The Finger Points

After talkies came in, Warner Brothers didn't really seem to know what to do with Richard Barthelmess, but he hung around in starring roles quite a bit longer than most of his silent counterparts - from 1929 to 1934.

Normally Barthelmess played thoughtful guys put into tight circumstances, and this was probably supposed to be one of those roles, but it doesn't' quite come across right. Breckenridge Lee (Richard Barthelmess) starts out as a totally green and conscientious reporter up from a Savannah paper into a press room of the big city. When the editor announces a campaign against the mob, Lee is the only reporter that takes his assignment seriously. He even walks right up to a speakeasy and asks probing questions to the mobster in charge. Unable to be bribed he writes an expose on the place and it is thus raided by the police. The mob then beats him up one night in retaliation, badly enough that he needs hospitalization and his medical bills pile up. He is surprised when the city editor balks at helping him financially, as he denies that Lee's beating had anything to do with the paper at all and hints that Lee's injuries probably had something to do with him drinking and hanging around unsavory people after work.

Now this is where things get a bit unrealistic. Lee instantly turns from green honest reporter to money hungry and corrupt. He figures if you can't beat them, join them. He takes money from the mob and in return agrees to keep the paper and thus the cops off of their backs. He justifies this by saying that the only way that the mob will ever pay is with money to him - but he's not exactly giving the loot away to charity.

Fay Wray plays Lee's love interest as fellow reporter Marcia who at first suspects then knows the truth and loves him just the same. Regis Toomey plays a supporting role as someone who would like to win Marcia's heart but knows when he's beat. Robert Elliot is the gruff tough city editor who often played a cop in the early talkies. Of course, most notable here is Clark Gable, sitting in the palm of Jack Warner's hand, and not being recognized by him as a star in the making. Gable is impressive here as a spats-wearing charming sinner, the gangster who sees Lee as a useful idiot - for awhile anyways.

Finger Points, The (1931)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Static but entertaining gangster picture has a wet-nosed reporter (Richard Barthelmess) from the South going to the big city to become a star but he soon learns that nothing is easy. After busting a gambling operation and getting nothing out of it, the reporter decides to partner up with a racketeer (Clark Gable) but soon the reporter gets too big for his current situation. This film is based on the life of Chicago Tribute reporter Jake Lingle who got involved with Al Capone and the rest is history. This film version is pretty good, although it's a bit slugish at time but this is due mostly to just how movies were during this early sound era. Barthelmess is hit and miss in his role. He's somewhat shaky during the nervous reporter segments but he settles down once he starts to enter the big shot period. Gable steals the show with his supporting performance and Fay Wray plays the love interest.

Being based loosely on a true story adds the dimension of reality to this depiction of how easy it can be to be lured to the dark side. It's reasonably entertaining but nothing like as good as the classic gangster films of the era.

The positives first: the camerawork is especially impressive: it's fluid, dynamic and visually very interesting. That positive however highlights the negative. Ernest Haller's cinematography looks anachronistic by which I mean it's what you'd expect from a classy picture from the 1930s yet weirdly looks out of place in a picture which feels more like something from the late 1920s. The acting style and dictation is what you find in those early talkies. Compared with other pictures from 1931, say PUBLIC ENEMY or APPLAUSE, the narrative is painfully slow and the characters are as believable as Mickey Mouse. (Except for Gable of course.)

Richard Barthelmess' sensitive and thoughtful personality is occasionally perfect for a handful of roles but definitely not in this. That he could morph into a tough crime-busting reporter is utterly unconvincing. When tempted by the lure of mobster moolah, the struggle with his conscious lasts no more than about five seconds: Gable: You're a goody two shoes but would you like to join us and become filthy rich?

Barthelmess: No, I hate corruption.... but then again... oh ok then, where do I sign?

Terrible writing.

Also miscast is Regis Toomey. What film does he think he's in? He tries much too hard to offset Barthelmess' humourless cold persona by being, what passed for amusing in his own mind. And Fay Wray - as always she's that simpering cardboard cutout she always is. Why she was so popular is anyone's guess.

So despite three miscast leads, painfully slow and unemotional direction and an unrealistic script, the story and authentic feel of the age is just engrossing enough to hold your attention. If you want to bathe in the sumptuous atmosphere of 1930 and taste the grime of the era, you might just about be able to overlook this film's many shortcomings and enjoy it as a movie, not just as a museum curio.

This is another film I had to see in my unhealthy quest to see all of the available Fay Wray films out there. However, this film surprised me, as it was a pretty good story. It also has a young Clark Gable as a gangster in a scene stealing role that demonstrates his star power very early in his career.

The plot has been covered in other reviews, so I'll keep my review short.

The pluses: Fay looks great, Clark Gable is good, and the story is solid and interesting.

The minuses: Richard Barthelmess is fine, but being from the south, he shouldn't have even tried the accent.

Overall a fine film and definitely worth a viewing.

This is typical of the social dramas, or hollywood gangster films of the thirties, except its protagonist is a newsman, who gets no thanks for being a good reporter, (he gets beat up, and his bosses refuse to foot the hospital bills) and thus decides to be a finger pointer for the mob, while being fed stories by one mob to knock off the operations of its rival mobs. Certain scenes are overplayed and dreary while others are quiet with a lot of pathos to it. The once great star of silent cinema, Richard Barthelmess, was not great at delivering dialogue and is much the same here. But you've got Gable playing a gangster and a last fifteen minutes where given no dialogue, Bartelmess gets to shine and show us the actor he was. Overall, a good gangster flick dealing with the stories of the time that the press had been infiltrated by the mob to withhold harmful stories against them. It also was a hit, if that's a plus.