''Skyscraper Souls'' is a 1932 American

pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorshi ...

romantic drama film Romance films or movies involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion (emotion), passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typica ...

starring

Warren William Warren William (born Warren William Krech; December 2, 1894 – September 24, 1948) was a Broadway and Hollywood actor, immensely popular during the early 1930s; he was later nicknamed the "King of Pre-Code". He was the first actor to play Perry ...

Anita Page Anita Page (born Anita Evelyn Pomares; August 4, 1910 – September 6, 2008) was an American film actress who reached stardom in the final years of the silent film era. She was referred to as "a blond, blue-eyed Latin" and "the girl with the mos ...

Maureen O'Sullivan Maureen O'Sullivan (17 May 1911 – 23 June 1998) was an Irish-American actress, who played Jane in the ''Tarzan'' series of films during the era of Johnny Weissmuller. She performed with such actors as Laurence Olivier, Greta Garbo, William ...

Gregory Ratoff Gregory Ratoff (born Grigory Vasilyevich Ratner; russian: Григорий Васильевич Ратнер, tr. ; April 20, c. 1893 – December 14, 1960) was a Russian-born American film director, actor and producer. As an actor, he was bes ...

, and

Verree Teasdale Verree Teasdale (March 15, 1903 – February 17, 1987) was an American actress born in Spokane, Washington. Early years A second cousin of Edith Wharton, Teasdale attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn and trained as a stage actr ...

. Directed by

Edgar Selwyn Edgar Selwyn (October 20, 1875 – February 13, 1944) was a prominent figure in American theatre and film in the first half of the 20th century. An actor, playwright, theatre director, director and theatrical producer, producer on Broadway ( ...

, it is based on the 1931 novel ''Skyscraper'' by

Faith Baldwin Faith Baldwin (October 1, 1893 – March 18, 1978) was an American writer of Romance novel, romance novels and other forms of fiction,

.LoBianco, Lorraine
"ARTICLES: Skyscraper Souls (1932)"

Turner Classic Movies Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie channel, movie-oriented pay television, pay-TV television network, network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasti ...

(TCM), Turner Broadcasting System, a subsidiary of Time Warner, Inc., New York, N.Y. Retrieved September 7, 2018.

Plot

The film portrays the aspirations, daily lives, and tragedies experienced by several people in the fictional 100-story Seacoast National Bank Building in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. Among them is David Dwight, the womanizing bank owner who keeps his estranged wife, Ella, happy by paying her bills. His secretary Sarah wants him to get a divorce so they can marry.

Cast

Reception and box office

Upon the release of ''Skyscraper Souls'' in the summer of 1932, ''

The Film Daily ''The Film Daily'' was a daily publication that existed from 1918 to 1970 in the United States. It was the first daily newspaper published solely for the film industry. It covered the latest trade news, film reviews, financial updates, informatio ...

'', a widely read

trade paper A trade magazine, also called a trade journal or trade paper (colloquially or disparagingly a trade rag), is a magazine or newspaper whose target audience is people who work in a particular trade or industry. The collective term for this ...

among movie-industry personnel and theater owners, gave the production a very positive review. The paper cited in particular the film's "swell cast" and the broad public appeal of its "fast-moving" plot, especially within the highly unstable environment of the United States' depressed economy at that time:

Mordaunt Hall Mordaunt Hall (1 November 1878 – 2 July 1973) was the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for ''The New York Times'', working from October 1924 to September 1934.The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' in 1932, also praised the storyline of ''Skyscraper Souls'', calling it "a rich measure of entertainment" and "replete with suspense and vitality."Hall, Mordaunt (1932)
"Banker's Ambition"
review of ''Skyscraper Souls'', archives of ''The New York Times'', August 5, 1932. Retrieved September 8, 2018. However, the weekly trade paper ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

''—also one of the more influential reviewers in the entertainment industry at the time—disagreed with ''The Film Daily'' and ''The New York Times'' regarding their positive opinions about the film's plot, although ''Variety'' did give generally high marks as well to the cast's performances: With regard to the film's "box office" or the number of theater-ticket buyers it attracted, ''Skyscraper Souls'' generated an appreciable profit for Cosmopolitan Productions and MGM. The film is reported to have earned $444,000 in the United States and Canada and $111,000 elsewhere, for an overall total of $555,000. Subtracting the film's reported budget of $382,000 from the cited gross derives a net profit on investment of $173,000.

References

External links

* * {{Edgar Selwyn 1932 films 1932 romantic drama films Adultery in films American romantic drama films American black-and-white films American business films 1930s English-language films Films about businesspeople Films based on American novels Films based on romance novels Films based on works by Faith Baldwin Films directed by Edgar Selwyn Films set in New York City Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films 1930s American films