User Reviews

Director Capra and writer Riskin's first socially conscious collaboration, the cornerstone of great films to come.

To start off Frank Capra is my favorite director because his best films are stories of regular people who have faith in the inherent goodness of the average person.

When I watched American MADNESS, I was surprised to see this 1932 movie is not as dated as you would expect. It moves quickly, has modern characters and dialogue and the drama is balanced with some comedy. The opening scene introduces one of those wonderful telephone operators with a voice that is instantly recognizable and funny at the same time.

American Madness' timely story is about bank president Thomas Dickson played by Walter Huston who has a lending policy that shows great faith in ordinary people but irritates his board of directors, as does his claim that an increased money supply will help end the Great Depression.

Walter Huston's character obviously embodies the wide-eyed hope found in such Capra films as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which also explore what it means to be a "little guy" in a world where millionaires and power brokers usually pull the strings. In some respects, American Madness amounts to a rigged argument in favor of Capra's most optimistic views. But along the way it shows his nagging awareness of the American dream's darker, madder side.

The Great Depression started on Oct. 29 of 1929 when the stock market crashed and it spread to almost every country in the world. US unemployment eventually rose to 25%. Bank failures snowballed as desperate bankers called in loans which the borrowers did not have time or money to repay. With future profits looking poor, capital investment and construction slowed or completely ceased. In the face of bad loans and worsening future prospects, the surviving banks became even more conservative in their lending. Banks built up their capital reserves and made fewer loans, which intensified pressures. A vicious cycle developed and the downward spiral accelerated. By 1933 more than 5,000 banks had failed.

American Madness was the first of Frank Capra's "social dramas," anticipating his later work in this sub-genre with Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and Meet John Doe. After WWII his Christmas classic It's A Wonderful Life would reuse two vital scenes first used in this movie. And for fans of the filmmaker's uplifting, socially conscious comedies as It Happened One Night and You Can't Take It With You this film is an early cornerstone of a great career.

But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. The best of stories work because they have elements of truth in them and the basis for this film came from a banker named Giannini who started a small but successful lending institution in San Francisco called the Bank Of Italy that made loans to working class people not based on collateral, but based on the character of the borrower. Harry Cohen, the head of Columbia Studios that made tonight's movie was one such borrower who went to Mr. Giannini's bank to start his own business.

This story of banking opened in the dark heart of the Great Depression. It was risk taking too and it was not entirely well-received in cities that had seen bank runs in recent months.

But let's talk about what does work in this movie. First, there is the script that is economical and yet gives every character a full personality. Next the actors play real, flesh and blood people. Capra always brought a natural comfort level to his characters making them people we recognize and want to spend time with. Finally there is the crew behind the camera who must have enjoyed their jobs and believed in this director's vision.

There are two parallel stories, Dickson's battle with his board of directors and the personal lives of the bank's employees that lead to events that cripple the bank.

The cinematographer was Capra's favorite, Joseph Walker. Walker and Capra made 22 films together. And I've always appreciated Walker's camera work because it is so smooth, his shots seem to dove-tail together. I hate it when a cameraman tries to bring attention to what he's doing -- jarring you out of the story. Walker sometimes used 2-8 cameras to shoot a scene as it happened to later cut it together so you wouldn't notice the cuts, just smooth transitions.

Let's talk about the life lessons we can take away from these quaint old movies. Not only do we learn a few good moral lessons but I can't think of a better example of the dangers of gossip. The power and poison of gossip can quickly escalate to become a sinkhole of quicksand that swallows even the exaggerators!

Screenwriter Robert Riskin and Capra liked each other's work, and, as a result, Riskin contributed the wisecracking dialogue for Capra's Platinum Blonde. After American Madness future Riskin/Capra collaborations included Lady for a Day (later remade as Pocketful Of Miracles), It Happened One Night (first film to win all five major Oscars), Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (Oscar for Best Director), Lost Horizon and You Can't Take It With You (which won Oscars for Best Picture & Director). Free of their Columbia contracts in 1941, Riskin and Capra formed their own production company to put together Meet John Doe. In later years, Capra would sometimes comment that he'd often have to tone down Riskin's cynicism; Riskin bristled at Capra's tendency to appear to take all the credit.

