American Madness
by Allan Dwan, Frank Capra, Roy William Neill
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Product details
Actor: Constance Cummings, Gavin Gordon, Kay Johnson, Pat O'Brien, Walter HustonDirector: Allan Dwan, Frank Capra, Roy William Neill
Cinematographer: Joseph Walker
Editor: Maurice Wright
Producer: Harry Cohn
Writer: Robert Riskin
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Black & White, NTSC
Running Time: 75 minutes
Release Date: 1997-06-03
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Studio: Sony Pictures
VHS Movie Reviews of American Madness
Movie Review: Quite a film
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a riveting film and has all of the elements that made Frank Capra an enormously popular and distinguished director. The screenplay by Robert Riskin is magnificent and can hold its head up alongside his other screenplays for Capra ("Lost Horizon," "It Happened One Night," "You Can't Take It with You," and "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town"). Walter Huston's performance in the lead role of honest bank president Tom Dickson is one of his finest (meaning one of the finest of the period), as is Pat O'Brien's as bank-robber-turned-honest-bank-cashier Matt Brown. The sprawling plot--a lucrative bank merger driven by a hostile board of directors, a bank heist that triggers a panic, a suspicion of infidelity that causes Dicson to turn on his wife, a long engagement seemingly going nowhere between Brown and Dickson's secretary Helen--culminates in a full-blown run on the bank that is magnificently choreographed and startlingly real.
There are many beautiful things in this movie: close-ups of the locking mechanism on the bank's safe deposit door, close-ups of clock faces, wide shots of the bank lobby, broodingly-lit scenes of the vault that anticipate Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity," and marvelously crisp editing throughout. One of Capra's best achievements is the underlying feeling of control and watchfulness at one level while everything else in the movie's world seems to descend into madness. It would not be a Capra film if there were no humor in it, and there are many charmingly funny moments throughout. Dickson's banter with his employees, from encouraging the romance between Brown and Helen to polishing the star on the breast of the bank's security guard to ordering a uniform for a lowly janitor sweeping the lobby floor, are pure Capra and, with Huston's acting, utterly believable.
Capra surely was making propaganda with this film: in Aug. 1932, when the film was released, there had already been many bank failures and many more would come in the next few months. The film assigns the blame for such panics to malicious, careless gossip quickly transmitted by telephone. In a particularly brilliant scene, a series of telephone conversations, filmed in tight close-ups, is broken up and spliced together to breed a feeling of mounting craziness and inevitable collapse (one of the callers is a dead-ringer for Joan Crawford--could it be she in an uncredited role?).
Capra ultimately reassures his audience that Dixon's bank (and others like his) are operated by honest executives who don't believe in fleecing their customers and making the fastest buck. That may or may not have been true in 1932, but I can only admire Capra's and Riskin's nerve in making a movie that so eerily and accurately drew on the headlines of the moment and that tried to reassure an audience who had come to the theatre in 1932 to escape the frightening world outside. The movie is wonderfully entertaining and beautifully crafted, and it deserves to be much better known.
Movie Review: A Run on the Bank!
Summary: 4 Stars
American Madness is a film about the insanity of a crowd and the way a rumor can turn into a major problem. For fans of It's a Wonderful Life, this film is the problems of the Savings and Loan under a microscope. A bank is thriving during the Great Depression and is still able to lend large sums of money in hopes of pushing the economy back up to it's height. This is all thanks to the man who runs the bank (Walter Huston), fighting against his superiors the whole way. However, one of the workers (Gavin Gordon) gets into trouble with a group of gangsters, and out of fear, he aids them in robbing the bank. Now the bank has two major problems. There is a run on the bank as soon as the public finds out (and believes millions of dollars were stolen). Also, there is a murder/theft investigation among the employees for the money stolen and the guard who was killed.
This film takes a bit of time to get going since it is important that we gain some sort of fondness for all of the characters but also to understand the situation of the bank and the reasons why it is so important that it stay open. As always in Frank Capra's typical films, there is a great deal of comradory and the idea that good can triumph over adversity. It doesn't matter how many times you've seen his films or heard that theory, you can't help but get caught up in it when it's happening on the screen. This, like most of Capra's other films, is a true classic.
Movie Review: A fine, little-known Capra drama
Summary: 4 Stars
Frank Capra's fast-paced Depression-era drama stars Walter Huston as a bank manager facing a financial panic that leads to a run on his bank. It's easy to peg this early talkie as a dry run for "It's A Wonderful Life," but it also stands on its own as a fine film, shot with a nice noir-ish feel. The desperation and panic of the time is painfully palpable throughout this film, and the indiscriminate hysteria of the opening sequences ratchets up into individualized, personal agony as Huston steels himself to lose all that he's ever worked for. Tense and anxiety-provoking; worth checking out!Movie Review: A change of pace for Capra
Summary: 4 Stars
American Madness deals with a mid-size bank during the Depression years. Walter Huston is the bank president who must deal with a Board of Directors that wants him to stop loaning money to customers who they consider to be bad risks, a dishonest cashier, a robbery, a bored wife and a run on his bank that threatens to wipe out everything. Although all turns out OK in the end, this is a slight change of pace for Capra in that the story is more of a drama than his other pictures. This is not to say that this doesn't rank high with his other masterpieces such as "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" or "Lost Horizon". Watch carefully to see some character actors that appear in later Capra films. A film well worth seeking out.
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