Francis Edwards Faragoh Movies

Whenever budget-conscious Columbia laid out good money for Technicolor in the 1940s, it was usually for a musical or an "A" western. Renegades falls into the latter category. Fresh from The Jolson Story, Larry Parks stars as the son of a notorious, Scripture-spouting outlaw (Edgar Buchanan). Parks tries to go straight, but eventually succumbs to expectations and becomes a renegade along with his father and brothers. Willard Parker is the peaceable town doctor who guns down Parks in the climax, while Evelyn Keyes is the leading lady, who insists upon finding Parks fascinating despite of (or maybe because of) his reputation. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

With The Mad Martindales, the eight-year association between 20th Century-Fox and child star Jane Withers came to an end. 16-year-old Withers is cast as Kathy Martindale, the youngest member of a wacky turn-of-the-century San Francisco household. A dedicated suffragette, Kathy occasionally takes time out to rescue her improvident father (Alan Mowbray) from his various get-rich-quick business schemes. Romance enters the picture when Peter Varney (Byron Barr), the wealthy boyfriend of Kathy's older sister Evelyn (Marjorie Weaver), falls for Kathy instead. But don't despair for Evelyn: her heart is ultimately captured by industrious young Italian immigrant Julio (George Reeves). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Dancing Pirate was the second feature-length production by Pioneer Pictures, whose earlier effort Becky Sharp was the first three-strip Technicolor feature. Pirate was likewise filmed in the three-strip process, but the film is currently available only in its black-and-white reissue version. London and Broadway musical comedy favorite Charles Collins stars as Jonathan Pride, a mild-mannered dance instructor in 1820 Boston. En route to visit relatives, Jonathan is shanghaied by a band of zany pirates and forced to work as a galley boy. When the pirate vessel arrives at the port of Las Palomas, Jonathan, clad in buccaneer's garb, makes his escape. Everyone in Las Palomas, including Governor Alcalde (Frank Morgan) and fetching senorita Serafina (Steffi Duna), assumes that Jonathan is the pirate chieftain, leading to a series of typical comic-opera complications. Featured in the cast are the Dancing Cansinos, whose daughter Rita Hayworth was just beginning her own screen career. The Rodgers & Hart score, like the film itself, is pretty lackluster, but Charles Collins is a pleasing screen personality who should have gone much farther in movies than he did. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Previously filmed in 1921 and 1926, this venerable 1911 David Belasco stage play provides a good, if slightly risible, vehicle for Lionel Barrymore. Greedy businessman Peter Grimm (Barrymore) returns from the dead in spirit form to correct all the mistakes he made during his lifetime. The old man is particularly anxious to atone for forcing his adopted daughter Catherine (Helen Mack) into a marriage of convenience with his callow nephew Frederik (Allen Vincent). His mission on earth accomplished, Grimm is reunited in the hereafter with his sickly grandson William (George Breakston Jr.), whose death is supposed to be a high point in poignancy (and would have been, had not the audience been fully aware from the first reel that the kid was going to eventually kick the bucket). Throughout the final reels, the "ghostly" Peter Grimm is filmed through a gauze-diffused filter, suggesting that someone has smeared Vaseline on the camera lens. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

John Barrymore wisely turned down this contrived courtroom melodrama that instead trapped poor Ricardo Cortez. He plays Robert Mitchell, an attorney who runs into his estranged wife Dorothea (Barbara Robbins) and her lover, artist Jerry Hutchins (John Beal), in a department store, the three of them purchasing, respectively, a hat, a coat, and a pair of gloves. All these accoutrements later turn up at Jerry's murder trial, the struggling artist having been accused of killing a former girlfriend (Dorothy Burgess). Dorothea persuades Robert to represent her former lover and the ace attorney not only wins an acquittal but also the love of his no longer estranged wife. Hat, Coat and Glove marked the screen debut of Broadway ingénue Barbara Robbins, whose only feature film it would prove to be. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In his first starring role, George Raft plays Nick Darrow, a fence convinced by the police to go undercover after his father is killed in a Wall Street heist. Teaming up with Lora Madigan (Nancy Carroll), yet another victim of the gang, Nick gets close to the gang boss, Mason (Lew Cody), and his moll (Noel Francis), but is almost killed when Mason becomes suspicious. In the end, however, Nick manages to kill the man who murdered his father, a vile Russian (Gregory Ratoff), and is able to hand over Mason to the authorities. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this boxing drama, a prizefighter is left by his money-grubbing showgirl wife who aspires to be a movie star. The fighter's manager is tickled by the turn of events and immediately snaps the boxer out of his love-struck funk and sets him a challenging training program. Sure enough the fighter makes a strong comeback. As soon as the fame and fortune starts rolling in, the avaricious wife shows up at his door. She fires his manager and hires her secret lover in his place. Soon the fighter begins losing again. Just before the championship bout the old manager proves that his wife is being unfaithful. That is only the beginning of the end for the champ. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this comedy drama set in a small town, a milque-toast gets a backbone and stands up to his overbearing wife. Only one of his daughters is on his side. The family is amazed and shocked by his sudden change. At first they rebel, but when he defies his wife and allows his good daughter to marry the grocery boy she loves, they finally come to respect him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The first "talkie" gangster movie to capture the public's imagination, Mervyn LeRoy's Little Caesar started a cycle of crime-related movies that Warner Bros. rode across the ensuing decade and right into World War II with titles such as All Through the Night (1941). At the start of the picture, Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello (Edward G. Robinson, made up to look a lot like the real-life Al Capone) and his friend Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) are robbing a gas station -- later on, at a diner, they're looking over a newspaper and see a story about Diamond Pete Montana (Ralph Ince), a gangster so well known that he gets headlines and stories written about how powerful he is. That's what Rico wants, more than money or anything else: to be czar of the underworld and "not just another mug." Joe admits that sometimes he just thinks of trying to become what he wanted to be when he started out: a professional dancer. They head east to Chicago (which is never named, but with the talk of the north side and the territories, you know what city it is) and Rico talks his way into the local mob run by Sam Vettori (Stanley Fields). The leader has his doubts over how quick Rico is to go for his gun, but also thinks he might be useful if he is as fearless as he says and can be kept under control.

