The Gangster

A big fish in a small pond finds his little world crumbling around him when a bigger fish swims into town. Opening with a monologue so misanthropic it could have been penned by Travis Bickle, this is a brutal and cynical film. Allied Artists reunited the stars of Suspense, Barry Sullivan and Belita, and the results are an improvement. Sullivan is cold and paranoid as the titular character, completely without trust or sympathy in anyone around him. Belita doesn't get to do any ice-skating this time around, but she is very good as his long-suffering gal, her devotion and sincerity eventually beaten down by his suspicions. I said earlier that I was looking forward to more of Joan Lorring, and I was glad to see her here. She doesn't get a whole lot of screen time, but she has a wonderful part to play in the end. There's a couple of subplots to consider. John Ireland is a desperate gambler whose story hooks into Sullivan's at a crucial point. The part with Harry Morgan as a self-imagined Romeo is a bit more superfluous but provide some nice character moments. Also some fine supporting bits by noir regulars Elisha Cook, Charles McGraw and Sheldon Leonard (and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance by Shelley Winters). The Louis Gruenberg score is occasionally overwhelming but mostly superb. And Paul Ivano's cinematography makes the most of the often cheap-looking sets, a lot of beautiful stylization, especially in the rain-soaked opening and closing sequences. Perhaps a little too self-conscious and stagy at times, but a very well-done, gloomy and sometimes poetic film.

Smalltime gangster feels heat of competition, while romancing showgirl.

The most interesting thing about this crime drama are the visuals. Director Wiles goes all out with the stylized sets—the beachfront, the elevated train, the complex interiors, et al. I guess that's not surprising given his background as an art director. Apparently the King Brothers let him do pretty much what he wanted even on the small budget. The result is arty, but interesting. Then too, maybe you can take those stylized sets as mirroring Shubunka's inner state since he seems not too far from the nuthouse to begin with.

Sullivan certainly looks the gangster part. With his high cheekbones and gimlet eyes, he's scary even without the big scar. Plus, he's about as cold and animated as a block of ice. Sullivan's a fine actor so that is no accident, but the characterization seems too extreme to involve us in his fate. On the other hand, Loring's semi-pretty working girl comes across well, as does Belita's glamour girl with her odd facial resemblance to noir icon Gloria Grahame.

Like another reviewer, I'm a bit stumped by the seemingly unnecessary subplot with Morgan and D'Orsay. At first I thought the producers probably owed D'Orsay something so she got a tacked-on part. But then I noticed a parallel between Morgan's narcissistic Lothario and Sullivan's narcissistic gangster. Each appears imprisoned by his own limitations. Notice too that Morgan appears trapped by a jail-like fence following D'Orsay' rejection, a possible foreshadowing of Sullivan's downfall. Anyway, it's a thought.

But what I really like about the script is how Sullivan's indifference toward Ireland's desperate gambler brings about his own end— a nicely ironic touch. Also, note how the entrepreneurial criminal operations are tied in with corruption at higher levels of politics and big money. That seems unsurprising since both screenwriter Fuchs and the uncredited Trumbo were later blacklisted. In fact, noir appears the favorite genre of many leftist screenwriters, perhaps because of the potential for unhappy endings in a capitalist society.

Nonetheless, the movie as a whole comes across more as an object of contemplation than of audience immersion, but certainly continues to have its points of interest.

Belying the promise of tommyguns and bootleg hooch implied in its title, The Gangster instead unfolds as a patch of doomed urban poetry. Its script, by Daniel Fuchs from his novel Low Company (with, it's said, a hand from Dalton Trumbo), looks down loftily and detachedly at a handful of "little" people in a day-trippers' seaside resort way out in Brooklyn. Each character is a gear meshing precisely with other gears in a clockwork plot perhaps better suited to footlights than the kick-lights of film noir.

But its milieu and aspirations remain decidedly -- ostentatiously -- noir, from the baroque, shadowed ironwork of the El to the nighttime cloudbursts over the littered pavements. A soda fountain serves as the drama's central "set" into which self-styled racket kingpin Barry Sullivan frequently drops to flash his cufflinks. He's unable to confront the fact that his tiny crime empire is under siege and crumbling; he's too obsessed with his stage-struck mistress (Belita). Blind with jealousy and bloated with delusions of his invulnerability, he drifts impassively, almost catatonically, toward the fate that's already been meted out for him (the dramaturgy brings to mind Periclean Athens or Elizabethan London).

