Manhattan Melodrama (1934)

As Good As It Gets

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

OUTSTANDING FILM FARE from beginning to end, MANHATAN MELODRSMA represents the very zenith of the motion picture of its day. The mounting, the sets, the large cast and the story line all mesh very well into a collectively made work of art.AS SWE HAVE alluded to in the summary, this is chock full of what we may consider as being clichéd situations and plot twists. In that sense, it also may well be highly predictable. This is only true because it was introducing story lines that would be fed through the Hollywood Xerox machines for the next 20 years or so. After all, nothing succeeds like success and those in Tinsel Town never minded copying, borrowing or stealing from one another. In this manner, many types or genres were established.THE STORY SHOWCASES big city life among the working poor, the "blue collar" folks, the polyglot of ethnicities that were blended into what we know as Americans Growing up is demonstrated in two diverging paths, one straight the other the criminal. As is the case all too often n real life, the two paths may well move in very different directions; yet they begin perilously close together. IN ADDITION TOM the outstanding cast of Mr. Gable, Mr. Powell and Miss Loy, the bolstering of their performances by a large and very capable supporting cast and the previously mentioned origination of the genre, the polish that is evident is largely due to its being directed by W.S. Van Dyke. THE FILM HAS also had an everlasting mystique shrouding it because of the event of July 22, 1931. It seems that notorious bank robber, John Dillinger, wanted to see it very badly and went to see it with two others in Chicago that night at the Biograph Theatre. It was following the showing that Dillinger met his maker in a shoot out with the FBI and local Chicago cops. Because of this, the Biograph, with its "Cooled by Refrigeration" sign, remains open today as a tourist attraction on north Lincoln Avenue.WE WONDER JUST what sort of review Mr. Dillinger would have given the movie ?

The first is a smart, sophisticated, snappy romp with Cable, Loy and Powell lighting up the screen. Hell, turn off the sound and just watch the light. Then turn it back on to catch the dialog that matches it. Better than Mr. Lucky and that's saying a lot.Second movie is the courtroom/prison drama that plays a lot like Production Code Censoring. Mankiewicz manages to make it believable and even establish, or at least presage, standard Death Row bravado - which Gable is able to pull off with panache. Even so, the introduction, or imposition, of all of the stock elements of code morality, no matter how gamely handled by writer and cast, was not a plus.Saw Manhattan Melodrama first time as a kid and was mightily impressed. Even with the second part (though slightly confused by the sudden change in tone). It played for me then as individuals taking responsibility for their actions.Just saw it again on TMC and was struck by how well it aged. But the murder and the courtroom/prison drama didn't play anywhere closely as well as I remembered: it reeked of Code dictated morality that almost ruined my memory of it.Almost but not quite. Except for Powell's resignation speech that ends Manhattan (which should have fallen to the cutting-room floor), Cable, Loy and Powell save it in the best tradition of flawed, improbable endings that Hollywood is so eminently well-know for.If the conflict between friendship and duty had been allowed to play out more in tone with the first part, more naturally and with a touch of realism, who knows? Critics and public alike might still remember it as a Classic.Bottom line, despite the flaws of the second part, still one of the '30s must see, A-list films.

A hugely popular film when first released in May 1934, "Manhattan Melodrama" is today historically important for three distinct reasons. It was the first picture to feature the by-now-common story line of two boyhood friends who grow up to become opponents in the realm of criminal justice. It saw the first pairing of William Powell and Myrna Loy, whose chemistry on screen here worked so well that they would ultimately be teamed 14 times together in films. And, of course, it was the last picture seen by the notorious bank robber John Dillinger, who, upon exiting Chicago's Biograph Theater on July 22, 1934, was killed during a gun battle with police and G-men. Today, almost 80 years since its release, the film still retains its impact and wonderful entertainment value, thanks largely to a terrific script and the megawatt star power of its three leads.In the film, we meet two young chums, Jim Wade and "Blackie" Gallegher (the latter played by 13-year-old, 14th billed Mickey Rooney). After the sinking of the General Slocum steamship on the East River on June 15, 1904, in which over 1,000 lives were lost, the boys are left orphans, soon taken in by a kindly Jewish man. When their benefactor is killed in a riot shortly thereafter, the boys are left to their own devices. Jim grows up to become the N.Y.C. D.A. and ultimately N.Y. state governor; the personification of moral rectitude, as played by William Powell. Blackie, on the other hand, as played by Clark Gable (here just a few months after the February 1934 release of "It Happened One Night"), grows up to become an underworld figure and professional gambler. Strangely enough, the two remain staunch friends, although trouble does loom when Blackie's moll, Eleanor Packer (yes, Myrna Loy), throws him over and marries Wade. And then things become even more problematic, when Blackie kills a man and D.A. Wade must prosecute the case and find the killer....Harking back to Dillinger, I must say that if you are ever given the choice as to what your last movie will be before being executed, you could do a lot worse than "Manhattan Melodrama." All three stars are given ample opportunities to shine here: Gable is extremely likable, his faithfulness to his old buddy never wavering; Powell gives two tremendous speeches, one in the courtroom as he urges for the death penalty for his old friend, the other in front of the State Assembly; and Loy is just as sexy and beautiful as can be. The film's script just sparkles (the picture won an Oscar for Best Original Story), and the events depicted move along briskly and with not a bit of flab. A quick check of the names behind the camera might convince potential viewers of what a class production "Manhattan Melodrama" is. The film was produced by the legendary showman David O. Selznick, cowritten by the famed Joseph L. Mankiewicz, lensed by one of Hollywood's foremost cinematographers, James Wong Howe, and features a tune, "The Bad In Every Man," by Rodgers & Hart. (Lorenz Hart would later rewrite the lyrics and turn it into the familiar standard "Blue Moon"!) Not to mention the crackerjack direction of W.S. Van Dyke, who would go on to helm four of the six "Thin Man" films starring Powell and Loy, and three films with Gable, including "San Francisco." Perfect entertainment package that the film is, it also offers the viewer a trip to Harlem's Cotton Club, a hockey game at Madison Square Garden AND a horse race at Belmont (during which the boys get out of Manhattan for a while, for an afternoon in Queens). Plus, we are also given some very amusing comedic relief, thanks to the antics of one of Blackie's henchmen, Spud (played by Nat Pendleton), and his dim-witted galpal Annabelle (Isabel Jewell). What most viewers will most appreciate, though, I feel, is the solid camaraderie that Blackie and Wade enjoy, although life has set them in opposition. Indeed, Blackie's love for Wade never flags, even while he is sitting on Death Row. And I'd like to think that as Dillinger felt the first bullet enter his body, he flashed back to Blackie's Death Row words: "Die the way you lived, all of a sudden. That's the way to go. Don't drag it out. Living like that doesn't mean a thing...."

