Something of a missed opportunity here. A family department store saga (Edna Ferber might have called it EMPORIUM!), about a far-sighted fellow who hits Chicago shortly after Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, and sees opportunity where others see ashes & devastation. That’d be Lionel Barrymore, effectively aging from mid-30s to mid-70s; wearing out a wife with four births; hiring a sharp Jew to run his burgeoning dry goods business (Gregory Ratoff, very good), but crucially failing to pass along any retailing DNA to his pampered brood: not first-born hedonist William Gargan; not underachieving/inhibited gay son George Meeker*; not society struck Gloria Stuart; not even favored baby boy Eric Linden, a careless ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em’ charmer with a character arc that hints at a hidden better nature. If only there were time to delve into things, these 80 minutes are nothing but outline and undernourished drama. Montage specialist Slavko Vorapich stitches over missing segments with spiffy transitions, but a couple of behind-the-scenes shop talk tutorials would have done a better job and allowed director John Cromwell to show how Barrymore’s short-sighted scions all fail in turn. There’s a mini-series in here . . . or did MR. SELFRIDGE permanently spoil that idea?
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Meeker’s character, the only sibling not shown with date, spouse or love interest, gives up an executive position to stay on as Window Dresser, Hollywood code for gay in Pre or Post Code days.
DOUBLE-BILL: 1933’s best department store film was racy Pre-Code dramedy EMPLOYEES’ ENTRANCE. (see below)
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