An Offer You Can’t Refuse #1: The Public Enemy (dir by William Wellman)

Posted on June 1, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For this month, I’ve decided to review movies about mobsters.

There’s no specific reason for that, beyond the fact that I just happen to love mobster movies. Of course, a good gangster film is rarely just about crime. Anyone who has ever seen The Godfather can tell you that. At their best, American gangster films are about the American dream and the lengths that some will go to achieve it.

Plus, they’re just a lot of fun to watch. Some of the greatest actors of all time made their mark in gangster films.

Take 1931’s The Public Enemy, for instance.

Produced during the final days of prohibition and the early years of the Great Depression, The Public Enemy tells the story of three boys who grew up poor. Tom Powers (James Cagney) and his friend, Matt Doyle (Edward Woods) pursued a life of crime, rising through the ranks of organized crime before eventually meeting a tragic end. The third, Mike Powers (Donald Cook), stayed on the straight-and-narrow path. He went into the Marines and he rebuked his brother, Tom, when he discovered that Tom’s money was due to “blood and beer.”

The film opens and closes with a title card that basically tells us that Mike Powers has the right idea but, when you watch the film, you can’t help but wonder if maybe Tom had a point about his brother being kind of a sap. Mike might be a decent citizen and he might have a chestful of medals as the result of his wartime heroics but what else does he have? Tom Powers, meanwhile, has no education and, it would appear, no conscience, no real friends, and no one that he really loves and yet he becomes a rich man who is acquainted with powerful figures. While Mike stays at home with their mother, Tom lives in an ornate penthouse. When his first girlfriend (Mae Clarke) gets on his nerves, Tom shoves a grapefruit in her face and then gets an even more glamorous girlfriend, Gwen (Jean Harlow). (Meanwhile, even dumb old Matt is doing okay for himself, marrying a woman played by Joan Blondell.) It’s hard not to imagine that the film’s original audience — who were still reeling from the Stock Market Crash of 1929 — looked at Mike and Tom Powers and quickly decided that they’d much rather be a part of Tom’s life than Mike’s. Even if Tom is destined for an early grave or a lifetime behind bars, at least he appears to be having fun. Speaking for myself, I’d much rather go out with the guy who has nice clothe and his own luxury apartment than with the self-righteous dud who is still living at home with his mother.

Of course, another reason why we gravitate towards Tom Powers is because he’s played by James Cagney, who was one of the most charismatic of the stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age and whose performance still holds up today. Cagney gives a ferocious performance, snarling out his lines and always moving like a caged animal, even when he’s just preparing to have breakfast. He’s full of an energy that’s both dangerous and exciting to watch. Cagney also brings a very powerful anger to the role of Tom Powers. As played Cagney, Tom Power is not just a criminal because he’s greedy. He’s also a criminal because he has no use for a society that he feels has rejected him since birth and which has never given him a fair chance. He becomes wealthy not just because he wants money but because he wants to taunt everyone who ever said that he wouldn’t amount to anything. He’s every crime is more than act of greed. It’s also an act of rebellion, a joyful to a society that wants to tell people what they’re allowed to believe and do. He’s the ultimate 1930s rebel, giving the the finger to not only the two Hoovers (Herbert and J. Edgar) but also to the good government leftists would be soon be swept into power with FDR. Despite the fact that The Public Enemy was made nearly 90 years ago, there’s nothing creaky about Cagney’s performance. It still feels vital and powerful today and it elevates the entire film.

The Public Enemy holds up surprisingly well. The film may be close to 90 but Cagney’s ferocious performance still feels fresh and powerfully alive.

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: Lady for A Day (dir by Frank Capra)

Posted on January 16, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1933 film, Lady For A Day, tells the story of Apple Annie (May Robson) and Dave the Dude (Warren William), who is perhaps the nicest gangster that you could ever hope to meet.

Of course, when I refer to Dave the Dude as being a gangster, I should make clear that he’s not the type of gangster who guns down his rivals or sells drugs in back alleys. I mean, I guess he might do that but we certainly don’t see much of evidence of it in the film. Instead, Dave is just a dapper gambler who travels with a bodyguard named Happy McGuire (Ned Sparks) and whose girlfriend, Missouri Martin (Glenda Farrell), owns a nightclub where, since this is a pre-code film, the acts are slightly racy but not excessively salacious. The country may be mired in a depression but Dave appears to be doing okay for himself. Yes, Dave may be a criminal but at least he’s honest about it.

