The World Gone Mad

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.

... and that seems to be what lots of people complain about with this film, all because Mill Creek inappropriately included it in a public domain pack of 50 horror films when this is actually a crime/newspaper caper film. But don't take it out on Pat O'Brien, Neil Hamilton, Louis Calhern and company, because that was a decision made 75 years after this film was made!

The title is probably what got it included, and the title itself is a bit of a mystery for there is nothing of cosmos or craziness in this film. Instead it is about the murder and set up for disgrace of an honest DA (Wallis Clark) by gangsters, and how his newspaper columnist friend (Pat O'Brien) tries to solve the crime and redeem the name of his deceased pal, if for nothing else than for the sake of his widow and son.

The acting of the well known names here is very good. Little Majestic Pictures must have shot the works as far as budget to get so many relatively big names. But the screenplay is another matter. Sure, the plot as a whole makes sense, but there are holes in the plot that make no sense! Pat O'Brien's character seems to be psychic as far as figuring out almost immediately who the trigger man is. How? This is never explained. When the DA's good name is smeared the janitor at the rooming house where his body is found has a whole story about how the DA came there regularly for months to shack up with a lady not his wife and drink heavily. OK, so the janitor is lying. But if he is lying, why not lie completely? Instead he gives a totally accurate description of the girl who was one of the co-conspirators in the DA's murder. Why? You never see this janitor again, so maybe for doing such a bad job of lying for them, the mobsters fit him for a cement overcoat. We'll never know. There are lots of other plot holes too, but these are two big examples.

There is lots of precode naughtiness here, including language and sexual inuendos, and one almost graphic sex scene for the day of two unwed people in bed together. However, the total darkness and the fact that the scene is almost too prolonged takes away from its punch.

Overall, not a bad way to spend 70 minutes.

Most of these 30's thrillers/murder mysteries have been forgotten by now because, let's face it, they haven't got much to offer apart from – occasionally – a good story. This little film has a very decent story, fluently written dialogues and some really adequate acting performances, yet it simple can't be called memorable because of the shabbiness of the production. Pat O'Brien ("Hell's House") stars as an obtrusive reporter investigating the vicious assassination of a befriended District Attorney and unravels almost single-handedly an entire network of corruption, blackmail and political scandals. His performance is very good and he gets to say some very slick lines, yet the movie lacks a lot of action and continuity. There's one sequence near the beginning that I found particularly smart, showing how the assignment for murder is passed on to several involved parties and thus creating a complex structure that sadly never gets properly clarified. There are some more ingenious and dared ideas in the plot, but it all looks too poor for you to care. Feel free to avoid this one.

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.

Not really sure what to say about this one, aside from I didn't like it much. The actors were all fine, there were a few laughs here and there. The ending wasn't too bad, but I suppose after the mess of a plot that came before it, that's not a huge feat. Half the time you have no idea what's going on, and by the time you might have a clue, you don't care anymore. This plods along at a pace most snails would be ashamed of, and I found myself fighting to stay awake the whole time. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a slow-paced movie, so long as it keeps your attention. This doesn't. Overall, is this a good movie? No, not really. Could it cure insomnia? I wouldn't be surprised.

3.5/10