Born Reckless

"Born Reckless" did not strike me as an appropriate title, but the original title of the story from which this movie came was simply "Louis Beretti," even more meaningless.

"Born Reckless" starts right out with action and even gunshots, but moves rather slowly throughout. But remember, this is an early sound picture, and in that context, it is very well done.

Locations range from New York to the World War I battlefield of France and back, from urban New York to the countryside, and the look we get of the era makes "Born Reckless" valuable, if not an entirely entertaining motion picture.

It has an excellent cast, with Edmund Lowe the star. He was a good actor but is little known today.

However if you look carefully, you will see the biggest star of all time ... but you have to look VERY carefully. In fact, I never did see John Wayne, although he is listed in the "uncredited" cast here at IMDb.

Quite visible, although also uncredited, is the great Randolph Scott. Also visible is the great Ward Bond, who is given billing but is on-screen in about two scenes.

Known well to John Ford aficionados is Jack Pennick, quite visible also, and whose presence always added so much. Another future cowboy star I didn't see is Bill Elliott, uncredited.

Playing the sister of the Lowe character is Marguerite Churchill, who had a couple years before co-starred with John Wayne in "The Big Trail," and it must have been interesting to be on this set with him as an unbilled extra.

Lowe's character is not especially likable, and probably the most likable character is the newspaper guy, played by Lee Tracy.

The cast alone makes "Born Reckless" very worth watching, even though the story is not very pleasant. It is, though, an interesting look at the World War I and Prohibition era America which, added to the cast, should entice you into watching.

I do recommend it, having watched it On Demand from Time Warner Cable. There is a trailer for it at YouTube.

How much of this film was directed by Andrew Bennison and how much by John Ford is your guess. All I know is that with Ford at the helm, I sure expected more from this very flat film.

"Born Reckless" is a gangster film with rather odd casting. Edmund Lowe stars in this film and frankly he didn't seem at all the gangster type. Part of this might be because I've only seen Lowe in about a dozen films (and he made over a hundred) and none of them ha him playing anything even closely resembling a criminal. Usually, he played very sophisticated and cultured sorts of men and with his lovely diction it just felt odd to have him hanging out with the sorts of Warren Hymer in the film--Hymer usually playing idiots or thugs. So, from the onset I had trouble accepting Lowe in the film--although I like him as an actor.

The other problem I noticed is that the film didn't seem sure whether or not to make Lowe a bad guy or a good guy. At the beginning he seemed kind of bad--after all, he was involved in an armed robbery. then, however, only minutes later he seemed like a swell fella when he met his sister's new boyfriend. And, when the police brought him in because of the robbery, he agreed to serve in WWI in order to avoid prison--and he served with distinction. Later, after he got out, he was not the most law-abiding of citizens (opening a speakeasy), but he also had a very, very moral code--one you'd certainly not expect from the owner of a speakeasy!! As a result, the film was muddled despite having some very interesting elements and a dandy violent finale.

With all the great gangster films of the early 30s, my attitude is that you should see all of them first! With wonderful films like "Scarface", "Littel Caesar" and "Public Enemy" (among others), why mess with this mediocre and poorly written film?

With such fluid epics as "The Iron Horse" (1924), "Lightnin'" (1925), "Hangman's House" and "Four Sons" (both 1928) in his resume, it is surprising that Fox would encumber Ford with a dialogue director over and over, but Fox did. In '29's "The Black Watch" it was Lumsden Hare. Andrew Bennison is credited with the stage direction of "Men Without Women" released January 1930. Judging from the result Bennison achieved in "Born Reckless" (released in May 1930), I'm astonished anyone would have given him a second chance.

The photoplay opens with a traveling camera shot of a parade. The camera prowls into a jewelry store where a heist is in progress. Outside, the cops "get wise" when a stolen truck is discovered. An exiting shootout and chase ensues, with our hero, Louis Berretti, gaining refuge at his parents' apartment. Then Bennison's stuff takes over. Well, molasses in Anchorage moves better and the pace of the film congeals. Berretti faces justice (eventually) and is "sentenced" to join the war effort overseas. John Ford stages some excellent sequences here, with Berretti's approbatory service delivering him home a hero. He opens a nightclub which, unfortunately, keeps Berretti rubbing elbows with his old mob and allows plenty scenes filled with Bennison-helmed hubris. The dialogue is not only awkward with head-shaking gaps, but has characters with names like Big Shot putting people "on the spot" [murdered].

Audiences of 1930 could not fast forward but you can and should. Edmund Lowe's performance is nothing like the smooth "Chandu" of a year later and probably should be skipped over to view Ford's impressive set pieces. The swamp at the picture's conclusion cribs Fox's "Sunrise" but remains impressive for an early talkie. I gave it a 7 for Ford's contributions. On the whole, though, this is the kind of film that gave early TV viewers a bad taste for early talkies. Viewers beware.

