The movie is essentially an extended sermon on the evils of the demon drink. The wretched script was written by John Lee Mahin.
There are two parallel plots which gradually converge. One begins in the South, the other in the North. The time is 1916, with much excitement about the upcoming election with Democrat incumbent Woodrow Wilson expected to win due to his solemn promise to keep America out of the war.
Up north sleazy political operative Pow Tarleton (Walter Huston) is also a drunkard. His son Kip Tarleton (Robert Young) is, like Maggie May, a puritan.
Wilson is re-elected and immediately breaks his election promises.
And Prohibition is brought in. Kip and Maggie May are delighted. They’re keen moral crusaders.
The plot is rambling and disconnected and never really develops a strong narrative momentum. At 118 minutes this movie is about 40 minutes too long.
I’m not sure what the novel was like but the movie is trying to deliver two messages simultaneously - that alcohol is totally evil and that Prohibition just made things worse. It is possible to believe both those things but the movie never quite reconciles the two arguments. It also delivers both messages in an incredibly heavy-handed way.
The dialogue is clunky, feels phoney and often gives way to speechifying.
The acting is mostly terrible. Even Walter Huston is hard to take. The one bright spot is Myrna Loy as Roger Jr’s deliciously wicked actress girlfriend. Myrna Loy was such a wonderful bad girl in the pre-code era but she doesn’t get enough screen time to save this clunker.
And just when you think things cannot get any worse along comes Jimmy Durante as a prohibition enforcement agent. By this time you’ll probably be really feeling like a drink, even if it is bathtub gin.
The idea of a movie about a social problem in which the cure ends up being much worse than the disease is fine. It’s just handled in a very clumsy fashion and the movie is a chaotic mess. This is a truly awful movie. Avoid.
This movie is included in the Warner Archive Forbidden Hollywood Volume 6 DVD boxed set. The transfer is OK.
Dee, testing to if I get through.
ReplyDeleteDee, testing.
ReplyDeleteDee, good write-up on a movie that you don't recommend. I first viewed THE WET PARADE(1932) on Turner Classic Movies(TCM) in 2011.
ReplyDeleteMy family on both sides were moonshiners and bootleggers during Prohibition. They drank it as well as sold it. Although, to her credit, my maternal grandmother Lillie told my grandfather Press that she would take their two children and leave him if he didn't stop making and selling moonshine. He stopped. Also, I've seen closeup what addiction to alcohol has done to members of my family and others. Alcoholism is a disease and should be treated as such. I'm not going to get on a soapbox here, but most times when something is prohibited, someone will make it their business to see that you can get it one way or another.
I think this movie is a historical curio that meant well, but just didn't hit the mark as it should have. In my opinion one problem is that the movie doesn't attempt to justify either side of the national controversy over Prohibition. So, we have a muddled script. This could be the fault of the MGM studio not wanting to offend the wet's or the dry's.
I don't want to give away too much, but in the movie a "forgotten killer" of Prohibition is mentioned. The eye doctor(Gordon De Main) explains what caused one of the characters going blind from drinking poisoned liquor, "The laboratory reports a high percentage of menthol in the liquor." Maggie May(Dorothy Jordan) asks, "What do you mean doctor?" He replies, "It's a chemical put in the liquor by the government to make it undrinkable, and sometimes the bootlegger forgets to take it out." Industrial alcohol was use by bootleggers and depending on how much was consumed, 1,000's were killed or blinded during Prohibition.
The movie isn't muddled about the assumption that every level of government is corrupt, and it has a strong anti-war statement. Also, there are two harrowing death scenes that probably wouldn't have passed two years later under the production code.
THE WET PARADE is a time capsule of the 1916-1920's era and I think should be viewed at least one time.
It's true that even the weakest pre-code movies usually have something going for them.
DeleteI think you've hit the nail on the head with your remark about a muddled script. That's probably the problem with Walter Huston's performance - he just wasn't sure how to play this role.
And it does have Myrna Loy who does what she can to try to save the picture.
Dee, I agree that even, "the weakest pre-code movies usually have something going for them." The historical aspect of THE WET PARADE is interesting to me. You describe Pow Tarleton(Walter Huston) as a "sleazy political operative," which he is. Through Pow's sleazy sopped huckster character, we see the political movement for prohibition slammed through helped by the war effort, which is ironic because Pow's soapbox speech in support of President Woodrow extols his keeping the USA out of the war. After Wilson is re-elected(barely and was in dispute for a time, and many believed that Republican Charles Evans Hughes actually won. Sounds familiar) the USA enters the Great War(World War I). This leads to the Food Control Act, which helps push through prohibition. I wonder if Pow ever realizes any of this. Also, I think Pow's speech for Wilson and the Hughes speaker(Clarence Wilson) sound very much like today's.
DeleteI'll watch Myrna Low in anything. Loy is a longtime favorite.
Myrna Loy in the pre-code era was just a constant joy. No-one played a sexy bad girl with more relish. And with such style.
DeleteDee, looks like we belong to the Myrna Loy fan club.
DeleteYep, especially Myrna as a bad girl. The Mask of Fu Manchu!
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