Director:
Howard Bretherton, William Keighley
Year: 1932
Rating: 6.0
This 1932 film probably had a lot more relevance to audiences at the time
of its release than is does now. Warner Brothers was beginning to develop
their hard hitting style of right off the newspaper headlines on to the screen
with gritty real films. This film's subject matter was still hot and on the
minds of most people. It is based fairly closely - with names changed that
fooled no one - on the life of Ivar Kreuger - who no one today remembers
I am sure. But he was the Enron of his time.
Born in Sweden in 1880 he traveled around the world for a time until he went
back to Sweden to work in the family match factory. You know. Making matches.
But he had big ideas and over the next 20 years through mergers, acquisitions,
bribes, blackmail and loans to governments he cornered 75% of the match business
in the world and became enormously wealthy and lived in that manner. Houses,
art, women and all the trappings of wealth - even after the Depression hit
- until time ran out on him. Though his business's were real he overvalued
them, took out loans on these false valuations and basically built a Ponzi
house of cards on all this debt. And it all came crashing down in 1932 when
banks would not roll over his loans. Facing financial ruin and potential
jail time, he killed himself with a bullet to the chest. It was a huge scandal
and disaster losing in today's money $3 billion. By the end of the year Warner's
had the film on screens.
Taking on this role is one of my favorite actors of the time Warren William
who has also fallen into obscurity in our day. William had for the first
15 years of his acting career done theater - once doing miserable in a screen
test - but with the advent of sound studios were looking for theatrical talent
and William was one of the best with an ability to spit out dialogue in rat-a-tat
fashion. The first time I saw him he immediately reminded me of John Barrymore
- both in looks with the sharp profile but also in acting style. I didn't
realize until recently that so did everyone else and the constant comparisons
drove him crazy. And then oddly in the first film of his in Hollywood he
was co-starred with Dolores Costello in Expensive Women (1931). She was married
to Barrymore (and the grandmother of Drew Barrymore).
By the Match King William was often being cast as the wealthy sneering devious
bad guy and as Paul Kroll he is a natural - totally amoral but still slightly
sympathetic - sure he cons a friend's wife (Glenda Farrell - Torchy Blane)
out of money to go to Europe, backstabs his co-workers at Wrigley Field,
fixes the books, sends a potential threat to the match business to an asylum
and kills a man to protect his business - but he is also partly doing it
to help his workers across the world in really bad times. He even spreads
a superstition that it is unlucky to have three people use the same match
to light their cigarettes - Three to a Match - which was what Kreuger did.
His soft spots are also displayed when he falls for and romances a Swiss
actress played by the lovely Lili Damita (French in real life) who later
married Erroll Flynn for a short period. In the film she is Marta, but everyone
knew she was really a stand in for Greta Garbo who had been involved with
Kreuger at one time. The film is admittedly a bit clunky and episodic as
it covers many years in a quick march and it has no hero for the audience
to root for - only a real life person who ruined a lot of lives.
