What Price Decency: A Tropical Mess You Can't Look Away From

Is this worth your time?

Honestly, it depends on how much you like watching people make terrible life choices in really nice-looking weather. If you want a tight, logical plot, keep walking. But if you have a soft spot for movies that feel like they were filmed in a damp basement despite being set on an island, you might dig this.

The people who will hate this are the ones who need character motivations to make sense. Everyone in What Price Decency seems to be operating on pure, unadulterated impulse.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of What Price Decency (1933) through its definitive frames.

The whole thing feels a bit like watching a car crash in slow motion, except the car is a tropical melodrama and everyone is wearing way too many clothes for the heat. The central romance isn't really a romance—it’s more like a series of grim negotiations.

Alan Hale is in this, and man, he really commits to being the absolute worst. He’s got this sneer that seems permanently glued to his face. It’s effective, sure, but it’s exhausting to watch for ninety minutes. You find yourself waiting for him to just trip over a chair or something to break the tension.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of What Price Decency (1933) through its definitive frames.

The cinematography has this weird, hazy quality. It’s like the camera lens was smeared with coconut oil. Sometimes it looks dreamy, other times it just looks like you need to wipe your glasses off. I kept wanting to reach into the screen and clean it.

There’s a specific scene near the middle where the dialogue gets so stilted it starts to sound like a language exercise. The characters stand around saying things that absolutely no human being would say in a crisis. It reminded me of the stiff pacing in The Valley of Doubt, though this one feels slightly more desperate.

Why do they stay? Why does she marry him? You can almost see the actors wondering the same thing between takes. The movie doesn't bother with an answer. It just assumes we’re all here for the chaos.

Some random notes from my notepad:

• The lighting in the hut scene is… let’s call it 'moody' and leave it at that.
• I’m pretty sure one of the extras in the background is just reading a newspaper during a fight.
• The sound design is mostly just wind and dramatic sighs.
• I think I prefer the grit of Razzia, but this is a different kind of weird.

It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s definitely a mood. If you’ve got a rainy afternoon and nothing else to do, you could do worse. Just don't go looking for any profound lessons on love. 🌴