The Match King

This is probably the best performance you'll see by Warren William--a very popular leading man in the early to mid 1930s but who has been all but forgotten today. And, since he's no longer a household name, it's not surprising that this film is very much unknown.

This story is based on a real individual named Ivar Kreuger, who tried to corner the world market on matches by being about the most unscrupulous and power-hungry man of his day. The film concerns the many ways he shows that down deep he has no soul and there is no sin beyond him if it gains him more money and power.

William is exceptional in the role and the film is fascinating from start to finish. Considering the film is about matches, it must have taken considerable writing, acting and directing talents to produce such a captivating film.

A totally unscrupulous cad plots & schemes to finally become THE MATCH KING of the world, oblivious to the many lives he's destroyed. But with blackmail & murder part of his personal arsenal, how long can it be until avenging fate topples him from his throne?

Warren William dominates this splendid, albeit neglected, crime drama. As in some of his other roles of the same period, William displays his talent for portraying characters simultaneously repulsive & appealing. With his sophisticated good looks & deep, interesting voice, Warren William was the perfect embodiment of the corporate climber, the crook, the conniver. It is a shame this fine actor is generally forgotten today.

Although the plot is firmly centered around William, his co-stars all do a fine job. Brassy Glenda Farrell appears all too briefly as William's first betrayed lover; this was an actress who could really light up the screen, but she's only given two scenes here. Lili Damita is fetching as the movie actress who attracts William. Hardie Albright is a younger relative of William's who gets pulled into his orbit. Blink your eyes and you'll miss Alan Hale as a timber baron. Movie mavens will recognize Charles Sellon as an elderly Match Company executive.

The film makes good use of an intriguing series of short opening scenes, showing various classes of people around the world using that indispensable enabler of civilization, the match.

There was a real life Match King upon whom this drama was based. Ivar Kreuger (1880-1932) was a financial genius whose Swedish Match Company controlled more than half the world's output of matches by 1928. This was accomplished through amazingly speculative deals involving long-term loans to poor nations desiring US dollars, in exchange for match monopolies. As a result, Kreuger's empire grew immensely rich and diversified in many ways. The bubble was soon to burst. World wide depression hit in 1929 and economic pressures mounted steadily. Rather than wait for his holdings to collapse in bankruptcy, Kreuger shot himself in a Paris hotel room on March 12, 1932, aged 52. Subsequent investigations showed his companies to be riddled with fraud & forgery.

This gangster-styled story set in the world of business shows the rise of a janitor Paul Kroll, who as a janitor in the US returns to Sweden and rises to own and become a monopoly in the world matches business using unscrupulous and immoral antics. You know he has to fall. Good acting by the always good Warren William and an extremely beautiful LIly Damita as the "woman". The difference between making the movie today, than back then, would be the lack of melodrama between the William and Damita character (heck! it was the era of the woman's picture) Formulaic stuff but good formula all the same with an unusually expensive look (good cinematography, tons of location shooting, great sets, lots of wide shots) for a WB thirties picture tells you this was probably an expected blockbuster in the year of 1932.

True story of not, this tale of a swindler who fleeced banks and governments throughout Europe is a ridiculous movie. Warren William is seriously miscast in the title role, though perhaps his ardent fans back in the '30s swallowed this dumb picture.

Growing up watching these movies on TV and later at revival house showings, I became enamored of the formula Warner Brothers movies, especially those starring Edward G. Robinson, that painted stories of rags to riches, with Edward G. Inevitably suffering the sin of hubris and seeing his life fall apart. "I Loved a Woman", "Silver Dollar", "Smart Money" and of course "Little Caesar" followed this pattern, but it doesn't work with Warren William.

Right from the beginning when we meet WW looking rather foolish sweeping the sidewalks (including used match sticks), to his rise as a monopolist controlling the entire match industry, the film is phony as hell.

Concocting a sort of Pyramid or Ponzi scheme, he ends up financing his empire with loans he never intends to pay back, and in the process supposedly saves governments that are tottering in financial difficulties, but it's obvious this scheme will eventually all fall apart. The film only comes alive when he romances a beautiful film star played by Lili Damita (who made one of my all-time favorite movies "This Is the Night"), with a memorable subplot involving a gypsy violinist. The movie's finale, following a "dying-flash" presentiment montage depicting all the folks he's swindled, is pure corn.

William presents a great screen presence, similar to that of John Barrymore, in his films, which works well when he's playing a suave lawyer type, but here he's smug and detestable throughout. Even the notion that the lowly match is the most valuable commodity in the world comes off as silly right from the git-go.

It's a Warren William showcase that should be seen along with his other ruthless tycoon triumphs, such as Employees Entrance (1933) and Skyscraper Souls (1932). Cagney personified the street tough with a gun and the guts to power his way into the penthouse. William personifies the unscrupulous aristocrat with the charm and polish who's already in the penthouse. What both have that makes each so convincing is total self-assurance. When Kroll (William) says: Wait till it (the bad) happens, then I'll take care of it-- we believe him, just as much as we believe Cagney's snarl. Today, Cagney is still a household name, while William has unfortunately been forgotten, the victim of an A-picture career that peaked during the forbidden pre-Code era that never turned up on popular TV.

Here William plays a real life character (Swedish match king Ivar Kreuger) who schemes and manipulates his way to the top of Europe's financial empire. Oddly, the schemes and shenanigans remain illuminating of our own time some 80 years later, as other reviewers point out. After all, it looks like Kroll relies on a Ponzi setup in assembling his empire much in the way Bernie Madoff swindled billions from investors before finally taking a fall. In fact, a viewer can probably learn more about the anatomy of our own recent financial meltdown from this antique than from anything on the current screen.

All in all, this celluloid obscurity remains both broadly topical and a fascinating glimpse of capitalism's perils and attractions at the top. It's also a chance to catch one of Hollywood's most compelling actors in a tailor-made part. William may be unknown to the broader public, but it looks like a new appreciation is building among old film buffs.