To me, this movie is perfection.

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

This is one of those movies when one wonders, after watching it, what the title had to do with the film. In this case, it is mentioned once – as the name of a mine that Mrs. Rimplegar (played superbly by Mary Boland) had poured a lot of money into – to the point of bankrupting her family. But, in afterthought, the title could be construed to describe the wacky family and household of the Rimplegars.This isn't quite screwball comedy, but it comes close in places. The script for 'Three-Cornered Moon" isn't very tightly written and organized. But the collection of characters, with their individual pursuits and traits add up to some good laughs. Claudette Colbert here has the look yet of a young starlet. The movie came out before she turned 30. Within the year, she would lose the very youthful look and become the more mature young woman in appearance for which most moviegoers remember her. Her role in this film is more subdued. Richard Arlen is the lead actor, but his role is less than that of most of the young men of the Rimplegar clan. They were played well by Wallace Ford, Tome Brown and William Bakewell. The rest of the supporting case were all quite good. This comedy of frenzy has a nice theme – of the once rich and selfish learning how to work and share for the good of all. That theme should have played very well in 1933. It was right in the middle of the depression and Dust Bowl. America had its highest unemployment ever. Many families were suffering and wanting. Hollywood did a lot to help lift the spirits of America during this time with its many wonderful comedy films and inspirational stories. At least one reviewer noted that there were many movies of this type during that time. True, but this is one of the early ones, and a good warm-up for some much better films that followed. With a little more work on the script and some better direction, "Three-Cornered Moon" could have been a much better film. As it is, it's a fun movie with several good laughs that most viewers should enjoy.

In the 1930s, there were a ton of films featuring kooky rich families. In some cases, like "My Man Godfrey" it became a true classic. In the case of films like "Merrily We Live" and "You Can't Take it With You", while not classics, they a were lot of fun. However, "Three-Cornered Moon" while very similar to the other films generally misses the mark and proves that not all kooky family films are made alike.The biggest problem with this film is that unlike most of the other rich kooky families, it's really hard to like this one. The Rimplegars are rich but even more lazy and stupid than the norm for these films. All four of the 'children' (as the mother calls them throughout the film) are adults. Three have college degrees and two of these just sit around all day doing nothing to earn their keep. The youngest goes to school to party and the oldest is under-employed and most concerned with his on-again/off-again relationship with a rich and vacuous bimbo. As for the mother (Mary Bolland), she is a giant brain stem--running the family's fortune into the toilet and ignoring the looming financial crisis. She's not funny--just happy to be stupid. When ultimately they learn that they are broke and need to work to support themselves, the audience is left thinking this is great--and the film is the closest any movie ever got to convincing me communism is a good thing (as these lazy gadabouts would be the first ones shot if such a revolution occurred). Listening to them whine about their fortunes while America was starving during the Depression make this hard to take.It's amazing that Claudette Colbert managed to play perhaps the most unlikable family member--considering she was a wonderful actress and often played such decent people. Through much of the film, she takes care of her good-for-nothing fiancé and makes excuses for his not being willing to work!! So, when she FINALLY decides she's had enough of this guy and wants to marry nice-guy Richard Arlen (a hard-working doctor), you feel like yelling out to him "run away!!"--as you most likely don't want to see him throw his life away on such a loser.Now it's not all 100% terrible. At least some of these spoiled arrested adolescents become responsible and productive by the end of the film. But, by then, the film had lost me because the characters lacked charm, depth or redeeming qualities. Kooky is one thing, lazy and annoying is another! With so many similar films out there like this one but which are good, I say avoid "Three-Cornered Moon". Even if the acting is pretty good, the writing definitely isn't.

