Three-Cornered Moon (1933)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Got this 1933 movie from the library. Colbert is charming as are the rest of her family members. She was not yet a STAR, but her star quality is on display. It's frequently a laugh out loud movie. The story line of a daffy matriarch, Mary Boland, who gets wiped out by the stock market crash of 1929 and her 4 adult children who are still living at home, and what they do to survive the crisis makes for a delightful hour or so. The maid/cook whose English is minimal does not add anything to the comedy, but this is a minor fault. I've never previously seen Richard Arlen, who stands on the sidelines, quietly loving Colbert, and was glad to see how at the ending one obviously wrong suitor was replaced for another.

I recall seeing this film before and thought I had enjoyed it; Perhaps I was thinking of another film or in a different frame of mind at the time. As a fan of both Claudette Colbert and Mary Boland, I was enjoying seeing this again. However, I was sorely disappointed. The plight of a wealthy family from Brooklyn (yes, there is such a thing) facing the depression seemed like it would be an interesting film. But this was before "It Happened One Night" and "My Man Godfrey" got the idea of what screwball comedy was down just right. If it wasn't poor mama Mary Boland trying to get .30 cents from her children to pay off the laundry man (and getting a tongue lashing for interrupting their oh, so important activities that she goes onto the next one without even getting an answer) or listening to the extremely obnoxious Polish maid Lyda Roberti try to run Boland out of the kitchen, then perhaps it was Claudette Colbert's hair and make-up which made her look like a cross between Betty Boop and Minnie Mouse. She was known for being severely aware of her appearance on film; Perhaps she was too flustered by the stagy script to even notice her own appearance.Then, there is Colbert's beau, Hardie Albright, who is wearing so much lipstick he looks like a silent movie hero trying to get away from a Theda Bara type vamp. Richard Arlen comes off better as the family doctor who rents a room from them that ends up saving the day. But if I had to be the mother of sons like Wallace Ford and William Bakewell, I think I'd be as daffy as Mary Boland is here. (Other son, Tom Brown, is a lot less obnoxious, but he's the baby, and in old moviedom, that means being cute and sweet.) Most of Colbert's earlier movies had been dramas (with the exception of a few Maurice Chevalier musicals), so perhaps she wasn't quite ready for comedy, but after "It Happened One Night", she would be one of the top screwball glamour girls. Comedys are supposed to take you out of a bad mood, not put you in one. If you get the DVD, focus on "Maid of Salem", the co-feature, and watch this one at your own risk. "Wizard of Oz" fans can spot "Auntie Em" Clara Blandick in an unbilled role as a landlady (one of her many).

I happened to catch this movie on TV one day when I was in junior high, and it made a lasting impression on me. My parents had told me about their childhoods during the Great Depression of the 1930s; Dad in particular was haunted by the memory of those days, when his upper middle-class family experienced a sudden, frightening plunge in their standard of living. I also read about the era, but in a curious way it was this film that helped me understand the human impact of that painful period with special vividness. Three Cornered Moon starts out like a comedy, a screwball comedy about a rich, wacky family, but then the Depression hits and reality smacks them all in the face. The tone changes, the plot shifts gears, and we find we're watching a drama about a group of chastened people who learn to deal with adversity and grow up in the process.The story concerns the Rimplegars of Brooklyn. Right off the bat the family name suggests comic eccentricity, and after a humorous intro of the characters we're primed to laugh. This mood continues through the first scene, when dizzy matriarch Nellie (Mary Boland) is revealed in the kitchen, wearing a ridiculous feathered gown as she attempts without much success to communicate with the family's Polish cook. Nellie is a widow with three adult sons and a daughter. The family lives in a mansion and they appear to be wealthy, but when the laundryman shows up demanding $11.47 from the lady of the house it seems to be something of a problem finding the money to pay him. Nellie refers vaguely to the Depression ("I hear it's still going on") as she stalls for time, but ultimately she's able to pay most of the tab.The various family members are good-hearted but rather silly. One son is involved in community theater and takes himself very seriously, while another is a hard-partying college boy. Daughter Elizabeth (Claudette Colbert) is involved with a pompous novelist, and is given to histrionic speeches about the meaninglessness of life. As soon as the character relationships have been established, however, disaster strikes. The younger Rimplegars are horrified to learn that Nellie has invested all the family's money in a fraudulent metal mine called Three Cornered Moon (a strange and perfectly chosen name) and that their savings been completely wiped out. And this is where things get interesting. The children, privileged all their lives, must face reality and scramble for jobs, just like everyone else. They do so with admirable grit and grace, and we find that they're made of stronger stuff than we may have assumed. Naturally, the comic elements of the story fade as the serious theme kicks in. The turning point comes when daughter Elizabeth sets out to look for work, and this passage is marked with an impressive montage of contemporary news footage of the unemployed, shots of weary feet pounding the pavement, close-ups of job listings, and audio clips of exhausted job-seekers: "I spent my last nickel on the subway," etc. It's a sobering sequence that beautifully captures the grim mood of the era.Eventually, and because this is still essentially a comedy, the Rimplegars manage to overcome their problems and eject the moochers who exploited the family in flush times, thanks in part to the intervention of a handsome young doctor (Richard Arlen) who is sweet on Elizabeth. It's easy to see why he's drawn to her: Claudette Colbert is at the peak of her beauty here. She gives a finely nuanced performance, and we watch as her Elizabeth matures from an affected, overgrown adolescent to a sadder but wiser young woman. Colbert begins in a low key but builds in intensity, and when at one point she mistakenly believes her brother has died her hysteria is disturbingly credible.The distinguished critic Leslie Halliwell classified this film as a "slightly screwball" romantic comedy, which I believe is an apt description, and he opined that its humor had faded with time. That also feels like an accurate assessment, but to my way of thinking the comedy in this story is secondary to the drama, whatever the filmmakers' intentions might have been. In seeing Three Cornered Moon again after so many years I can easily understand why it made such an impression on me as a kid. The upbeat ending comes as a blessed relief, but it's hard to shake the traumatic echoes of the story's darkest moments. Silly or not, the Rimplegars are sympathetic figures. Like so many other people of their time they found themselves faced with a genuine crisis that tested their mettle. My parents and grandparents were in a comparable situation. The financial meltdown of 2009 hasn't reached the nadir of the early 1930s, but similar fears are in the air, and seen today this movie packs a quiet but well delivered punch.

The best known name in this film is Claudette Colbert, and she presents her comedic talents as effortlessly as always. However, the surprise is that this screwball family comedy belongs to Mary Boland. Her ditzy, oblivious mother delivers priceless lines one after another. So as not to give all the jokes away I will only say that this family presents the humor in going broke (Boland has run the family into financial ruin and must end her 'career as economic advisor,' but insists she must sign something every month even if it is not the checks!), possible jobs in cleaning sewers, and failing the bar exam. Top that off with the family having a foreign maid who does not understand a word they say or allow them into the kitchen and this socially aware, zany family makes me wish I belonged to them.