Symphony of Six Million

Symphony of Six Million

Director: Gregory La Cava

USA 1932

94 min

A City --

Six million human hearts -

Each with a dream --

a hope -- a goal ---

Each soul a vagrant

melody in the eternal

Symphony of Life!

Well, you wouldn't be surprised by a laugh from a modern audience at that intro - but it actually sums up the spirit of this film pretty good.

A lovely pre-code melodrama, about a poor and loud Jewish family living in the ghetto. It doesn't take too many minutes into the film until you realize that one of the three children, Felix Klauber, has high ambitions - he wants to be a doctor. His best friend is Jessica, another poor ghetto child with a spine problem, Jessica.

Felix and Jessica being bullied by some tough guys.

Felix reads a book while playing chess with his temperamental father.

We jump ahead a few years. Felix (Ricardo Cortez) is now a beloved doctor in the ghetto, and Jessica (Irene Dunne) is a school teacher for blind children - all the while limping around because of her spine defect. Felix seems to enjoy his life and get energy for helping those in need, but his brat brother Magnus has some other plans for his talented brother. Magnus manipulates their mother to convince Felix that she doesn't enjoy her life, and that she wishes for him to get a doctor's practice in the fancier part of the town so the family can move. Said and done (who wouldn't do anything for their mother?).

Still best friends, Felix visits Jessica and the blind children every once in a while.

"Oh, Felix, I don't like it here..." That spineless woman!

We take another leap in time. Felix now has a fancy office uptown, and financially supports his whole family. He is too busy with appointments with frustrated high society women who wants to be examined by their handsome, young doctor, that he nearly looses all contact with his family - and Jessica. When he misses an operation on one of Jessica's blind boy students, and he sadly looses his life, Jessica gives him an eye-opener to get nightmares about. What has happened to Felix? What happened to his strong will and moral? Is he happy with his life, even if it includes a lot of money and social status?

A sick boy, waiting for his favorite doctor - Felix Klauber.

Who wouldn't go to the doctor more often if he looked like Ricardo Cortez?

When he finally realizes that he wants to spend more time with his family, he gets to them just in time for his father to get a brain tumour. And who does his family think is the most suitable person to operate him, if not Felix.

It is no surprise that the director behind this enthrilling film is Gregory La Cava, directing My Man Godfrey (1936) four years later. The whole film is very beautiful and engaging - I especially admire the operating scene where Felix is forced to perform brain surgery on his own father. The music grows more and more intense, until it abruptly stops dead when Felix grabs the first operating instrument. It almost feels mean - in an important and intense scene like that, a little musical distraction would help to tell the film apart from real life - but oh, no. This is serious stuff, and you're supposed to feel it.

Behind the camera is cinematographer Leo Tover, also responsible for the photography work of two other films I've reviewed - Thirteen Women (1932) and I'm No Angel (1933).

As Felix grabs the scalpel, the merciless silence falls upon us.

Felix Klauber - not so popular in the ghetto anymore.

A great example of the beautiful photo by Leo Tover.

One more thing. Before seeing this film, I had only encountered Cortez in sleezy bad guy parts (something he is exceptionally good at), so I had some worries that he wouldn't be able to put off a serious dramatic role. But was I wrong? Oh, yes.
More Cortez for the people!

The Stolen Jools (1931)

The Stolen Jools (alt. The Slippery Pearls)

Director: William C. McGann

USA 1931

20 min

See it on The Internet Archive here.

This is that kind of film that is wonderfully amusing to read serious reviews about. "Lame excuse to put as many stars in a movie as possible" is one comment on IMDb. Oh yes, raising funds for the National Variety Artists Tuberculosis Sanitarium is a really lame excuse to appear in a motion picture for. (Notice that the film is in "co-operation with Chesterfield Cigarettes"...)

Anyway, this is a short, entertaining film stuffed with some of the greatest stars of that day. Let me describe the very simple story for you.

The films begins with a police officer, played by Wallace Beery, answering the office phone.

"What? A murder? That ain't news, we had three yesterday."

