Three Cornered Moon

Claudette Colbert leads a strong cast in this tale of a once-wealthy family adjusting to life after the family fortune has evaporated.

Mary Boland is excellent as the widowed mother—not really equipped to manage finances, she put all of their money into a failed mine called the Three Cornered Moon and doesn't quite know how to tell the kids they are broke. Colbert is her daughter, engaged to a rather useless aspiring novelist but not afraid to go out and find a job herself.

There are also three grown sons, most notably Wallace Ford in an admirable performance as an earnest go-getter with girl trouble who spouts great lines like, "From now on, I'm gonna be absolutely independent of everybody. That reminds me, I gotta ask Mother for some money."

Richard Arlen has a key role as a doctor friend of Colbert. Hearing of the family's troubles, he moves right into their house to help them out by contributing some rent…and also, it seems, to be around Claudette more.

It's a mildly silly comedy, for the most part, but has a couple of serious moments, especially the scene where Colbert finally sees through her deadbeat writer boyfriend (Hardie Albright): "You've failed me!" she gasps, devastated, when he returns home late one afternoon having skipped a job interview and bought her flowers instead.

Charming rather than side-splitting, it's a very entertaining family comedy, thanks to excellent characterizations from all.

This stagy adaptation of the Broadway play tends to drag. If director Nugent and editor Loring had sped things along it might have worked. In spite of such stellar talents as Colbert (in a role originated by Ruth Gordan) and Mary Boland, Three-Cornered Moon is only passable entertainment. The story, about the irresponsible off-spring of a wealthy-widow-now-broke (Boland), has its charm and enough funny moments to make it worthwhile for die-hard Colbert fans. However, it is difficult as to why it was selected to be part of TCM's Claudette Colbert Collection. The rowdy antics of Colbert's on-screen brothers chasing each other around the house border on the ridiculous. Wallace Ford was 35 years-old, William Bakewell 25, but only 20 year-old Tom Brown fits the bill for these kind of shenanigans. And poor Lyda Roberti isn't given much to do -- what a waste. Her part fell flat and should have been re-written for the screen adaptation.

This movie is indeed astonishing: it starts out like some silly, light comedy about an upper-class Brooklyn family, living, without a care in the world, in a big house with servants and everything, exclusively on money from their stocks. BUT then the Depression reaches even their home: practically overnight, they find themselves flat broke. And, having lived for so long in their 'castle in the skies', they just haven't got any idea about what to do at first.

And then they start waking up: the only way out for the three grown boys and the girl is - to FIND A JOB! And that's what they do, and where they first meet with the difficulties of REAL life; and so, one by one, they wake up to reality - and they finally discover that they LIKE it: from being lazy parasites, they've become useful members of society...

Of course, it's by FAR not as 'educational' a picture as this may sound - anyway, it's a pre-Code movie, and it's got lots of frivolous and funny moments to provide first-class comedy entertainment. The cast is great, from Claudette Colbert as the daughter of the house who's got to choose between a daydreaming writer and a down-to-earth doctor, to Mary Boland as the 'lady of the house' who just doesn't seem to know at all what's happening, to Lyda Roberti, no less - the seductive 'Million Dollar Legs' beauty from the 1931 W.C. Fields movie - , who plays the Polish cook here who never seems to understand a word in English, but stays with the family nonetheless, even without pay; a real proof of her great acting range!

And yet, the message is there, even amidst all the hilarious fun - and it's MOST up-to-date, too: today, there are breadlines and people on the dole everywhere again, and formerly well-to-do families who now have to WORK for a living; and once you've got used to it (and have been as lucky as to FIND a job), you UNDERSTAND. You understand that it feels GOOD to be a useful member of society instead of an idler that lets others feed him... QUITE a message for a 'simple' comedy that's pretty much underestimated today in comparison with many of its other, much more forgettable contemporaries!

This is one of those movies when one wonders, after watching it, what the title had to do with the film. In this case, it is mentioned once – as the name of a mine that Mrs. Rimplegar (played superbly by Mary Boland) had poured a lot of money into – to the point of bankrupting her family. But, in afterthought, the title could be construed to describe the wacky family and household of the Rimplegars.

This isn't quite screwball comedy, but it comes close in places. The script for 'Three-Cornered Moon" isn't very tightly written and organized. But the collection of characters, with their individual pursuits and traits add up to some good laughs.

Claudette Colbert here has the look yet of a young starlet. The movie came out before she turned 30. Within the year, she would lose the very youthful look and become the more mature young woman in appearance for which most moviegoers remember her. Her role in this film is more subdued. Richard Arlen is the lead actor, but his role is less than that of most of the young men of the Rimplegar clan. They were played well by Wallace Ford, Tome Brown and William Bakewell. The rest of the supporting case were all quite good.

This comedy of frenzy has a nice theme – of the once rich and selfish learning how to work and share for the good of all. That theme should have played very well in 1933. It was right in the middle of the depression and Dust Bowl. America had its highest unemployment ever. Many families were suffering and wanting. Hollywood did a lot to help lift the spirits of America during this time with its many wonderful comedy films and inspirational stories. At least one reviewer noted that there were many movies of this type during that time. True, but this is one of the early ones, and a good warm-up for some much better films that followed.

With a little more work on the script and some better direction, "Three-Cornered Moon" could have been a much better film. As it is, it's a fun movie with several good laughs that most viewers should enjoy.

THREE CORNERED MOON is an hard-to-find film but it is a fairly important movie given it's status as one of the first "screwball" comedies. In truth, however, it is as much a drama as a comedy but it does have many of the essential ingredients for the pending film genre with a family of wealthy eccentrics and a sensible if romantic heroine.

Mary Boland is the matriarch for a family of four young adults who still live in the family mansion. None of them work but are suddenly through into "real life" when Boland's misadventures on the stock market in 1929 come to a belated crash four years later for the family and they wind up with a total of $1.65 in the bank. Boland's three sons and daughter Claudette Colbert are forced to work for the first time in their lives.

Family friend, doctor Richard Arlen rents a room at the family estate to help them out financially while Claudette's longtime beau, unpublished novelist Hardie Albright also takes up residence though he still is not supporting himself and living off Colbert's assistance as he has been for years. While the male siblings tough it and work, "artist" Albright can't quite bring himself to working in (gasp) "an office".

Mary Boland is delicious as always in one of her very first screen roles as a dizzy-headed matron. Beautiful young Claudette Colbert, a year away from superstardom, is very much in her element as the young heiress who learns about the real world, complete with remarkably frank sexual harassment from her boss at the shoe factory. Blonde bombshell Joan Marsh is appealing as the longtime girlfriend of Claudette's brother Wallace Ford while Lyda Roberti has an eccentric role as the family's Swedish maid who understands no English. Richard Arlen is pleasant as the prince in an RX coat although he doesn't have nearly the screen time despite his billing as the pampered fiancée Albright or brothers Ford, Tom Brown, and William Bakewell.

THREE CORNERED MOON (named after the corporation that causes the family's fortune to dwindle) is a intriguing film that should be sought out by fans of thirties comedies and it's surprisingly clear-eyed view of how hard life was in the 1930's for many makes it quite unique among romantic films of the era.