If Dallas had been made in 1932 it would have been Skyscraper Souls. Whereas Dallas had JR Ewing as its loveable anti-hero, here we have David Dwight, played surprisingly well by Warren William. Dwight is a terrible human being: cruel, selfish, deceitful and the epitome of everything that caused the Great Depression. It would be so easy - especially as this was made in 1932, for him to play (like he usually did) the stereotypical capitalist villain but he doesn't. That is what makes this film clever and interesting. This heartless millionaire who callously ruins countless peoples' lives without a second thought is actually the person we're routing for - like JR in Dallas, we want him to succeed. Maybe it's because for once Warren William gives us a complex, sympathetic, fully developed character. Maybe it's because this is made by WR Hearst's Cosmopolitan Pictures - WR Hearst is hardly going to want to show multi-millionaires in a bad light? Maybe it's just well written?
The rest of the cast are also all real people - no lazy, one-dimensional stereotypes here, they're all people we can empathise with, even if we don't particularly like them.
In the same way that Dwight isn't the simple pantomime villain, Maureen O'Sullivan's character is not just sweet innocence. She is definitely sweet innocence but there's so much more to her, driving her, making her who she is. Again, her character has been forged in the Depression and that's no time to be just sweet and innocent. Maureen O'Sullivan is just 21 years old, only been acting a couple of years but is brilliant in this - she's a fabulous actress (why wasn't she the huge mega star of the 30s rather than Jean Harlow is beyond me!) Even her ostensibly happy ending isn't really a fairytale ending it looks like - it's a necessity, a compromise, it's making the best of a bad deal.
What's great about this movie - considering that talking pictures had only been around a few years, is that it does what a novel does; it allows your own mind to develop the characters and to think about what motivates them. It's very watchable.
The rest of the cast are also all real people - no lazy, one-dimensional stereotypes here, they're all people we can empathise with, even if we don't particularly like them.
In the same way that Dwight isn't the simple pantomime villain, Maureen O'Sullivan's character is not just sweet innocence. She is definitely sweet innocence but there's so much more to her, driving her, making her who she is. Again, her character has been forged in the Depression and that's no time to be just sweet and innocent. Maureen O'Sullivan is just 21 years old, only been acting a couple of years but is brilliant in this - she's a fabulous actress (why wasn't she the huge mega star of the 30s rather than Jean Harlow is beyond me!) Even her ostensibly happy ending isn't really a fairytale ending it looks like - it's a necessity, a compromise, it's making the best of a bad deal.
What's great about this movie - considering that talking pictures had only been around a few years, is that it does what a novel does; it allows your own mind to develop the characters and to think about what motivates them. It's very watchable.