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It follows Howard's The Power and the Glory among works that shaped Citizen Kane, with a bonus foreglimpse of The Magnificent Ambersons. The American go-getter is a French expat (Richard Barthelmess), marking time at the circus while taking the long view. "Oh, I've got very big plans." The country maiden (Jean Muir) finds herself pregnant and orphaned soon after they cross paths, she stays behind as he leaps into the burgeoning automobile industry. Gigolo to the wealthy widow (Florence Eldridge), husband to the tycoon's daughter (Dorothy Burgess), lover to the imperious socialite (Verree Teasdale). At the root is his maman (Marjorie Rambeau), one arm ripped off by a leopard and the other wielding a whip for her spangled big-top act. "There is something fascinating about a self-made man." "I thought so, too, until I married one." A striking mingling of sex and money, Oedipal underpinnings and all, G.W. Pabst in Hollywood takes an acerbic look. Garage into factory, munitions for the Great War and stocks before the Crash, a couple of decades squeezed into seventy minutes. (A distinctively continental contemplativeness tempers the trademark Warner Bros. celerity.) "Does everything just slip off once it's over?" Interactions double as transactions, to reconnect with the estranged son (William Janney) is to bury him in gifts, including the fancy car that will kill him. Mother patiently awaits for her lad to see the failure in success, Fellini has a vivid memory of their reunion in Casanova. "Back to Europe," words heeded by chastened protagonist and displaced director alike. With Hobart Cavanaugh, Arthur Hohl, Theodore Newton, J.M. Kerrigan, Maidel Turner, Richard Tucker, Judith Vosselli, and Theresa Harris. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |