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"Not much," says Dalí when asked the amount of money it would take to put down his paintbrush for a year, "a few million..." Mr. Moneybags (Richard Bennett) has a roomful of relations impatiently waiting for his demise, "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal You" plays on their Victrola. "I'll show those vultures," thus one cool million given to eight people picked from the phone book, just the Depression fantasy to get everybody at Paramount Pictures to work. Hell to ol' butterfingers (Charles Ruggles) means working in a china shop, the sudden fortune allows him to happily decapitate the jade statue that bears the face of his henpecking wife (Mary Boland). The demimondaine (Wynne Gibson) is able to ditch unsavory sailors and enjoy a lavish boudoir all to herself. The check forger (George Raft) finds himself with the real thing burning a hole in his pocket, "I can't even buy a cup of coffee," the curse leads to madness at the flophouse. Weary of fender-benders, retired vaudevillians (W.C. Fields, Alison Skipworth) help themselves to a car lot and embark on a vengeful spree. "See any road hogs, my little fledgling?" Justice has a price, for sure, the Death Row inmate (Gene Raymond) can only afford it when it's too late. The geometry of the vast office rests between The Crowd and The Apartment, the meek clerk (Charles Laughton) who braves many stairs to kiss off the boss is a perfect Ernst Lubitsch miniature. A carnival stroll on April Fools, not a profitable day for the stockade buddies (Gary Cooper, Jack Oakie, Roscoe Karns). Finally, an anticipation of Make Way for Tomorrow with May Robson in the rest home. "Oh, I tell you, there ain't any jail made of steel or stone that can hold a body prisoner as tight as one built of old age and lack of money." The format is certainly a useful one, Forever and a Day, Ziegfeld Follies, O. Henry's House... In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |