So much average

Good start, but then it gets ruined

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Warner Baxter is a mob lawyer who gets lovable lunkhead Nat Pendleton off a murder rap, thus earning his undying gratitude. Baxter's society girlfriend objects to his clientele and dumps him and proceeds to make goo goo eyes at some effete society nebbish. Said nebbish then dumps his slutty lover, who then goes back to her gangster ex-boyfriend C. Henry Gordon and promptly gets killed. Nebbish boyfriend takes the rap, causing Baxter's ex-girlfriend to beg Baxter to take the case, which he does. Baxter then asks Pendleton for his help and is introduced by him to Myrna Loy. Baxter tracks down clues with her help. Several murders ensue until Loy lures C. Henry Gordon to a trap meant to expose him. But Gordon is wise to her and is about to get his boys to bump her off when Nat Pendleton saves the day by killing them all. Unfortunately, Nat is killed for his efforts. Myrna and Warner wind up headed for the altar and a trip to Paris. The End.I enjoyed this picture. It is a bit creaky with age but Baxter and Loy give good performances.

Warner Baxter, Philips Holmes, Myrna Loy, Mae Clarke, and Charles Butterworth star in "Penthouse," a 1933 film directed by W.S. Van Dyke.Baxter plays an attorney who is called on to help young Holmes when he's accused of killing his fiancée. That afternoon, she was the attorney's girlfriend, but she didn't like him taking mob-related cases. So she went out and got engaged.Loy doesn't come into the film right away. She plays a party girl (hostess/prostitute) whom Jackson wants to talk to, as she was a friend of the victim's and can offer some details about the case. So he takes her back to his place, and she stays, to her surprise, in a separate bedroom when it's too late to go home.Good acting and a good pace are appreciated here, but Loy was much too refined to have been in that sort of job. Mae Clarke was more on the money. Loy looked beautiful, and believe me, that was a feat. Her gown was beyond hideous. White (or some light color) with an enormous black velvet bow that went the width of her chest and was attached to the gown by a diagonal strap in the back and attached to her black velvet belt in front. Someone ate too much Chinese food, went to bed, and dreamt up that nightmare.Despite this, Loy certainly had a presence and a serene beauty. But with that educated, well-modulated voice and all that grace, it seems odd she hadn't married some big-wig and was instead entertaining the customers at a bar.MGM had a tendency to put gloss over everything, so this movie doesn't have the Warner Brothers gangster sleaze element that it needs.

This film contains all the elements of a great gangster story. It is a perfect example of 1930's big city gangster films. Yet it does not fall into a stereotypical mold at all. It is entertaining throughout. Just when you think it is going one way, it goes the other, building the suspense and irony until you realize it is not going to be a typical story.All the players keep in character and hold your attention with crisp and refreshing dialogue. Baxter and Loy are so in tune with one another, and you do not get the feeling they are acting.And isn't it neat to see Nat Pendleton play a smart, in-charge guy for once, instead of just a bumbling half-wit mob henchman. (Though he is always likable in that role, it surprised me to see what a smart guy he really was!) The plot of this film is genre-based, yet quite original and full of all the necessary elements: virtue, vice, mystery, false suspicion, resolution of mystery, resolution of false suspicion, romance, heavy action, jazz, and many doors that seem to want to open, but just the right ones open at just the right intervals to keep you entertained throughout this gem of a film.

As I started watching Penthouse this afternoon, I knew I had seen this before. It turns out I reviewed another remake of this film that MGM did in 1939 entitled Society Lawyer that starred Walter Pidgeon and Virginia Bruce playing the parts that Warner Baxter and Myrna Loy played here.The plot was pretty much the same, the screen writing team of Goodrich and Hackett dusted off the old script for the remake. One thing they did do was tone down the sexual innuendos so prevalent in Penthouse.Warner Baxter is an attorney for what we would now call a white shoe law firm who recently got gangster Nat Pendleton acquitted. Of course this law firm is not wanting Baxter doing criminal work for notorious and ethnic clients so Baxter is given the boot. Not that he cares really because he's wealthy enough himself. But he doesn't like it when girlfriend Mae Clarke does likewise. She's seeing Phillips Holmes now who's more her style.Later though when Holmes is accused of murder Baxter's services are needed and how. Baxter takes on Holmes as a client and his underworld connections prove valuable.If you've seen Society Lawyer, you know how this ends right down to how the murder was really committed and who did it.When I did the review for Society Lawyer I remarked that the film looked like a prototype for a series that Walter Pidgeon would have done with Herbert Mundin who played his butler. Charles Butterworth plays the butler here and also does a good job. The latter film turned out to be the last film Herbert Mundin did as he was killed in an automobile crash. Ironically enough so was Charles Butterworth. As Hackett and Goodrich also scripted the Thin Man film and it was also directed by Woody Van Dyke, this could easily have turned into a series like that for MGM. Problem was that Warner Baxter was not an MGM contract player. If he was I could have seen Myrna Loy, Warner Baxter, and Charles Butterworth doing a series.It took a year's wait, but Myrna Loy got into one of the most acclaimed movie series of all.