PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Antonius Block After watching enough of these pre-Code movies, you begin to notice a few recurring themes: women in lingerie for one contrived reason or another, references to an unmarried couple having had sex by showing them having breakfast, and men who aren't inclined to take 'no' for an answer, continuing to badger or paw a woman until she consents to go out with him. You'll find all of those things in 'Skyscraper Souls', an average movie for the time period which held my interest, but was not exceptional.Warren William plays the part of an executive whose passion is to erect and own a giant skyscraper, and he does well in the role. His character seems nice enough on the surface, well-spoken and polite, but it turns out that he'll do anything to get what he wants, including screw over his business partners, and tell his long-time mistress (a woman in the office) that he'd love to get married to her, but his wife won't consent to a divorce – when in fact he hasn't asked her for one. Hedda Hopper is fantastic as his wife, by the way, in the small role she has. When he notices his mistress's secretary, played by the lithe Maureen O'Sullivan, he starts putting the moves on her. O'Sullivan is also being aggressively pursued by a very annoying bank teller (Norman Foster) who she (somehow, painfully, argh) starts falling for, thus setting up one of the movie's conflicts.One of the problems the movie has is that none of the characters are all that likable. That's not a requirement for a great film of course, and it's nice to see nuance and realism – but in this case, when it's heading for the ending it's heading for, it's hard to feel what the director Edgar Selwyn is trying to make us feel. Another problem is that it's a bit of muddled mix of drama and romantic comedy, which meanders about. The parts that relate to the corporate scheming bog down, although the insider trading and stock speculation is mildly interesting given it was just a few years after the great stock market crash. Overall, though, it's just a bit jumbled. Watch it for Warren William's smooth evil, and for the spirited and beautiful Maureen O'Sullivan, and you may enjoy it more than I did.

MikeMagi It's hard to believe that "Skyscraper Souls" was made only three years after the advent of sound. The complex, fluid production is set in the offices, elevators, shops and crowded lobby of a New York wonder, a skyscraper that towers over the nearby Empire State Building. It's the brainchild -- and obsession -- of banker Warren William who will do anything to keep it under his control. If that takes bankrupting his closest friends and allies, so be it. When not masterminding a shady stock manipulation, Williams is busily plotting how to dump his mistress, Verree Teasdale, in favor of a newly-hired, naive young secretary, Maureen O'Sullivan. The result is a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of ruthless ambition that could easily have been made today. And probably not as well. Among the stand-out cast members are Anita Page as a model-cum-hooker who can't believe that a decent man would want to marry her, Jean Hershholt as a lovelorn jeweler, future director Norman Foster as O'Sullivan's brash young boy friend, and Hedda Hopper (yes, that Hedda Hopper) as Williams' wife who's happy not to interfere in his extra-curricular love life as long as he writes out large checks.

st-shot Ultra charming megalomaniac David Dwight (played by Warren William at his most dastardly) will stop at nothing to realize his dream of having total control of New York's tallest (it dwarfs the Empire State Building a few clouds down) skyscraper. By way of style and guile he leads investors into a trap in order to solidify his power base. A bit of a lecher as well he manages to seduce a new secretary who happens to be the niece of his executive secretary / mistress. Exuding ultra confidence Dwight triumphs in both arenas but soon finds himself out on a precarious ledge.William plays Dwight with passionate bravado and gentle understanding. He charms everyone, including the audience for the first hour as he turns it on for investors and lovers with devastating results. His drive and ambition however bring out the Mr. Hyde in him as he callously jettisons both to achieve aim. William's, pitch perfect snake is greatly aided by William Daniel's cinematography which captures the strikingly lit futuristic slick and sleek interiors provided by Cedric Gibbons and company creating an ideal stage for Dwight's messianic harangues and seductions.The supporting cast led by Gregory Ratoff, Verree Teasdale and Anita Page down to the minor supporting roles of duped investors are substantive and crucial. The film's biggest misstep is the handling of comic relief through Norman Foster's Harold Llyod like bank teller Romeo. Granted the film is dark but Forster (who would eventually go on to become the most commercially successful film director in history) is little more than obnoxiously abrasive and an annoying distraction.In addition to the fine cast and luridly engrossing story line there is some powerful exterior imagery that makes for a powerhouse climax as well as the surrealistic image of the newly erected, inferior sized Empire that still has the same impact today.Made prior to film censorship, Skyscraper Souls allows the conniving Dwight to vividly display his duplicity with élan and without regret. Released during the bleakest days of The Depression it is an uncompromisingly dark portrait for its time that still resonates eight decades later amid investment house failures and in personages that run from Trump to Madoff.

sol ***SPOILERS*** Having had built the biggest building in the world the 100 story Dwight Building it's creator David Dwight, Warren William,is now on the brink of losing it to his creditors, the banks, whom he owes 30 million dollars that he doesn't have. In fact Dwight is in far more trouble then that in having used the depositors in his bank, The Seacoast Bank, cash as collateral a big no no in the financial world; Using others people's money for personal gain.This can land Dwight being bars for a long long stretch!While all this is going on the happy go lucky Dwight is playing the field with his cute 20 year-old secretary the tea toting and innocent Lynn Harding, Maureen O'Sullivan, who's good friend and mentor, who in fact got Lynn her job, Sarah Dennis, Verree Teasdale, happens to be Dwight's personal secretary. It's Sarah who knows where all the bodies that her boss had destroyed over the years are buried!Even though Lynn is anything but interested in having an affair with her butt grabbing boss Mr. Dwight he manages to get her drunk on champaign one evening when she was working overtime in the office and corrupted her to the point when her equally obnoxious boyfriend bank teller, at Dwight's Seacoast Tank, Tom Shepard, Norman Foster,dumped her as well. In Tom feeling that Lynn felt that she was too good for him because he was just a commoner or working stiff.Back to business Dwight now with his back to the wall and facing total financial ruin, as well as jail time, he concocts this plan to wipe out all his debts as well as his enemies in the financial world. This is done with the cahoots of Dwight's partner in crime Hamilton, William Morris, who's plan is to push up the price of Seacoast Inc.to $350.00,from $250.00 a share, and then sell it leaving everyone who bought the stock, which includes his banker enemies, high and dry as well as wiped out financially.***SPOILERS*** This diabolical scheme on Dwight's part works to perfection leaving him in total control of his beloved, which he put his heart and soul as well as money into, Dwight Bulding but causes a good number of people who bought Seacoast inc to end up killing themselves. One of them being Harrington Brewster, Punnell Pratt, one of Dwight's banker friends whom he accused of pulling the stock sham that Dwight in fact pulled off! The final insult that Dwight tried to pull off was his attempt to take off with Lynn on a cruise to Europe and the warm and sunny Mediterranean while laving his loyal personal secretary Sarah Dennis out in the cold. This has Sarah blow her stack and finally blow Dwight away with the revolver he gave her as a present for Christmas. Knowing that she now has nothing to live for Sarah jumps off the top of the Dwight Building killing herself.P.S The movie does in fact have a happy ending with both Lynn and Tom trying the knot and Dwight's widow Ella, Hedda Hopper, selling the Dwight Building that cause all the pain and suffering in it.