Up Pops the Devil

"Up Pops the Devil" is a film with a familiar theme...the incredibly longsuffering wife who gives up everything for her man. Such ridiculously longsuffering women were common in movies in this era...and usually they are mothers such as in "So Big" and "Madam X". Here, however, the woman babies her husband!

When the film begins, Steve (Norman Foster) just got an advance on a novel he's writing. He'd love to be an author...but already has an exceptional job*. His girlfriend, Ann (Carole Lombard), at first refuses to marry Steve...as she thinks she'll get in the way when they marry...and he MUST finish the book. So, she offers him a plan...to marry BUT if he wants out after a year, she'll walk...no questions asked. And, during part of their marriage, money is tight...and Steve's ego cannot handle being a stay at home husband. Soon, not surprisingly, the marriage is on the rocks.

There are a couple annoying things about the film...the dipsomaniac 'friends' who keep dropping by the apartment as well as 'Sleep 'n Eat'. Sleep 'n Eat was a sub-human name the studios gave to Willie Best, and fortunately the name did not stick. But like so many of his roles, he's not exactly an enlightened character, with this black man stealing chicken in one scene! Awful when seen today...pretty normal stuff for 1931.

So should you watch it? Perhaps...though the current copy on YouTube has a huge problem...at about an hour into the film the sound cuts out completely!

*Steve's job pays him about $5200 a year. In 2018 terms, this would be like an $80,000 job...though many married on salaries far, far lower back during the Depression.