The Ruling Voice

Ruling Voice, The (1931)

** (out of 4)

Disappointing crime-drama from Warner has Walter Huston playing a racketeer who will stop at nothing to get as much power and money that he can. The daughter (Loretta Young) he hasn't seen in ten years comes home from Europe with a fiancé (David Manners) but when she learns what her father is really doing she turns her back on him. I'm a major fan of the three leads but sadly this melodrama is way too wordy and in the end it's a pretty boring film from start to finish. The biggest problem is the actual screenplay that doesn't offer very much except for tired dialogue that seems to keep coming and coming. Even the easiest of scenes contain way too much dialogue and the talking just keeps going to the point where you're ready to turn your hearing off just to get away from it. The screenplay is full of predictable things and not for a second will anyone believe the relationship between Huston and Young. There wasn't a single second where I actually believed that he would care about what she feels towards him. I mean, he hasn't bothered seeing her in ten years and all of the sudden he's just going to change his ways? Huston is decent in the role of the racketeer but no one is going to confuse this for one of his better performances. He does seem to be somewhat all over the place in terms of staggering away the set but I'm going to guess this has more to do with the director. Young is as beautiful as ever as this here was certainly a very high point in terms of those beautiful looks. Her performance hits all the right notes and she's wonderful in the sequence where she learns the truth about her father. Manners will always be best remembered for his role in the same year's Dracula but the more I see from him the more impressed I get. He perfectly fits the role of this nice guy trying to make money to marry Young. The film runs a rather short 72-minutes but you'd swear it was twice as long due to the non-stop talk and lack of any real action. Fans of the three leads might want to check it out if they plan to see everything they've done but others should stay clear.

Ruthless crime lord Jack Bannister (Walter Huston) causes countless hardships. His daughter Gloria (Loretta Young) is returning home after ten years in an European boarding school. When she discovers his criminal work, she breaks her engagement to her boyfriend Dick Cheney. She's ashamed of her own father and fears entangling anyone else to his organization. He launches a milk war and she is threatened over it.

It's an entry in the WB gangster movie genre. Huston's performance is more stuffy than Godfather. It would be better to have Jack Bannister get his hands dirty early in the movie. Instead, he's a CEO dressed in a suit. He's vicious but he's not that different from the many psychopaths in the executive suites. The ending is rushed and unrealistic. It's odd that it doesn't even show the shooting. It's a marginal gangster movie.

This is a super-corny, super-stupid story but just go with it - it's fabulous fun.....well, if like me, you like a cheesy unimaginative but fast-paced 1931 gangsterish drama that is.

Gangsterish? Organised crime crime is the central tenet of this but we don't have Tommy gun totting low lifes. Walter Huston's gang boss operates from a big fancy art-deco office, he has a board of directors and calls and minutes board meetings - the analogy of organised crime to big business whilst not being particularly subtle is strikingly put across.

What perhaps doesn't quite happen is any empathy with Walter Huston's character. As always he's fantastic bringing his unique zealous sincerity and honesty even to an agent of insidious evil. He's just a bit too nice, there's too much contradiction here to make him believable: he's the most loving father in the world and yet also deliberately responsible for dozens of babies starving to death.

I don't think we're meant to examine this that deeply. It's just a good old fashioned mellow melodrama. The story doesn't need to make too much sense, the characters don't need to be authentic or memorable and the direction doesn't need to dazzle. It's never going to win any awards but it's got three things going for it. 1) Walter Huston as always being brilliant, even in a bit of a naff role, 2) Loretta Young as always looking impossibly beautiful, 3) it's just so 1931........if someone asked you what was 1931/32 like in an American city, you'd simply show them this.

A potentially interesting entry in Warner Brothers' series of crime dramas is weakened by an improbably wordy script, stagey performances -- Walter Huston, in this early role, seems to have no sense of where the camera is -- and an outright awful performance by Doris Kenyon, who, although fifth-billed, is actually the female lead.

Despite the ethnic types that inhabit the better Warners crime dramas, the Irishmen and Italians, this one seems to be inhabited solely by WASPS who wear impeccable, old fashioned clothing.

On the plus side, Loretta Young is in her luminously beautiful phase, an absolute pleasure to look at, although she isn't given much to do. David Manners is adequate as the juvenile lead and the idea of the story, how honest men can be driven to become criminals, is potentially interesting. But this movie doesn't live up to its potential.

In The Ruling Voice, Walter Huston gets to play both of his specialties: a father and a charming villain. I've seen 26 of his movies, and in almost all of them he's played a dad! He's the head of a racketeering organization, but when he reveals his occupation to his innocent daughter, Loretta Young, she's ashamed and afraid of him. Oh, the hurt on Walter Huston's brow! He's such a powerful actor; he's credited as the man who started the racketeering business and has ordered terrible things to the opposition, but when Loretta hurts his feelings, he looks so sad and tender, it makes you want to cry.

Loretta is engaged to David Manners, whose character is named Dick Cheney, which provides a chuckle whenever he's mentioned. Besides that character's name, there's nothing funny about this movie. It's a family drama, with Walter trying to repair his relationship with his daughter at the heart of it. Naturally, I'm on Walter's side. Why can't Loretta respect her father's hard work and realize he loves her more than anything else in the world? Doesn't she know how charming and handsome he is, and how deeply she can hurt him?

Doris Kenyon appreciates him, and they share a few scenes together that sparkle with conflicting chemistry. "Well, there goes the devil," he quips as he leaves the room, an ironic foresight to a role he'd play ten years later. Walter Huston fans should check this one out; make it a double-feature with Night Court for a thrilling evening.