![]() ![]() The building is inhabited by a kindly Jewish jeweler, Jacob (the great Jean Herscholt), who is in love with a model cum prostitute, Jenny ( Anita Page). That he and Lynn are the film’s token ‘good couple’ raises some issues that I touch on below. It’s galling when the tactics work, even as he becomes instantly jealous and controlling at the drop of the hat. His attempts to flirt with Lynn are grating, as he follows her and pesters her with continuous libidinous advances. Tom is a bank clerk with a sense of entitlement taller than Dwight’s building. That is where Lynn and her enthusiastic beau Tom ( Norman Foster) diverge. It doesn’t take a strict Freudian to point out that every time Dwight refers to his ‘building’ you could substitute the word ‘penis’ in there and not lose any essential meanings. That being said, David’s obsession with his building also adds to the enjoyment of his character. He’s the type of man who destroys lives, but his motives are refreshingly simple: if it wasn’t him, it would be someone else. William imbues him with a sense of humanity while doing this, too, so when it comes time to betray his friends that David’s decision isn’t made to look easy or callous. He’s a cunning manipulator, working every angle to get what he wants. The movie even allows him plenty of lateral movement with a number of well put speeches where he points out to the men he back stabbed that if he had worked in their favor, he’d be a hero to them rather than a villain.ĭwight knows that he’s in a world of escalating greed. While it’s easy to imagine titans of industry recklessly manipulating for their own greed, Dwight’s rather simple desire (he eschews any thought of making money purely for the sake of having money) comes across as refreshing. ![]() He maintains the audience’s sympathy through the virtue of being both likeable and shrewd. He’s taken out an illegal bank loan and invested his entire fortune before the movie begins, and by the picture’s end he will have paid women to seduce investors, lied to his company’s board, and destroyed the bank he works for all in the name of retaining sole possession of the skyscraper. I mean, just look at this thing:Īs if Dwight just wanted to be able to look out his window and spit on his next door neighbors.ĭavid Dwight is obsessed with one thing, and that is gaining control of the building that bears his name. That’s David Dwight ( Warren William), who has built a skyscraper that tops out at 100 stories and looms over the Empire State Building. For an MGM prestige picture, it does something rather daring: it tells the story of the Crash of 1929 in a microcosm, and, worse, it makes the cruel stock manipulator who destroys a wide array of lives the most sympathetic character in the picture. Some verge into fascism, others despair, a few eke out a small measure of hope.Ĭomparable in many ways to MGM’s then-recent hit Grand Hotel, Skyscraper Souls has a larger ensemble and a bigger message. One of the things that really fascinates me in the films of the 1930s is how they reckon with The Great Depression. But I had the courage and the vision and it’s MINE and I own it! It goes halfway to hell and right up to heaven and it’s beautiful! They laughed at me when I said I wanted a hundred-story building. Skyscraper Souls: A Monument to Mankind’s Hubris ![]()
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