Tribunal secret

As far as 1930s gangster movies are concerned, I was a little disappointed by The Secret Six. I'd heard a lot of hype about it, but it wasn't nearly as captivating as The Roaring Twenties, The Public Enemy, or The Beast of the City, each revolving around bootleggers and policemen out to catch them. Unless you're a big Wallace Beery fan, or you want to see Jean Harlow before her eyebrows, you can rent one of the better ones. Wallace Beery stars as a gangster who wanted to go straight but gets very quickly seduced by his old crowd and goes to work for bootlegger Ralph Bellamy, who works under mob boss Lewis Stone. I wasn't used to seeing Lewis Stone in such a villainous role, but he certainly made the most of it! Where does Jean Harlow come in? Besides showing off her lovely figure and using her sex appeal to distract a do-gooder reporter from exposing the criminal underworld, she doesn't do much. Wallace Beery hands her a wad of cash as she disappears with the naïve young man, then tells her to report to him in the morning. Yes, folks, this is a pre-Code movie.

I was very impressed by George Hill's direction. For 1931, it was very forward-thinking. The start of the movie shows Wallace walking across the block, and the camera, mounted on an extensive dolly, follows him. The streets are filthy, with puddles and trash, making it seem like it wasn't just any old set in the studio. During the scenes when gangsters are making a stereotypical getaway, the camera shows the driver's point of view, and as pedestrians leap out of the way, the camera swerves, narrowly missing them. It must have been very exciting to watch in 1931!

The plot itself, and the execution of it, isn't very fast-paced or interesting. I'm not the biggest Wallace Beery fan, so I probably wasn't the best audience for the film. Keep your eyes open for Marjorie Rambeau, a stereotypical "rotten tramp", and a pre-mustached Clark Gable who shows his energetic screen presence to the audience with a promising future ahead of him.

DLM Warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, this movie might not be your friend. During the driving scenes, the camera bounces around and swerves to mirror the road, and that will make you sick. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"

This movie is a thinly veiled attempt to portray the life of Al Capone. The violent rise and fall of the gangster, portrayed by Wallace Beery, the taking over of the government of an adjacent small town, the eventual tax problem that Beery's character has...these and other subplots are mirror images of Capone's Chicago. While not as well known today as "The Public Enemy" or "Little Caesar", this movie is definitely worth watching. It also features a very young Clark Gable is a supporting good-guy role and, of all people, Ralph Bellamy as a gangster.

While not on the level of the work being done in Warners crime films during the same period ("The Public Enemy," "Little Caesar"), "The Secret Six" is a fine picture with a lot to recommend it.

Primarily, this comes from the cast. Wallace Beery, then at the height of his fame, makes for a good central figure as Louis "Slaughterhouse" Scorpio, as the name implies, a former slaughterhouse worker turned bootlegger and murderer. His ordering "a hunk o'steak" after spending all day crushing animals heads with a sledgehammer suggests, right at the beginning, that killing means nothing to this huge primate of a man. Lewis Stone, on the wrong side of the law for once, is Newton, the dandyish crooked lawyer and head of the gang, giving an understated, sinister performance and making every scene count. Ralph Bellamy, one of the movies' perennial nice guys, plays a very, very bad guy here, as the gangster who brings Scorpio into the gang, to his later regret. And veteran Marjorie Rambeau, while she has little to do overall, is good as Bellamy's blowsy mistress, Peaches, a far cry from the society matrons she would specialize in later in her career.

But the big surprise, and one of the main reasons for watching this picture, are the solid early performances of Jean Harlow and a young, sans-mustache Clark Gable. Both were free-lancers who were hired for this film on a one-time basis. MGM was so impressed with their work as, respectively, Anne, the cigarette girl who loves and loses reporter Johnny Mack Brown, and Carl, the crusading reporter who aids the Secret Six of the title in bringing down Stone and Beery's criminal organization, that they were hired to long-term contracts right after the picture was completed. Both turn in solid performances. Those who think Harlow couldn't act should see her in the last third of the film, particularly the trial scene. And the sheer mile-a-minute energy Gable brings to his role makes his every scene watchable. Within the next few years, these two would establish themselves as the stuff of Hollywood legend.

Directed by the excellent, underrated George Hill ("Tell It To the Marines," "Min and Bill," "Hell Divers"), scripted by the great Frances Marion, and with the aforementioned solid cast and the usual MGM gloss, "The Secret Six" makes for a very enjoyable film, for historians, crime film buffs, fans of the stars, and just those of us who appreciate a good, involving story.

This is a great gangster movie with a very talented cast. Wallace Beery plays a Capone-type hoodlum that allows nothing to stand in his way. Well, tax problems do put his power and glory on the skids. The veteran actor Lewis Stone is a 'high brow' crime lord. Usual good guy Ralph Bellamy is a bootlegger/night club owner. The Chicago night life and gangland activity keeps this flick rocking back and forth, but well worth watching.

Talk about a great supporting cast. Get a load of this: Johnny Mack Brown, Clark Gable and the enchanting Jean Harlow. Fun to watch on the same evening with SCAREFACE(32) and THE STAR WITNESS(31)

Clark Gable and Jean Harlow are emphasized in modern descriptions of this film, but they are not the leads. The leads are Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, Ralph Bellamy, and Johnny Mack Brown. Harlow and Gable have supporting roles, along with Marjorie Rambeau.

Bellany plays Johnny Franks, a bootlegger who owns a club. He gets a thug named Scorpio (Beery) to work in his gang, which is actually run by an attorney, Newton (Stone).

Scorpio manages to kill anybody in his way, including Franks and take over the organization. It will be up to the Secret Six - a group of masked businessmen to work to bring him and his team to justice.

Jean Harlow was something like 20 here - she plays a kept woman who falls in love with a reporter (Brown) who is killed by Scorpio. Gable is a rival reporter of Brown's. Gable is sans mustache and gives his role a lot of charm.