Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

binapiraeus This movie is indeed astonishing: it starts out like some silly, light comedy about an upper-class Brooklyn family, living, without a care in the world, in a big house with servants and everything, exclusively on money from their stocks. BUT then the Depression reaches even their home: practically overnight, they find themselves flat broke. And, having lived for so long in their 'castle in the skies', they just haven't got any idea about what to do at first.And then they start waking up: the only way out for the three grown boys and the girl is - to FIND A JOB! And that's what they do, and where they first meet with the difficulties of REAL life; and so, one by one, they wake up to reality - and they finally discover that they LIKE it: from being lazy parasites, they've become useful members of society...Of course, it's by FAR not as 'educational' a picture as this may sound - anyway, it's a pre-Code movie, and it's got lots of frivolous and funny moments to provide first-class comedy entertainment. The cast is great, from Claudette Colbert as the daughter of the house who's got to choose between a daydreaming writer and a down-to-earth doctor, to Mary Boland as the 'lady of the house' who just doesn't seem to know at all what's happening, to Lyda Roberti, no less - the seductive 'Million Dollar Legs' beauty from the 1931 W.C. Fields movie - , who plays the Polish cook here who never seems to understand a word in English, but stays with the family nonetheless, even without pay; a real proof of her great acting range! And yet, the message is there, even amidst all the hilarious fun - and it's MOST up-to-date, too: today, there are breadlines and people on the dole everywhere again, and formerly well-to-do families who now have to WORK for a living; and once you've got used to it (and have been as lucky as to FIND a job), you UNDERSTAND. You understand that it feels GOOD to be a useful member of society instead of an idler that lets others feed him... QUITE a message for a 'simple' comedy that's pretty much underestimated today in comparison with many of its other, much more forgettable contemporaries!

MartinHafer 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.

mark.waltz I recall seeing this film before and thought I had enjoyed it; Perhaps I was thinking of another film or in a different frame of mind at the time. As a fan of both Claudette Colbert and Mary Boland, I was enjoying seeing this again. However, I was sorely disappointed. The plight of a wealthy family from Brooklyn (yes, there is such a thing) facing the depression seemed like it would be an interesting film. But this was before "It Happened One Night" and "My Man Godfrey" got the idea of what screwball comedy was down just right. If it wasn't poor mama Mary Boland trying to get .30 cents from her children to pay off the laundry man (and getting a tongue lashing for interrupting their oh, so important activities that she goes onto the next one without even getting an answer) or listening to the extremely obnoxious Polish maid Lyda Roberti try to run Boland out of the kitchen, then perhaps it was Claudette Colbert's hair and make-up which made her look like a cross between Betty Boop and Minnie Mouse. She was known for being severely aware of her appearance on film; Perhaps she was too flustered by the stagy script to even notice her own appearance.Then, there is Colbert's beau, Hardie Albright, who is wearing so much lipstick he looks like a silent movie hero trying to get away from a Theda Bara type vamp. Richard Arlen comes off better as the family doctor who rents a room from them that ends up saving the day. But if I had to be the mother of sons like Wallace Ford and William Bakewell, I think I'd be as daffy as Mary Boland is here. (Other son, Tom Brown, is a lot less obnoxious, but he's the baby, and in old moviedom, that means being cute and sweet.) Most of Colbert's earlier movies had been dramas (with the exception of a few Maurice Chevalier musicals), so perhaps she wasn't quite ready for comedy, but after "It Happened One Night", she would be one of the top screwball glamour girls. Comedys are supposed to take you out of a bad mood, not put you in one. If you get the DVD, focus on "Maid of Salem", the co-feature, and watch this one at your own risk. "Wizard of Oz" fans can spot "Auntie Em" Clara Blandick in an unbilled role as a landlady (one of her many).

wmorrow59 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.