Almas de Arranha-Céus

Made before "the code" removed all "offensive" material from American movies, Skyscraper Souls combines the social commentary of a Warner Bros. film, the class of an MGM production, and the sleaziness of a pulp novel. Warren Williams, a great but sadly overlooked actor, is perfect as the nice-but-slimy David Dwight, bank entrepreneur, who has built a 100-story monument to himself and doesn't have the $30,000,000 to pay for it. How he gets the money and what happens to those who unwittingly fall into his trap, constitutes the main thrust of the narrative. The film is full of diverse characters, all trying to eek out a living in the towering Dwight Bldg. The many plotlines cross and criss-cross, and the end is more realistic than one would expect from a "Hollywood" film. Watch for it on TCM, or on Laserdisc, in the "Forbidden Hollywood" set.

Utterly ruthless & immoral, the owner of New York's tallest building plots & schemes to keep control of his creation, trampling upon anyone who gets in his way. Others working in the great colossus also live lives of drama & everyday excitement. All these SKYSCRAPER SOULS will soon find themselves bound together by greed, lust, betrayal, suicide & murder.

Practically screaming its pre-Production Code status, this neglected film is rather fascinating in the risqué development of its plot. Sex, both leering & suggested, plays an important role in the story. By making its hero a man both charming & completely treacherous, open to any underhand suggestion, it makes a lie out of Louis B. Mayer's assertion that all of MGM's product was family friendly. Even today, this is potent, powerful material. And absolutely engaging.

Warren William is almost distressingly good as the unscrupulous building owner, around whom much of the action revolves. His blunt dishonesty almost makes chicanery respectable.

The rest of the cast is equally proficient:

Maureen O'Sullivan as a naive young secretary lusted over by William & loved by brash bank clerk Norman Foster.

Gregory Ratoff, hilarious as a harried dressmaker.

Anita Page as a brash prostitute/model beloved by noble jeweler Jean Hersholt.

Verree Teasdale, William's mistress for 12 years, finally pushed to the breaking point.

Wallace Ford as a radio announcer, tragically driven to desperation by his love of unhappily married Helen Coburn.

George Barbier as a jolly fat debauchee, one of William's eventual financial victims.

And Hedda Hopper, William's absent, knowing wife - very content with his money, but not his company.

Movie mavens will also recognize Billy Gilbert as a lobby cigarette stand owner, Edward Brophy & Doris Lloyd as the man & woman in the elevator.

Although Skyscraper Souls develops several good characters, the primary focus is on Warren William the ruthless William Randolph Hearst like tycoon who is obsessed with not only building, but totally owning the world's tallest skyscraper. To emphasize the point of how big this building is, the New York City background shows the newly constructed Empire State Building quite a few feet shorter than Warren William's edifice.

All the other characters in the film revolve around William like so many planets to his sun. Beginning with of course his long suffering wife Hedda Hopper and this may very well have been her best acting part, before she became one of the reigning gossip columnists of movie land. Hedda's not even trying to hold on to him other than financially, Warren just writes her check as she needs in and she keeps her free spending ways. The Marion Davies of the story is Verree Teasdale, William's eternal secretary/mistress who knows where all the bodies are buried in his business. A young woman working as a stenographer in his bank, Maureen O'Sullivan has captured William's attention, but Teasdale watches her like a mother hen and Teasdale's the jealous type. Young bank teller Norman Foster is courting Maureen, but he hasn't a prayer with William intruding on the picture.

These are the personal associates, but the business ones are also revolve around William as he is determined to break any one who wants to gain control of his building. Chief among his rivals is George Barbier who is quite the rich womanizer himself, but is hardly in William's class for brains.

Coming out in 1932 I'm not sure how the movie-going public took to this story about the rich playing with stocks, so many lost their own nest eggs to just such speculation. William is the kind of tycoon people loved to hate that year.

The climax of Skyscraper Souls comes at a big price for William. He gets his edifice, but loses everything else. Let's just say it's quite the melodramatic ending, but still effective. Although the film is firmly dated in the Great Depression, Skyscraper Souls will still grab you by the emotions and by the wallet.

"Skyscraper Souls" is something of a poor man's "Grand Hotel." Instead of the Barrymore brothers, Greta Garbo, Wallace Beery, and Joan Crawford, we get Warren William, Jean Hersholt, Hedda Hopper, and Maureen O'Sullivan, but as was often the case in the 30s, MGM's second team plays as well as their first.

For all its stars, "Grand Hotel" now seems pretty creaky and its characters generally not very engaging. The Weimar Berlin setting doesn't help matters; you can almost feel the sense of decay and resignation. "Skyscraper" is it's polar opposite. Although New York is in the grip of the Great Depression, you can't help but be swept up in the picture's vitality. The market may be crashing, but people haven't lost their spunk, especially William's ruthless tycoon, who's just thrown up a 100 story building - try finding one of those in Berlin.

"Skyscraper" moves at a fast pace and its multiple plot lines mesh together quite well. Although it was made 70 years ago, both the financial and romantic entanglements seem very modern. Dave Dwight certainly would be at home in today's board room and most of the women come across as surprisingly contemporary. They aren't exactly feminists, but these girls don't take things lying down.

Highly recommended to film buffs, students of the Depression era, and anyone who enjoys modern melodrama.

Ultra charming megalomaniac David Dwight (played by Warren William at his most dastardly) will stop at nothing to realize his dream of having total control of New York's tallest (it dwarfs the Empire State Building a few clouds down) skyscraper. By way of style and guile he leads investors into a trap in order to solidify his power base. A bit of a lecher as well he manages to seduce a new secretary who happens to be the niece of his executive secretary / mistress. Exuding ultra confidence Dwight triumphs in both arenas but soon finds himself out on a precarious ledge.

William plays Dwight with passionate bravado and gentle understanding. He charms everyone, including the audience for the first hour as he turns it on for investors and lovers with devastating results. His drive and ambition however bring out the Mr. Hyde in him as he callously jettisons both to achieve aim. William's, pitch perfect snake is greatly aided by William Daniel's cinematography which captures the strikingly lit futuristic slick and sleek interiors provided by Cedric Gibbons and company creating an ideal stage for Dwight's messianic harangues and seductions.

The supporting cast led by Gregory Ratoff, Verree Teasdale and Anita Page down to the minor supporting roles of duped investors are substantive and crucial. The film's biggest misstep is the handling of comic relief through Norman Foster's Harold Llyod like bank teller Romeo. Granted the film is dark but Forster (who would eventually go on to become the most commercially successful film director in history) is little more than obnoxiously abrasive and an annoying distraction.

In addition to the fine cast and luridly engrossing story line there is some powerful exterior imagery that makes for a powerhouse climax as well as the surrealistic image of the newly erected, inferior sized Empire that still has the same impact today.

Made prior to film censorship, Skyscraper Souls allows the conniving Dwight to vividly display his duplicity with élan and without regret. Released during the bleakest days of The Depression it is an uncompromisingly dark portrait for its time that still resonates eight decades later amid investment house failures and in personages that run from Trump to Madoff.