User Reviews

Both Claudette Colbert and Edward G. Robinson were stars of the stage when Paramount's Long Island Studios contracted them to star in "The Hole in the Wall", a gritty crime drama dealing with kidnapping and spiritualism. Colbert had initially been the darling of Broadway for her performance in "The Barker" (225 performances) but a succession of bad plays and the advent of talking pictures made her reconsider her decision about the movies. (She had made a silent "For the Love of Mike" (1927) and absolutely hated it.) Robinson only accepted the role of "The Fox" because the deal was lucrative - he didn't like the script or the second billing to Miss Colbert.

By mid 1929 a lot of people were despairing of talkies - they were static and action was only a word that directors used to commence a scene. Apart from an initial "talkie" sequence, the film opens with a pretty spectacular train derailment, with super imposed images of screaming people, flames and rescue workers.

Among the dead is Madame Mysteria, a vital part of "the hole in the wall" gang, headed by "The Fox" (Edward G. Robinson), a bunch of jewel thieves, who steal from the wealthy society people that are drawn to Madame Mysteria's readings. Without Madame, the group is foundering but suddenly Jean Oliver (Claudette Colbert) appears at their headquarters. She has just spent 4 years in prison on a trumped up larceny charge. She was framed by her employee, Mrs Ramsey (Louise Closser Hale), a bitter woman who was jealous of her son's constant attention to Jean. Meeting one of the Fox's gang in prison, she arrives at the Hole in the Wall, eager for a job and with revenge in her heart. She has already developed a plan to kidnap her former employer's grand daughter, "bring her up to lie, cheat and steal and when she comes before a Judge, I can say to Mrs. Ramsey, behold your grand daughter!!!" The Fox installs her as the new Madame Mysteria, the real Madame he identifies as Jean Oliver. Meanwhile a newspaper reporter, (Jean's old childhood sweetheart) (David Newell) is putting two and two together - linking recent robberies with spiritualist Madame Mysteria.

The sets are a combination of Art Deco and Expressionistic "Dr. Caligari" types - many of these very old movies had futuristic sets. Colbert and Robinson both seemed to learn on the job. Robinson's first scene - he seemed to speak very slowly and in Colbert's she seemed pretty jittery and didn't know what to do with her hands. To give Colbert her due, she was saddled with a "Oh Woe is Me" speech and had to put her hand to her brow!! Fortunately the plot thickened in the last 20 minutes - including a child being snatched from a watery grave and a character called "Dogface", a mad man locked in his room, who didn't seem to serve any purpose to the plot, except at the end when he springs into action. Midway through the film, Colbert and Robinson had relaxed enough in their acting to look as though they definitely had a future in talkies.

One person who didn't was David Newell. There was obviously a reason why Paramount dropped him from their roster. As Jean's childhood love, he was very wooden and uptight. I have also seen him in another early talkie, "Darkened Rooms" (I wonder what that one was about - could it have been "phoney mediums")!! It was made by Paramount at the end of 1929 and his acting hadn't improved.

Recommended.

At times the melodrama is downright hammy and there is really nothing unique about the plot - a group of con artists using a psychic/medium scam to bilk rich patrons, and a girl (Claudette Colbert as Jean) wrongly accused of theft by a rich woman to keep her away from her son, thrown into prison as a result, embittered and swearing revenge when she is released, and joining up with the gang. What is unique about all of this is how sound is used for the first time to give depth to the story.

The group of thieves keep a howling madman that they got from a carnival around for the séances, and when he lets out a yowl it is really creepy. The end, with Jean the fake spiritualist actually making contact with the dead, and mouthing the dead man's real words of warning was surprising and could not have been done effectively in a silent film. As for the visuals, they are a mixed bag. For example, there is a train wreck scene that is done oddly. Time is taken to get a real feel of the human toll of the wreck with close-ups of the passengers before and of the wreckage afterwards. But the accident itself looks very fake and amateurish - the train is obviously a miniature model.

The interior art design is a bit of a hoot too - I mean who is that supposed to be a statue of in the séance room? It rather looks like Buddha, but not exactly. Then there is one big goof by the thieves that actually draws the police like flies to the "hole in the wall" gang. Such so-called smart crooks would never make such a ridiculous mistake.

Edward G. Robinson is really great as "The Fox". For the first time you can see and hear a gangster in a film, and his speech and mannerisms are spot on and very natural. His sweet proposal to Jean, her gentle rejection, and his dignified acceptance of her decision is the acting highlight of the film. Oddly enough Robinson is fourth billed under Claudette Colbert, although this is the first talkie for both of them, neither having been particularly successful in silent films. Besides the familiar faces working their way up, it's interesting and a bit sad to see unfamiliar faces working their way down. David Newell, billed over Robinson, completely fails to impress. He does stand out though because of his halting speech, detached performance, and a fake smile that seems to be stapled to his face. I just can't see this guy staying on Jean's mind since they were childhood sweethearts and her passing up The Fox for this cardboard cutout.