Surviving the Depression has proven to be far more difficult for Apple Annie. She’s known as Apple Annie because she makes a meager living by selling fruit on the streets of New York City. Dave is one of her regular customers, as he believes that her apples bring him good luck. Annie has a daughter named Louise (Jean Parker). Louise has never met her mother, having spent the majority of her life in a Spanish convict. Annie regularly steals stationary from a high class hotel so that she can sends letters to Louise. Not wanting her daughter to be ashamed of her, Annie has always presented herself as being a rich woman named Mrs. E. Worthington Manville.

However, it now appears that Annie’s charade is about to be exposed. Louise is coming to New York with her fiance, Carlos (Barry Norton) and her prospective father-in-law, Count Romero (Walter Connolly). Annie knows that when the Louise arrives, she’s going to discover that her mother is not wealthy and that the marriage will probably be called off. So, led by Dave, Annie’s customers conspire to fool Louise into believing that her mother really is a member of high society. And if that means that Dave is going to have to not only kidnap (but, let’s be clear, not harm) three nosy reporters and then make a deal with not just the mayor but also the governor to pull of the deception, that’s exactly what he’s going to do.

Though it may be disguised as a sweet and rather simple comedy, Lady For A Day is actually a rather melancholy little film. Even when Annie and her friends are pretending to be wealthy members of high society, the film is aware that their escape from reality is only temporary. Eventually, they’ll have to return to the reality of being poor in 1930s America. At heart, it’s a sad story but May Robson, Warren William, Glenda Farrell, and Guy Kibbee (who plays the pool hustler who is recruited to pretend to be Annie’s husband) all bring such sincerity to their roles that you can’t help but smile while watching it. Rejected by “polite” society, Annie and her friends have formed a community of outsiders and, throughout the film, the audience is happy that, no matter what, they have each other.

Lady for a Day was the first Frank Capra film to ever be nominated for Best Picture. Capra was also nominated, for the first time, for best director but he had the misfortune to be competing with Frank Lloyd, who directed Cavalcade. At the awards ceremony, when host Will Rogers, announced the winner for best director, he said, “Come on up here, Frank!” An excited Capra ran down to the podium, just to discover that Rogers had actually been talking to Frank Lloyd. Rogers, seeing what had happened, quickly invited the other nominated director, Little Women‘s George Cukor, to come join Lloyd and Capra at the podium. Fortunately, one year later, Capra would win the directing Oscar for It Happened One Night.

Cavalcade would go on to win Best Picture but Capra retained so much affection for Lady For A Day that it was the only one of his films that he would subsequently remake. A Pocketful Of Miracles came out in 1961 and featured Bette Davis in the lead role. It would be Capra’s final theatrical film.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Boy of the Streets (dir by William Nigh)

Posted on October 1, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to New York City, circa 1937!

It’s a place where the extremely wealthy carefully avoid the districts dominated by the extremely poor, like the Bowery. In the Bowery, families live in tenements and worried mothers can only cry as they watch their sons join street gangs and their daughters settle for a life of abuse and loss. Sure, there’s a few do-gooders. Occasionally, there’s a cop who is convinced that no boy is a lost cause. Sometimes, you’ll run into a doctor who is determined to provide adequate medical care to the inhabitants of the Bowery. In fact, you might even see a rich person who is determined to spread about some charity. But, for the most pat, life in the Bowery is just one hopeless day after another.

14 year-old Chuck Brennan (Jackie Cooper) lives in the Bowery. He’s got a gang of boys who will do anything that he tells them to do and, despite the fact that Chuck is obviously smarter than almost everyone else around him, he has no interest in being a role model or decent citizen or anything else of that matter. Chuck lives in a shabby apartment with his mother (Marjorie Main) and his father (Guy Usher). Chuck looks up to his father who apparently knows important people and is often out of town on “business.” However, when Chuck discovers that his father is actually a low-level hood who works for the local political machine, Chuck is not only disillusioned but also inspired to go find some gangsters to team up with himself.

