Skyscraper Souls is a 1932 film directed by Edgar Selwyn.
It deals with various people who live or work at the Dwight Building, a fictional New York skyscraper. David Dwight (Warren William) is a banker who built the Dwight Building and named it after himself, in part by more or less stealing fifty million dollars from his bank and calling it a loan. The other officers of the bank are after David to return that money, but he pacifies them by making a deal to merge his bank with Seacoast Bank, owned by a friend of Dwight's named Charlie Norton. But Dwight sees an opportunity to make a better deal for himself...
David is married, but has been carrying on an affair for many years with Sarah, his right-hand-woman and currently manager of the Dwight Building. Sarah herself has given a job as a secretary to lovely young Lynn, a family young friend and her unofficial ward. Lynn falls in love with a bank clerk named Tom, but she's reluctant to marry him as his modest salary would be stretched by supporting them both. Eventually, David meets pretty Lynn and starts thinking about turning in Sarah for a younger model of mistress.
Other plot threads include a woman named Myra who has a husband named Bill but is cheating on him with Tom's friend Slim, and Jenny (Anita Page), a clothes model at the Dwight Building but really a prostitute, who is pursued by Jacob, a kindly jewelry merchant (Jean Hersholt).
Tropes:
- Affably Evil: David is a cheerful bon vivant, a charming fellow who throws a great party, and who doesn't quibble when writing fat checks for his spendthrift wife. But he also betrays and ruins his business partners when he sees an opening to enrich himself, and he throws his forty-ish mistress over for a younger one, without a hint of conscience.
- Alcohol Hic: Lynn, who isn't used to drinking, starts doing this when David plies her with champagne at his party.
- Driven to Suicide: As soon as she fires the bullet that kills David, Sarah is wracked with guilt. She walks straight out of his penthouse, goes to the top of the Dwight Building, and jumps off to her death.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar:
- Even in The Pre-Code Era you couldn't say "shit" in a movie. So instead Lynn, who has been quaffing champagne with Norton and has gotten very drunk, says this:
Lynn: We're being awfully silly.
Norton: Oh well, let's be silly, huh?
Lynn: I didn't say silly, I said sh—, I said...isn't that funny, I can't say it!- Open references to prostitution were still forbidden, so you couldn't have a prostitute proclaim herself a hooker or whore. So when Jacob the diamond merchant says that he's in "a very old business", Jenny says "Yeah, so am I." In another scene where Jacob is asking her out Jenny says. "Say, my time is money!"
- Gilligan Cut: After Lynn tells Tom she can't go on their date because David has asked her to stay late at the office, he says "You're going out with me and that's final!" Cut to Lynn, typing up a report in the office late in the evening, while Tom sits there with her.
- Leg Focus: Lynn is basically Sitting Sexy on a Piano, but on an office desk instead of a piano, as she flirts with David in his office, dangling her bare calves. She's accepted her fate as David's mistress after breaking up, again, with Tom.
- Lingerie Scene: These were almost mandatory in pre-Code movies. A bashful Jacob comes in to ask Jenny out to dinner, and finds her in lingerie, Jenny changing out of the dress she was modeling for a customer at the dress shop.
- Love Triangle:
- There's David, his mistress Sarah who's been by his side for years, and younger, sexy Lynn who holds promise of being his new mistress. There's also David's wife Ella, but she hardly counts as she has an understanding with David, and is happy to let David screw whoever he wants as long as he keeps sending her money.
- Myra has a husband, Bill, who seems nice enough, but she has fallen in love with Slim, Tom's friend who works as a radio announcer at the radio station in the Dwight Building.
- Meet Cute: Tom, at a concession stand, drops a dime which Lynn promptly steps on. He physically grabs her calf to move her foot so he can get his dime, much to her consternation.
- The Mistress: Sarah has been David's mistress for many years. He has lied to her that his wife Ella refuses a divorce, but in fact he hasn't even asked.
- Moral Myopia: David double-crosses Norton, who helped him out, and his other partners in the Seacoast deal. He deliberately shorts Seacoast stock, which ruins them, but earns him a huge windfall and allows him to buy the Dwight Building outright. When Norton and the others confront him, David calls them hypocrites.David: Listen, if I double-crossed somebody else for you I wouldn’t be a double-crosser. I’d be a financial genius. You’d profit by it. You’d love it. You’d love me. I'd be your pal, your leader. But I put one over on you, so I’m a double-crosser. It’s all in the point of view, gentlemen. But don’t despair. There’s lot of small fry that you can double-cross. Just like the good old days… before you got out of your class.
- Running Gag: Tom, who is both klutzy and kind of an idiot, is always bumping into people/things and falling down. The big scene in the drugstore where he breaks up with Lynn has him turning around and plowing right into a pyramid of toilet paper rolls.
- Sexy Backless Outfit: Ms. Kyne and most everybody other woman at David's party wears such a dress, but not Lynn, who was dressed for work.
- Unable to Support a Wife: Lynn says frankly that Tom's $50/week salary isn't enough for her to marry him, which is why Tom plunges his savings into Seacoast stock.
- Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: More like an awkward elevator moment, as on more than one occasion Tom hits on Lynn in a crowded elevator, much to the irritation and discomfort of other passengers.
- Woman Scorned: When Sarah finds out that David is dumping her, and not just for any old woman but for Lynn, she shoots and kills him.