One last thing in closing, I forgot to mention to you what happened to the Bank Of Italy, they changed their name to Bank Of America and are now one of the largest banks in the world. Well when I learned that, you could have knocked me over with a pin!

...from Columbia Pictures and director Frank Capra. Walter Huston stars as Thomas Dickson, a hard-charging bank president who runs his business with an eye towards growth and the future, much to the annoyance of his more conservative board members. His workload forces him to neglect his wife Phyllis (Kay Johnson), who looks for comfort in the arms of sketchy bank employee Cyril (Gavin Gordon). Meanwhile, another employee, Matt (Pat O'Brien) is romancing a secretary, Helen (Constance Cummings). When a terrible crime is committed, it causes a run on the bank, and everyone may lose everything.

For some reason I was expecting a look at backroom banking machinations that lead to the financial collapse of the Great Depression, but instead this is largely a soap-opera level melodrama about infidelity, gambling debts, and mob mentality. Huston is in full alpha-male motor-mouth mode, threatening to steamroll over anyone sharing a scene. Kay Johnson seems to have trouble with inattentive husbands given her other roles in the precode era. Gavin Gordon looks odd with his overly-manicured, pencil-thin eyebrows. This isn't bad, it's just fluff.

American Madness is a somewhat dated film from the Depression made dated by the banking legislation of the New Deal. This film was made in the last year of the Herbert Hoover presidency. In the following year, in one of the landmark reforms of the first hundred days of Franklin Roosevelt was the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Banks in fact have failed since then, but we've never seen the disastrous runs on them that characterized previous times, that are shown so graphically in this early Frank Capra film.

Comparing this with another Capra classic, imagine if you will instead of old man Potter running the bank in Bedford Falls, we had kindly old Peter Bailey instead. The man who believed in investing in his clients at the Building&Loan and passed that philosophy on to his son George.

That's what bank president Walter Huston believes in as well. But he's got a board of directors on his case just as Samuel S. Hinds as Peter Bailey. But he's got one thing that Hinds didn't have, a bored and flirtatious wife in Kay Johnson, ready to respond to the amorous advances of Gavin Gordon, one of the bank vice presidents.

Huston has a surrogate son though, like his George in the person of head teller Pat O'Brien. Pat works some wonders, save's Huston-Johnson marriage, helps stop a bank panic that results from a holdup that was clearly an inside job, and gets out from under suspicion of being involved in that same crime.

The climax of American Madness might be tied up a little too neatly, but Capra was honing his populist movie making skills in this film.

And if it's dated, there's reason to be thankful it is.

Fast-moving story about how a banker (Walter Huston) with down-to-earth values weathers a financial storm. Plusses: Huston's consummate performance. The bank itself: grand and gleaming in the style of a great palace. The care with which the cumbersome, downright ritualistic opening and closing of bank's massive vault is photographed. A nicely written part for Kay Johnson as Huston's neglected but gallant wife. A more or less constant parade of bit players that at one point ricochet across the screen, in a sequence illustrating how a rumor can start a firestorm of exaggeration - hence the title, "AMERICAN MADNESS." Robert Riskin's realistic, casual-sounding dialogue presented in overlapping fashion - an early Capra trademark. Exciting mob scenes as the depositors rush into the bank in panic. Cinematography from many different angles and plenty of tracking shots through busy frames. Supporting player Gavin Gordon's curiously plucked eyebrows. A minus: The resolution of the plot's financial crisis is too sudden and arbitrary, but the way the personal relationships work out is clever and believable. The positives, however, far, far outweigh the negatives and again it must be said that this is an outstanding Huston performance which shows his great range; for him alone the movie is well worth seeing.