The whole thing plays out a bit like an experiment in early sound film, and in December 1928 when it was shot that is pretty much what it was - even director Robert Florey looked at it that way, trying a number of different new techniques and players in this one film so he would know what would work. If you enjoy the early talkies I recommend you give this one a look.

The Great Depression put an end to the huge onslaught of Broadway mystery and suspense plays which reached a peak in 1927. These plays do not generally translate at all well as film noir, although exceptions can be made for The Bat (1926) and The Hole in the Wall (1930).

The film version of "The Hole in the Wall" was formerly available on a most interesting VintageFilmBuff DVD.

You've all heard of a part-talkie. Well, the VFB release is actually a part-silent, roughly 95% talking, yet 5% silent — and by "silent" I mean dead silent. Except for two sequences, namely music in a night club, and crash effects in the El — there is absolutely no sound at all in the silent action footage that is cut into the movie from time to time.

However, 'The Hole in the Wall' does most effectively showcase some really spooky sets. These alone make the movie worth viewing.

The characters are somewhat creepy too, but the screenplay chickens out on allowing them to reach their full noir potential.

Particularly disappointing is the "geek" (v. Nightmare Alley) who is given a great build-up as a potential menace (and even enacts that part in a publicity still with Donald Meek), but is then allowed to slip away into almost nothing.

Edward G. Robinson, of course, is at home as the heavy with a heart, while Claudette Colbert looks appropriately unglamorous as the revengeful convict-turned-fake-mystic.

Robert Florey began his career with a number of celebrated silent avant garde shorts films – including 'The Love of Zero (1927)' and 'The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (1928)' – all strongly indebted to 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920)' and German Expressionism. Therefore, it's a little disappointing that his features aren't all that interesting. 'Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)' was visually stunning, thanks largely to cinematographer Karl Freund, but was stunted by ham- fisted acting and bad dialogue (perhaps a side-effect of the director's poor command of English). 'The Hole in the Wall (1929),' bound by the restrictions of early sound technology, even lacks Florey's usual visual flair – the only exception is the entrance to Madam Mystera's haunt, which has the warped ceiling of a 'Caligari' set. Perhaps the primary interest here is the film's cast, which includes two future stars in their first talkie.

The story itself is vaguely interesting: a shrewd shyster called The Fox (Edward G. Robinson) recruits a wrongly-accused ex-con (Claudette Colbert, in her second role) to help perpetrate a Spiritualism scam. (Spiritualism was all the rage in the 1920s, its greatest proponent being author Arthur Conan Doyle, who used his Professor Challenger character to promote the field in his 1926 novel "The Land of Mist"). Unfortunately, there's very little tension in this film. The possible drowning of a little girl should have made for suspenseful storytelling, and Florey was generally an expert at editing rhythmic montages, but here there's no urgency in his cross-cutting, and the dialogue unfolds with unnatural slowness, as though to make certain that the sound equipment is catching everything. Finally, I was very much surprised that, after an hour of exposing Spiritualism as a fraud, the film suddenly tosses in an authentic psychic moment, and nobody thinks twice about it.

This early sound melodrama has to be seen to be believed as the first major film experience of future megastars Edward G. Robinson and Claudette Colbert. Had it not been them in the leads, this certainly would have been rates as a bomb because it is creaky and slow-moving and poorly acted through much of the film short running time. It's also quite absurd in how its plot is developed, with ridiculous twists and poor motivations and sudden changes in character.

Robinson is cast as a graft artist known as "The Fox", fleecing wealthy people out of their money as he arranges for their jewelry to be stolen thanks to the presence of a phony madame. When she is suddenly killed in an elevated train accident (which has to be seen to be believed for its poor special effect), Robinson hires Colbert to take her place. She has her own agenda, determined to get revenge on Louise Closser Hale who years before framed Colbert for theft in order to keep her away from her son. Colbert arranges for Hale's granddaughter to be kidnapped, planning to raise her herself so she can make Hale suffer the way she did in prison.

The fault with the film does not lie with Robinson and Colbert who had plenty of stage experience but who are not yet used to the confines of the sound camera and hampered by the poor script and direction of the film. The strange set direction tries to make the film appear to be German expressionalist, an effect that worked great with silent films but looks strange on a chlostrophobic sound stage where the camera barely moves. This is interesting from a historical aspect, but overall as a film, it is probably one of the weakest movies of the star's careers.