Tuesday 1 August 2017

Manhattan Melodrama (1934 W.S. van Dyke)

Produced by David Selznick, though now I'm not sure it was his idea to pair Powell and Loy for the first time, though clearly it was a good idea. Typically of the speed studios could work at then that the first Thin Man film was out the same year.

In even then clichéd plot childhood friends confront tragedy on riverboat steamer (excitingly edited scenes, these, by Ben Lewis), then within a few minutes more tragedy strikes as their adoptive father dies. Anyway they grow up to be gambler Clark Gable and DA William Powell - Myrna Loy is of course the triangular woman. In somewhat unsatisfactory plotting, Gable kills a man in cold blood and ultimately Powell has him sent to the chair. It's a melodrama all right.

With Leo Carrillo (priest), Isabell Jewel, Muriel Evans, Nat Pendleton, George Sidney, Noel Madison, Mickey Rooney. Shot by James Wong Howe, effects by Vorkapich. MGM films of this period seem more grey than black and white.

Famously the last film John Dillinger saw before being gunned down by the police

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