Cinema revisted: Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden

Directed by Harry Joe Brown. Cast: Jack Oakie, Marian Nixon, Thomas Meighan, Warren Hymer, Zasu Pitts, William Collier Sr, Lew Cody, Joyce Compton, Bert Gordon.

Released November 4, 1932. 74 minutes.

Paramount B movie programmer features William Collier Sr, as a boxing and wrestling manager who has an opportunity to book matches for the Garden. He reluctantly turns it down because it meant he would have to stop managing his fighters who depend on him. Making the ultimate sacrifice, fighter Jack Oakie and wrestler Warren Hymer leave his services and hook up with another manager so he can take the opportunity.

Oakie is his upbeat, likeable self, while Hymer exhibits his penchant for portraying amiable dumb oafs, but in this film these characters are more layered. When Oakie’s character leaves doc, he must pretend to be cocky and self-assured, insisting he can do better without Doc. Hymer’s less bright character still does understand the sacrifice to be made, and struggles through pretending to be angry and dissatisfied with the manager to whom he looks up with respect and admiration. Both actors make their scenes work effectively, and their camaraderie throughout the film helps sustain the narrative even more effectively than Harry Joe Brown’s rather perfunctory direction.

Of course the clichés in this B movie are predictably on cue as both boxer and grappler get mixed up with the wrong management, end up connected to racketeers, and must accept crooked endeavors, including a fighter with plaster in his gloves. The solving of the situations culminates with actual boxers and wrestlers of the era violently taking care of things as only they know how.

As with most B movie programmers of the era, “Madison Square Garden” doesn’t waste a second, and the formidable cast does its best with standard plot elements, and elevates the entire production with their talent and charisma. “Madison Square Garden” is a very entertaining movie with Hymer calling women “goils” as he grins merrily under his fedora, while Oakie exhibits the consistent confidence that was the essence of his continued appeal during his long career. Funny lines, witticisms combined with delightfully corny dialog, and brash, appealing characters are the movie's most delightful ingredients.

As an example of pre-code American cinema, a well as the budget unit at one of the major studios (in this case Paramount Pictures), “Madison Square Garden” enjoys a firm and lofty position among early 1930s action progammers.