Le succès à tout prix

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. plays an angry young man working at a large company. Many of his co-workers are college men and he has a strong sense of inferiority because of his high school education. On top of that, he's got a HUGE chip on his shoulder. It's so bad it almost gets him fired, but because he is very talented, he manages to shoot up the corporate ladder. It also helps that he's ruthless and wants to succeed more than anything. Through the course of the film, he manages to be very successful and a complete failure at the same time. How will it all end? Unfortunately, very, very poorly. In fact, it has one of the worst endings I can recall--which is amazing, as up until about a minute before the film ended, I loved it. But the miraculous ending just seemed VERY contrived. My wife suggested that perhaps this terrible ending was tacked on because the new Production Code was about to be implemented (only three months later) and this sappy ending would not upset censors. While I am not sure that this is the case, I do know that the film's miracle ending really annoyed me and Fairbanks' character getting a happy ending just made no sense at all....none.

Fascinating if minor 30s look at a driven man who sacrifices all for success in business. Or does he? Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. is excellent as Joe Martin, whose brother, as the film opens, has been gunned down by the police. Fairbanks is determined to go straight and be somebody, but how to do it? He's uneducated and from the wrong side of town. But his girl friend (Colleen Moore) has a good job and she gets him hired as a grunt in an advertising agency. But Fairbanks bristles at being an underling to a bunch of talentless college grads who function mainly as yes men to the owner, Frank Morgan.

Morgan has a keen eye and appreciates Fairbanks' honesty and moves him up. But Fairbanks has an eye for Morgan's friend, Genevieve Tobin, a shallow but pretty woman who simply wants to be kept. Fairbansk goes into overdrive to win Tobin and destroy Morgan. But what does he gain? Really interesting premise and excellent performances by all make this a little gem not to be missed.

Allen Vincent is the college boy. Nydia Westman and Edward Everett Horton (small part here) are fellow workers. Henry Kolker, Bess Flowers, Florence Roberts, Theresa Harris co-star.

Moore (a huge star in silent films) is interesting even though she is 10 years too old for Fairbanks. This is her second to last film.

And I suspect the "happy ending" was tacked on......

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. I believe is remembered today as an extremely attractive and sophisticated older man. In truth, he was a wonderful, underrated actor who distinguished himself in films beginning in 1916 and ending in 1989.

Like John Barrymore, Fairbanks Jr.'s performances hold up well today. He had an acting technique that does not come off now as hammy or melodramatic (Barrymore was only melodramatic when the part called for it, as in Twentieth Century).

In "Success at Any Price," he plays Joe, a young man who came from a bad neighborhood, where his brother was shot and killed in 1927.

Joe wants to be in a legitimate business and make a lot of money. However, he's not a member of any old boys' network unless you want to count Murder Inc., and he has no real education.

His girlfriend Sarah (Colleen Moore) gets him hired at the advertising agency where she works. Of course, since he's a young man in a hurry, he forgets that you at least should be polite, which he is not.

Eventually as he moves up, he throws Sarah over because he wants his boss' (Frank Morgan) girlfriend, the shallow and greedy Agnes (Genevieve Tobin). This proves an unfortunate mistake, like a few other of his desires.

Good movie with brisk direction and good performances. This was silent film great Colleen Moore's second to last film. She was about 33 here, three years past the sell date for women in Hollywood. She retired, lived until she was 88 and was very successful writing about investing, which she had done very well on her $12,500 a week salary in the '20s -- equivalent to nearly $170,000 a week today.

Genevieve Tobin was the same age as Moore and lived into her '90s - and they were both 10 years older than Fairbanks and looked it. I wonder what the rationale was behind their casting, though they were both good.

Fairbanks is always worth seeing, so I enjoyed this film.

Here is a picture that not only deserves recognition for its considerable merits, but is one whose existence remains largely unknown, even to those with more than a casual interest in film. Its characters are sharply and honestly drawn, defined primarily by crackling dialog that is both earthy and literate. These are real people, with no illusions about themselves or the world they move in; they speak from the heart, revealing their needs, longings and frustrations. The performances are rock-solid by all the players (and how refreshing to discover one of Frank Morgan's few roles in which he does not dither and sputter). Fast-paced and seamless, the direction is also deserving of special praise.

Admittedly (or arguably?) the ending is less than totally convincing, what with Joe's change of heart occurring too quickly and without sufficient motivation. Similarly, his determination to succeed (yes, at any price) is presented at the start as a result of his gangster brother's having been murdered. This appears unnecessary, and more than a little contrived. He wants to break out of a poor, aimless existence, and has a loyal, loving girlfriend encouraging him to do so. That's more than enough.

Even with those weaknesses punctuating the first and last five minutes of this picture, it remains a first-rate drama that can easily hold its own with a host of better-known films.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr's brother was a gangster. He was gunned down. His reward was a gold casket. Fairbanks wants money, success, Gebevieve Tobin, all respectably. He gets it, but trample everyone around him.

It's a pretty straightforward handling of John Howard Lawson's morality play, without much fun involved. Despite the lack of leering visuals -- the themes are definitely pre-Code, but even the marriage bed is a twin set -- it makes its points plainly and sometimes even succinctly; Fairbanks' rise from clerk to Master Of The Universe is charted by the same nameplate on increasingly exalted doors. It's also ill-tempered, not just in its disapproval of Fairbanks, but in its casting. Colleen Moore, in her penultimate screen appearance, has her key role as the good girl Fairbanks should have married trimmed exhaustively. Still, J. Walter Rubens ably directs a fine cast that includes Frank Morgan, Edward Everett Horton, Nydia Westman, Henry Kolker and June Brewster in a manner that would have gladdened my Marxist grandfather's heart.