Let go for that. But at a Hollywood party the day before, Norma Shearer got her jewels stolen (or the gangsters Edward G. Robinson and George E. Stone got them stolen after stealing them from her) - now that's urgent business! Beery collects his men (one of them, Buster Keaton) and sends out a detective (Eddie Kane) to find out who among the Hollywood stars has the jewels.

Detective Kane investigates the many Hollywood stars (among them El Brendel, playing a Swedish waiter with an unplacable accent), until child star Mitzi Green solves the case:

"Mitzi, you just saved the plot of the story!"

"And the moral of this story is: Never spank a child on an empty stomach! [horrendous laughter]"

Now, how can you not love that? Maybe if you're that kind of person who only allows himself/herself to enjoy sophisticated, well-planned comedy, in fear that a cheap laugh might undermine his/her intelligence. I enjoyed it, and it seems like a lot of the actors did too.

And here's a part of the cast!

Wallace Beery, as the Police Sergeant

Buster Keaton, as a police man.

Edward G. Robinson and George E. Stone as themselves.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, as policemen.

Our Gang, as themselves (Farina, Stymie, Chubby, Mary Ann Jackson, Shirley Jean Rickert, Echo, Wheezer and Pete the Pup.)

Norma Shearer, as herself.

Hedda Hopper, as herself.

Joan Crawford, as herself.

William Haines, as himself.

Dorothy Lee, as herself.

Victor McLaglen, as himself.

El Brendel, as the Swedish waiter.

Winnie Lightner, as herself.

Fifi D'Orsay, as herself.

Warner Baxter, as himself.

Irene Dunne, as herself.

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, as themselves.

Claudia Dell, as herself.

Eugene Pallette, as a Reporter.

Gary Cooper, as a Reporter (named Cooper).

Charles "Buddy" Rogers, as himself.

Maurice Chevalier, as himself.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr, as himself.

Loretta Young, as herself.

Richard Barthelmess, as himself.

Bebe Daniels, as herself.

Joe E. Brown, as himself (uncredited).

Barbara Stanwyck, as herself.

Fay Wray, as herself.

Mitzi Green, as herself.

Thirteen Women (1932)

Thirteen Women
Director: George Archainbaud
USA 1932
59 min


A woman, Ursula Georgi (Myrna Loy), seeks revenge for being excluded from a school club for being half Asian by killing off her previous schoolmates one by one. How does she do it? She uses her psychotic powers and manipulates a fortune teller called Swami Yogadashi (C. Henry Gordon) to send them letters were he predicts their bloodfilled destinies.

Some of the thirteen women. Jill Esmond, Mary Duncan, Kay Johnson, Irene Dunne, Florence Eldridge, Peg Entwistle, Harriet Hagman and Julie Haydon.

This is a quite bad movie. I'm surprised to say that about a pre-code film with Irene Dunne and Myrna Loy, but it is. The acting is in that state of melodrama that it feels like the films is from 1902 rather than 1932. But you can always laugh at it.
Also - there are too many characters. It is of course quite amusing to watch a lot of women with bobbed hairdoes die in different ways, but it slices up the picture too much. And they all look the same!
But I feel that I have to praise Loy for her performance. It is nice to have seen her in one of the evil-Asian-type-casted characters she played before her break-through with Manhattan Melodrama (1934), and she is very creepy.




This film is probably best remembered for being the only surviving footage of legend Peg Entwistle, "The Hollywood Sign Girl". Two days after the premiere of the film she climbed up on the "H" of the Hollywood sign (then reading "Hollywoodland") and jumped to her death. I include mentioned footage in the film clip below, which also shows the evil Ursula Georgi.





This film was supposed to have been 73 minutes long, but was cut to 59 minutes for two reasons. The first reason being that the film was everything but a box-office hit, the other reason being that Irene Dunne had just made success at another studio, and by cutting some scenes the film would focus more on her character.

Funny trivia: Myrna Loy was chosen for the half-Asian character before real Asian Anna May Wong...

Myrna Loy as Ursula Georgi.