Success at Any Price

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. stars in a version of John Howard Lawson's play done for the Group Theater. Knowing what I know about Lawson his original work on Broadway had to be different.

For one thing the Broadway cast character names were all Jewish, here they're ethnically neutral. Secondly Lawson was a future member of the Hollywood Ten and he never denied he was a Communist. What he wouldn't do was name other Communists. Knowing that I'm sure the original play was an attack on the big business structure of capitalism itself.

The ethnically neutral Fairbanks is a slum kid who was just witness to a brother shot to dead in the mean streets. He asks friend Colleen Moore to get him into an advertising agency where she works. Still frustrated and angry he comes to the attention of Frank Morgan who had not yet graduated to playing buffoons. He offers Fairbanks a chance to rise and Fairbanks does it with gusto.

Fairbanks even takes away Morgan's mistress Genevieve Tobin who he thinks represents success. In a way she does, a trophy wife who likes to spend with hubby all day at the office earning and accumulating what she does spend.

Watching Success At Any Price, it's title changed from Success Story, you can see where the Marxist polemics are dropped in the story. Still it's a powerful piece with Fairbanks as intense as he was playing Czar Peter in Catherine The Great with Elizabeth Bergner.

The end however is a total cop out and you know Lawson who did help in adapting his work to the big screen had something different in mind.

How different? Think of that film where Rock Hudson played John Wesley Hardin and you'll know what I mean.

Fascinating if minor 30s look at a driven man who sacrifices all for success in business. Or does he? Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. is excellent as Joe Martin, whose brother, as the film opens, has been gunned down by the police. Fairbanks is determined to go straight and be somebody, but how to do it? He's uneducated and from the wrong side of town. But his girl friend (Colleen Moore) has a good job and she gets him hired as a grunt in an advertising agency. But Fairbanks bristles at being an underling to a bunch of talentless college grads who function mainly as yes men to the owner, Frank Morgan.

Morgan has a keen eye and appreciates Fairbanks' honesty and moves him up. But Fairbanks has an eye for Morgan's friend, Genevieve Tobin, a shallow but pretty woman who simply wants to be kept. Fairbansk goes into overdrive to win Tobin and destroy Morgan. But what does he gain? Really interesting premise and excellent performances by all make this a little gem not to be missed.

Allen Vincent is the college boy. Nydia Westman and Edward Everett Horton (small part here) are fellow workers. Henry Kolker, Bess Flowers, Florence Roberts, Theresa Harris co-star.

Moore (a huge star in silent films) is interesting even though she is 10 years too old for Fairbanks. This is her second to last film.

And I suspect the "happy ending" was tacked on......

...seems to be the moral of this Depression era tale of young Joe Martin (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) which begins at the time of the gangland death of Joe's mobster brother. Joe wants to get money, to be somebody like his brother was, but to do it inside the system so he doesn't wind up prematurely dead in a solid gold coffin like his brother did.

So young Joe goes to work as a clerk in the office where his girlfriend Sarah (Colleen Moore) works as a secretary. At first he chafes at the grind of office work, even gets fired, but the boss (Frank Morgan) likes Joe's moxy and promises him a higher paying position if he can straighten out the mess of an ad campaign he has dumped on his desk by 8PM that night. Of course Joe succeeds.

Joe quickly climbs the ladder of success. It doesn't bother Joe that he has to climb over the backs of other employees and people close to him as he scales that ladder either. Soon Joe has his eye not only on the boss' job but the boss' mistress, Agnes (Genevieve Tobin). He ultimately gets both the job and the mistress, even marrying her although she clearly doesn't love Joe or even care that much about Joe's wealth. She cares more about fun than money, and she has plenty of that since Joe is working late every night. So, in the end, Joe finds himself at the very place he started out not wanting to be - buried - although alive - in a solid gold coffin of wealth. He lacks no possessions but has nobody he can trust with whom to share it. What will become of Joe? Watch and find out.

