In Old Chicago (1938)
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In Old Chicago Movie Review
In Old Chicago is a 1938 disaster historical drama film directed by Henry King and starring Tyrone Power, Alice Brady and Don Ameche. It’s a very cliched flick.
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“Nothing can lick Chicago!“
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Set in the backdrop of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the movie tells the story of Mrs. O’Leary who started the fire and her sons, Jack and Dion, who grow up to be on the opposite sides of law. Obviously, the movie is very artificial in a sense that it mostly creates the story around this famous historical event only to fill up time.
I personally did like this angle of two sons on the opposite sides of law, that had some potential and it was executed solidly in a couple of dramatic sequences. Some of the family drama was pretty good here, but for the most part it was cliched and forgettable. As for the fire itself, it was very well done, and it looked cool, but just not as great as in that other movie.
Yes, ‘San Francisco’ came out in 1936, and it obviously hugely influenced this particular movie to the point that I would call this one a rip-off, though the central stories before the catastrophic event are very different. But it’s the exact same structure of songs, drama and disaster, and simply that previous flick did it better, especially in the disaster area, which was much more memorable.
I liked the titular musical number quite a bit, it was fun and quite memorable as a whole. But others not so much, and once again the musical numbers are thrown in there very awkwardly. As for the performances, they are uniformly solid with Power, Ameche and Brady representing one truly terrific cast, but again the characters are not as well developed, so the actors suffered as a result.
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I did like Alice Brady quite a bit, but then again her winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar wasn’t the greatest choice in my opinion as it’s not that amazing of a performance. I found In Old Chicago visually solid, but the direction from Henry King is quite poor and the whole film’s such a giant, uneven mess that did not deserve its Best Picture nom in the slightest.
In Old Chicago has some pretty good performances, some solid family drama and a memorable third act. It looks good, but it’s very poorly assembled and awkwardly filled with musical numbers. It’s a mess of a film that was pretty much a rip-off of better ‘San Francisco’.