Frank Capra was just starting with his theme of the little guy trumps power, and corruption. It was the first collaboration with Mr. Capra, and his favorite screenwriter, Robert Riskin. This is a seamless screenplay to be sure. great attention is paid to detail... with only one blunder with John Huston's wife showing up with different dress only moments after she appears in different dress. Which brings up a point with the previous commenter... Constance Cummings was NOT John Huston's wife in this movie. Ms. Cummings was Helen.

Helen was Mr. Huston's secretary, and fiancée of Pat O'Brien's character Kay Johnson played the wife, and, VERY well. Ms. Johnson only made 24 movies before she quit in 1944.

After all the material I have read about so many better known Frank Capra movies, I am amazed that this one has not been more widely acclaimed. "American Madness" tells a great big, intricate tale involving a host of characters tangled up in a fairly complex sequence of events, and all in less than an hour and a half. As the pace of the action grows ever quicker, and the screen imagery becomes more and more spectacular, the film skillfully holds the viewer's undivided attention without any slack moments. True to the Capra style, there a moments of preachy grand-standing, which one should expect in such movies of this era. The conclusion of the show, also typical of Capra films, is a bit too neat and tidy for today's more jaded and skeptical tastes; however, if you like this director's best work, this one should not be missed. Such a skillful, riveting, and economic dramatization of a rousing, ambitious spellbinder of a tale is very rare in any era.

Walter Huston is supposed to be the star of this movie, and he does a fine job, as always. But wait..... watch for the moment when the panic on the bank begins, and in less than thirty seconds, the bank goes from almost empty to a scene of madness, the American Madness of the title. It's one of the most brilliantly choreographed and directed scenes in the entire history of the movies.

WALTER HUSTON is the good guy in Capra's "American Madness." As bank manager, he wants everyone to have a fair share of borrowing money, whether or not his background is fully vetted. All the other corporate members on his banking staff have conflicting opinions, which is only part of the set-up for the story.

The romantic subplot has his wife (CONSTANCE CUMMINGS) mistakenly believed by employee PAT O'BRIEN to be having an affair with GAVIN GORDON.

The plot thickens when Gordon owes gambling money and the criminal mob wants him to let them have access to the the bank vault, in exchange for which they'll let him in on the cut. He lets himself be used as a pawn.

When the robbery is pulled and a bank employee is killed, it's O'Brien who becomes the chief suspect because he refuses to tell what he knows about his whereabouts since it involves telling Huston that he caught Cummings and Gordon having a rendezvous in Gordon's apartment. He almost gets accused of the set-up because he's an ex-con.

The movie really hits its stride when rumors spread like wildfire that millions of dollars have been stolen. Panic ensues and the madness causes a run on the bank by anxious customers. Capra ties up all the plot threads in tidy style before the fadeout, during which the turnaround of emotions is similar to what happens with the townspeople in his later hit, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE.

The turnaround is really too simplistic to be believable, but that's Capra-corn. A bit hokey, but the story itself is timely and interesting and makes good use of its Depression-era background.

The opulent art deco sets for the bank and the strikingly impressive bank vault itself, add greatly to the film's grand production values.

Huston is excellent as the bank manager with a heart of gold. The supporting cast is competent, with Pat O'Brien showing a more thoughtful side to his personality, giving dimension to his usual brash, fast-talking persona.

Huston's speeches especially in the early board room scene, are very relevant today. He expounds on the ways that greed causes the downfall of the economy---sound familiar? The banks that now are withholding credit after being bailed out would do well to heed his message. And, back then, mergers were still a method of making the rich even richer. Are you listening, Mr. President?

