Skyscraper Souls (1932)

(On Cable TV, August 2022) I’m not sure you’d call it a subgenre, exactly, but I have a clear fondness for those many Manhattan-set films of the 1930s that represent what was then the height of modernity and sophistication—men and women going from their high-rise apartments to their high-rise jobs, trying to find love, advance their careers and take care of whatever plot point was thrown in their way. It’s a meticulously scrubbed-down fantasy version of 1930s life in Manhattan (notice that we seldom see the characters in the streets, and it’s not just because on-location shooting was impossible), but it’s still incredibly relatable and compelling to any twenty-first century viewer used to the urban lifestyle. The tightly wound Skyscraper Souls is nowhere near the best, funniest or more representative of such movies, but it could be one of the most exemplary ones given how free it is, in its pre-Code glory, to portray a young woman as having valid lustful desires. There’s a slightly techno-thrillerish edge to the setting—a hundred-story tall skyscraper that has everything needed for the plot—so much so that the action never steps out of the building. (One should note, for historical purposes, that the Empire State Building was the first building to feature more than a hundred floors; it opened in 1931 and remained the tallest until the 1960s.)  Much of the plot is about the tall building itself—and the man desperately fighting to keep control of it. Our male protagonist has affairs with other women (!) with his wife’s approval (!!) and causes a stock market crash that is almost presented as a good thing (!!!)  Warren Williams plays the magnificent bastard at the centre of the film, but there’s a lot of good supporting work from players such as Maureen O’Sullivan and Verree Teasdale. (Pre-gossip Hedda Hopper also shows up briefly.)  Even if the plotting gets suspicious or even repellent, I can’t help but like the paean to modernity that is Skyscraper Souls, the sense of a buzzing Manhattan or the Pre-Code slips (and scantily-clad ladies) that, as usual, evoke an entirely different history for American cinema had the Production Code never been as dominant.