MEN IN THE MAKING But what kind of men grow out of the squalor of the tenements...from the sordid back alleys of the slums?
1938-03-18
N/A
65 min
A poor young man's girlfriend leaves him for a gangster, who has the money and power she wants and the young man doesn't have. Determined to show her that he can be a success--and how much of a mistake she made by leaving him--he starts up a newspaper distribution business that is soon the biggest in the city, but things don't turn out exactly the way he wanted them to.
There's actually quite a decent degree of chemistry between Lew Ayres ("Jerry") and Helen Mack ("Marry Ellen") in this otherwise unremarkable crime melodrama the sees her leave him for the tantalising life of gangster's moll. Can he win her back? Snag is, it's a bit all over the place - part thriller, part gangster film and part comedy - and the ingredients don't mix particularly effectively. Maybe had Richard Vorhaus just focussed his attention/intention a little bit more, this could have been quite a gripping little B-feature, but as it is, it's a slowly paced, limited action effort that falls between too many stools en route to an ending that is never in doubt. British theatrical star Alison Skipworth ("Nora") has something of the silent film star about her, which is nice to watch but otherwise this is a film to pass an hour then completely forget...
