Manhattan Melodrama (1934)

Dear reader, I apologize. Lately I’m a cryer. It’s these damn movies people are making. I keep watching them expecting to be disappointed but I just disappoint myself by balling like a babe. This time I should have known by the title. Manhattan Melodrama was a small movie when it first released but it became a big hit with audiences – especially when they found out that the original gangster John Dillinger was shot outside of a theater after watching it. Although I believe that this was just a conveniently cocksure reason for men to watch a movie about two good looking and charming best friends.

The movie gives a lot quickly even though Mickey Rooney has a lot to do with it. Within the first ten minutes we are given a boat party, a boat burning, a boat sinking, the death of almost every important character to that point and a a riot between capitalists and communists. And then within the next couple minutes we watch Hollywood work one of it’s earliest and most impressive magic tricks when it ages Mickey Rooney into Clark Gable. Another kid, played by Jimmy Butler (who eleven years later died in France during WW2) grows up to be William Powell. The two are best friends but grow up on either side of the law. Gable is a gangster and Powell is a rising attorney for the state of New York. Between them is Myrna Loy. The wheels of melodrama have their slope. However, it is the acting that moves the movie.

Myrna Loy plays a woman only a date rapist wouldn’t love. William Powell plays an honest and boring man that never bores and Clark Gable is Clark Gable. As a warning, if you think Clark Gable is just Rhett Butler from Gone With the Wind, (as I once did) then you have work to do. My suggestion, make room at the front of your Netflix queue, search for Clark Gable, and insert anything with at least three full red stars. Manhattan Melodrama was directed by W.S. Van Dyke who was famous for directing The Thin Man movies, (which also starred William Powell and Myrna Loy) but should be famous for directing about four movies a year from 1922 to 1942. A few months after his last movie was released he killed himself; but not from overwork, but from the agony of cancer. The directing is done with a finish not resembling a man who was part factory and the story and script are superb. Arthur Caesar deserved his Oscar for Best Story. He helped make a crybaby cry.

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