Soon Rico is Sam's top enforcer and bodyguard, but it isn't long before he starts acting like the boss, questioning other members' loyalty and bravery and pushing into Sam's role as leader. He also commands the loyalty of the gang through his resourcefulness at planning and pulling jobs that are tough and risky, and getting away with them; the only exception is Joe, their respectable "front man," who has found romance with an actress (Glenda Farrell) and a career, and wants out of helping the gang. Rico won't let him leave, and pushes him to help them on a brazen New Year's Eve robbery of a restaurant, during which the new crime commissioner is shot dead by Rico. Now the heat is on, but instead of keeping a low profile, Rico seizes control of the gang from Sam and secures his power by ruthlessly rubbing out the only member (William Collier) who seems likely to squeal, gunning the man down on the steps of a church. Before long, Rico is the first among equals among the local mob chieftains, sharing a dais at a dinner honoring him with his nominal boss and one-time idol Diamond Pete. He's also making enemies by the bushel -- Flaherty (Thomas E. Jackson), the cop heading the investigation into the murder of the commissioner, won't let up and makes it his personal business to nail Rico, and the rival chieftains don't like the publicity Rico's getting or the attention it brings to all of them. Rico survives attempts on his life and consolidates his hold on the streets, and is suddenly on the edge of achieving his goal -- the "Big Boy" (Sidney Blackmer), the wealthy social Brahmin who really controls crimes in the city, invites him to a meeting to tell him that Diamond Pete is finished. Rico is going to be in charge of the rackets across the entire city and making sure the local bosses stay in line. He is at the pinnacle of his career, and then Rico overreaches -- he can still be nailed for the murder of the commissioner, and is paranoid enough not to trust Joe, even though Joe helped saved Rico's life and insists that he'll never squeal; Rico also plans on supplanting the Big Boy. His rise to power unravels as fast as it happened, in an outburst of violence that drives him underground. But with an ego as big as his, Rico can't stay hidden for too long, and Flaherty is waiting for him.

The violence in Little Caesar may seem tame by today's standards -- although seeing a proper print of the movie, such as the 2005-issued DVD, does restore some of that impact -- but it was shocking at the time, and proved riveting and even seductive, especially because it was tied to a very charismatic performance by Robinson. Between his portrayal and the sounds of pistols and Thompson submachine guns, the movie was a sensory revelation and literalized the violence that had been suggested purely by visuals in such silent gangster classics as Josef Von Sternberg's Underworld (1927), itself yet another telling of a version of Capone's story. The language was also something newly coarse and bracing in movies, at a point when talkies were only a couple of years old. There's also a slightly homoerotic undertone to aspects of the character relationships that managed to get past the censors: Rico doesn't drink and seems uninterested in women; his fixation on Joe Massara, and his seeming competition for Massara's loyalty with the latter's fiancée, are couched in what seem like almost romantic terms; and his feeling of betrayal when Massara says he wants to leave the mob to get married seem almost more appropriate to someone caught in a romantic triangle. This is all made especially vivid when Rico laments not having killed Massara, admitting that he's been undone over "liking a guy too much." It's all nearly as striking as some of the more pointed psychological elements in subsequent gangster movies, including Tony Camonte's incestuous fixation on his own sister in Scarface (1932) and, at the far end of the cycle, Cody Jarrett's mother-fixation in White Heat (1949). ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In this melodramatic early sound-film an innocent country gal tires of her dull pastoral life and equally boring beau so she heads for the big city in search of adventure. Instead she finds herself the kept woman of a rich war profiteer. Deep down, she still loves the country boy who has been seriously injured while fighting WW I. He returns home blind and dying. When the girl hears about this, she pleads with her wealthy benefactor to be allowed to see him one last time. She returns to the lad, marries him, and then after he passes on, leaves her sugar daddy to lead life as a sadder but wiser girl. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide