Ville sans loi

When a woman arrives in San Francisco during the height of the Klondike gold rush to find her mail-order fiancé dead she takes up with a shady - and jealous - casino owner before falling for an honest prospector. Although he sports an ear-ring and walks around like he's waiting for the rest of his pirate fancy-dress costume to turn up, Edward G. Robinson pretty much just does his usual gangster routine in Barbary Coast. Not that there's anything wrong with that: his controlling mob boss Louis Chamalis, is actually given a pleasingly sly sense of humour and depth of character, and is also given the opportunity to go out with some class when he meets his inevitable fate. Director Howard Hawks creates a wonderfully evocative portrait of a muddy, fog-bound San Francisco filled with morally compromised larger-than-life characters. Recommended.

Censors had a profound influence in shaping movies during the Golden Age of Hollywood. No better example was Samuel Goldwyn's October 1935 "Barbary Coast." Joseph Breen, chief censor for the Production Code Administration (PCA), hated unredeemable characters in movies that made them out as heroes. When he received Goldwyn's initial script for the Howard Hawks-directed film, Breen rolled his eyes and described it as "one of sordidness, and low-tone morality." The adapted screenplay from Herbert Asbury's 1933's 'Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld,' was about the city's red light district in the 1850. A film industry trade magazine writer familiar with Asbury's book concurred with Breen, calling it "one of the filthiest, vilest and most degrading books that have ever been chosen for the screen."

Goldwyn hired several writers to assist Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur in delivering a screenplay the PCA would pass. Several rewrites sanitized the pair's first script, upsetting Hecht to the point he described it as "Miriam Hopkins (Mary Rutledge in the movie) came to the Barbary Coast and wandered around like a confused Goldwyn girl." Finally, after several months of going back and forth, changing "Barbary Coast" into a romance, Breen beamed to his boss Will Hays the script contains a "fine, clean girl," where there's no mention of "unpleasant details of prostitution." He described the screenplay "now has a full, and completely compensating, value, the finest and most intelligent picture I have seen in many months."

After viewing the final product, some contemporary critics saw just the opposite, with Time Magazine writing the movie was "painfully uninspired," while Newsweek said the plot in the original book was thrown away. Modern day reviewer Stacia Jones agrees "Barbary Coast" would have been a far different, and better, film if it had been made during the Pre-Code era, but "despite some general flakiness and the unmistakable hint of changes made to appease moralists, the script is pretty solid."

"Barbary Coast" is also known for the outrageous behavior Hopkins displayed to her leading man Edward G. Robinson on the set. Miss Rutledge (Hopkins) journeys to San Francisco to marry a rich gold miner she knows. Trouble is, he lost all his money to a casino owned by Louis Chamalis (Robinson) and commits suicide. The resigned Rutledge eventually works at the casino's crooked roulette wheel, where Chamalis falls for her. Robinson described working with Hopkins 'a horror." He claimed she was always late, keeping the film crew waiting, she repeatedly tried to upstage the other actors, and she was constantly haughty. Hopkins didn't read her lines as any actress should when Robinson's close-ups were filmed; she had a script girl stand in for her to read them while Edward always read his lines to her. For one scene, Robinson wanted to rehearse where he had to slap her in the face so he wouldn't actually hit her. She refused, demanding they just shoot it once with him really slapping her and then be done with it. Robinson wrote in his memoirs, "I slapped her so you could hear it all over the set. And the cast and crew burst into applause," apparently tired of Hopkins' behavior. The actress had to pick herself up from the floor, so hard was Robinson's slap.

Initially Walter Brennan, whose acting career saw him in brief roles, was given yet another short part in "Barbary Coast" as Old Atrocity, a regular presence in the district's saloons. Hawks loved Brennan's acting so much the director expanded his lines in several scenes where the actor's trademark excitability is on full display. The movie turned out to be his first significant role after ten years slogging in numerous Hollywood films. He began to get larger parts after the movie's release. "That really set me up," claimed Brennan, the winner of three Academy Awards, and is tied with Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis for the most Oscars for an actor.

During the gold rush, Robinson runs San Francisco like a mafia boss. Enter Hopkins as a gold-digging young lady, who apparently is just about the only white woman in the whole city, given how the men react to her. The familiar cast also includes McCrea as an earnest young prospector, Donlevy as Robinson's hatchet man, and Brennan as an old guy named "Old Atrocity." Entertaining film has a decent story but is marred by acting that is either wooden or melodramatic, with Hopkins particularly guilty of the latter. It's fun watching Robinson play the heavy. Hawks does a nice job of evoking foggy San Francisco of a bygone era.

Apparently Sam Goldwyn picked the words Barbary Coast as a title then called in his writers and told them to write a story. That was the way they did things at Hollywood studios in the thirties.

This is actually a pretty entertaining movie that catches some of the anything goes atmosphere of San Francisco in gold rush days.Edward G. Robinson is miscast (and has to wear some peculiar costumes) in his role as a bad guy but he gives it everything he's got and some of his scenes are quite effective. Miriam Hopkins is very good as a gold digger of the non mining kind and Joel Mcrea as her hearts desire spouts some poetic dialogue quite eloquently.

Good drama of the typically Hollywood kind.

Barbary Coast (1935)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Masterful acting highlight this overlooked gem that features just about everything you'd want out of a classic from the Golden Era of movies. Miriam Hopkins plays a poor girl from New York who travels to San Francisco to marry a man she's never met but once she arrives she learns that he has been murdered. Since she didn't love him, she decides to team up with the man responsible for his death, a ruthless casino owner (Edward G. Robinson) who wants to keep the town under his rule. Soon the woman begins to have second thoughts after meeting young man (Joel McCrea) from her old hometown. Hawks has a big following today and many consider him one of the greatest director's of all time but I'm really not sure I'd join such high praise. I did find it rather strange that when people mention his work this title is often left out, which is too bad because I found this to be one of the most entertaining of his career even though he did take the picture over from William Wyler. Some have called this LITTLE CAESAR set during the gold rush and that might be a fair saying but you could also mix in another Robinson picture, THE HATCHET MAN. This film here is pulp entertainment from start to finish as we have three legends really giving it their all in a pretty good story that contains romance, action, drama, comedy and one masterfully directed sequence. This sequence takes place as a vigilante group is holding a trial while walking through some mud. The sound effects used here and the constant editing down towards the mud is priceless and will certainly remain in the viewers mind long after the film ends. Robinson dives head first into his role and really delivers one of the finest performances of his career. His scenes where the character goes mad or better yet, love struck, are priceless and really pack a nice little punch as he goes off the deep end. The evilness Robinson brings to the role was not only creepy but it added to the entertainment value just because it will also put a smile on your face. Hopkins is also terrific and manages to deliver a full performance full of all sorts of emotions. Her character goes through various stages and the actress captures all of them perfectly. Her and Robinson have wonderful chemistry and I was shocked to learn after the movie that the two hated working with one another on this film. McCrea is also terrific and plays the naive and soft-spoken character wonderfully. The supporting cast features the wonderful Walter Brennan, Frank Craven, Brian Donlevy, Harry Carey and Donald Meek. The film's biggest problem is the ending, which really felt added on but I haven't been able to find anywhere that it was forced by the studio. Why this film isn't better known is beyond me but there's enough packed in here for two movies so hopefully more people will check it out.