Themes: Work Ethics, Rise and Fall Stories, Office Politics
Main Cast: Warren William, Lili Damita, Glenda Farrell, Harold Huber, Spencer Charters
Release Year: 1932
Country: US
Run Time: 70 minutes
Plot
The Match King was inspired by the checkered career of entrepreneur Ivar Krueger. Warren William plays a Krueger-like businessman who takes over a bankrupt Swedish match factory, then lies his way into getting corporate backing for the operation. With little regard for ethics, William purchases all existing match patents, ultimately monopolizing the industry. Ruining lives and breaking laws all over Europe, William is himself emotionally devastated when betrayed by a glamorous actress (Lily Damita). Shortly afterward, William's business empire crumbles during the worldwide Depression, and the onetime Match King commits suicide. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Almost by necessity, bankers or industrialists were often depicted as villains by a Hollywood squarely on the side of the common man in the early years of what later came to be called the Great Depression. No more so than at that most proletarian of major studios Warner Bros., where the greedy capitalist reached a zenith of sorts in The Match King. Warren William's rise and fall was a highly fictional depiction of Swedish industrialists, who, like William's Paul Kroll, reportedly dallied with Swedish movie star Greta Garbo. And Warner Bros. did indeed attempt to borrow Garbo for The Match King. Unsuccessful, the studio instead cast French actress Lili Damita as the woman who eventually becomes the protagonist's downfall, a rather odd choice considering that also in the cast -- and complete with phony European accent -- is one Juliette Compton, whose screen career was bedeviled by her likeness to the Swedish diva. A missed opportunity, to say the least. The Match King opens with a montage demonstrating the international dependence on the cheap, wooden matchstick and screenwriters Houston Branch and Sidney Sutherland -- who based their story on a Swedish novel by Einar Thorvaldson -- take it from there without letting sentimentality interfere with their purpose. The suave William is at the peak of his not inconsiderable powers here and is backed up by the usual competent Warner stock company that this time includes Claire Dodd, as one of the industrialist's many conquests, and Harold Huber, as the forger who turns him into a murderer. The screenplay never spares Mr. William's Paul Kroll and the depression-fatigued audience must have enjoyed his well-deserved downfall at the film's December 1932 premiere. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Orry-Kelly - Costume Designer, Howard P. Bretherton - Director, William Keighley - Director, Jack Killifer - Editor, Leo F. Forbstein - Composer (Music Score), Robert Kurrle - Cinematographer, Hal B. Wallis - Producer, Houston Branch - Screenwriter, Sid Sutherland - Screenwriter, Einar Thorvaldson - Book Author
