If you’ve ever dipped your toe into the world of financial services in your career path, you’ve probably attended at least one or two of those corporate pep rallies dressed up as “informational seminars.”

In the early sound film that TCM slipped by most of us last month, called High Pressure (1932), the irresistible William Powell, ably assisted by the puppy dog devotion of Frank McHugh, plays ringmaster to a crowd of ethnically diverse salesmen at a hilarious parody of such a gathering.

Based on a play by Aben Kandel with the appropriate title of Hot Money, the story was credited to Joseph Jackson and S.J. Peters. Still, it is what the leading man brings to the role that initially made me take notice of this quite obscure movie. The fairly dazzling display of charisma and ruthless pandering to the herd by a masterful, pre-Thin Man William Powell seems to indicate just how likable the glib actor would be in the sound era–even when playing what might have been a two dimensional mountebank in less skilled hands. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie that features such an outpouring of Powell‘s very funny and occasionally scary ability to manipulate a crowd. In a farcical scene demonstrating capitalism run amok, our man Bill appeals to a small sea of humanity, inflaming their Greek, Irish, Italian and plain ol’ American instincts for a fast buck. Personifying the “Dynamic Personality” that he’s urging the gang of salesmen to adopt, he gives a whiz-bang inspirational talk that weaves Columbus, the Wright brothers, and the Warner brothers pioneering Vitaphone, (natch), into one breathless admonition to sell, sell sell!

Yes, Gar Evans (William Powell) has his work cut out for him here. Interestingly, there are moments, especially when he’s faced with a couple of real innocents during his con, when a viewer wonders if the character wants to believe in his dubious investment as much as others. Powell is aided and abetted by several other would-be sharp cookies. Tops among them are earthy, refreshingly Jewish George Sidney, who appears as “Colonel” Ginsburg, the “discoverer” of an obscure inventor (Harry Beresford) who claims that he can make artificial rubber. Guy Kibbee, complete with toupee and a broad, dimwitted leer, appears as the front man for the “Golden Gate Artificial Rubber Company”, who soon helps to promote the thousands of shares sold to the gullible, great unwashed public. Not only is this trio working to encourage investment by an economically hard pressed public, (this film was released in the depth of the Great Depression in January, 1932), but they are actually shoveling synthetic rubber literally made out of, ahem, sewage. Hey, no one ever accused Warner Brothers of an excess of good taste in the ’30s and ’40s.

While Powell finds the origin of this miracle product fairly repugnant, he is more discomfited to learn that the inventor has disappeared, and the dramatic reappearance of “the mad genius” proves as stressful as owning some mortgage company stock today, (viewing this film in 1932 must have been painfully funny for any audience members recently burned in the stock market crash, even though the double and triple dealings here have that ‘ripped from the headlines’ air of many of the studio’s livelier products from this period).

Without Powell, of course, it might not hold up at all. Thank goodness William Powell was around at the dawn of the Talkies. In silents, his broad forehead and deceptively dour expression seemed to make him tailor-made for villainy, but once his rather nasal, theatre-trained voice was unleashed in the cinema, all stereotyping was off. Frankly, I find him irresistible fun whether he wears a black or white hat, but he’s really delicious when he treads that fine line between the two, as he does throughout this expert exposé of phony stock offerings.

In this film, I sensed that while he could gladly be corrupted by all the bright, guilty world had to offer, there was also a part of him that was unassailable. Later writers such as a David Mamet writing Glengarry, Glen Ross (1992), an Oliver Stone making Wall Street (1987), and especially a Meredith Willson penning his paean to a con artist/peddler in The Music Man (1962), could all have profited from the gifted actor’s silver-tongued salesmen. While several of Powell‘s barnstorming drummers are on great display in his movies, notably the elephantine The Great Ziegfeld (1936), (an overproduced film saved by his buoyancy), the product he promoted best was, not surprisingly, William Powell.

