The World Changes

The World Changes is a little known film that has an epic Edna Ferber like quality with a Wall Street type message in the end. In that respect its about three generations ahead of its time. I wouldn't be surprised if Oliver Stone saw this film before he did Wall Street.

Paul Muni plays the son of a good Scandinavian farming family who pioneered in the Dakota territory and for who the town of Nordholm, South Dakota is named. But Muni is not content just to be a farmer and settle down and marry Jean Muir, daughter of the second family of the town of Nordholm. He's ambitious and wants to make money, see the world, and accomplish something.

Across the Nordholm saga also come such frontier characters as Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and General George A. Custer. It was the first that gets him into the cattle business, but its meat packer Guy Kibbee after Muni delivers the big herd from Texas like John Wayne and Monty Clift in Red River and Randolph Scott in The Texans who shows him that the real money is in combining both ends in one business. After that Muni marries Kibbee's daughter Mary Astor and eventually inherits the whole business when Kibbee dies.

Astor's a spoiled product of Eastern finishing schools and she likewise turns their sons into spoiled copies of herself. Muni's corporation eventually as they inevitably do goes public and starts selling shares and he gets out of it all together and just indulges his worthless sons Donald Cook who is a speculator on Wall Street with a brokerage house and Gordon Westcott who is content to be a playboy with a trust fund.

In the end the family Nordholm comes crashing down in all kinds of tragedy and Muni only finding some solace in one grandson William Janney who takes up with the granddaughter of Jean Muir's character also played by Jean Muir.

Real historical events are woven into the Nordholm story in the end the Stock Market Crash. Muni delivers one stinging indictment of his sons and their business very similar to what Martin Sheen told son Charlie Sheen what he thought of his Wall Street mentor Michael Douglas as the infamous Gordon Gekko. In that sense The World Changes is a timeless film which belies its own title. Some things never change.

The World Changes was not that well received and in some cases the film does descend into melodrama. But I think it's a whole lot better than the critics thought back in the day and Muni's indictment about Wall Street paper speculating and gambling versus an ethic of hard work is maybe more valid today than back then. I think professional film critics should give this one a second look.

Ladies, go out and rent The World Changes because Paul Muni is gorgeous! If you thought he was handsome as a brunette, just wait until you see him as a blond. Of course, by the end of the film, he's undergone severe age makeup, but feel free to drool your way through the first half of the film.

Paul lives out in the country with his family, but a chance meeting with Buffalo Bill, played by Douglass Dumbrille, inspires him to explore and make his way in the world. He gets a job in a meat-packing factory, and after marrying the boss's daughter, he transforms the industry. In addition to showing one man's struggle in the business world, the movie explores themes of ambition, ingratitude, family quarrels, and marital problems. Parts of the film are very good, but keep in mind that it was made in the early 1930s. It's worth noting that this was the first film Paul Muni made in which his character aged decades, something that would become his signature throughout his career.

Enjoy the eye candy, and the supporting cast, including Mary Astor, Guy Kibbee, Aline MacMahon, Margaret Lindsay, and Donald Cook, but you might want to watch a musical afterwards. The film takes place over several decades, and each time change shows a globe turning. The scene-change music can get stuck in your head quite easily.

Until the story dredged itself into dreary cliches, this film reminded me of Citizen Kane. Many of the scenes are extremely well-put together; Mervyn LeRoy and Tony Gaudio are as good a team as Welles and Toland (an incredible fact when you view LeRoy's tepid output from the 50's). Paul Muni portrays a blonde cowboy (!), Aline McMahon is beautiful and strong, Mary Astor is scary, and many of the characters age (unbelievably) sixty years over the course of the film. Don't skip this one, it's a fascinating watch!

Mervyn LeRoy was working pretty frantically in 1933, turning out five big features for Warner Brothers, and this social history-drama was as far from its LeRoy predecessor "Gold Diggers of 1933" as you can imagine. It's a rags-to-riches epic of Orin Nordholm (Henry O'Neill) and his wife (the always superb Aline MacMahon), founding a town in Dakota territory in 1856 and watching their namesake son (Paul Muni) become a meat tycoon with Guy Kibbee, marrying Kibbee's difficult and pretentious daughter Mary Astor, and raising a family of ingrates and opportunists. It's lavish, with big montages (the market frenzy is especially well done) and a big Warners cast, and there are some wonderful scenes--loved Custer informing Orinville in 1865 that the war is over, and MacMahon asking, "What war?" But the Muni-Astor love story (he unwisely abandons Jean Muir for her) is unconvincing, with a love-at-first-sight we don't buy (Paul Muni was many things, but sexy was not one of them), and the parade of greedy, unprincipled relatives--Donald Cook, Margaret Lindsay, Alan Mowbray--somewhat monotonous. Muni's fine, with some impressive aging makeup, and Astor, while playing a character we don't quite believe, never gave a bad performance. It's consistently entertaining and sprawling, and I love this 1930s genre of multigenerational American epics, but there are neater entries than this one.

