The Man in the Cardboard Castle
You know the economy's bad when Great Depression movies start to hit close to home. 1933's Man's Castle stars Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young as a homeless couple who scrape out a living with odd jobs and scams. Both stars are great in the movie and some of Tracy's diatribes sound like they could've been taken from Reddit.
Shortly after she meets him, Trina (Young) finds herself being escorted to a swanky restaurant by Bill (Tracy). But despite his top hat and tails, he's just as penniless as she. He reveals this by calling the restaurant manager and berating him with a speech about how restaurants throw away food while people starve in the streets, a practice mirrored by American agriculture disposing of enormous amounts of edible food. These remain good points.
He's not exactly homeless. He lives in a shanty town by the river. He and Young strip and swim naked in it because this is a pre-Code movie. Another thing this movie can get away with because it's pre-Code is that characters can get away with crimes without legal or supernatural repercussions. Despite being a hell of a good movie, it wasn't popular on its original release. I guess everyone preferred to fantasise about being rich with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies rather than examine the reality of being poor.
Man's Castle is available on The Criterion Channel this movie as part of a playlist celebrating pre-Code Columbia films.
X Sonnet #1902
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