Review: "Big City Blues" (1932)

I love old movies that give you a real-time window on the past -- of a world both distant and familiar.

Such an example is the 1932 B-movie Big City Blues. It's about a young man named Bud who leaves small town Indiana to start an exciting life in NYC. He connects with his con-man cousin Gibby and a dame named Vida who lead him to a party where things get out of control and someone gets killed -- making Bud hightail it back to Indiana but never giving up his dreams of living and making it in NYC.

This movie has to be seen to be believed -- it's a perfect example of early 1930s pre-code Hollywood with lots of fast-talking characters and hammy acting. It's only an hour long and doesn't have much of a plot but it's a fun short movie that's all about how NYC is a great place to live -- but also with dangers lurking around every corner.

There's a few interesting things about this movie, especially in retrospect.

First, as mentioned, it was made in the early '30s just before Prohibition was repealed so there's a lot of stuff about bootleggers and speakeasies in it.

Second, the cast: it stars a young man named Eric Linden whose acting career was short-lived although he later on had a small role in Gone With the Wind. The "dame", Vida, is played by Joan Blondell who had a long career afterwards -- one of her last movies was Grease in 1978. And in a small part as a guest at the party where everything goes wrong is a young, smart talking Humphrey Bogart -- then just an up-and-coming actor before being lifted to cinematic greatness in the 1940s.

Third, it was directed by a man named Mervyn Le Roy who a few years later would produce a little flick called The Wizard of Oz. 

Fourth, there's a lot of references to the then-Mayor of NYC, Jimmy Walker who had managed to become something of a national celebrity of that time. Much like our current mayor, Eric Adams, Walker was a notoriously corrupt party-hound incompetent. Funnily enough Big City Blues was released on September 10, 1932 just nine days after Jimmy Walker had resigned and fled the country due to corruption charges headed his way. Just two months later New York-native Franklin Roosevelt would be elected president.

So this movie captures NYC at a turning point in history, when the anything-goes, criminal culture of the 1920s was slowly being crushed under the heels of the Great Depression and the New Deal. 

P.S. There's a great monologue at the beginning of this movie by the Indiana train station master. I can't post a clip of it here but look for it here on You Tube -- it's brilliant.