Sworn Enemy

"Sworn Enemy" could have been a very good film, but the script is a bit rough. With a small re-write it could have been very good.

When the story begins, Hank Sherman (Robert Young) is doing what many men were doing during the Depression...looking for work. He finds a job working for a produce company loading trucks but his excitement is shortlived when a group of thugs from 'the Protective Association' demand he pay them $10 a month...or else. When he refuses, they beat the snot out of him. The owner sees this and chases away the thugs...and offers Hank a job as his chauffeur. The pay is good and he'll be able to go back to night school to get his law degree...and so he's a happy guy.

What follows is long, complicated and confusing. First, Hank's out of work, second he's a chauffeur, third he's working on becoming a lawyer, fourth he's an undercover agent for the District Attorney, fifth he's a boxing promoter. Do you get my drift? Good writing could have streamlined this and made Hank more realistic.

On the positive side, the film has plenty of action and some exciting moments. But they aren't enough to make this exactly a must-see picture.

Hank Sherman (Young) is out of work until he lands a job with Eli Decker's (Hinds) firm as a warehouse worker. Soon after he's hired, thugs approach him and tell him that he has to pay them a weekly amount for "protection." When he refuses, the thugs beat him up, an event that Decker sees and tries to break up. Decker hires Sherman as his chauffeur and soon Decker's secretary Peg Gattle (Rice) and Sherman become close. Decker is determined to clear out the protection racket headed by Joe Emerald (Calleia). At this time, Peg Gattle's father, "Doc" Gattle (Stone) is released from prison where he spent 12 years after being framed by Emerald. "Doc" provides information about Emerald that he gleaned while in prison to the District Attorney. Both Sherman and Peg Gattle become agents for the District Attorney and Sherman also becomes the manager of boxer "Steamer" Krupp (Pendleton). Pendleton plays his usual likable doofus – but hey – he does it so well that it's fun to watch. The rest of the movie is about the effort to find Emerald's hidden stash of incriminating documents and cash. Other reviewers have rightly commented on the strange steam room scene with its frieze of nude Greek athletes. That this is indicative of gay undertones may or may not be so but the scene in context makes little sense. I find it unlikely that a big time racketeer would find it necessary to explain to a small time boxing manager (as he thought Sherman was) why he wanted to have a fighter under contract. And while the ending is exciting, Peg Gattle's transformation into a gun moll type is hard to swallow. That said, all of the actors are so good that this movie is highly entertaining. It was also nice seeing Leslie Fenton in a role where he wasn't a slime ball (although no one could play that type better than he).

It starts out with Robert Young looking for a job and becoming chauffeur to Samuel S. Hinds. But crippled crime boss Joseph Calleia finds Hinds in his way, and Hinds winds up dead. This leads to a long, rambling plot involving Young going undercover for the District Attorney to take down Calleia by managing boxer Nat Pendleton for Calleia, a rained-out match, and a steam room with badly arranged controls.

And yet everyone plays their parts with a will; the peculiar veerings of the plot keep the audience guessing; Pendleton gets gets a speech that is touching; and Calleia, who only shows up after three quarters of an hour, is absolutely dominating. This with a cast that includes Florence Rice, Lewis Stone, John Wray, and Cy Kendall. Keep an eye out and you can see Dennis O'Keefe, still uncredited but instantly recognizable.

Calleia was a fine singer on Broadway, but only rarely sang in the movies. He was too busy playing bad guys and compelling oddities, like his turn as an ambiguous cop in GILDA. He retired to his native Malta in 1963 due to ill health; Coppola wanted him for Don Corleone in THE GODFATHER, but Calleia turned him down. He died in 1975 at the age of 78.

A dark movie that, had it been made a few years later, would have been a film noir. It begins with Robert Young's looking for a job. He can't get one because gangsters insist that he pay protection money that exceeds his potential salary.

He hooks up with the appealing Florence Rice and her boss, who runs the company where he'd been looking for a job. Her father is released from prison and all become involved in a crime-busting plan.

Nat Pendleton as a loyal boxer is at his very best here. He is portrayed as likable, strong, and attractive. The goofiness he was asked to assume in almost every other movie I've seen him in is absent here.

There is a gay undertone to the story as it involves the crime boss. He is a disabled man with an obsession for fighters. We see a frieze of Greco-Roman athletes in his apartment. And when Rice tries to turn his head a little, he tells her sourly that he has no real interest in legs. Maybe this is because of his own disability. Maybe it means women's legs.

The movie packs a wallop and is undeservedly obscure.

Hank Sherman (Robert Young) gets a job moving vegetables. When gangsters demand a monthly cut, he fights back. Dr. Simon Gattle (Lewis Stone) and his daughter Peg (Florence Rice) stop to help him. Simon fires his driver for not helping and hires Hank on the spot although he's not a driver. He does learn and falls for Peg. His boss is going up against the mobsters led by Joe Emerald (Joseph Calleia).

The opening is a little clunky. It does achieve two things. It shows that Hank is a fighter and there is corruption everywhere. It's just weird that this is how he got hired. It's a little clunky. A lot of the story is a little clunky, but it works good enough. It's a middling crime drama.