The World Gone Mad (not rated)
IMDb; Rotten Tomatoes; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon

This came out in 1933. I watched it in 2015, because it was included on a DVD of four movies, which I had basically just bought for one of them, The Little Shop of Horrors. (The other two are Tormented and Swamp Women.) First of all, I have no idea where the title came from, because it doesn't reflect the plot at all. (Wikipedia says it's also been called "The Public Be Hanged," which I guess is at least tangentially relevant to the plot.) There were maybe a couple of bits I found mildly amusing, maybe a couple bits I found mildly interesting, but mostly I thought it consisted of terrible writing and it didn't make much sense. Part of that may be because it was hard for me to consistently recognize all the characters or tell some of them apart. But mostly I just found the movie cringe-worthy, and there were at least a few times I almost stopped watching it. In fact, even though I forced myself to finish it, I wouldn't have written a review except that I wanted to be complete about reviewing all four movies on the DVD.

So... there's a guy named Chris Bruno, who I guess is a gangster. He owns a number of speakeasies (this is during Prohibition), and I'm not sure what else. A businessman pays him to have District Attorney Avery Henderson killed, because Henderson was close to exposing embezzlement or something like that, in the businessman's company. There's at least two men in charge of the company, Mr. Cromwell and Mr. Gaines, but for most of the movie, I couldn't have told you which one it was that hired Bruno, because I suck at remembering faces, especially in old movies like this. Anyway, Bruno passes the buck down a chain of command, and the murder is finally carried out by a guy named Ramon Salvadore. (Other characters would refer to Ramon by what sounded to me like "the spig," though it was probably "spick." Either way, it's offensive.) Ramon gets some help from a woman named Carlotta Lamont, who I guess was his girlfriend.

There's also a newspaper reporter named Andy Terrell (who I think was nicknamed "Cyclone"). He was friends with Henderson and his wife, Evelyn. I think he was also friends with Cromwell. Anyway, he begins investigating Henderson's murder. And soon, a new D.A. is appointed, a man named Lionel Houston, who happens to be dating Cromwell's daughter, Diane. He also begins investigating Henderson's murder. Andy spends a lot of time with Lionel, as well as doing things independently, and it sometimes seemed to me almost like the two of them worked in the same office. Although I couldn't always tell if Andy was a good guy, a bad guy, or somewhere in between. (Certainly he was a womanizer.) But I guess he was kind of amusing (though I didn't find him nearly as amusing as audiences might have in the 30s). Of course, the person who had Henderson killed also tries to have Lionel killed. And eventually Andy's life is in danger, too. But the bad guys lose, in the end.

Anyway, there is a bit of moralizing about the fact that the company in question had swindled... I think their investors, as well as the general public. Eventually we find out which of the partners was behind this, though that confused me, because I could have sworn it had previously been established that they were both involved. But whatever, the important thing is, (some) rich people don't give a damn about the public. As true now as it was then (or probably truer now). But that really seems to be tangential to the plot, as I said. Mostly, it's just a badly written murder mystery. Or something. I dunno.