Although at the height of the Depression the unemployment rate was about 25%, you'd never have thought this based on movies coming out of Hollywood at the time. A few, such as "Wild Boys of the Road" (1933), talked about the widespread unemployment...but most films showed well-fed, happy and successfully employed people. You really wouldn't have believed that there was a Depression based on the movies...especially since so many had to do with very rich folks and seldom the very poor. Because of this, "Gentlemen Are Born" is an oddity because it deals with these struggles to find work during this era. And, it came from one of the only studios that DID talk about the Depression, Warner Brothers.When the film begins, four young men are eager and ready to graduate college and go into the job market. However, a rude awakening awaits three of them. Jobs are scarce and underemployment common. In other words, you find one of the guys taking on day labor and boxing just to have enough to eat...even with his diploma! And, through the course of the film, mostly the guys and their wives/girlfriends experience heartbreak after heartbreak as it seems as if the system is stacked against them. Suicides, crime, hospitalizations, unemployment and more make this a film that seems like a call for social change. And, considering how strong the voices were for socialism and communism were during this era and how adamantly the studios fought this, the film comes off as a bit shocking. But it's also well made and an excellent window into a sad bygone era...with excellent acting and lots of heartbreaking moments. A sad but fascinating and rather realistic (for a change) look at the Depression.

I guess I was expecting a gritty tale from the height of the Great Depression, 1934. Then too, I'm seeing a First National Production and conflate that with their merger with tough-minded Warner Bros. Unfortunately, the movie unfolds more like a soap opera than the gritty Warner Bros tale I was expecting. Four buddies graduate college expecting easy avenues to go along with their gilded status. Instead, they get the uncertainties and shoestrings that the working class experiences as breadlines and park benches. For sure there's lots of story potential here. But instead, of gravitas we get lightweight characters bouncing around in amiable fashion. In fact, there are two sobering moments reflecting the desperate times, but these get folded quickly into the general bonhomie characterizing the film as a whole.A couple of conjectures on the film. For one, it's Code-Approved in censorship's first year of Hollywood enforcement. Unfortunately, that same censorship worked to empty movie content of anything that might reflect on moral, political, or economic sacred cows, and was in fairly rigorous effect for the next 30-years. Thus the film may have had reason to over-compensate away from its grim potential. Second, a large number of personal stories are crammed into a short runtime, 75-minutes. Thus, from a more narrative standpoint, focus bounces from here to there, weakening those few more serious moments. Anyway, folks like me who may be looking for insight into a Depression era upper-class are apt to be disappointed. Too bad, because today's college graduates face many of the same bleak prospects, minus the assured Hollywood ending.

This Warner Brothers soap opera about four recent college graduates trying to make their ways in the depression and their lady loves is one of their A pictures but, while competently written and acted, is too diffuse to make a great picture. The large cast, headed by Franchot Tone on loan from MGM, has a myriad of interconnected stories whose frequently genteel handling is nowhere near as interesting as their earthy, snappy-pattered B movies of the period.One nice point of the movie is that money is a real issue in this movie and the actors show it. Even Tone, who spent most of his career playing people who just happened to be out of pocket money at the moment, looks and behaves like a man whistling the dark and Dick Foran is excellent as a man who is defeated by the world. The woman are very good too, particularly Jean Muir. However the movie, while never descending below competence, never manages any moments that strike home.

Four (4) Friends graduate from College and start on the adventure of bringing about a new life for themselves. One which has been promised to them by their status as graduates. Unfortunately they are being thrust into the economic maelstrom of the 'Great Depression' which in 1934 was entering its darkest days.The Friends, lead by Franchot Tone (Bob Bailey) has journalistic ambitions, but finds himself writing for a Tabloid. Hardly what is he was looking for. Robert Light (Fred Harper) is on the fast track thanks to his Father (Mr. Harper) Henry O'Neill who is a Wall-Street Shark and crook. Ross Alexander (Tom Martin) just rolls with the punches and Dick Foran (Smudge Casey) All American finds that last years 'grid-iron hero' is todays bum. Intermingled with their struggle to earn a living is romance and love. Ably provided for, particularly by Margaret Lindsay (Joan Harper) for Tone and Ann Dvorak (Susan Merrill) who falls for 'Smudge' whose marriage ends rather sadly. 'Smudge' contracting lead poisoning. In the end some make it others like 'Smudge' do not, watch and see, it is worth it.The cast does a fine job in what is a 'B' picture. Particularly Tone and Foran as the doomed 'Smudge' with Dvorak. Another standout is Charles Starrett (Stephen Hornblow) a classmate on the way up, but has no time for those he sees as 'losers' like 'Smudge'. Starrett though after a promising start with Paramount and M.G.M. would spend the rest of his career in 'B' Westerns.GENTLEMEN ARE BORN (1934) is as timely today as back then, for in the early days of the 21st Century it's tough going out there. Even for those with a College Degree. It better be in something useful and not a 'Communications Major', nor a Lawyer, we have enough of those parasites already. After all there are only so many jobs in Professional Sports!