments he suddenly has been duped himself (having assumed the original business proposition had access to the inventor) and shows a virtuous side (trying to protect those around him). I can understand not wanting to make matinee idol William Powell a true villain, but I lost all respect for the film in these moments. What could have been an interesting commentary on predatory capitalism during the Depression (thinking of Warren William films here) instead never really goes there, settling in for ridiculous twists in its second half so we can all feel good about this guy and how big business operates. There are some nice art deco sets and William Powell is always a joy to watch, but this one rubbed me the wrong way.

Mr. Ginsburg claims to own a process to make artificial rubber from sewage. He convinces a hungover high pressure promoter Gar Evans (William Powell) to sell his product. Gar agrees for 51% of the company. He sets up a big office with big promises, a sales force, and sells lots of stock. Topping it off, he needs to recruit his lucky charm on-again, off-again girlfriend.

This is the quintessential American salesman story. It is fake-it till you make-it. He could have done more to fake it and the rubber company's closing offer is way too generous. The second part is the worst part which feels manufactured. The explanation is flimsy. Evelyn Brent mostly does her sour face which is a problem. Despite all that, it is the perfect role for William Powell. He is the great showman and makes this movie go.

William Powell is a fast talking promoter whose latest sensational project is setting up a company to sell artificial rubber made from sewage. Sold on the idea by businessman George Sidney, who vouches for the scientist behind the scheme, Powell quickly rents a huge office space and begins hiring sales operatives.

Frank McHugh is right at home as Powell's right hand man, also talking fast and handling important details like begging Powell's fed up girlfriend Evelyn Brent to come back in and work the front desk. Brent eventually joins the firm but is ready at any minute to throw it all up and go marry that South American millionaire.

The fun cast also includes Guy Kibbee as one of Powell's buddies who is appointed president of the new company mainly because he looks the part; Evelyn Knapp as a secretary who thinks Powell is just the best; and Charles Middleton as a coal industry representative who stops in to threaten lawsuits and investigations.

The plot is hardly believable but appealing characters and snappy dialog keep it moving right along. William Powell is easily the main attraction here, and gives a slick performance as the lovable rogue who may not be completely on the level but is nevertheless practically irresistible.

Nothing too memorable but plenty of fun while it lasts.

William Powell stars as Gar Evans, a fast talking "promoter". He gets to make an entrance in this film, as the first part of it is Gar's partner Mike Donahey (Frank McHugh) looking all over town for him. The reason is that a man (George Sidney as Mr. Ginsburg) has a contact who says he can make rubber out of sewage, and since the idea is one that nobody would take seriously, a promoter is needed to put this new startup company before the public in a serious way. Gar believes that Ginsburg's statements are true, but goes about decorating the new "company" behind it with exaggerations such as putting the company in a grand suite of offices it does not need, employing an army of salesmen who have nothing to sell at this point, hiring a professional CEO who often lives on skid row between Gar's CEO gigs, etc. Of course behind all of this is the belief that the day will come when there is something to sell, that the stock will be worth something, and that there will be rubber manufactured. Complications ensue as Gar treads on the edge of legality.

William Powell's romantic interest in this film is played by Evelyn Brent, and I rather wonder why. Brent was never under contract to Warner Brothers as frequent costar Kay Francis was, and sound had brought her previously lucrative silent film career to a halt. Brent did not have a terrible accent like some of the old silent stars, but she did speak in a rather lifeless monotone which is especially noticeable when you are up against Warner Brothers' stock company as she is here. Maybe Powell was trying to give his old Paramount colleague's career a needed boost?

Although William Powell in topic comedic form makes this movie, special recognition needs to go to George Sidney as the "owner" of the rubber company. He spends the entire film trying to keep pace with Powell's spiel, and he is constantly muttering pointed quips or confused questions in his Jewish dialect just to drive that point home.

High Pressure is a really fun movie. William Powell fans will love it because it is really a showcase for his many talents. All of the supporting actors are excellent as well, except the leading lady. The script is well written with fun, snappy dialogue.

Fast paced and great dialogue. Just relax and enjoy.

I've seen many William Powell starred movies: "The Canary Murder Case," "Shadow of the Law," "For the Defense," "Man of the World," "Ladies' Man," "The Road to Singapore," and "One Way Passage." "High Pressure" is by far the best of his movies I've seen.

William Powell plays Gar Evans, a fast-talking marketing guru who is a hair shy of being a con man. His character is akin to James Cagney in "Hard to Handle." When we're first introduced to his character he was laid out, stone drunk and disheveled. Jimmy Moore (John Wray) was trying to convince a man named Ginsburg (George Sidney) that Gar could turn water into wine with his sales ability. After coaxing both Gar and Ginsburg, the two decided to be partners in their new company called The Golden Gate Artificial Rubber Company. Their claim is that they have a process to turn sewage into rubber.

Gar set about hustling to get all the necessary pieces in place to make the GGARB a million dollar company. He got a secretary (Evelyn Knapp), a president (Guy Kibbee), and dozens of salespeople. What he couldn't easily get, yet desperately needed, was his girl Francine (Evelyn Brent).

Francine was fed up with Gar and his drinking and false promises. She'd moved on and was now engaged to a South American fellow. It would take a lot of convincing for Gar to woo Francine back into his life and by his side and he was just the man to do it. With Francine on his team Gar couldn't be stopped.

Almost.

"High Pressure" was a fast-paced movie with a lot of comedic lines and colorful characters. William Powell crushed it as the clever, quick-witted, and verbose marketing man. I loved the pace, the dialog, and the plot. "High Pressure" is a movie that can play in any era and be just as good.