The Wet Parade

Plot synopsis:
In the early 20th Century, with the Prohibition Era approaching, two families come undone over the evils of alcohol.
The drinking of Roger Chilcote costs him everything, including all his family's money after gambling it away, after his daughter Maggie May's repeated attempts to persuade him to quit. Chilcote commits suicide. Roger Jr. is a writer who is befriended by Jerry Tyler, a newspaper reporter in New York City.
Jerry leaves for France to fight in the war. Meanwhile, the Tarleton family is at odds over the coming presidential election. A hotel is owned by Pow Tarleton and his wife, but Pow's drinking binges are becoming worse, particularly after Woodrow Wilson's election as president. Kip believes in abstinence and in the passage of the 18th Amendment, opposed by Wilson. One day when Maggie May turns up, Kip mistakes her at first for a working girl, then develops a strong romantic attraction to her.
Pow accidentally drinks bootleg liquor that is contaminated. He beats his wife fatally and ends up convicted of murder, sentenced to life imprisonment. Kip sells the family hotel and joins the U.S. Treasury department, coming under the wing of Abe Schilling, a wise, older agent for the bureau. Both receive threats from gangsters who trade in outlawed liquor.
Roger Jr.'s alcoholism has tragic results when he consumes wood alcohol and goes blind, costing him everything, including the love of Eileen Pinchon, who runs a speakeasy. Kip, meanwhile, is now with Maggie, who is pregnant. Kip is kidnapped by gangsters, then saved by Abe, who dies while rescuing him, advising Kip that taking care of his family comes first.

Tags: insanity, murder

Review:
It's difficult to find old movies that I haven't already seen, so it was with great anticipation that I watched The Wet Parade, 1932, for the first time.
The best part is that this intensely dramatic flick was made a full year before prohibition ended, so the full flavor of the alcohol-soaked theme really hits home.
The evils of liquor before and during prohibition is nicely dramatized..
One of my favorite movies mostly because I'm a Jimmy Durante fan and he plays, of all things, a treasury agent during prohibition!
There is also some fine ensemble acting from the large cast as we see some of the evils of liquor both before and during prohibition.
And there's a great scene showing bootleggers making phony whiskey using wood alcohol and printing labels saying it was pre-prohibition liquor or from Canada.I noticed two onscreen credit errors: Frederick Burton is listed as playing Major Randolph, and Reginald Barlow is listed as playing Judge Brandon.
But while it shares that film's exaggerated (insert hysteria here) style, it is a much higher budget production and ultimately delivers a balanced and well- reasoned message.It also has an all-star cast, although many of them are very early in their careers.
The story centers around an old southern family, the Chilcotes; Lewis Stone, Dorothy Jordan, and Neil Hamilton (Commissioner Gordon on television's "Batman" series).
Other name actors included Walter Huston, Robert Young, and Myrna Loy, Wallace Ford, and Jimmy Durante.The film is almost an epic as it covers a 15-year span from 1916 to 1931.
This leads to the ill-advised Volsted Act and the 18th Amendment outlawing liquor (insert nationwide "Prohibition").
The intention of the film is not to promote drinking but to illustrate a bigger evil, the unintended consequences of the government's ill-advised attempt to prohibit the activity.
The effectiveness of the "The Wet Parade" message no doubt contributed to the passage of the 21st Amendment the following year (1933), which repealed nationwide prohibition.
If I had one piece of advice for people wanting to try out films of the 1930s, it would be to check out any movie with Walter Huston in it.
Here we have a film about the dangers of alcohol, made a year before prohibition ended.
The film seems to be both anti-alcohol and anti-prohibition, which makes for some fascinating think-work about what the movie is really trying to advocate.The film starts with Lewis Stone's Colonel Sanders-looking Southern patriarch, whose daughter (Dorothy Jordan) is trying to get him to quit drinking.
After a short while we move North to a fresh-faced Robert Young and his lush of a father Walter Huston.
Prohibition passes which leads to a tragedy for Young, who decides to become a treasury agent and is partnered with Jimmy Durante (!).
