Jealousy (1934): A messy, dramatic look at a boxer's bad temper

Is it worth your time?

If you have a soft spot for 1930s melodrama and don't mind a story that moves like a runaway train with no brakes, then sure, sit down for an hour. People who need their plots to make sense or who find possessive male leads exhausting will probably want to skip this one entirely.

The whole movie centers on Larry O'Roark, a boxer who acts like his fiancee Jo is a piece of property he left on a shelf. The opening scene where he gets knocked out because he's distracted by Jo sitting with her boss? It’s kind of funny, mostly because the choreography of the fight looks like they’re just swatting at flies in the air. 🥊

The jealousy angle isn't exactly subtle. It’s hammered into you, over and over, until you kind of want Jo to just run away and never look back. But of course, they get married, the money dries up, and the predictable slide into disaster happens right on schedule.

Wait, was that Lucille Ball?

It’s always a trip seeing younger stars popping up in these older, smaller pictures. She’s there in the mix, but the movie is so focused on its own heavy-handed drama that nobody really gets a chance to breathe. It reminded me a bit of the frantic energy in The Lights of New York, where everyone is just talking fast and hoping the plot keeps up.

The murder happens, and the shift into the courtroom stuff feels like a completely different movie was stapled onto the first half. Larry wandering around in an 'amnesiac fog' is the kind of classic trope that’s hard to pull off without looking silly. I found myself staring at the background extras in the courtroom scenes instead; there’s a guy in the third row who looks like he’s bored out of his mind, and honestly, I felt that.

• The boxing match is probably the worst filmed fight I’ve seen this month.
• The dialogue is basically just people shouting their internal monologues at each other.
• The ending? Let's just say it’s a bit of a stretch.

There's this weird urgency to the pacing that feels like they were running out of film stock. It doesn't have the grounded, eerie tension you find in something like The Kennel Murder Case. It just wants to get to the next screaming match as fast as possible.

I wouldn't call this a masterpiece, or even a hidden gem, but it’s definitely something. It’s a snapshot of a time when 'possessive' was just a standard personality trait for a leading man. Kind of exhausting, but hey, I watched the whole thing.