A WORLD GONE MAD. Majestic Pictures/Capitol Film Exchange, 1934. Pat O’Brien, Evelyn Brent, Neil Hamilton, Mary Brian, Louis Calhern, J. Carroll Naish. Screen story: Edward T. Lowe. Director: Christy Cabanne. Shown at Cinevent 42, Columbus OH, May 2010.

   The very truncated cast list I’ve provided is only the tip of an iceberg that includes some talented supporting players. [A full accounting can be found on IMDB. Follow the link.]

   The program notes point out that while Majestic was a small company that might be classed among the Poverty Row studios, it was among the cream of the minors, able to make use of Universal’s facilities, and, because of a tie-in with Louis B. Mayer’s secretary Ida Koverman, able to draw on MGM technicians like editor Otis Garrett (later director of The Black Doll) and cameraman Ira Morgan.

   However, in spite of the connections with Universal and MGM, this played like a Warner Brothers production, with the fast paced script based on contemporary headlines that were often a feature of the WB product.

   What also impressed the writer of the program notes (Steve Haynes) was its connection with more recent events, in its portrayal of a pyramid scheme that benefits the men at the top, and milks its investors of their life-long savings.

   O’Brien plays a cynical reporter who’s close to both the few good guys and the crooks whose most odious and well-portrayed representative is played by Louis Calhern, while the chief “enforcer,” an assassin for hire, is strikingly played by J. Carrol Naish.

   Not a great film, but a very effective and often chilling one, although the effectiveness of at least one major scene is undercut by the unrestored print that allows the scene, meant to be played out in semi-darkness, to be screened in almost total darkness.