Huston is a benevolent character to his staff but neglects his wife, who apparently has to visit him at the bank to have any contact. The message is very clear there--strive for balance in your life or you may end up losing what is important to you. THe characterizations are wonderful---Sterling Holloway who raised his voice an octave later to voice Winnie the Pooh, is a bank drone with a one-liner that will crack you up. The telephone operator with the annoying voice who causes chaos is another great character. And one of the gossip callers looked so much like Joan Crawford--could it be she?

NRA cheerleader Frank Capra condenses FDR's march out of the depression with this hokey drama about keeping faith in the banking industry which in 1932 were collapsing daily throughout the country. Bank President Thomas Dickson is a typical Capra idealist, friend of the little man and bane to the greedy board of directors whom he suggests (anti-semitically?) are "acting like pawnbrokers". When the bank is robbed by an insider, the chief teller, an ex-con hired by the trusting Dickson is the primary suspect. Meanwhile in a well edited montage a run on the bank ensues as a rumor runs amok on the size of the banks loss. Dickson gallantly attempts to keep the institution solvent but is suddenly blindsided by the strong possibility his wife has been sleeping with one of his officers. Close to being crushed by both sides of his existence Dickson, like all Capra heroes begins the Sisyphean task of recovering.

Of all thirties Hollywood pantheon directors, Frank Capra's work has aged as poorly as any with its saccharine sentimentality and noble, naive protagonists. In his day though he provided a depression era audience with an upbeat message and faith in mankind that made him right for the times. He had an armful of Oscar's to prove it. There's a bumper crop of corn in Madness but it moves along at a decent pace with reliable performances from Walter Huston, Pat O'Brien and Constance Cumming. Twenty-eight year old Kay Johnson looks fifty and Gavin Gordon's bank officer predates the metro sexual by nearly 70 years.

The photography of the highly underrated cinematographer Joseph Walker is the film's most attractive element. The opulent bank is lovingly phototgraphed with the vault taking on a role as important as any of the characters, giving it an almost Hal like quality. Walker also provides the chiaroscuro portraits work that helped make the Capra everyman in his films so compelling. Overall American Madness is a liberal leaning, well intentioned good looking fairy tale.

This is early Frank Capra film, primarily interesting because of Walter Huston's character and the portrayal of mob mentality in a "run" on the bank. Walter Huston plays a noble bank president who tries to serve the community while fighting off greedy bankers who want to cash in and the mob mentality of the people he is trying to protect. Meanwhile, his wife feels neglected, but that relationship isn't developed enough to make interesting. Good Production values for a film of this time.

Watching this will make you want to become a better person.

This is a wonderful film. It's about the kind of altruistic bank manager who in reality would probably never have existed. His purpose is to make the world a better place, to help the poor and in the spirit of FDR's forthcoming New Deal, help people get out of poverty and back to work. Our hero of course has to face disaster but if you're familiar with Capra and Riskin, you know that through kindness, loyalty and faith, everything will work out fine in the end.

You must have watched Capra's 'It's a Wonderful Life' (you really must) so will recognise that the story of this film is one of the main elements of that. It's unfair to compare this with the brilliance of IAWL or dismiss this just as a trial run. Although it's clearly impossible to capture the uplifting joyous feel of that absolute classic, American Madness is still fabulous and one of the most worthwhile ways to spend an hour and a half.

This is the first real Capra/Riskin film and has all those elements you'd expect from Hollywood's champions of the little man downtrodden by society. Being made at the height of The Depression, in the dying days of Hoover's failing administration, these themes have extra poignancy and it genuinely restores your faith in humanity. It can't help but make you want to be a nicer, kinder more loving person.

This film is fast, witty and alive. The characters are genuine, layered real people with whom you can empathise thanks to great acting especially by Huston an O'Brian. Besides Robert Riskin's writing however, what makes this extra special is Frank Capra's direction. He deliberately made each scene shorter, cutting out walk-ins and walk-outs so every frame is saying something and always grabbing your attention. Although made only a few years after talking pictures were actually invented, Capra and his team make this feel much newer - superior to a lot of the dross that was made in the early 30s and so still very watchable today.