From here the movie hits a bit of a lull as we get a fairly typical T-man story until the final minutes, which are exciting.The film offers some great moments such as the haunting image of Lewis Stone's final fate or the powerful scene where Walter Huston's wife confronts him about his bootleg liquor.
Wet Parade (1932)A heavy social message movie but really well made, with some touching, in fact moving scenes.
One of the reasons for voting for Prohibitions is shown as economic—50 million bushels of wheat and rye were going to making drink, and in war time this was wrong.Remember that the movie was made in 1932 just as Prohibition was being repealed.
As the plot moves toward its dramatic mobster climax, it feels more about pure crime than a moral issue, which got lost along the way.But that's perhaps what happened to the country, too, back in the long dry years of the 1920s.
In so many ways, this film is a carryover from the early silent anti-drinking melodramas of the first decade of the twentieth century--complete with ridiculously one-dimensional characters and a very heavy-handed message.
In fact, the message is so heavy-handed that I seriously doubt if the anti-alcohol message had much effect on audiences--other than to elicit laughter!
This was pretty apparent with Lewis Stone's character, but compared to the ridiculous guy played by Walter Huston, he was downright subtle.
The co-dependent family members and enabling friends were excellent touches--but still weren't enough to make up for the awful characters played by Stone and Huston.Other than these silly drunks, the film also chronicled the history of the prohibition movement--and this was mildly interesting from a historical point of view.
What I learned from the movie is that what really helped this anti-liquor crusade was WWI and moves to stop the production of intoxicants in order to feed our troops and starving Europeans.
An interesting tidbit amongst the "sledgehammer symbolism" throughout this entire film.If anyone knows of a movie to SERIOUSLY address alcoholism from this era, let me know--as for THE WET PARADE, it's practically cartoon-like in its generalizations and bad characterizations.
It's good for a laugh and maybe a brief history lesson buried within, but that's about all.FYI--The director of this film, Victor Fleming, was himself an extremely heavy drinker according to several biographies I've read (including CLARA BOW: RUNNING WILD).
Produced at a time when America was having second thoughts about the 18th Amednment, this is an interesting period piece that shows the effects of alcohol on two families as well as the unintended consequences of Prohibition.
Unfortunately, the movie runs too long as the plot tries to develop the eventual interconnection of the two families.
Neil Hamilton has the best roll as the upright son of the Southern family who descends into alcoholism, despite having seen the effects of booze on his father.
Robert Young, who has the corresponding position in the city family, remains "dry", but comes across as somewhat of a prude.
The Wet Parade has a very powerful message, and at a full two hours, it's one of the longest movies to ever come out of the 1930s.
The film chronicles the use of alcohol in the United States before Prohibition, and the effects of the law in its early years.Starting out in the South, the film shows how alcoholism can devastate a family and ruin lives.
With an unhappy end to that part of the story, we the see the attitudes of Lewis's children, Dorothy and Neil Hamilton.
Up in the North, Neil is living in a hotel run by Robert Young and his parents, Walter Huston and Clara Blandick.
Robert, Clara, and Dorothy are ecstatic at the prospect of no one being able to drink alcohol anymore, but it doesn't occur to them that people will break the law and continue to drink.This movie is such a heavy drama, I must caution you before you rent it.
If you think alcohol is the root of all evil, or if you think it's the men who abuse it who are the villains, or if you think Prohibition was a terrible mistake-there's a message in this movie for everyone.
Robert Young isn't even in the start of the film, but he ends up being the lead of the story.
This Hollywood production takes a staunch (if peculiar) anti-alcohol, pro-Prohibition stance.
The film was released while Prohibition was still law, and it preached its Dry message directly at the 1932 audience.In a sense, THE WET PARADE (1932) does for alcohol what TELL YOUR CHILDREN (1936) does for marijuana.
What sets this film apart is its compelling story and excellent cast.The film chronicles the rise of Prohibition out of World War I and the effects of its enforcement.
It's an interesting take on the subject, showing the political and moral motivations behind the Dry movement, the last-minute hoarding of booze before the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect, the rise of speakeasies and bootlegging, and the government crackdown on liquor.
