Dynamite (1929) is a weird, loud mess that I couldn't stop watching

If you have a couple of hours and want to see how completely insane early sound movies could be, you should probably watch Dynamite. It is perfect for people who like watching rich people make terrible life choices, but if you need a plot that actually makes sense, you will hate every second of this. 🧨

It starts out with these three people—Cynthia, Roger, and Marcia—talking about divorce like they are discussing the weather. Marcia is fine with letting Roger go, but she wants a huge pile of cash to do it.

Cynthia has the money, but only if she gets married by her birthday. So she goes to the local prison and finds Hagon Derk, played by Charles Bickford, who is about to be executed.

She figures, hey, I'll marry him, he dies, I get my trust fund, and then I marry Roger. It is a totally foolproof plan that definitely won't backfire at all.

Charles Bickford has this voice that sounds like someone put gravel in a blender. It’s his first movie and you can tell he isn't quite sure where to stand, but he’s got a lot of energy.

Kay Johnson, who plays Cynthia, spends a lot of time looking very shiny and concerned. Her hair is perfectly molded to her head in a way that looks like it might be made of plastic.

There is a scene in the prison where they get married through the bars. It feels very stiff and the sound is a bit echoey, which is typical for 1929 I guess.

Then, of course, the real killer confesses at the very last second. Hagon walks free and shows up at Cynthia’s fancy house while she’s having a party.

The look on her face when he walks in is priceless. She basically realizes she is legally bound to a guy who smells like a coal mine and has no table manners.

I noticed that the extras in the party scenes look like they are trying so hard to look like they're having fun. Some of them are just nodding aggressively at each other in the background.

The movie takes a weird turn later when they end up in an actual coal mine. It stops being a drawing room comedy and turns into a disaster movie out of nowhere.

DeMille really loved his spectacle, so the mine collapse is loud and dark and very claustrophobic. It feels like a completely different film than the first hour.

There’s a little sister character who is meant to be sweet but is mostly just there to make you feel bad for Hagon. She has these big eyes that linger on the camera for way too long.

I kept thinking about Three Miles Out while watching the socialite stuff. It has that same vibe of people pretending to be much more sophisticated than they actually are.

The ending is pretty predictable if you've ever seen a movie before. But the way they get there is so clunky and strange that it stays interesting.

One guy in the mine has a reaction shot that lasts about five seconds more than it should. He just stares into the distance while everything is exploding around him.

It isn't a good movie in the normal sense, but it is a fun one to watch with a drink. You can almost see the director figuring out how to use microphones as he goes along. 🎤

The pacing is all over the place and the dialogue is sometimes very clunky. But honestly, that’s part of the charm of these early talkies.

If you like 1920s fashion and weirdly high stakes for a trust fund, give it a look. Just don't expect it to be logical in any way.