For 76 minutes, this movie isn't half bad. Walter Huston is dynamite (and curiously looks a lot like Harrison Ford) as the Bank President and Constance Cummings is also very good as his wife. The use of the bank settings was very well done, and the story, while hokey at times, was silly fun.

I like the early Frank Capra films like this one and It Happened One Night better than his later films like Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and Meet John Doe. This movie stars Walter Huston as a bank president who's partners don't like the way he runs the bank and want him to resign. They can't make him and there's really nothing they can do. When an employee gets in debt to some gangsters for $50,000 dollars and he doesn't have the money, the gangsters tell him what to do so they can sneak in that night and rob the bank. During the robbery, a security guard is killed and word gets around town that the bank is broke. A mob of people show up and want to take their money out. They run out of money pretty quick and they have a hard time finding some more. Pat O'Brien also stars as Huston's friend and an employee who's in charge of the money. There's even more plot that deals with Huston's wife and the employee who was in debt with the gangsters.

Frank Capra directed this comedy/drama, which stars Walter Huston as a Bank President named Dickson who is being pressured by his board of directors to merge with New York Trust, then resign. He refuses,but when his bank is later robbed of $100,000, the chief suspect Matt Brown(played by Pat O'Brian) was a man he personally hired, and whom their is mutual loyalty, Dickson is put in a bad position. The real culprit is a man named Cluett, who is having an affair with Mrs. Dickson, who is unaware of his guilt... Reasonably effective film is rough around the edges, and pales in comparison to Capra's later work, but works as an effective time capsule look at the depression era, and for that is still interesting.

The conservative and liberal sides of America seem to have been brought out in sharp relief during the Great Depression. This was a time when solutions were needed. "American Madness" shows the liberal side fighting for fairness and prosperity by what seems odd today, a bank president. The president's populist stance with his loans seems quaint now with today's number-crunching banking corporations, and maybe his was an unrealistic character, or at least rare. Think of the bank president in the "Bank Dick" offering W.C. Field's character a copy of the bank's calendar, "Springtime in Lompoc" and "my heartiest handshake" for saving the money from a robbery. More realistic, if comedic. But think of this: Robert Osborn, on TCM, commented that the movie was inspired by The Bank of Italy, founded in San Francisco by Amadeo Giannini, a bank geared toward working class people and it's reputation was one of basing its loan approvals heavily on the character of the borrower. In 1929, Giannini merged his bank with Bank of America and became its chairman. (By the way, Bank of America financed Harry Cohn's Columbia Pictures which made "American Madness".) Which is all to say that Capra's films so often show a more humane side of people in this country, which of course was there, but it all can seem a little corny in our cynical age. Thing is, what happens if you go to Bank of America now? Will they loan you money based on your "character" ?

Parts of the story I found quite fascinating, but the love story is very dated and silly. Frank Capra movies are always worth watching.

Wonderful Depression-era movie about a bank president (Walter Huston) who has more than his share of troubles - his board of directors is criticizing his every move, his wife is looking for love in all the wrong places, and his favorite employee (Pat O'Brien) is accused of robbing the bank. It's notable today for being directed by Frank Capra and for having a few similarities to his later classic It's a Wonderful Life (particularly the bank run). Good cast backing up Huston and O'Brien, who are both terrific, includes Kay Johnson, Gavin Gordon, Edwin Maxwell, Arthur Hoyt, Berton Churchill, the lovely Constance Cummings, and Sterling Holloway. Some nice directorial touches from Capra, great script from Robert Riskin, and attractive photography from Joseph Walker. An early taste of the kinds of classics Capra would later make - socially conscious dramas with some humor, heart, and ultimately an optimistic outlook on life. You can't go wrong with Capra or, for that matter, Walter Huston. Anything involving these two is worth a look, particularly if it's from the 1930s.