Saving the public from themselves.The movie even touches upon some of the negative consequences of Prohibition (poisonous bootleg liquor, organized crime, etc.), placing the blame not on the law, but the insatiable appetite for alcohol among deviant Americans.The cast assembled for this Prohibition epic is impressive.
The leads are second-rate (Robert Young and Dorothy Jordan), but they are joined by some A-list supporting actors like Lewis Stone, Walter Huston, Wallace Ford, Jimmy Durante, John Miljan, Neil Hamilton, and even Myrna Loy.In hindsight, decades after the repeal of Prohibition in the U.S., it seems the filmmakers may have been a bit misguided in their didacticism, although, to be fair, the movie is based on a book.
And the film was only discouraging activities which were illegal at the time.Still, the movie's crusading stance goes a little over-the-top.
There's one scene near the end where John Miljan speaks right into the camera, directing his anti-booze rant at the viewers in the theatre.
As Maltin notes in his yearbook: this film manages to be both anti-liquor and anti-prohibition.
There are some really good performances: both Lewis Stone and Walter Huston are superb in their respective halves of the film: Stone as a too-convivial Southern gentlemen, and Huston as the proprietor of a run-down hotel who cadges drinks or even steals to support his habit.
Then, having persuaded us of the evils of alcohol and shown us the arguments for government control, we see how prohibition, with its bootleggers,speakeasies and phony liquor made America's drinking habit worse; which is probably true.
All the performances are good, especially Neil Hamilton as the southern son following in his father's footsteps.
This is an oddity but it says volumes about the evils of both drink and prohibition.
Packed with stars for all movie buffs to spot including Myrna Loy. And all MST3K fans will recognize John Miljan from episode #507 "I Accuse My Parents".
Myrna Loy (in a pretty thankless role), Joan Marsh, Wallace Ford and Neil Hamilton rounded out the cast and they were ably helped by two stage and screen veterans - Lewis Stone and Walter Huston.
The story tells of two families, the Chilicotes from the South and the Tarletons from the North and how their lives are affected by drink.Sweet "Persimmon" Chilicote (Dorothy Jordan) is determined to keep her distinguished father (Lewis Stone) away from the booze that is turning him into the town laughing stock.
When, in a fit of the D.Ts., he leaps to his death Persimmon makes an impassioned speech to her father's "friends" that she would love to see the day when alcohol is poured into the gutters (shades of Prohibition).Little does she realise that her brother, budding playwright Roger (Neil Hamilton) is following in their father's footsteps.
He is staying up North at a friend Kip Tarleton's (Robert Young) hotel.
Kip is in the same boat as Persimmon, his father's alcoholism is tearing the family apart.
(a madly overacting Walter Huston) is a political campaigner for the Democrats, who believes Wilson will not only keep them out of the War but also vote against Prohibition as well.
He is wrong on both counts as America goes to War and the Pure Food Act is signed, signalling the start of Prohibition.
From the time the poisonous menthol is poured into bottles, to the phoney Canadian bags that are doused in water, then rubbed in sand to make them look authentic, it is a real eyeopener!!!Kip sees his father kill his mother (Clara Blandick) while under the influence of bootleg liquor and is inspired to become a Federal Agent - he has already met Persimmon and she encourages him in his determination.
Neil Hamilton is also a cut above his part as he espouses "War has no right side" and cynical remarks about prohibition.
Every alcoholic cliché is thrown in, including the one about drinking bad whiskey will make you go blind - that happens to Roger and sends callous Eileen (Myrna Loy) running from the building.
There are movies which were made a long time ago and which seemed today as relevant as they were then;"the wet parade" is not one of them: it oddly blends melodrama with social comment and a touch of film noir thrown in.The first part is a muddled one,very confuse ,and the characters are not really interesting.Its purpose is to make us understand the heroine's daddy died because of the booze :she becomes hysterical as she screams -when his friends are drinking to her late father's memory- that whiskey and other liquors should be thrown in  a  cesspool ,no less.Second part involves a love affair between her and Robert Young,who also lost his father because...
(well you get the picture)and a second one between her brother and Myrna loy who keeps a speakeasy during the prohibition.In parallel,Young and his pal Durante - who provides the film with the comic relief it did need - become some kind of Eliott Nesses.Durante is the stand-out of the movie.The movie ends with a long moral speech about the generation to come:God help 'em and preserve 'em from the devil's liquor..
