It's not a good film. It's a superficial telling of a series of events presented with as much emotion as a PowerPoint presentation padded out with a completely unexplored and unbelievable romantic sub-plot.
This one resulted from Daryl Zanuck's policy of ripping stories out of the headlines to make in to movies. This story was massive news in 1932. It's based very loosely on the true story of a phenomenally successful businessman whose meteoric rise to fame and fortune had just been exposed as being one of the biggest financial frauds in history. Zanuck's Warner Brothers hit on a golden seam of public outrage in the early 30s of making films about those awful rich bankers and crooked businessmen who "caused" The Depression - the masses liked to have someone to blame. At Warner Brothers, that person was usually Warren William.
Although Warren William was the obvious choice it's lazy casting. William does a competent job but nothing different to what he usually does. He was great at what he did (fantastic in Skyscraper Souls and when he took the mickey out of himself in Gold Diggers of 1933, was actually quite funny) but in this he was exactly the same as in virtually everything else he did...and not very Swedish! Also, seeing him being a down and out street sweeper at the beginning of this film was so un-Warren William that it looked ridiculous.
The rest of the cast didn't help this either. They were either faceless cardboard cut-out banker types or characterless pretty women who come and go so fast you hardly get to know their names, never mind find out what they're thinking.
Why else is this a poor film? It tries to cover too much ground in too little time. There's no exploration of his character, nothing is offered to explain why he's so callous other than that he's played by Warren William. It offers no emotional engagement whatsoever and, maybe because it's set in Sweden and countless other places (which are all absolutely identical!), it doesn't even have that familiar gritty feel of a 30s Warner Brothers movie.
A modern comparison would be The Wolf of Wall Street. Whereas in that, Leo DiCaprio was a loveable rogue whom you really felt you knew, in this Warren William is just coldly enacting snippets from a newspaper story. Had James Cagney been given the role this could have been something special.
This one resulted from Daryl Zanuck's policy of ripping stories out of the headlines to make in to movies. This story was massive news in 1932. It's based very loosely on the true story of a phenomenally successful businessman whose meteoric rise to fame and fortune had just been exposed as being one of the biggest financial frauds in history. Zanuck's Warner Brothers hit on a golden seam of public outrage in the early 30s of making films about those awful rich bankers and crooked businessmen who "caused" The Depression - the masses liked to have someone to blame. At Warner Brothers, that person was usually Warren William.
Although Warren William was the obvious choice it's lazy casting. William does a competent job but nothing different to what he usually does. He was great at what he did (fantastic in Skyscraper Souls and when he took the mickey out of himself in Gold Diggers of 1933, was actually quite funny) but in this he was exactly the same as in virtually everything else he did...and not very Swedish! Also, seeing him being a down and out street sweeper at the beginning of this film was so un-Warren William that it looked ridiculous.
The rest of the cast didn't help this either. They were either faceless cardboard cut-out banker types or characterless pretty women who come and go so fast you hardly get to know their names, never mind find out what they're thinking.
Why else is this a poor film? It tries to cover too much ground in too little time. There's no exploration of his character, nothing is offered to explain why he's so callous other than that he's played by Warren William. It offers no emotional engagement whatsoever and, maybe because it's set in Sweden and countless other places (which are all absolutely identical!), it doesn't even have that familiar gritty feel of a 30s Warner Brothers movie.
A modern comparison would be The Wolf of Wall Street. Whereas in that, Leo DiCaprio was a loveable rogue whom you really felt you knew, in this Warren William is just coldly enacting snippets from a newspaper story. Had James Cagney been given the role this could have been something special.