This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. This week's theme is gangsters, which for somebody like me who prefers old movies is a very easy topic to come up with three movies on. The only problem I had was making certain I hadn't used the movies before. So, I decided to come up with a theme-within-a-theme of more comedic gangster movies:
A Slight Case of Murder (1938). Edward G. Robinson plays a bootlegger gangster who finds that now that Prohibition is over, nobody wants to buy his beer because frankly, it's terrible compared to the legal stuff. He wants to get into society anyway to marry off his daughter (Jane Bryan), so he takes a house in Saratoga, only to get more than he bargained for, notably the bodies that some other gangsters left behind. And we're only getting started.
Love That Brute (1950). Paul Douglas plays a Chicago gangster of the 1920s who sees a pretty governess (Jean Peters) in the park one day, and decides he'd like to have her. Except that he doesn't have a kid. So he finds the orphaned son of another gangster and takes that kid in as a ruse to have the governess (who doesn't know his background) work for him. What will happen when she discovers his secret?
The Happening (1967). Anthony Quinn plays a retired gangster who gets accidentally kidnapped by a bunch of hippies (including Faye Dunaway, Robert Walker Jr., and George Maharis) who don't realize whom they've kidnapped. When they try to ransom him, he's shocked to learn that his wife (Martha Hyer) is having an affair with his business partner (Milton Berle), and that she's perfectly satisfied not to pay the ransom and let the kidnappers do whatever to him. Since the hippies don't really know the first thing about kidnapping, he shows them how it's done, to get revenge on his wife.
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7 comments:
Another Faye Dunaway gangster film. Haven't watched any of these, so I'm going to add them on my watchlist.
LOVE your first two choices! Both delightfully humorous with brilliant actors at their centers. The Happening well.....it's very of its time but Faye is ravishing.
I went all Jimmy Cagney with mine.
The Public Enemy (1931)-Tom Powers (Cagney-in the role that made him a major star) is a small-time hood, vicious and consciousless who climbs to success on the back of Prohibition and his willingness to do whatever necessary-rob, maim, kill-to gain advantage. The film chronicles that rise, and fall, as well as his entanglement with two women Gwen (Jean Harlow, this was one of her earliest appearances, don’t judge her on it-she’s awful-look to her MGM comedies where she’s great) and Kitty (Mae Clarke) who famously receives a grapefruit in her kisser when she mouths off to Cagney. This William Wellman directed picture is one of the formative films in creating the gangster drama.
The Roaring Twenties (1939)-Eddie Bartlett (Cagney), George Hally (Humphrey Bogart) and Lloyd Hart (Jeffrey Lynn) strike up a friendship in a foxhole during WWI. Once back in the States they go their separate ways but eventually circumstances bring them back together in the bootlegging business where they find enormous success until jealousies, rivalries and the stock market crash brings it all tumbling down. One of the last great gangster films of the 30’s with a fantastic cast including Priscilla Lane and a scene stealing Gladys George as the lovelorn songbird Panama Smith who delivers the film’s iconic last line.
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950)-Amoral gangster Ralph Cotter (Cagney) breaks out of prison along with fellow prisoner Carleton (Neville Brand). When Carlton is injured Cotter murders him to speed his escape and jumps right back into crime blackmailing Carleton’s sister Holiday (Barbara Payton) into a relationship to conceal her part in aiding their jailbreak. Discovering graft Cotter pressures a couple of crooked cops (Barton MacLane and Ward Bond) and an equally corrupt lawyer (Luther Adler) into a scheme to bilk heiress Margaret Dobson (Helena Carter) out of a fortune. Things do not go as planned. This was the highpoint of leading lady Barbara Payton’s career. A beautiful if somewhat hard looking blonde at this time she was considered a rising star but after a scandal plagued and notorious career she fell as far as it’s possible to go ending up a drug addicted skid row hooker (once being mistaken for a pile of garbage after being left next to a dumpster following a beating) before her death from organ failure at 39.
Can't go wrong with Edward G. Robinson in gangster movie. I picked one myself.
i haven't seen any of your picks. Got a little scared for a moment when I saw "The Happening." I always think of that awful M. Night Shayamalan movie.
I like The Happening, in no small part because Quinn looks like he's having a blast doing comedy. And of course the Supremes meet Frank DeVol.
It's also the same basic plot as the great Terry-Thomas comedy Too Many Crooks, which I love.
I love Robinson but haven't seen A Slight Case of Murder. Haven't seen any of these, sadly.
I haven’t seen any of these but always want to and you can’t go wrong with Edward G Robinson or James Cagney for this week. Love to watch all of the. And marked them down to see.
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