When Powell‘s agent Myron Selznick sold his Paramount contract, along with that of other clients, Kay Francis and Ruth Chatterton, to Warners in the early ’30s, the three featured players found quite a bit of success at their new studio, though Powell‘s greatest wave of popularity as Nick Charles was still ahead of him. A few months shy of 40 when High Pressure premiered, the actor was not particularly enamored of his new employers, and became less so when WB asked him and their other stars to take a pay cut as movie ticket sales fell. Though his cultured demeanor and suave sense of timing enabled Powell to be fine casting as S.S. Van Dine‘s rather formal society Detective Philo Vance four times at both Paramount and Warners, (with mixed dramatic results), when he left Warner’s for MGM, and eventually found himself in The Thin Man opposite the sublime Myrna Loy, his evolution was just about complete. High Pressure offers a classic cinema fan a chance to see him “on the wing” somewhere between his earlier, slightly starchy self, and his insouciant later self.

One aspect of this movie that gave me pause was cast member Evelyn Brent, who appears as Powell’s permanently miffed sometime girlfriend. Enchanted by what writer John Kobal called her “Garboesque silent film beauty”, (especially evident in director Joseph Von Sternberg’s The Last Command and Underworld), I’d only seen her in the 1930 talkie The Silver Horde previously. Perhaps because I’d thought she was mysterious, suggesting depth beyond words in silents, I may have expected too much of her in High Pressure in an underwritten role. However, my first impression of her voice had been its remarkable monotone, though her character’s frankness about her desires in The Silver Horde gave the creaky talkie a helluva kick, especially when, speaking out of the side of her mouth like a tough gal, she’d promised to settle things with her rival, a very young Jean Arthur, “in this world or the next”. She’s tough in High Pressure too, though her bored monotone and unchanging saturnine expression, even when allegedly in the throes of jealousy and later ecstatically happy, seem to indicate that Miss Brent may have found working at the male-oriented Warners pretty trying, as did many ill-used actresses of the time. Then again, Evelyn Brent had been working in movies for three decades by this time, having started in films in her very early teens. That much time “making faces”, as she once described acting, may have drained much of her sense of fun or dedication to her craft. Though Brent‘s career would go on for another thirty years, and Powell‘s character Gar claims to need Brent‘s presence as his “good luck charm”, the weakness of her role and her lethargic playing makes one wonder why he clings to such a gloomy gal. Having appeared previously in seven films–some of them corkers*–with William Powell, this movie would prove to be the last the two would make together. Their palatable lack of chemistry as a couple may have liberated Bill to put his energy into his slick salesmanship, but what’s needed for his female counterpoint might be the sassy common sense of a Joan Blondell, not the wet blanket disgust that Evelyn Brent brings to this part.
Two other remarkable talents also made this movie stand out for me. Anton Grot, whose contributions to art direction on film earned him 5 Oscar nominations and 1 win, produced a magnificently plush art deco office set that made me wish we had time to pause during this lightning fast film to take at least one close-up of the stream-lined bas reliefs around the office. I also longed for a better look at what looked like carved cascading natural forms, reminiscent of those waterfalls of flowers in a Gustav Klimt painting. The actors must’ve felt like “captains of industry” when they got to work in such ostentatious surroundings. What truly makes this lush looking set interesting is the contrast of the overwhelming sets designed by Grot the year before for director LeRoy’s Little Caesar (1931), which emphasized Edward G. Robinson‘s smallness in an outsize world. Here sets on a similar scale act to conflate William Powell‘s magnetism, enhancing his sleek, polished appearance and of course, impressing those potential suckers who wander in thinking they’ll be making a good investment in such a solid looking firm, (though an astute Wall Street player might conclude that they might be throwing a bit too much dough away on the fixtures). BTW, I believe that the frugal WB recycled this set from the Warren William movie, The Mouthpiece, made in the same year by the studio.

Since one example of the early sound work of 31 year old director Mervyn LeRoy helped to inspire my last blog entry , I feel compelled to draw deserved attention to his work in this flashy, lightweight, yet pointed, and at times, brilliant film product. Made during what might be characterized as LeRoy‘s “raffish” period, (4 films before I Was a Prisoner From a Chain Gang signaled a possible underlying seriousness), this fast-paced 72 minute comedy manages to satirize the American Dream in the depth of the Great Depression. Released in January, 1932, it is one of six movies the director helmed that year.

