Der letzte Gangster

Anyone who's a die-hard Edward G. Robinson fan will probably already have seen The Last Gangster, a drama that tugs on your heart. Eddie G plays the titular character, a mob boss kingpin who gets sent to jail for scrimping on his income tax. His frustration is understandable, since he's gotten away with everything else and gets tripped up by a minor detail. Plus, his lovely wife, Rose Stradner, has just given birth to a little boy. Rose, an immigrant without a good command on the English language, is lost without her husband. She also doesn't have an income anymore and has to struggle as a new and single mother.

James Stewart plays a young newspaper reporter. He learns of Rose's plight and writes some articles sympathizing with her situation. As he gets to know her, he can't help himself from trying to help her and the little baby. As time passes, they start to fall in love. Obviously, the good guy vs. Bad guy element is pretty strong in this film. Eddie G is a gangster who abandoned his family, and Jimmy is an upstanding reporter who believes in doing the right thing. But you just can't help loving Eddie G and feeling terribly sorry for him - or at least I can't. When he pouts and starts to cry, it just tears me up!

Edward G. Robinson stars in "The Last Gangster," with a cast that includes Lionel Stander, Rosa Stradler, James Stewart, John Carradine, and Sidney Blackmer.

As older men, Stander and Blackmer would be known for the TV show Hart to Hart (no mistaking that voice) and Rosemary's Baby, respectively.

Robinson is Joe Krozac, a powerful, ruthless mob boss who does not tolerate anyone moving in on his territory.

Joe takes a trip to Europe and returns with a bride, Talya (Rosa Stradner). Talya doesn't speak much English so she really doesn't know how Joe makes his living.

When she becomes pregnant, Joe is crazy with joy, absolutely obsessed with the idea of having a son, whom he dreams of taking over his crime business.

Joe, alas, taking a page out of Al Capone's book, lands in jail for ten years for tax evasion. He is determined to be a model prisoner so he can get out on time. When Talya brings the baby to see him, he only cares about the baby and not her.

When her son is called baby mobster in the newspaper, with a photo, Talya becomes disillusioned and stops bringing the baby. She also divorces Joe. Meanwhile, Joe left a lot of money somewhere and his old friends want it as soon as he's released.

This film went the typical gangster route until the end, and it's really very sweet. Robinson was such a wonderful actor - he could play a wimp or a bully, do drama and comedy - he was a real treasure.

James Stewart had an early role in this film. I thought he looked on the young side for Rosa Stradner, even though he was five years older. Toward the end of the film, I guess to show the passage of time, he has a mustache someone stuck on him, and it looks dreadful.

Rosa Stradner did a good job as an insecure woman from another country who marries the wrong man. She was married to Joseph Mankiewicz, during which time, she didn't work in the early years while he was out having affairs with Judy Garland and Linda Darnell.

But they stayed married, and she did a film, The Keys of the Kingdom, in which she was marvelous. At the age of 45, an alcoholic by now, she committed suicide. Very sad.

Supposedly the line from the Mankiewicz screenplay of All About Eve - "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night" was inspired by Rosa.

You won't have to fasten your seatbelts for this, but thanks to Robinson, it's good.

Last Gangster, The (1937)

*** (out of 4)

Strange but highly entertaining gangster film from MGM has Edward G. Robinson marrying a woman who doesn't know about his deadly pass. Robinson eventually has a son with her but before he meets the child he gets sent to prison for ten years. The mother then finds out about his past and decides to kidnap the kid so that he doesn't turn out like his father. She eventually marries another guy (James Stewart) but soon Robinson is out of jail and looking for revenge. This is certainly a lot tamer than the Warner gang pictures of the time but that's a good thing because there's a lot of heart and emotion in place of the violence. Robinson is very good and incredibly touching in the end and Stewart shines in his role. John Carradine has a very good part as a man picking on Robinson inside prison. The ending is predictable but the film still works very well.

Made at MGM but starring a Warner Brothers icon, and this strange gangster pic has ample ingredients reeking of both studios. Edward G. Robinson, clanking on all cylinders, is a Capone-like capo who gets rich during Prohibition, is sent up the river for a decade, and becomes obsessed with the little boy his wife (Rose Stradner, unknown to me and quite interesting) bore. She's an immigrant and utterly, somewhat implausibly unaware of her husband's dirty business, but she gets educated by a newspaperman (James Stewart, not very compelling here, except for an uncharacteristic Cesar Romero mustache) who falls in love with and eventually marries her. The Warners influence is evident not just in Robinson's snarling and grimacing but in the stepped-up violence, quicker-than-usual editing, and hilariously overblown musical score, by Edward Ward. But the ideal home life of Stewart, Stradner, and their adorable little boy, complete with suburban trimmings and Louise Beavers doing maid things, are utterly MGM. There's some excitement, and a good supporting cast, notably Lionel Stander as Robinson's henchman, but it's all kind of predictable. And when you want it to settle down, another Edward Ward blast assaults the senses. But what's really interesting, and still timely, is how Robinson's character, Joe Krozac, is self-centered, not as smart as he thinks he is, used to getting his own way, outraged when he doesn't... he's Donald Trump!

There are a lot of theoretical strikes against this movie-- Robinson playing a Capone lookalike for the zillionth time (right before he switched mainly to playing them for comedy in things like A Slight Case of Murder and Brother Orchid); post-Code MGM instead of pre- Code Warner Bros., which surely means a softer handling of the gangster theme; a no-name director and female co-star, Jimmy Stewart in a thankless good guy role; and, not least, a sort of gangster Sin of Madelon Claudet plot in which Robinson gets to get weepy about not knowing his son while he's in Alcatraz.

And amazingly, it's all handled remarkably freshly-- and toughly, especially from the point where the movie pulls the rug out from under big shot Robinson with a long and realistically bleak prison train sequence. Almost every opportunity to sink into cliche is rethought to find a fresher angle-- instead of the archetypal Warner Bros. tough-guy prison, with the warden acting like a crime boss himself to keep his charges in line, the movie's Alcatraz is a streamlined, impersonal machine for reducing men to numbers, the striking production design as institutionally cold as the manner of the warden. The classic welcome home from the boys (such lovable gangster lugs as Lionel Stander and Edward Brophy) takes a highly unexpected turn-- and keeps turning. Although the scenes where he finally meets his son again are hampered by unrealistic dialogue for the kid, in all this is a strong and thoughtful adult drama which brings emotional realism back to a genre usually riddled with cliches.