The Wet Parade is unusually long for a pre-code film at 2 hours resulting in a real mini-epic and an informative history lesson on the topic of the prohibition of alcohol in The United States by people who had just lived through it.
Whereas most films on the topic focus on the criminal side of prohibition, The Wet Parade focuses on how it affected regular law abiding people.The first act of The Wet Parade takes places in the American south and this portion of the film does meander a bit (also what is up with that cut made 19 minutes into the movie?
None the less it's worth patient wait for the shocking, pre-code melodramatics this act has to offer as Lewis Stone in the role of a southern gentleman succumbs to the bottle in the most over the top fashion.
- More on this later.The remainder of The Wet Parade takes place in New York City in which Maggie is introduced to the hotel owning Tarleton family and their son Kip (Robert Young).
Walter Houston as the father of the family couldn't ham it up more if he tried in the role of Pow Tarleton with his manly, Victorian demeanor.
- Huston himself would go on to portray a fictional POTUS himself the following year in Gabriel Over the White House.Films dealing with politics in Hollywood's golden age rarely would mention actual political parties and by extension not identify characters as being associated with actual real-life parties (at most they would imply party connections).
The Wet Parade is an exception to this as various characters are identified as being either Republican or Democrat.
There is no clear political alliance The Wet Parade sides with yet it is an interesting observation that all the identified Democrats in the film are rowdy men's men and heavy drinkers ("I never knew a Republican that could hold more than a pint") while the two identified Republicans are pretty boys who don't drink.The Wet Parade provides an overview of the events which eventually leads to prohibition being enacted.
With the US involved in the Great War we see the food control act introduced which Pow refers to as "the hick towns of the Bible belt are behind this, a snide blue-nosed trick to force the county into prohibition".
There is a historical analogy in this as long-time leader of the Anti-Saloon League Wayne Wheeler was himself was motivated by his disdain for alcohol due to a childhood incident in which an intoxicated hired hand accidentally stabbed Wheeler with a hayfork.The Wet Parade showcases the negative effect alcohol can have on people's lives but more importantly demonstrates how prohibition caused more problems than it solves, removing the tool rather than going to the root of the problem.
The film even goes as far as acknowledging the government was behind the poisoning alcohol which made drinkers lose their sight.
In one scene Kip and Maggie are given a good talking down by a friend (Neil Hamilton) in a line which best sums up the moral crusade which was prohibition; "People have been drinking for thousands of years, you can't keep liquor away from people that want it.
The minute you tell them they can't have it more of them are going to stop drinking and get drunk instead."Rounding out the large cast of The Wet Parade is Myrna Loy during her bad girl phase.
The movie does not let down in its Loy factor and she has a satisfying amount of screen time even if it takes an hour until she first appears.The Wet Parade is directed by Victor Fleming, most famous for directing The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind both in the same year.
I think The Wet Parade may be the most interesting film he's done outside of that.
Outside of the film's opening act in the American south, the remainder of the picture moves at a very brisk pace and features a large number of long takes.
The Wet Parade is one of the most informative films on this period of American history and makes for a great double feature with the James Cagney prohibition spanning gangster picture The Roaring Twenties..
In Victor Fleming's "The Wet Parade"), Joan Marsh manages to steal a scene from the shimmering, well-gowned Myrna Loy, who looks great, but is wasted in a nothing role.
One of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's few "message pictures", The Wet Parade was obviously made to re-enforce the then current debate for the repeal of Prohibition.
Thus, the film ends somewhat abruptly, but it does have some great dramatic scenes mixed in with the message and the dull speechifying.
He talks and talks, but he has a scene that is one of the most horrifying ever presented in a Hollywood movie.Dorothy Jordan, alas, makes a weak heroine, although she starts off effectively, while Jimmy Durante makes both a late entrance and a surprising exit.
Victor Fleming's direction is at its best in the action episodes, the semi-documentary bits such as the elaborate manufacturing of the hooch, and montage scenes like that in which Lewis Stone succumbs to the siren call of the saloon.