There's no doubt that UPPER WORLD splits into two different movies at around its 2/3 mark. For about 55 minutes we get a proto-Film Noir minus the noir lighting and with way too many wisecracks for that genre, but nevertheless a plot that isn't much different from the later Noir PITFALL. After that we get one big mess that doesn't even make any sense. The usual explanation is that the Hays Code is responsible, but the movie was released in April 1934, months before the Code came into serious effect (Jan. 1934 is a decent guess as to when it was actually shot), and movies simply didn't play in theaters for very long back then. There doesn't seem to have been any real reason to make UPPER WORLD comply with the Code, but the studio had second thoughts about something. A look at the cast list given by IMDb shows that no less than six actors (including Mickey Rooney!) had all of their scenes deleted. As it stands, the Sidney Toler subplot, which looks like it was to be the spine of the second half of the film, seems to have been forgotten by one and all by the movie's denouement. The trial scene, a natural climax one would think, is so abbreviated that it now serves as nothing but a crumbling plot bridge to that denouement. As for the ending of UPPER WORLD, it's pretty generally agreed that few conclusions are less satisfying. So what happened?
Well, I don't know, but if I had to guess I'd stick to a mundane explanation. As it stands, the film comes in at 73 minutes. That's about the limit for a programmer in 1934 and it's clear that a lot of the movie has been cut out. My guess is that the picture was meant to be a major A-List production, which would likely clock in at something between 110 and 130 minutes, but that the studio had second thoughts when it saw what it had. They massively cut the second half of their film so that it now stands as only the final third of it. The Toler revenge subplot, which probably was the whole point of the second half, got truncated into incoherence, most of the trial was jettisoned, possibly the happy ending was added (happy endings almost always play better at the box office, then and now). We were not in the era of Noir yet, and UPPER WORLD would have been a far better movie if we had been.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!!
The cast is superb, indeed, in Mary Astor's case it's way too good for the material. Warren William is always fun to see and never fails to give a solid performance, UPPER WORLD being no exception. As everyone agrees, Astor was wasted in the role of a frivolous wife, the terrific comedy support got better scenes than she, especially the put-upon butler whose name, alas, I'm always forgetting (Robert Keith?), and Andy ("What are you doin' tonight, babe?" "Plenty, but not with you.") Devine. Ginger Rogers is wonderful as about the nicest little homewrecker you'll ever come across. Pretty much all her scenes with William are gems (the boisterous 'Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?', the anniversary party in which she substitutes for William's missing wife, their kiss after the airplane ride, what I believe is Ginger's only death scene in movies, all are just outstanding). One guesses that the movie is intact until Ginger's shooting simply because the movie dies right along with her character. She was more than ready for the big time.
One final note on how movies at that time worked. William makes two phone calls to Rogers. In the first, she picks up a homely receiver while ironing her underwear in the dumpy apartment in which she's living, her sleazy lover (J. Carroll Naish) sitting beside her on a beaten-up sofa. That is the day of the airplane ride and subsequent kiss. The next time we see Ginger she's again taking Warren's call. Again Naish is beside her, but now Ginger's dressed to the nines, she's speaking into one of those fancy French type receivers, the sofa is plush and expensive and her apartment is now large and elegant. Nothing is said about why her financial circumstances are so improved and nothing has to be said, yet I have the nagging feeling that plenty of a modern audience would miss the whole point. But perhaps I'm wrong about that.
EDIT: The butler is played by the always excellent Robert Grieg.
Well, I don't know, but if I had to guess I'd stick to a mundane explanation. As it stands, the film comes in at 73 minutes. That's about the limit for a programmer in 1934 and it's clear that a lot of the movie has been cut out. My guess is that the picture was meant to be a major A-List production, which would likely clock in at something between 110 and 130 minutes, but that the studio had second thoughts when it saw what it had. They massively cut the second half of their film so that it now stands as only the final third of it. The Toler revenge subplot, which probably was the whole point of the second half, got truncated into incoherence, most of the trial was jettisoned, possibly the happy ending was added (happy endings almost always play better at the box office, then and now). We were not in the era of Noir yet, and UPPER WORLD would have been a far better movie if we had been.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!!
The cast is superb, indeed, in Mary Astor's case it's way too good for the material. Warren William is always fun to see and never fails to give a solid performance, UPPER WORLD being no exception. As everyone agrees, Astor was wasted in the role of a frivolous wife, the terrific comedy support got better scenes than she, especially the put-upon butler whose name, alas, I'm always forgetting (Robert Keith?), and Andy ("What are you doin' tonight, babe?" "Plenty, but not with you.") Devine. Ginger Rogers is wonderful as about the nicest little homewrecker you'll ever come across. Pretty much all her scenes with William are gems (the boisterous 'Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?', the anniversary party in which she substitutes for William's missing wife, their kiss after the airplane ride, what I believe is Ginger's only death scene in movies, all are just outstanding). One guesses that the movie is intact until Ginger's shooting simply because the movie dies right along with her character. She was more than ready for the big time.
One final note on how movies at that time worked. William makes two phone calls to Rogers. In the first, she picks up a homely receiver while ironing her underwear in the dumpy apartment in which she's living, her sleazy lover (J. Carroll Naish) sitting beside her on a beaten-up sofa. That is the day of the airplane ride and subsequent kiss. The next time we see Ginger she's again taking Warren's call. Again Naish is beside her, but now Ginger's dressed to the nines, she's speaking into one of those fancy French type receivers, the sofa is plush and expensive and her apartment is now large and elegant. Nothing is said about why her financial circumstances are so improved and nothing has to be said, yet I have the nagging feeling that plenty of a modern audience would miss the whole point. But perhaps I'm wrong about that.
EDIT: The butler is played by the always excellent Robert Grieg.