The World Gone Mad

I got this as part of a collection of horror movies. I can't for the life of me figure out how it even remotely fits in the package. This is a pretty good drama about the results of corruption, much like the Enron scandal, where a group of businessmen steal from the company, and invest in stocks, hoping ot raise even more. It backfires, of course, and a series of people need to be shut up for them to stay anonymous. The first district attorney is killed and then implicated in a scandal. The new, young attorney, swears to get to the bottom of it, putting himself and others in danger. It all plays out quite nicely. It's a nicely done film with pretty strong performances, especially for its time.

Apart from some occasionally stiff acting by the leads, plus the usual enthusiastic reporter portrayal, this time by Pat O'Brien, this is a pretty terse and believable tale of Your Wrongs Will Eventually Find You Out. The overall technology was poor of course, but ignorable. Some cogent scripting was going off here, much too detailed to go into - take my word for it! However, Neil Hamilton as the D.A. says that if he could he would line up against a wall all crooked businessmen and shoot them ... if caught a fair trial was obviously guaranteed then.

Best bit: The two minute scene in the dark where Pat O'Brien and Evelyn Brent are lying on a bed both pretending to be drunk and playful for their own reasons. Your mind can run riot listening to them goofing around as shadows!

Out of dozens of similar early 30's films in this vein I've seen, TWGM must come near the top.

The District Attonrey has uncovered some wrong doings at a corporation and is about to blow the lid on the lot when he's whacked by a hit-man. His replacement (and friend) takes over, and much to the dismay of the bigwigs at the corporation he's determined to blow the lid on all the shenanigans too. What's an evil, greedy person to do? Well, whack the new DA too, obviously! Problem is, the new DA's friend is a reporter who seems to know everyone in the world, and he's also uncovering more and more evidence.

Although billed as a horror film on Mill Creek's 50 Horror Classics box set, A World Gone Mad is more of a crime thriller (although at one point some characters walk past an ad for the film The Vampire Bat!) with a lot of twists and turns thrown in. It's not majorly exciting, but it's not boring either, with plenty of that fast talking thirties mannerism ("Are you on the level?" ) and such like. It's also strangely relevant today, and just seems to show that nothing ever changes. They even mention pyramid schemes at one point.

It's no forgotten classic, but not as bad as other folks have made out.

This is a s-l-o-w crime drama. Not much of a mystery and it's definitely NOT a thriller nor a horror film. It's not the worst film in the world but there are much better crime-dramas from the 1930s. This one is not memorable.

The Internet Archives says this film's genre is drama/horror and the movie is also found in the 50 horror film collection. This film is far away from being a horror film.

Wikipedia has this film as a crime-thriller listed at the bottom of the page. Crime - yes. A thriller? - Debatable. I would argue NO this movie is not even a thriller film.

I think the genre tags on IMDb are correct for this film: crime, drama, mystery. That sums the film right up.

The movie is watchable but I have seen much more interesting crime-dramas from the 1930s than this particular film.

2/10

Before signing with Warner Brothers and after getting his big break with his screen debut in The Front Page, Pat O'Brien appeared in a variety of films of varying quality for different studios. This one is for poverty row Majestic Pictures and for a poverty row film it boasts an impressive cast. But I can safely say that everyone here has done better work in their career. Mind you this is a cast that includes Evelyn Brent, Mary Brian, Neil Hamilton, Louis Calhern and J. Carrol Naish.

District Attorney Wallis Clark who is investigating a crooked stock scheme is set up in a love nest by Evelyn Brent and murdered by trigger man Naish. O'Brien is a crime reporter with all kinds of friends in low places and Hamilton is Clark's upright assistant who succeeds him. But both had a high regard for Clark and both want justice for his daughter Mary Brian and both kind of like her.

Turns out some of O'Brien's low place friends are indeed responsible. But they work for some blue chip Wall Street crooks. In 1933 blue chip Wall Street crooks were very popular villains.

The World Gone Mad should have been a better film. Except for the end which has a great climax where the blue chip crooks get their's, this is a sluggish film. Again at a major studio this would have been a better film.