THE WORLD CHANGES (First National Pictures, 1933), directed by Mervyn LeRoy, would be the studios' answer to the Academy Award winning "through the ages" saga of Edna Ferber's epic tale, CIMARRON (RKO, 1931) starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne, along with its similar theme to Richard Dix and Ann Harding in THE CONQUERORS (RKO, 1932) and Edward G. Robinson and Bebe Daniels for SILVER DOLLAR (Warners, 1932). THE WORLD CHANGES turned up to be an exceptional tale that, regardless of an impressive cast headed by Paul Muni, ranks one of those forgotten sagas (with some new passage elements introduced by title year superimposed over the rotating Earth), that deserves to be recognized.

The story begins in 1856 where Orin Nordholm (Henry O'Neill) and his pregnant wife, Anna (Aline MacMahon) are seen traveling with their wagon pulled by horses through unclaimed open spaces of Dakota Territory where Anna wants to stop and make this untouched area their home. Giving birth to a son they name Orin, the Nordholms build their home and develop the farmland with livestock. Living a isolated lifestyle, they soon welcome the Petersen family, Fred (Willard Robertson), his wife (Anna Q. Nilsson), son, Otto (Mickey Rooney) and their infant daughter, Selma, on their way to California. The Petersen's instead settle down and become their new neighbors in the area that's to be called Orinville. Following events that take place in 1867 and 1877, the Nordholms have high hopes for their now grown son, Orin (Paul Muni), to marry his childhood sweetheart, Selma (Jean Muir), but Orin has plans of his own. After encountering Buffalo Bill Cody (Douglass Dumbrille), Orin decides to leave Selma and his farm living existence for adventure in the outside world. After meeting with James Claffin (Guy Kibbee), a cattle buyer, Orin organizes cattle drives and forms "ice boxes on wheels." He eventually becoming partners with Claffin and president of Nordholm and Company in Chicago. By 1879, he marries Claffin's daughter, Virginia (Mary Astor), which produces sons, Richard (Tad Alexander) and John (Jackie Searle). By 1893, Orin becomes known as "the meat king of the world," but in spite of his successful business, the social-climbing Virginia looks down on her husband's profession. By 1904, the world begins to change for Orin as Virginia slowly goes insane and his adult sons, John (Gordon Westcott) and Richard (Donald Cook) preferring not to follow in family tradition. Richard marries Jennifer Clinton (Margaret Lindsay), who's just as snobbish as his mother was, settling in New York City while John prefers to get money the easy way by not working for it. Anna, a widow in her 90s, leaves her Orinville farm with Selma's granddaughter, Selma II (Jean Muir), to attend the wedding of a great-grandchild, only to find the three generations of Orins family to be nothing but disappointments to her. The world changes even further for the Nordholm's following a 1929 Stock Market Crash. Others in the cast include Patricia Ellis (Natalie Clinton); Theodore Newton (Paul Nordstrom); Alan Dinehart (Ogden Jarrett); Arthur Hohl (Patterson); William Janney (Orin Nordholm III); Alan Mowbray (Sir Philip Ivor), Marjorie Gateson (Mrs. Clinton), Samuel S. Hinds, Sidney Toler and countless others.

While Paul Muni might have followed up his prior success of I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932) with another social melodrama, THE WORLD CHANGES provided Muni not a repeat of previous movie roles but a move forward to something best suited for his talent. It allowed Muni's character to age considerably from blondish youth to very old man with white mustache, glasses and bushy eyebrows. Under heavy make-up, Muni is almost unrecognizable (looking almost like silent movie actor, Lon Chaney). Mary Astor stands out in her one terrifying scene, sporting shoulder-length hair and no make-up, and going insane. In spite of this being a showcase for Paul Muni, it's Aline MacMahon, who is also allowed to age from young to aging great-grandmother, giving a standout performance that's most remembered long after the movie is over.

Fortunately not a two-hour plus epic scale as CIMARRON, THE WORLD CHANGES, at 91 minutes, is satisfactory entertainment. Over the years, it had limited television revivals, including Philadelphia's WKBS, Channel 48 in 1974, along with cable television's Turner Network Television (1989) and Turner Classic Movies (since 1994) often as part of Paul Muni tributes. A worthy look of old-style "through the ages" film-making sagas indicating as how the world changes. (***)