Dayhoff Westminster Soundtrack: July 7, 1929 “Pleasure Crazed” movie set

Tuesday, February 05, 2019

July 7, 1929 “Pleasure Crazed” movie set

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…”

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