Yes, this is a melodrama all right. Two boys of very different backgrounds are orphaned when a pleasure steamer catches fire and sinks in the Hudson River near New York in 1902. One boy (Mickey Rooney) is a rough and tumble type, while the other is bookish and thoughtful. They are both briefly adopted together by a man who lost his son in the same disaster. They grow up together and then go their separate ways. The rough one, 'Blackie', becomes a criminal and is played by Clarke Gable. The bookish one becomes a lawyer and criminal prosecutor, played by William Powell. Blackie has a girlfriend, played by Myrna Loy, who leaves him for Powell. What is so especially fascinating about this film is that Myrna Loy and Clark Gable do not 'click' at all, and glaze over when they look at one another, despite their best acting efforts to simulate at least some flickers of passion. But as soon as Powell and Loy are on screen together, the fizz begins, and they spark off one another like two cheeky little flints who just can't wait to make wonderful fire together. Powell seems to have been an irresistibly amusing man who was attractive to all the most glamorous gals, despite not being all that good-looking. After all, he was married to Carole Lombard and then was about to marry Jean Harlow when she died tragically. (He paid $30,000 for her funeral and took six weeks off filming with Myrna Loy in another picture because of his uncontrollable grief.) So Powell certainly knew how to interact with women of character. Myrna Loy just had the right kind of wry and whimsical manner to complement the dry humour of Powell. From the moment they first look at each other in this first film together, a unique screen magic was born, and lasted through 14 films. When I knew her very slightly as a youngster, she was 57 and rather uncommunicative, and she seemed depressed, so I never knew the 'lively Loy'. In those days videos and DVDs did not exist, so few people of my age had any idea at all of what she had been like in her films with William Powell, as we had not only never seen any of them but had no way of doing so. Nor was there any internet with a handy IMDb database where you just click your mouse and see the list of her credits. The fact is, Myrna Loy was someone one knew had been a big movie star earlier on, but one had never actually seen her on screen. She was just a name, and someone who had been in films which one's parents had seen before one was born. Well, now we can see them and so many of them are good that we can at last see Myrna Loy in perspective and appreciate just how unique and special she really was. There is a curious thing, namely that her real name was Myrna Williams and she came from Montana. Now who does that remind you of? Why, Michelle Williams of course, who comes from Montana (see my reviews of LAND OF PLENTY and INCENDIARY, where I note that this girl is an actress of genius). I wonder if they could possibly be Montana kith and kin. But I guess the world is full of people named Williams, even in Montana, which has a population of just a few thousand people and a few million cattle, doesn't it? It seems that everywhere you go, there are people named Wiliams. Perhaps it is because they are plural. Oh, back to the story. I always forget the story. Well, you can see it coming, can't you? Powell ends up prosecuting Gable for murder and demands the death sentence. That part of the story is heavily contrived, but it works very well regardless because after all it is a 1930s movie. Loy is distressed because she loves them both. You can see where the melodrama comes in, and they really lay it on, as this is not a film where subtlety is a leading quality. We get the whole thing, death row, the last minute requests for a reprieve (oh yes, Powell is Governor of New York by now and is the one who gets begged to save Blackie's life). Well the melodrama just keeps piling on top of the melodrama like that, so that the film is really a kind of melodramatic club sandwich. There is some cheese and then there's some ham (in fact there is no shortage of ham in this film) and then there's some chicken when certain persons lose their courage and then there's some lettuce to brighten and pretty things up a bit, and then there's the daily bread, it's all there. Take a bite, it's really delicious.