The Music Box Kid

Because of the popularity of TV's The Untouchables, the late fifties early sixties saw a revival of the gangster film genre. Not the stuff that Warner Brothers put out with its stable of gangster stars, but allegedly true life stories of real life gangsters. Al Capone, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, Legs Diamond, Arnold Rothstein all get biographical films of a sort around this time. Even movie gangster George Raft who hung around a lot with the real deal got one.

One of the poorer ones has to be The Music Box Kid where the names were allegedly changed. Of course anyone who's familiar in the slightest with gangland lore recognizes protagonist Ron Foster as Dutch Schultz, boss of the Bronx in the Twenties and Thirties.

Ron's married to Luana Patten who at the beginning of the film actually thinks her hubby is a most successful insurance salesman who pays for everything in cash because he doesn't believe in credit. Poor Luana spends most of the film dealing with her priest, Dayton Lummis, who's no doubt telling her to stand by her man even though he is a killer. Otherwise she'd be running from this guy.

Stories of Dutch Schultz's temper tantrums are legendary. But even he wasn't as crazy as this guy who was busy extorting fellow mobsters and starting Murder, Inc. which Schultz did not do. When Carleton Young is appointed Special Prosecutor and Foster decides he ought to be hit, the other mobsters see their duty clear.

But that's not the end, although in real life it was the end when Lucky Luciano and company thought too much heat would be brought down if Schultz ever assassinated Thomas E. Dewey. Luana in fact gets the last word and the last word is quite unbelievable.

The title refers to the carrying case where Foster packs his Thompson submachine gun, favored weapon of gangland back in the day. I'm sure many people got fooled with that title and asked for their money back.

This has to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Were not Robert Foster so handsome and myself so compulsive I would have pulled the plug early on.

The action and plot unbelievable the script terrible with an idiotic happy moralistic ending of sorts. But saying that much gives it too much credit..this movie comes as close to having zero content as anything I have ever watched. There is nothing to dislike as there is no content to the thing.

An ambitious young gangster Robert Foster breaks off from his gang early in his career to form his own killing enterprise. His weapon of choice= a machine gun in a music box (title). His wife eventually rats on him under pressure from a priest when he decides to take down a special state prosecutor.

But I can't stress how absolutely cardboard like without any suspense this thing is...how flat the dialog and unimaginative the story. It is almost like a handful of untalented actors were told to invent it ad lib as the cameras rolled.

Usually I will dislike a movie for something it does...this one I disliked because it does nothing it has zero content in terms of story and acting. It truly is an empty suit. Also unsurprising it is not a B movie but a Z- movie in terms of budget and props as well. It could have been written in an hour and filmed in an afternoon.

One funny thing...this is a costume movie of the 20s made in 1960..however even this is done on the cheap most of the extra women look straight out of 1960 dresses and make up wise with a small unconvincing twists.

DO NOT RECOMMEND

"The Music Box Kid" is a decent crime film. In many ways, it's a 1960s rethinking of classic gangster films like "Little Caesar" and "The Public Enemy"--with slightly different sensibilities. However, the film occasionally is hampered by some heavy-handed and preachy narration. Fortunately, there isn't a lot of it--but it's particularly bad at the end of the film.

Ron Foster plays Larry Shaw. It follows him as he quickly rises up through the ranks in the mob. He's a big advantage over other mobsters in that he's even MORE sociopathic, violent and brash. So, it's not surprising that soon the mob he was working for wouldn't be big enough for him. So, he starts up is own mob--a group of freaks who specialize in contract killings and kidnappings. What's to come of him? See the film and find out for yourself.

For the most part I enjoyed this movie-more so that its sub-5.0 score on IMDb would suggest. But the narration is just too much and the film suffers a bit, as the movie was violent and exciting and the narration was anything but.