You Can't Get Away with Murder

"You Can't Get Away with Murder" is a 1939 film starring Humphrey Bogart, Gale Page, Billy Halop, Henry Travers, John Litel, and Harvey Stephens. Bogart is still on his way up the star ladder - in his case, it was a long climb to 1941's "High Sierra" with lots of supporting parts, mostly as gangsters. Here he's the star, but this isn't a big film.

It is, however, a tense one with good performances. Bogart plays the meaner than dirt Frank Wilson, a criminal who takes advantage of the young, trusting Johnny Stone (Halop), a basically good kid being raised by his sister Madge. She becomes engaged to Fred, a cop who is being transferred to a better job in Boston. He plans on marrying Madge and bringing Johnny with them to Boston, where he's lined up work for him. But when a botched robbery leads to Frank committing murder, he frames Fred for it. Fred winds up on death row while Johnny and Frank serve sentences for another crime. Frank is afraid Johnny will rat him out in order to save Fred.

Bogart does a great job as Frank - he's easy to hate. Billy Halop for me was a bit overdone as Johnny, but he really kept you guessing as to what he would do. Halop was one of the Dead End Kids who sought a career on his own. He was mainly in B movies and finally in small parts, eventually seguing into television. He also worked as a salesman and, at the end of his life, a male nurse. Beset with marital, alcohol, and financial problems, he died at the age of 56.

It's impressive to look at Bogart's pre-stardom career and see how long it took him to break away from the pack - 11 years and 42 films. Well, he was certainly worth waiting for.

Humphrey bogart and bill halop are frank and john, out on the town, robbing gas stations. But things go wrong, and it's everyone for themself. And they left fred's gun at the scene! Fred was planning on marrying john's sister, but now it's all a big mess. Who's going to take the rap for a murder? Pretty good suspense. Who's going to do the right thing? Anyone? Anyone? Is there honor among thieves? Will the truth come out before it's too late? Good stuff. Most of bogey's films are really good. He did dark victory after this one. You'll recognize rochester anderson as one of the prisoners by his distinctive voice; was on the jack benny show for years. Film directed by lew seiler. Halop died young at 56. Bogie died at 57.

You Can't Get Away with Murder (1939)

From the peak of classic pre-war Hollywood and "Gone with the Wind," anticipating the equally classic and more slick "Citizen Kane" and "Casablanca" in the next three years. And just before star Humphrey Bogart has his breakout in "The Maltese Falcon" in 1941. Things hang a little undecided here, a classic crime drama a removed from the early 30s Warner Bros. masterpieces, but unpolished for its time, too. Blame a modest budget.

But then again, this is rather good on its own terms, a standard gangster story with a message. And Bogart is strong, a bit more developed than his earlier gangster roles where he's a bit of stereotype. Bits of dry humor and disdain creep in, welcome Bogart touches. The main twist here is a sweet young man, really just a kid, gets involved. And how. Note the title.

The writing isn't always great, sometimes falling into cheap dramatic comments without surprise, or even avoiding basic believability. The action parts are good and well filmed (and they avoid unnecessary dialog). Some of the side characters are just filling roles without depth, or are clichés (the African-American reading the cookbook— charming and fun, or the good-hearted librarian in prison). Even the kid isn't quite right, as if he's playing what he thinks he should instead of inhabiting the role.

Bogart, however, is a whole different class of actor in all of this, and he's the reason to watch. The last twenty minutes click along really nicely. Not an awful film in all, but be prepared for some routine stuff between the highlights.

I've always loved this movie a lot. I'm a Bogie fan and a Billy Halop fan, too, so this movie really interests me.

Halop should have gone on to stardom, as he had the looks and charisma to make it. I don't know what went wrong, but this film is a good indication of his growing acting ability.

It's also a step in the right direction towards breaking Halop away from his silly juvenile roles. He could easily play more sinister, dark roles, and this movie proves it.

The ending could have glossed over the Halop-Bogie clash, but didn't, and I like that.

It's a well-made little gangster film that deserves much better accolades.

You Can't Get Away with Murder (1939)

*** (out of 4)

Nice crime flick from Warner has the young Johnny (Billy Halop) looking up to tough guy Frank (Humphrey Bogart) and soon the two are pulling jobs together. Johnny steals a gun from his sister's fiancé, which Frank uses to kill a guy but the police pin it on the fiancé. Soon Johnny and Frank are behind bars for another crime while the kid soon starts to feel guilt over an innocent man about to die. This 78-minute movie features a lot of plot and some might say there's too much plot but there's no denying that this is 100% pure Warner action as not only do we get the best of their crime films but also a pretty good prison drama as well. There's a lot going on in this film and I think most fans of the genre are really going to eat this thing up. Of course, it all starts with Bogart playing another one of his tough guy roles and naturally he handles the material very well. Everything people love about Bogart from that wicked voice to that personality is on full display here as his character chews up each scene he's in. Halop doesn't do too bad either, although I must admit that his character was so annoying in certain scenes that I was wanting to punch him myself. Gale Page and Harvey Stephens are good as the sister and fiancé and then we have Henry Travers in a good part of the elder con trying to steer the young kid in the right direction. Character actors George E. Stone and Joe Sawyer also appear in minor roles. The screenplay pretty much tries to throw everything at you at once and while the film does lose focus in a few spots, that doesn't mean the thing ever gets boring or slow. The director keeps everything moving at a pretty good pace and I must admit that the film ended a lot differently than I expected. The prison escape was pretty intense as was a few earlier scenes were Bogart wants to seek his revenge. All in all this movie certainly deserve to be more wildly seen as it contain the some great "tough guy" stuff that film buffs will eat up.