The Wet Parade


Where has this movie been for the past 75 years? In spite of an overdose of emoting by Walter Huston, and to a lesser extent, Lewis Stone, it is a terrific, sweeping movie. I give it a "10", and will watch it any time it comes back again on TCM. Wow!

reply

Great pre-code film. A young Myrna Loy, Robert Young, Walter Huston chewing up the scenery and Jimmy Durante at his Ha Cha Cha finest. Sex, alcohol, violence. Oh what might have been had not the code been instituted. A valuable peek into the very human world of our not too distant past.

reply

This is a good movie on how alcohol ruined lives before and after prohibition.It's too long though.It could have easily lost an half hour.

reply

Ya, Durante even got to chime in his "I got a million of 'em!" before his final breath!

reply

Was the whole going blind after drinking bootleg whiskey something that happened in real life? I just caught the last 30 minutes on TCM this morning, but definately want to see all of it now.

reply

[deleted]

I hope you got an answer well before now, reliva-1128.
In case anyone is wondering out there, the answer to your question is definitely 'yes'. Cases of death or blindness after drinking bootleg liquor are well documented.

'hope you succeeded in seeing the whole film; it's worth it.

reply

Many people were blinded or nearly blinded when they drank moonshine when unsavory brewer added methanol to give the stuff extra "oomph". The other way people got seriously ill (including blindness) was when people drank moonshine brewed in lead containers.

reply

My aunt went temporarily blind after drinking homemade hooch - Brooklyn, 1930s.

I have no idea what the mechanism is, or whether the "temporary" part was the norm. She's many years gone, so I can't ask.

reply

Probably the negative portrayal of black people is why this film is hardly shown

reply

durante was the high point of the entire show,he cracked me up.

reply

pappazeuss: The terrifying thing is when Lewis Stone's character died in the Pig Stye. Hogs are omnivorous and would have started munching on his corpse, soft parts like the face first.

reply

his nose really would have fattened them up.

reply

pappazeuss: It also makes them great survivors. Domestic ones if they escape will turn feral in a generation to survive.

reply

Excellent film .. i just stumbled into it, and was fascinated .. had no idea that Jimmy Durante was going to be in it, and got quite a kick out of that .. i thought that some of the political dialog was absolutely outstanding .. the only thing i don't like about some of these very old films is, as someone mentioned in here, the way that they portray African Americans .. i'm going to buy this film though, if i can find it
~every saint has a past .. every sinner has a future~

reply