July 7, 1929 “Pleasure Crazed” movie set.
Kevin Dayhoff February 5, 2019
This is a picture featuring an elegant art nouveau – art deco
entranceway from the set from an obscure black and white American movie, “Pleasure
Crazed,” which was released by Fox Film Corporation on July 7, 1929.
The movie was based upon “The Scent of Sweet Almonds” by
Monckton Hoffe and features themes involving a poor writer, con-artists, intrigue,
deception, infidelity, and suicide.
The 60-minute film was directed by Donald Gallaher and
Charles Klein and written by Douglas Z. Doty and Clare Kummer. The
cinematographers were Glen MacWilliams and Ernest Palmer. It was edited by J.
Edwin Robbins.
The melodramatic movie featured the work of Marguerite
Churchill, Kenneth MacKenna, Dorothy Burgess, Campbell Gullan, Douglas Gilmore,
and Henry Kolker.
The movie was made when the Great Depression was just beginning
and film design and technology were in its infancy. It was a time when art deco
was transitioning into ‘modernism,’ and many highly stylized movies and
literary works featured the excesses of the life of the rich and famous. In
retrospect, many historians view the era as an attempt to distract much of the
population from the rigors and depravations of the Great Depression.
It is hard to find information about the movie. According to
the American Film Institute, an April 21, 1920 New York Times news item, “Fox
bought the rights to Monckton Hoffe's story, which was written as a play but
never produced. The same article included Earle Foxe in the cast, but his
appearance in the released film has not been confirmed…
“Alma Dean and her husband, Anthony, rent a house from a
trio of crooks who have the intention of stealing the wife's jewels. The female
member of the group remains in the guise of a housekeeper, and gradually she
and Anthony become very fond of each other.
“In the meantime, Alma is playing around with a poor writer,
and Anthony, miserable, leaves her, accidentally carrying away a flask
containing poison.
“Previously, the writer dared Alma to commit suicide, but
when she sees her husband take this very flask, she says nothing. The
"housekeeper," learning of the state of affairs, chases after Anthony
and wrecks her car at the garage where he is buying gasoline. The situation is
satisfactorily resolved…”