I happened to catch this movie on TV one day when I was in junior high, and it made a lasting impression on me. My parents had told me about their childhoods during the Great Depression of the 1930s; Dad in particular was haunted by the memory of those days, when his upper middle-class family experienced a sudden, frightening plunge in their standard of living. I also read about the era, but in a curious way it was this film that helped me understand the human impact of that painful period with special vividness. Three Cornered Moon starts out like a comedy, a screwball comedy about a rich, wacky family, but then the Depression hits and reality smacks them all in the face. The tone changes, the plot shifts gears, and we find we're watching a drama about a group of chastened people who learn to deal with adversity and grow up in the process.The story concerns the Rimplegars of Brooklyn. Right off the bat the family name suggests comic eccentricity, and after a humorous intro of the characters we're primed to laugh. This mood continues through the first scene, when dizzy matriarch Nellie (Mary Boland) is revealed in the kitchen, wearing a ridiculous feathered gown as she attempts without much success to communicate with the family's Polish cook. Nellie is a widow with three adult sons and a daughter. The family lives in a mansion and they appear to be wealthy, but when the laundryman shows up demanding $11.47 from the lady of the house it seems to be something of a problem finding the money to pay him. Nellie refers vaguely to the Depression ("I hear it's still going on") as she stalls for time, but ultimately she's able to pay most of the tab.The various family members are good-hearted but rather silly. One son is involved in community theater and takes himself very seriously, while another is a hard-partying college boy. Daughter Elizabeth (Claudette Colbert) is involved with a pompous novelist, and is given to histrionic speeches about the meaninglessness of life. As soon as the character relationships have been established, however, disaster strikes. The younger Rimplegars are horrified to learn that Nellie has invested all the family's money in a fraudulent metal mine called Three Cornered Moon (a strange and perfectly chosen name) and that their savings been completely wiped out. And this is where things get interesting. The children, privileged all their lives, must face reality and scramble for jobs, just like everyone else. They do so with admirable grit and grace, and we find that they're made of stronger stuff than we may have assumed. Naturally, the comic elements of the story fade as the serious theme kicks in. The turning point comes when daughter Elizabeth sets out to look for work, and this passage is marked with an impressive montage of contemporary news footage of the unemployed, shots of weary feet pounding the pavement, close-ups of job listings, and audio clips of exhausted job-seekers: "I spent my last nickel on the subway," etc. It's a sobering sequence that beautifully captures the grim mood of the era.Eventually, and because this is still essentially a comedy, the Rimplegars manage to overcome their problems and eject the moochers who exploited the family in flush times, thanks in part to the intervention of a handsome young doctor (Richard Arlen) who is sweet on Elizabeth. It's easy to see why he's drawn to her: Claudette Colbert is at the peak of her beauty here. She gives a finely nuanced performance, and we watch as her Elizabeth matures from an affected, overgrown adolescent to a sadder but wiser young woman. Colbert begins in a low key but builds in intensity, and when at one point she mistakenly believes her brother has died her hysteria is disturbingly credible.The distinguished critic Leslie Halliwell classified this film as a "slightly screwball" romantic comedy, which I believe is an apt description, and he opined that its humor had faded with time. That also feels like an accurate assessment, but to my way of thinking the comedy in this story is secondary to the drama, whatever the filmmakers' intentions might have been. In seeing Three Cornered Moon again after so many years I can easily understand why it made such an impression on me as a kid. The upbeat ending comes as a blessed relief, but it's hard to shake the traumatic echoes of the story's darkest moments. Silly or not, the Rimplegars are sympathetic figures. Like so many other people of their time they found themselves faced with a genuine crisis that tested their mettle. My parents and grandparents were in a comparable situation. The financial meltdown of 2009 hasn't reached the nadir of the early 1930s, but similar fears are in the air, and seen today this movie packs a quiet but well delivered punch.

The best known name in this film is Claudette Colbert, and she presents her comedic talents as effortlessly as always. However, the surprise is that this screwball family comedy belongs to Mary Boland. Her ditzy, oblivious mother delivers priceless lines one after another. So as not to give all the jokes away I will only say that this family presents the humor in going broke (Boland has run the family into financial ruin and must end her 'career as economic advisor,' but insists she must sign something every month even if it is not the checks!), possible jobs in cleaning sewers, and failing the bar exam. Top that off with the family having a foreign maid who does not understand a word they say or allow them into the kitchen and this socially aware, zany family makes me wish I belonged to them.