Million Dollar Legs: Pure, chaotic nonsense from 1932

Is it worth your time?

If you like movies that feel like a fever dream from the early 1930s, yes, absolutely. If you need a plot that holds your hand and follows logic, you are going to hate this with a burning passion. It’s for the people who want to see W.C. Fields navigate a country where everyone is either screaming or throwing things.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Million Dollar Legs (1932) through its definitive frames.

Klopstokia is a place where the president expects everyone to be able to run at the speed of a car. It’s absurd. It feels less like a comedy script and more like a collection of sketches glued together with some very thin industrial tape.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Million Dollar Legs (1932) through its definitive frames.

The whole bit with the athlete selection is just wild. There’s this one scene where they are testing leg strength by having people run up walls or something equally physics-defying. It’s the kind of visual slapstick that modern movies just don’t bother with anymore.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Million Dollar Legs (1932) through its definitive frames.

W.C. Fields shows up and he’s doing that thing where he looks like he’s bored with the entire universe. He’s the only sane person in a room full of lunatics. It’s honestly kind of a mood.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Million Dollar Legs (1932) through its definitive frames.

I was reminded of Stout Hearts and Willing Hands while watching this, mainly because both films feel like they were made in a world where continuity was just a suggestion. Things just happen. Then other things happen.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Million Dollar Legs (1932) through its definitive frames.

Some quick notes:

• The dialogue is so fast you’ll miss half the jokes if you blink.
• Lyda Roberti is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
• The ending is... well, it’s an ending. It just stops.
• The sheer amount of running around makes me tired just watching it.

There’s a strange energy to the way they frame the Olympic events. It doesn’t look like sports. It looks like a riot in a gymnasium. It’s glorious.

It makes me think of The Primitive Lover in terms of how it handles its weird romantic subplots. None of it matters, but it’s funny enough that you stop caring about the bankruptcy premise entirely.

The pacing is all over the place. Sometimes it feels like it’s racing to the finish line, other times it just sits there for ten minutes while someone does a pratfall. I don’t think the writers ever sat down to check if the story made sense. They just wanted to get to the next bit where someone gets hit in the face with a barbell.

Honestly? It’s probably better for it. Don’t watch this looking for depth. Just watch it for the weird, grainy, frantic noise it makes.