The Beast of the City

Grim and gritty pre-Code crime drama about a tough-as-nails police captain (Walter Huston) with a hard-on for wiping out crime. His brother (Wallace Ford) falls for a vampy bad girl (Jean Harlow). Through her, he gets involved with gangster Sam Belmonte (a miscast Jean Hersholt). This leads to an inevitable clash between brothers.

Well-directed and well-written with solid acting, especially for 1932. Harlow is her usual alluring self. Huston is great in a part that is not very sympathetic, despite his being the protagonist. Early work by J. Carrol Naish as Hersholt's henchman, Cholo. Speaking of Hersholt, he was the only suspect casting. I'm not bashing Hersholt because he was a fine actor. But hearing him spout gangster slang through his thick accent was a little silly. Mickey Rooney has a small part as one of Huston's kids.

Another great Walter Huston movie from the '30s. He made a lot of interesting ones. The aim of this particular film is to glorify cops not criminals. At least that's what the Herbert Hoover-signed message before the credits says. Yet the ultimate message of the movie is that in order for the cops to stop the criminals, they have to abandon the rule of law and take matters into their own hands. The final shoot-out between the gangsters and the vigilante cops is amazing.

This is one of the grittiest of the pre-Production Code features. It is important to realize that just two years later, with the implementation of the rewritten Production Code in 1934, this film could not have been made.

As with any piece of popular entertainment that is nearly 70 years old, there are going to be dated elements. What is more important is how relatively modern this film feels, especially compared to the films made under the Production Code after 1934. The story is a hard slice of life, and it will not suit all tastes. This is especially true for those who have been too conditioned by Production Code features and television.

The ending has been compared to Sam Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH and Don Siegel's DIRTY HARRY, and not without cause. However, try to imagine yourself as a member of the original theatrical release audience in 1932. There would have been very little to prepare you for it, apart from DOORWAY TO HELL, LITTLE CAESAR, PUBLIC ENEMY, and SCARFACE. The difference here is that the story is told from the point of view of the men in law enforcement. It focuses on something that was common knowledge at the time, that prohibition had corrupted law enforcement far beyond the scope of anything the public had ever known.

The remedy for corruption that this film prescribes is very strong medicine indeed. You may not like it, but I defy you not to think about it for a long time after you've seen it.

Unlike most gangster films of the early 30s, this Hearst-produced item was fiercely on the side of the law (with a supporting quote by President Herbert Hoover directly following the opening credits), as personified by Walter Huston, as a charming "everyman" Irish cop with a weak-willed younger brother (Wallace Ford). Huston is a charming family man (extended scenes with his wife and children underscore this point, to distraction) who dedicates himself to wiping out crime in a generic, unnamed American city during Prohibition when bootleggers were the scourge of the nation. Ford, lured by gang moll Jean Harlow, gets mixed up with a crime syndicate (led by German-accented Jean Hersholt uncharacteristically cast as a loathsome Italian gangster). Harlow gets the best lines and is easily the most engaging element of the story. The resolution is earnest if technically clumsy and obvious, but with Harlow, Huston, Hersholt and Tully Marshall, who delivers a rousing courtroom monologue (not to mention a supporting role played by an 11-year-old Mickey Rooney), it's worth a look.

The blond bomb shell, Jean Harlow,(Daisy Stevens),"Reckless",'35 gave an outstanding performance and some of her outfits showed off all the wonderful things males love in a woman during the 1930's and still DO ! Walter Houston,(Capt. Jim Fitzpatrick),"The Great Sinner",'49, played a rough and tough Irish Captain who did not mess around with the mob and especially Jean Hersholt, who really did not fit very well in this role. Jean Hersholt played very few roles as the bad guy during the 1920's and 30's and was a good actor in the radio days. J. Carrol Naish,(Pietro Cholo),"The Beast With Five Fingers",'46, was very young and gave a great supporting role on his way to a fantastic career on the Silver Screen. The ending of this film is great and I thought it was very well directed and produced.

I would classify this early 1930s gangster flick as "ordinary" but that's better than you think, because these kind of movies ordinarily are fast-paced, a bit edgy, have unique language to them and generally are pretty interesting...and they are short films, which isn't always bad, either.

This one features Walter Huston as the hard-nosed committed cop trying to clean up his crime-ridden city with the eventual goal getting to the number one guy: the "beast" of the city. The ending is a wild one and commented on by a number of reviewers, here and elsewhere.

A subplot involves Huston's younger brother (Wallace Ford), also a lawman, who is corrupted and then, after being exposed, tries to atone for his sins at the end. Jean Harlow also stars in this film. Frankly, I never found her as sexy as her reputation, but she is excellent in here and very interesting to view. Finally, we also get to see a very young Mickey Rooney, as one of Huston's children. He didn't have many lines but you knew it was him with that smile and all those teeth!

Let's hope someone puts this out on DVD. It's too good to be a secret.