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Cult Review
Senior Film Conservator
Look, if you’re looking for a serious character study, keep walking. Shout It from the House Tops is the kind of movie you put on when you’re tired of modern stuff and want to see people in suits acting absolutely frantic for an hour. If you hate old-school slapstick or films that feel like they were shot on a stage, you will probably despise this. But if you have a soft spot for weird, forgotten comedies from the 30s, there’s something here to chew on.
The plot is basically: Rich kid wants to marry, Dad says "no way, you're a mess," and the kid spends the rest of the runtime trying to prove he isn't a total disaster. It’s thin. Real thin. Sometimes I felt like the actors were just making up the dialogue on the fly because they forgot their lines. Or maybe that’s just how they talked back then? Who knows. 🤷♂️
There’s this one scene where our lead is trying to handle a business deal, and the sheer amount of sweating happening on screen is honestly distracting. It’s like, buddy, just take a breath. The pacing is a total disaster, too. It jumps from a quiet parlor room to a high-speed chase that lasts about four seconds before cutting back to someone talking about soap again.
It’s not quite as chaotic as The Wild Girl while watching this, mainly because both films feel like they’re struggling to figure out what their actual point is. Spoiler: there isn't one.
The soap manufacturing set design is hilariously fake. You can practically see the cardboard edges of the factory equipment if you squint. That’s the charm, I guess. There’s a moment where a character trips over nothing, and the way the background extras don’t even flinch is just pure comedy gold. They didn't even care.
If you need a deep, life-changing experience, look elsewhere. This is just a mess of a movie, but it's a polite, well-dressed mess. Sometimes that’s enough. Just don't expect it to make much sense by the end. I’m still not sure if he ever actually got married or if he just ended up buying more soap. 🧼