The system says that Chuck is a hopeless case but not everyone agree. Officer Rourke (Robert Emmett O’Connor) thinks that there’s hope for Chuck, he just needs something or someone to straighten him out. (Like maybe a stint in the Navy….) And then there’s Nora (Maureen O’Connor), the sweet Irish girl who lives in Chuck’s building and who is often heard singing to her deathly ill mother.

In the end, it’s all up to Chuck. Will he pursue a life of crime or the life of an honest man? Will he be a man like his father or will he end the cycle of crime and desperation?

Boy of the Streets is a low-budget, black-and-white film from 1937. It was produced by Monogram Pictures and, much like Dead End (which came out the same year and featured a superficially similar storyline), it’s a film that mixes social commentary with a bit of gangster action. The film’s low-budget doesn’t do it any favors and there’s nothing particularly surprising to be found in the film’s plot but child actor Jackie Cooper is convincingly cocky as the swaggering Chuck and Marjorie Main does a good job as his anguished mother. (Interestingly, Main also played Humphrey Bogart’s mother in Dead End.)

Boy of the Streets is a good example of a film that I never would have seen if not for TCM. (I recorded it off of TCM way back in June.) That’s one reason why I’ll always be thankful for TCM. At a time when so many people seem to be determined to destroy history, TCM is celebrating it.

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #3: The Big House (dir by George Hill)

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1930 Best Picture nominee The Big House opens with a black Model T car slowly pulling up to the front of a large and imposing prison. Handcuffed in the back seat of the car is a handsome, nervous-looking young man named Kent (Robert Montgomery). Kent is led into the prison where he is forced to hand over all of his possessions to a grim-looking guard. We find out that Kent has been convicted of manslaughter, the result of hitting someone while driving drunk. For the next ten years, this prison (which, we’re told, was designed to house 1,800 but actually holds 3,000) will be Kent’s home.

Kent finds himself sharing a cell with two lifers. Butch (Wallace Beery) is a coolly manipulative sociopath who alternatively counsels and abuses Kent. Meanwhile, Morgan (Chester Morris) tries to protect Kent and even helps him get his cigarettes back from Butch. These three prisoners represent the three faces of prison: Butch is the unrepentant criminal who is actually more at home in prison than in the “real” world. Morgan is the former criminal who has changed his ways but who is apparently destined to spend the rest of his life paying for his poor decisions. And Kent is the young man who has to decide if he’s going to be like Butch or if he’s going to be like Morgan. The Big House makes the still-relevant argument that the American prison system is more likely to turn Kents into Butches than into Morgans.

When the film began, I assumed that Kent would be the main character but actually, he’s secondary to most of the action. From the moment he first shows up, Kent is not particularly sympathetic and he becomes steadily less likable as the film progresses. Instead, the film is more focused on the always-scheming Butch and the regretful Morgan. While Morgan makes plans to escape from captivity and ends up falling in love with Kent’s sister (Leila Hyams), Butch spends his time plotting ways to take over the prison. For his performance as Butch, Wallace Beery won an Oscar but, seen today, it’s obvious that the film’s heart and soul belongs to Chester Morris’s Morgan.

Like a lot of films from the period, The Big House feels undeniably creaky when viewed through modern eyes. The Big House was made at a time when Hollywood was still trying to make the transition from silent to sound films. As such, the film’s pacing is slower than what contemporary audiences are used to and a few of the performances are undeniably theatrical. I can honestly say that I’m never been more aware of how much I take for granted nonstop background music than when I watch a movie from the early 30s.

That said, once you’ve adapted to the different aesthetic, The Big House holds up fairly well. Director George Hill films the prison like a town in a German expressionist horror film and Chester Morris’s performance remains sympathetic and compelling. If the plot seems familiar, it’s important to remember that The Big House is the film first introduced a lot of the clichés that we now take for granted.

The film’s best moments are the ones that deal not with Kent, Butch, and Morgan but instead just the ones that show hordes of prisoners — all anonymous and forgotten men — going about their daily life. It’s during those scenes that you realize just how many people have been crammed into one tiny space and why that makes it impossible for prison to reform the Kents of the world.

Gandhi once said that the true value of any society can be determined by how that society treats its prisoners and The Big House certainly makes that case.