Gentleman gangster

I totally forgot this early thirties crime drama directed by Tod Browning, for whom this kind of plot was not the speciality. You know what I am talking about, don't yoou? I mean there is no Lon Chaney Sr here, in the role of a poor puppet master who suffers of a disease that disabled him and desperately in love with a beautiful gal...No, it is a pure gangster plot, starring an actor for whom this kind of role, of character, this time will be the speciality; I speak of Edward G Robinson, one year before Mervyn le Roy's LITTLE CAESAR and later William Keighley's BULLETS OR BALLOTS. So, yes, this is a true gem, very rare, hard to catch, and very interesting from a director like Tod Browning.

There's some good things to say about this but unfortunately there's a lot more bad things to say about it. Visually and technically it's very impressive. Tod Browning invests a great deal of thought into achieving perfect framing, atmospheric lighting and some clever imagery. His style however is so unsuited to this film that the overall effect is awful.

The actual story is absurd. It begins as a crime movie but then evolves into an intense melodrama. Mary Nolan is the star and she plays a cynical, heartless gangster's moll who's tied up with a bank robber. What the story is about is whether her bank robber boyfriend (who's actually a decent guy) can change her into a loving, caring, sweet maternal young lady.... in the space of a couple of days. It's a stupid premise and is so ridiculous that the film loses all its credibility.

Edward G Robinson was a rising star at Universal but he's only the supporting actor in this one. Even though he's not at the top of the bill, he seems to be the only member of the cast doing any proper acting. It is however not those actors' fault - the 'bad acting' is actually deliberate. Apart when E. G. R has a scene the dialogue is glacially slow. The weird slow motion style of delivery feels like the the film keeps freezing. A lot of very early talkies we're terrible - directors hadn't a clue how to make the transition to sound, actors forgot how to move and indeed how to speak but this is not one of those. It's a pretty bad film but not because the team at Universal didn't know what they were doing - no, they just didn't want to make this like a proper film.

Tod Browning, although a little past his prime by now was one of Silents' most stylish directors. He was chosen to deliberately make this picture as much like a silent as a talkie could be. It was made with a sense of nostalgia, an attitude that 'if we must use this new fangled sound nonsense let's make sure it doesn't ruin our art form we've spent so long perfecting.' Sound was considered to be an unwelcome intruder not something which could enrich the experience. The experiment really doesn't work, it makes it seem like no one knew how to produce a talking picture and plays up to that old prejudice that those silent stars couldn't make talkies.

Someone who really suffered was this film's star Mary Nolan. She had been an absolute megastar just a few years earlier but this would be her last film at Universal or indeed any major studio before plummeting into an utterly tragic life of heroin addiction, destitution and an early death. When you see how pretty and full of life she was here, it really is genuinely upsetting. She just didn't get a lucky break and found herself having to act in this painfully un-entertaining nonsense. That said, there were other reasons: she had some major personal problems, she wasn't a great actress and certainly couldn't play a cynical gangster's moll - she comes across as even less convincing than Jean Harlow and that's saying something! It wasn't all her fault though, she was directed by Browning to play it this way. In this picture however unfortunately she is one of the main reasons this comes across as such a poor film.

This movie has director Tod Browning remake one of the Priscilla Dean underworld thrillers he had directed before he had hooked up with Lon Chaney. In fact, the earlier version had Chaney as one of the principal roles. In this version, bank robber Owen Moore works with gorgeous moll Mary Nolan to cheat underworld boss Edward G. Robinson out of what he considers his rightful cut of any crime committed in San Francisco. Like many a Browning picture, people are insane, particularly Miss Nolan.

The problem with this movie, like many she appeared in, is that star Mary Nolan's acting... well, she has improved from some of her earlier works. As one of Browning's insane characters, I find her senseless mood changes and talking to herself convincing; it's when she interacts with other people that I find her unbelievable.

Everyone gets to be weird, even Rockcliffe Fellowes as the police captain trying to track down the bank robbers, and whose annoying son, played by one of the innumerable Watson clan, breaks into their hide-out, since they all live in the same building.

It's clear that Miss Nolan is the star of this movie - she gets more tics and twitches than anyone else, although Robinson shines in the sort of gangster role he would play at Warner Brothers. It's Miss Nolan's movie to carry, and she does a poor job of it, although Browning's usual insane world filled with mad people certainly kept my interest up.

Before Edward G. Robinson had his career role in Little Caesar he did a few films including a couple of silent movies and in several of them played a gangster. Watching Outside The Law you think you are watching Robinson in a dress rehearsal for Little Caesar.

All the snarling all the mannerisms are there for Robinson in this film. He plays a gangland boss who likes to control all the crime action in his are and get his cut. But Owen Moore and moll Mary Nolan aren't splitting with anybody when they pull a bank job. So it's a question of whether the cops will get them or Robinson.

Nolan though she overacts considerably as did just about everyone in those early talkies. She tries to vamp Robinson, but he's as uninterested as he was in Little Caesar.

Curiously enough both Moore and Nolan were coming close to the end of their respective careers. Both were known for high living and partying away in the Roaring Twenties. They both died too young.

But Robinson was just getting started and you'll swear you are seeing Little Caesar. Had he been the main character as he was in Little Caesar this could have been the breakout role for him.

Tod Browning directed this film and it's remake of one he did ten years earlier with Lon Chaney. A real treat for fans of Eddie Robinson.

This flick has Robinson in his vintage character form as a gangster named Cobra, with his cigars and his infamous "Ny'a See". Fingers and Connie play a robbery team thats moving in on Cobra's turf and is forced to hid out from the law, and Cobra. Nothing great about this film that should make one go crazy to see it. The most enjoyable parts in the movie is Robinson doing his ol' mob boss routine where it almost gets humorous.