The speed, irreverence, (even toward the star, who is first seen, unshaven and unconscious, scrunched face down like a human pretzel on a gin joint couch after going off on a five day bender), and the seamless dexterity that LeRoy brings to this movie marks him as a master of his medium. Making High Pressure within months of his early peak with Little Caesar (1931), his small frame and boyish demeanor prompted the I Was a Prisoner From a Chain Gang leading man, Paul Muni to ask wonderingly when introduced to him “This kid is the director?” Despite this first impression, 32 year old LeRoy was an experienced pro and former vaudevillian who had literally grown up with the movie business, (his cousin was producing pioneer Jesse Lasky). At one time, Mervyn LeRoy had worked in the costume dept., processing labs, been an assistant cameraman, gag writer, and even an actor in the silent period. His versatility, detailed knowledge of the technical demands of moviemaking, speed and creative storytelling ability blended to make him one of most successful film directors of his time. One of the astounding things about this man’s ability is the range of stories he told so well. Who would have thought that the same mind that had the organizational skill to bring the hardhitting Little Caesar to the screen–helping to put Warner Brothers on the map as a realistic studio, could also tell one of the glossiest (and, to many viewers, most touching) romances, Random Harvest, which is perhaps the apotheosis of the MGM grand style. In the 1970s, as he looked back on his phenomenally successful work life, he once said ‘Nowadays everybody talks about shooting the money. You shoot the picture, not the money.’ The more I see of the range of this director’s early ’30s work, the more impressed I am by the raw energy, nuance and vitality that he invested in these movies as he demonstrated his ability to “shoot pictures” with an immediacy that still impresses today. Below are a few of Mervyn LeRoy‘s upcoming films on TCM. Unfortunately, the delightful High Pressure is not currently scheduled, though I’ll be entering it soon in Suggest a Movie :

Elmer the Great (1933):
Based on Ring Lardner‘s story about the adventures of a
hick baseball player(Joe E. Brown).
Apr 11, 11:30AM ET

Without Reservations (1946)
John Wayne & Claudette Colbert.
The “different” couple meet cute on a train
in a wartime tale. Here’s a TCM article about the friendship between
Wayne and the director (which led to LeRoy‘s directing
The Green Berets for the actor near the end of his career).
Apr 16, 8:00PM ET

Heat Lightning (1934)
Aline MacMahon & Ann Dvorak.
Two sisters (played by two good actresses) struggle
to find their place in the world.
Written about in last week’s blog entry.
Apr 18, 11:15AM

Three Men on a Horse (1936)
Frank McHugh, Joan Blondell, Guy Kibbee, Allen Jenkins,
Eddie Anderson, Edgar Kennedy, & Sam Levene.
A splendid cast of character actors in the saddle of this
comedy about a bunch of horse playing losers whose luck
may change when they meet a poet who picks winners.
Apr. 18, 1:45PM ET

Quo Vadis (1951)
Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr & Peter Ustinov.
Christianity comes to ancient Rome. Long on
spectacle, short on characterization, except by
Ustinov, who has all the fun. The beginning of
another cycle of Hollywood epics.
May 1, 8:00PM ET

They Won’t Forget (1936)
Claude Rains, Elisha Cook, Jr. & Lana Turner.
Most red blooded males will remember this film
as Ms. Turner‘s debut. I get a kick out of watching
Mr. Rains & Cook work. Some sources say that this
is among Rains’ best. It’s a great story, partly based on fact
as you can read here . Some observers feel that this film marked the end of
LeRoy‘s youthfully rambunctious period.
Jun 4, 6:30AM ET
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* The films that Evelyn Brent and William Powell appeared in together prior to High Pressure were Love’s Greatest Mistake (1927), The Dragnet (1928), Beau Sabreur (1928), The Last Command (1928), Interference (1928) and Paramount on Parade (1930).
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Sources:
Basinger, Jeanine, The Star Machine, Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.
Everson, William K., American Silent Film, Da Capo, 1998.
Kobal, John, People Will Talk, Aurum Press, 1986.
LeRoy, Mervyn, Take One, Hawthorn Books, 1974.
Sennett, Robert S., Setting the Scene: The Great Hollywood Art Directors, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994