Men Are Such Fools (1932) User Reviews

Una Merkel Saves the Day!!

[kidboots · 6/10 · 7 December 2014]

Title must have been thought up to get the unsuspecting public into the cinema - there is nothing new or exciting about this quickie and there is only one foolish man in the movie. Intense Vivienne Osbourne must have thought it was a case of deja vu since she played a very similar type in the vastly superior "Two Seconds"(also 1932). She is mercenary singer, Lili Arno, who from the film's start sees Tony Mello (Leo Carrillo) as only a stepping stone in her bid for success. Tony, violinist with a café orchestra, sees only happiness and picket fences in his future but is still knocked out when Lili consents to becoming his wife - after he has just told her he plans to go to America and grasp the success that has eluded him in this country!!

Once there he expects Lili to forget her dreams and become a nice little housewife as success still escapes him and he winds up as yet another violinist in a café orchestra led by live wire Eddie (you wonder what happened to Eddie Nugent, sometimes he had leads, sometimes featured bits and sometimes just bits - like his role here). Lili is very eager to make the acquaintance of racketeer Joe Darrow (Earle Fox) who has indicated with the right pull she will go far - who cares about poor old Tony who is reduced to putting together a children's orchestra from the tenements where they live!! Tony is involved in a brawl and takes a lengthy prison sentence rather than involve Lili in a sordid scandal but once in jail Lili constantly writes him "I love you" letters which mean nothing since she is giving all her love to Joe. She starts to realise that a gangster's love doesn't have the same meaning as the love of a musician and Tony is released from prison to find he now has a genuine reason for murder!!

As usual whenever Una Merkel pops up in a movie she saves the day and this one is no exception. She plays sassy Molly, the hat check girl - "Glad to meet somebody who admits that their wife if beautiful"!! She sizes up Lili instantly but is happy to be a support to Tony and give him the confidence he needs to eventually put his symphony to the test!!

Leo Carrillo plays his part as very one dimensional - the viewer doesn't have much feeling for him one way or the other - probably because of his one eyed devotion to his utterly faithless wife. Much better is Paul Hurst as "Stiles" Tony's prison buddy.

Women Are Such Distractions

[boblipton · 5/10 · 27 December 2022]

Leo Carrillo is an American back in Europe for a final polishing of his composing and conducting. He's very promising. When he meets singer Vivienne Osborne in Vienna, he woos her and they return to America. Miss Osborne is ambitious -- not just for her husband, but for her own career, and better-placed men. Tony breaks into a room where she and another man are having a good time, and knocks him out. To protect his wife, he accepts a term in prison for assault, without admitting his wife was there.

I spent the time wondering why Carillo had an Italian accent -- he was a member of a distinguished Californian family -- and Miss Osborne spoke good American English. Once you get past that, and a cast worth paying attention to -- Una Merkel, Joseph Cawthorne, J. Farrell MacDonald, and Paul Hurst, it became clear that most of the issues lay with director William Nigh. He had been quite a power in the 1920s, but never adjusted to sound directing, even though he continued to work until 1948. He died in 1955, aged 74.

The whole thing leads up to Carrillo actually getting that big piece of music he's been working on since the beginning of the music. Although the march composed by W. Frank Harling (who would share an Oscar for STAGECOACH -- is big and bombastic, it's good, although not really enough to spend an hour watching people be foolish without making me laugh.