"I found this in the dumpster with the serial number filed off. Do you think I should have reported it to somebody?"
I didn't really expect much going into this movie, which was good because it doesn't deliver much. I almost want to take some of these movies off the blog because, like A Shriek in the Night, this is in no way a horror movie.
The plot revolves around a series of contract killings done to protect some pyramid schemers. The filmmakers sell it as "A World Gone Mad," but by today's standards it's just run of the mill corruption. Really, after watching The Wolf of Wallstreet, Breaking Bad, and Rob Ford everything these crooks do feels like small potatoes.
The movie starts off with this dude talking into a phone that looks like something an astronaut would piss into, and from there it's all downhill. The urinal phone was the highlight of the movie. Perhaps the biggest problem with it is that the protagonist is a reporter who talks like an auctioneer. I seriously understood about half of what the guy said the whole movie. The only sentence I was certain I heard correctly was "You've got about a thousand dicks looking for you right now." I only picked out that sentence because I said the exact same thing in a letter to Betty White. Of course, using "dicks" as a slang for "detectives" isn't the only super old-timey detail in World Gone Mad; there's also the overt racism.
Why does this thing always smell like asparagus?
The 1930's were a simpler time: a time when you could hear the sound of newspaper boys calling in the street, a time when you could smell fruit pies baking in the afternoon, a time when you could just refer to people as "that chinaman" or "the spic" and never have to bother learning their actual names. That's just what the writers of World Gone Mad do. There is actually a character named "The Spic." It even reads that way in the opening credits. Not only is he named "The Spic," but when the police finally catch up to the bad guys at the end of the movie they immediately gun down The Spic and then all the white people, good and bad, have a hearty laugh about it.
It's funny how times change though. In World Gone Mad, The Spic is clearly supposed a bad guy. However, the romantic interest is a woman dressed like Cruela DeVile, and she's supposed to represent innocence or some crap. I've never really thought of myself as one of those "fur is murder" people, but this isn't one of those innocuous, Disney-style fur coats. This is one of those articles of clothing that has the faces of actual dead minks draping over the shoulders. Cause that's just what I want in a coat, a lifeless animal head staring at me with eyeless sockets. Ya know, just as like a casual reminded of the omnipresence of death. That'll really keep you warm on cold winter nights.
...or shelter you from the cold realization that even impossible wealth and endless hedonism aren't making you happy.
So, there you have it, a little taste of the flavor of life in the 1930's---bigotry, dirty cops, fur coats, daytime drinking in the office, and a cigarette to smoke in bed right before you fall asleep. Basically, 1930's America is modern day Russia.
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