Three Cornered Moon: A chaotic look at losing everything

Is this thing worth your time?

If you like old movies where people talk at 100 miles per hour, sure. It is a classic screwball situation where a wealthy family goes broke and chaos ensues. If you need your movies to have a tight, logical plot, skip it. You will probably hate this if you find 1930s acting styles grating or if you get annoyed by characters who are just plain irresponsible.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Three Cornered Moon (1933) through its definitive frames.

The Rimplegars are exactly the kind of people I would avoid at a party. They lose their fortune and treat it like a minor inconvenience, like spilling coffee on a rug. Claudette Colbert is the only one who seems to have a brain, and watching her try to herd her absolute disaster of a family is the main hook.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Three Cornered Moon (1933) through its definitive frames.

There is this one scene where they are all screaming over each other, and it feels so genuinely stressed that I felt like I needed a glass of water. It is not a polished, pretty movie. It feels like a stage play that got loose in a film studio.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Three Cornered Moon (1933) through its definitive frames.

I found myself staring at the background furniture more than the plot. Why is that lamp shaped like that? Who keeps a vase that big in a hallway? The art direction has this weird, cluttered energy that fits the panic of the story.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Three Cornered Moon (1933) through its definitive frames.

Some of the romantic stuff feels like it was tacked on because the studio said, "hey, put a kiss in there." It does not really land, but the family dynamics are so noisy that you barely notice the plot holes. It reminds me a bit of the frantic pacing in The Grouch, though maybe a bit less bitter.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Three Cornered Moon (1933) through its definitive frames.

The dialogue is so fast that if you look at your phone for three seconds, you are lost. Seriously. It is not exactly a masterpiece, but it has a pulse.

• Mary Boland is basically playing the exact same character she played in everything else, but it works here.
• The house feels like it is shrinking as they run out of money.
• The ending is way too tidy. It just stops.

I do not know, maybe I am just a sucker for these old, desperate comedies. It is not as sharp as some other stuff from the era, but it is certainly not boring. Just do not go in expecting some deep message about the Great Depression. It is just a story about people who are bad with money.