This film is very well paced and I was particularly impressed with Fairbanks' snappy and gritty performance in a film I'd heard nothing about until it showed up on TCM. And that cast - you'll never see this bunch together in another film. Frank Morgan before he went to MGM, Fairbanks Jr. after Warner Brothers, fine supporting performers Edward Everett Horton and Nydia Westman as an unlikely office romance that leads to matrimony, and finally Colleen Moore. Ms. Moore was a huge silent star who turned her movie money into a fortune in the stock market and didn't really need to continue working in the sound era even though she had a great voice. I think what surprised me here was that she looked so unglamorous compared to her silent film roles. She really looked way too old to be Fairbanks' girlfriend. Part of the problem was her actual age - she was 10 years older than he was. The other part was that she was very plainly and drably dressed and made up such that she almost seemed more like a maiden aunt than anything else.

At any rate, a highly recommended little precode.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. I believe is remembered today as an extremely attractive and sophisticated older man. In truth, he was a wonderful, underrated actor who distinguished himself in films beginning in 1916 and ending in 1989.

Like John Barrymore, Fairbanks Jr.'s performances hold up well today. He had an acting technique that does not come off now as hammy or melodramatic (Barrymore was only melodramatic when the part called for it, as in Twentieth Century).

In "Success at Any Price," he plays Joe, a young man who came from a bad neighborhood, where his brother was shot and killed in 1927.

Joe wants to be in a legitimate business and make a lot of money. However, he's not a member of any old boys' network unless you want to count Murder Inc., and he has no real education.

His girlfriend Sarah (Colleen Moore) gets him hired at the advertising agency where she works. Of course, since he's a young man in a hurry, he forgets that you at least should be polite, which he is not.

Eventually as he moves up, he throws Sarah over because he wants his boss' (Frank Morgan) girlfriend, the shallow and greedy Agnes (Genevieve Tobin). This proves an unfortunate mistake, like a few other of his desires.

Good movie with brisk direction and good performances. This was silent film great Colleen Moore's second to last film. She was about 33 here, three years past the sell date for women in Hollywood. She retired, lived until she was 88 and was very successful writing about investing, which she had done very well on her $12,500 a week salary in the '20s -- equivalent to nearly $170,000 a week today.

Genevieve Tobin was the same age as Moore and lived into her '90s - and they were both 10 years older than Fairbanks and looked it. I wonder what the rationale was behind their casting, though they were both good.

Fairbanks is always worth seeing, so I enjoyed this film.

Typical rags too riches tale with Man and Women from the wrong side of the tracks trying to make it BIG in N.Y.C. Joe Martin (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) and Sarah Griswold (Colleen Moore) climb the corporate ladder by two (2) separate routes. SARAH works her way up the secretarial pool becoming personal assistant too the boss Raymond Merritt (Frank Morgan), who spends his free time with his main squeeze Agnes Carter (Genevieve Tobin).

Hard driving JOE may lack sophistication but has a ruthless drive and will too win that his College breed competitors cannot match. He sets his eye on not only on taking over the company from MERRITT but also AGNES. He succeeds in both but loses SARAH in the shuffle and he drives AGNES away. Only at the end does he realize the error of his ways and is reunited with SARAH, nuff said.

I watched this film because it stared fourth billed Colleen Moore. Five (5) years earlier Ms. Moore was the toast of Hollywood and one of the highest paid stars of 'Tinsel-Town'. She is barely recognizable here, looking closer to '55' then the '35' she was. The elfin sprite that delighted audiences in the 20's looked more like a middle-aged house-wife. Ms. Moore would make one more movie then retire, THE SCARLETT LETTER (1934).

Unlike some of her contemporaries Ms. Moore though had a bonus talent. She was REALLY good with her money and built a considerable fortune and enjoyed a very comfortable retirement. Those with a interest can see her doll house 'The Enchanted Castle' at the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago. It is worth seeing, just as her silent pictures are.