An unusually starry cast of noir players inhabits The Gangster, many in no more than walk-ons. Among them: Akim Tamiroff as the drugstore proprietor and Sullivan's partner; Harry Morgan as a soda jerk and Joan Lorring as cashier; Fifi D'Orsay, in an inexplicable role; John Ireland and Virginia Christine as a compulsive gambler and his despairing wife; Sheldon Leonard as Sullivan's predatory nemesis; Elisha Cook, Jr. and Charles McGraw as (what else?) thugs; even an uncredited Shelley Winters, fixing her face.

Plainly, there's a lot to admire in The Gangster, from the stagily constructed neighborhood to Louis Gruenman's melodramatic score. The trouble is that all the admirable bits and pieces don't quite jell into the organic flow of vital cinema, and the purple passages don't ring true as the street lingo of a raffish backwater called Neptune Beach.

The Gangster, a raw, bitter portrait of a racketeer. Shubunka is the self-made head of the rackets in the sleazy boardwalk community of Neptune City, a low-rent version of Coney Island. He has become infatuated with a sultry nightclub chanteuse and lavishes her with gifts and attention, spending money on her that might better go to maintaining his hold on his operation. His obsession with her, as well as his pride, clouds his judgment as Cornell, a much more ruthless hoodlum, moves in on Shubunka's territory, bribes and threatens his associates, and compromises his operation. As if in a Greek tragedy, the petty gangster's weaknesses conspire to cause his downfall.

This film is offbeat, with a psychological focus that's full of glorious theatrical melodrama it's certainly compelling. It's also certainly a film noir, with its seamy portrayal of doomed underworld characters and a fine supporting cast of noir stalwarts including Akim Tamiroff, Henry Morgan, Charles McGraw, and Elisha Cook, Jr. (Keep a lookout for Shelley Winters as a cashier.)

The actress known as Belita (birth name: Maria Belita Jepson-Turner) was a professional ice skater brought to Hollywood to try and replicate the success of another European skater, Sonja Henie. While Belita did make a few ice skating films such as Ice-Capades (1941) and Silver Skates (1943), she wound up perhaps better remembered by movie fans for her acting roles in her low-budget noirs (though in Suspense, she also skates!).

With the The effective musical score , heavy dramatic and sharp gritty script , first class cinematography that crates a dreamlike atmosphere; A downbeat ending for the books in this movie that is like a pulp novel come to life. It all jives and really works in the film's favor. Excellent offbeat film noir 8/10

After the 1946 success of their million dollar musical noir SUSPENSE Monogram and their A grade production name ALLIED ARTISTS repeated their Barry Sullivan and Belita pairing plus many excellent sets and camera angles in a truly strange crime drama THE GANGSTER. Typical of their urban style and effort to make socially arresting films (BLACK GOLD, HIGH TIDE, and later PHENIX CITY STORY)I find I am quite haunted by this grim and emotional portrayal of a doomed big shot draining mentally and emotionally in his seaside square mile of crummy crim competition. It is almost as if everyone in this film acts as though he is sure they are trying to cause him to have a mental breakdown. Sullivan is a career criminal on the very edge of insanity brought on by just a plain lousy life of struggle, arguing and ratty behavior. His affair with the incredibly gorgeous Belita (of skating fame) is racked with his paranoia and melancholy at best. It is as if his falling in love with her is causing his mind to unravel and local thugs know it. THE GANGSTER is a very well made film and genuinely emotionally interesting. It is NOT as the title suggests, a 'gangster film' however it is quite a sad and tortured tale depicting the tragic shattering in slow motion of a big man's heart and mind as he realizes (or just thinks that) his world is crumbling. The scenes at the beach promenade with Belita dressed all in white offer the viewer genuine beauty. She is sublimely dressed and photographed all through this handsome film. In fact she reminded me of a young Gertrude Lawrence: Belita was British and a champion skater at a young age throughout the UK before coming to Monogram when only about 19 years old. She just died, in 2006 at about 82 years old. Barry Sullivan is a revelation. THE GANGSTER is one of the most interesting psychological dramas made, given that it is set within his mind, hence the fake looking world he inhabits (stylised sets etc). He has fallen in love and knows he doesn't deserve it or control it, thus causing emotional fright and mental collapse. What a topic! Good movie, this!