The Wet Parade

Wet Parade (1932)

A heavy social message movie but really well made, with some touching, in fact moving scenes. There is the first layer of drinking and the damage heavy drinking does (with some dramatic examples!). Then there is a political level, with electioneering and a kind of lobbying by the characters—and the movie—regarding drinking.

The year it begins is 1916, more or less, and it's the cusp of the beginning of Prohibition, just a year before the U.S. enters WWI. (The war is a side issue—one character wisely says, "War has no good side.") The acting is quite realistic—this is a truly serious and large drama—and so the events take on poignant significance. Even if it might, sometimes, seem to preach (barely), it always puts it in human terms, and human costs.

"I never did take it up," says one main character, to explain his not drinking. It makes it seem like a drug ("I never did take up pot") and that's really the underlying attitude on both sides. Of course, there are lots of scenes of drunks and parties leading to good old drunkenness. One of the reasons for voting for Prohibitions is shown as economic—50 million bushels of wheat and rye were going to making drink, and in war time this was wrong.

Remember that the movie was made in 1932 just as Prohibition was being repealed. I don't think it was simply a reminder to the audience of the history of the whole 14 year experiment in teetotaling. Progressive (Democratic) President Wilson did not approve the idea, but the states went ahead and ratified the amendment (not including some notable hold outs like Kentucky, home of great Bourbon).

So, as a movie, there is a lot going on. Before the first hour is up we have one plot transform into another and then yet another. In a way it's quite remarkable. Director Victor Fleming is seven years away from his glory year (1939) and yet is showing a sustained intelligence and narrative savvy. And the camera keeps moving with engaging fluidity, the light varies greatly from night to day to night, and the editing is fast and intelligent. This is, technically, a superb movie.

Now you might object to a certain level of moralizing—the drinkers are often cads or losers—but there is enough complexity of message to make this work overall. There is a sense that everyone (nearly) admits that Prohibition is a hopeless, and maybe senseless cause. As the plot moves toward its dramatic mobster climax, it feels more about pure crime than a moral issue, which got lost along the way.

But that's perhaps what happened to the country, too, back in the long dry years of the 1920s. Which were not so dry after all, for many. Hypocrisy and irony abound. A truly interesting movie.

The Wet Parade has a very powerful message, and at a full two hours, it's one of the longest movies to ever come out of the 1930s. The film chronicles the use of alcohol in the United States before Prohibition, and the effects of the law in its early years.

Starting out in the South, the film shows how alcoholism can devastate a family and ruin lives. Lewis Stone is the patriarch, and he gives a rare performance full of emotional turmoil. This pre-Code film shows what other films wouldn't be able to show for decades. Lewis is taking a buggy ride with his daughter, Dorothy Jordan, and he's so drunk, he has to pull over and vomit in the bushes.

With an unhappy end to that part of the story, we the see the attitudes of Lewis's children, Dorothy and Neil Hamilton. Dorothy vows to never touch a drop and wishes alcohol would be taken away from the entire country, but Neil discovers the euphoric feeling and develops a habit of his own. Up in the North, Neil is living in a hotel run by Robert Young and his parents, Walter Huston and Clara Blandick. Walter is also a drunkard, and much to his horror, the newspapers announce the possibility of Prohibition. Robert, Clara, and Dorothy are ecstatic at the prospect of no one being able to drink alcohol anymore, but it doesn't occur to them that people will break the law and continue to drink.

This movie is such a heavy drama, I must caution you before you rent it. Regardless of your views on alcohol, it's pretty upsetting to watch. If you think alcohol is the root of all evil, or if you think it's the men who abuse it who are the villains, or if you think Prohibition was a terrible mistake-there's a message in this movie for everyone. It flows beautifully from one person's story to the next, connecting them but still keeping them separate so the audience can see how the problem permeates different families. Robert Young isn't even in the start of the film, but he ends up being the lead of the story. Fans of his television career need to rent this movie to see him give a once-in-a-lifetime dramatic performance. He's different in this film from any others he made, and he pours his heart out scene after scene.

Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to violence and adult themes, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.

Upton Sinclair for once wrote a novel with a balanced look at the social problem of chronic alcoholism and the discredited law meant to address it - Prohibition.

It deals with two families - a rural southern family, the Chilcotes, who live on a large plantation with the patriarch being a hopeless lifelong alcoholic (Lewis Stone). here not exactly Judge Hardy. In the north there is the Tarleton family, who run a New York City boarding house while dad is always tipsy.

The two families come together when Roger Chilcote Jr (Neil Hamilton) travels to New York to finish his book and takes a room in the Tarleton boarding house. But he gets involved in heavy drinking and he, too, becomes a hopeless drunk. His sister goes to New York to try and sober up her brother where country mouse (Persimmon Chilcote) meets city mouse (Kip Tarleton). They both think Prohibition will solve all of their familial problems, but in fact it just makes matters worse to the point of tragedy. And there have never been more speak easys in New York until the sale of alcohol was against the law.

So Kip marries Persimmon and joins up with the government forces meant to bring down all of speak easys. But the government is only half heartedly fighting, and Kip and his colleagues are underfunded. This is probably one of John Miljan's best roles as Kip's boss who does his job because it is the law, but he is extremely verbally cynical about how useless he thinks it all is. It was good to see Miljan, who had a problem with the bottle himself, playing a normal person rather than some kind of uber villain for a change.

The worst part of the film? L.B. Mayer really liked Jimmy Durante so he basically manufactures a role that is completely unsuited for him as Kip's partner in busting up saloons. Durante even gets an introduction and an "entrance" in the grand comedic style of vaudeville. I just don't think Durante's schtick worked in this picture. He was put to much better use in "Hollywood Party", one of the last precodes.

With Myrna Loy as a saloon keeper who doesn't exactly stand by her man in times of trouble, and with Wallace Ford in a supporting role as a rambling reporter, this one does a good job explaining the attitudes surrounding the lead up to prohibition and the complete failure that the law was after it was enacted with tons of unintended consequences.

Produced at a time when America was having second thoughts about the 18th Amednment, this is an interesting period piece that shows the effects of alcohol on two families as well as the unintended consequences of Prohibition. Unfortunately, the movie runs too long as the plot tries to develop the eventual interconnection of the two families. However, it does treat the effects of Prohibition in an evenhanded manner. Neil Hamilton has the best roll as the upright son of the Southern family who descends into alcoholism, despite having seen the effects of booze on his father. Robert Young, who has the corresponding position in the city family, remains "dry", but comes across as somewhat of a prude. Jimmy Durante is totally miscast as a Treasury Agent.

If I had one piece of advice for people wanting to try out films of the 1930s, it would be to check out any movie with Walter Huston in it. From Gabriel Over the White House to Kongo to The Beast of the City and more, the man was in some of the weirdest and most interesting films of the period. Here we have a film about the dangers of alcohol, made a year before prohibition ended. The film seems to be both anti-alcohol and anti-prohibition, which makes for some fascinating think-work about what the movie is really trying to advocate.

The film starts with Lewis Stone's Colonel Sanders-looking Southern patriarch, whose daughter (Dorothy Jordan) is trying to get him to quit drinking. After a short while we move North to a fresh-faced Robert Young and his lush of a father Walter Huston. The two stories eventually intersect as Young falls in love with the daughter. Prohibition passes which leads to a tragedy for Young, who decides to become a treasury agent and is partnered with Jimmy Durante (!). From here the movie hits a bit of a lull as we get a fairly typical T-man story until the final minutes, which are exciting.

The film offers some great moments such as the haunting image of Lewis Stone's final fate or the powerful scene where Walter Huston's wife confronts him about his bootleg liquor. The cast is excellent. The performances are melodramatic but in the best way. In addition to the stars already mentioned, we also have Neil Hamilton, Myrna Loy, and Wallace Ford. Not a bad lineup.

As an entertainment piece, I think it's solid. But it has added value as a historical curio, allowing modern audiences to get perspective on the thoughts and feelings at the time regarding an important period in our history.