It's a gangster film! It's a war picture! It's a family drama! It's a story of unrequited love! It's a musical! It's a complete mess! It's not sci-fi or horror, but then Lon Chaney had just died and Fox didn't have Bela Lugosi under contract! But I digress.

Louie Beretti (Edmund Lowe) is working a safe cracking job with his gang in the middle of a parade (at night???), when a cop gets suspicious about the car waiting for them, and they have to abort the robbery. They manage to get away, but later Beretti and two of his partners in the job are nabbed by the police and given the choice of either going to war (WWI is in progress) or going to trial. They choose the former. Only Beretti returns alive, and opens a successful and classy speak-easy, which the police obviously know about because they bring it up to him as something positive that he has going on in his life (???). However, he gets not even one prohibition era raid. But you can take the man out of the mob, but it's not so easy to take the mob out of the man.

This was an early sound effort for John Ford, and, like I said, what a mess! John Ford gets better with sound, and quickly, so this is just Exhibit A of how good directors, in the face of the new technology, seemed to forget everything they knew about the art of motion picture making.

Edmund Lowe makes a brave effort, and I really like most of the films I've seen him in, but his bravery is not enough. For one, he's got a sister and parents who speak with an obvious Italian accent, but he sounds like he's from Brooklyn. When he's in the army in France everybody in his company sounds like they are from Brooklyn. Did nobody outside of New York City enlist in WWI?

As for the criminal gang he runs with, they all are so anonymous. They are all so non-descript looking and sounding I really couldn't tell one from another and that muddles the plot. Catherine Dale Owen, as the sister of one of Beretti's friends in the army who doesn't come home, is given very little to do. I guess it's a tribute to Lowe's acting that I can figure out that she's the classy girl who got away - She married someone else. Because I for sure couldn't figure it out from the dialogue or the situations.

What's good about it? For once, Fox made good use of contract player Warren Hymer as "Big Shot", head of the gang. Also, there's Lee Tracy in only his second credited role as a reporter - his go-to persona. He's there to make wry commentary on the various situations, and he does a good job of it.

If you are a Fox completist, or a student of early sound, or you just like Lee Tracy this might be worth your time.

This is the dangerous part of not worrying too much about the pieces that feed into your ending. Yes, everything in the ending was set up, but the first bulk of the film is so overstuffed, unfocused, and downright dull that the fact that the ending is a fulfillment of the rest of the story ends up not meaning all that much. The story was simply not that interesting to begin with. This is an increasingly rare misstep in Ford's burgeoning career.

Born Reckless tells the story of Louis Beretti (Edmund Lowe), a low-level hood in his little corner of New York City. He and his friends run a small time racket, mostly trying to rob jewelry stores. I will say one thing about this film: it's opening shot is great, just absolutely great. It's a tracking shot that follows a truck full of soldiers heading off to join in the fight in Europe singing "Over There", the perennial soldierly anthem of World War I, continuing forward after the truck turns to the right, and we see the lookout man in front of the jewelry store. This is strong, economical, and visual filmmaking and storytelling that's creating a stark impression of the contrast between the young men going off to war and the young men staying behind to commit crimes.

The heist gets aborted when their wheelman attracts too much attention, and they get away safe. Louis heads home where his immigrant mother and father, speaking in broken English with Italian accents, welcome him home with open arms while his kid sister, Rosa (Marguerite Churchill) is hosting a young man in the other room. The young man is hoping to marry Rosa, and Louis needs to take him to his friends to size him up, much to the dismay of one of his gang who had had sights on Rosa. The police pick Louis and some of his gang up, though, and in a move that seems like only could happen in a movie, the judge sends Louis to fight on the front lines of the war, keeping any charges in limbo until he returns.

The movie then becomes a World War I soldiering movie, complete with an introduction to the loosest and most information start to basic training I've ever seen, baseball in France, and a hurried battle scene that's more a collection of moments than anything. And before you know it, we're back to New York.

This movie really does take on way too much. I thought the film was going to stay in France for the bulk of the film when it came up. It made sense. It would be the personal journey of a young, listless, and criminal man learning duty and honor in the service of his country, but it's over before we get a sense of much of anything.

Louis comes back, falls for the sister of a friend he made back in France but she's due to marry someone else. He ends up running a huge nightclub somehow while his old gang kind of just remain in the old neighborhood. There's a kidnapping plot introduced with about twenty minutes left, an assassination, and the ending really does use all the elements that came before. However, none of that matters because by the halfway point I was just bored by what I was watching.

Nothing was connecting. We just kept jumping from one storyline to another. It never felt like we were following one man on a journey with an emotional core. It was just a series of scene strung together and cut down to the bone. So, the mechanics of the story are there, but the emotional hook is missing.

Born Reckless is more of what I expected from this era of Ford when I started. There's a technical polish obviously present in terms of the production, but ultimately it's a poorly written and rushed affair that doesn't really highlight Ford's strengths all that well. This is a disappointment considering the strength of the films that have come before it, warts and all. This is mostly just warts.