Sworn Enemy

For the most part, this is a competently made (great sets, and the editing is particularly crisp) but uninspired melodrama about a steadfast Average Joe standing up to the racketeers who have wronged him. But I have some advice -- don't give up on it too soon (as I nearly did).

The opening 50 minutes are pretty much seen-it-all-before, middle-of-the road MGM stuff, but suddenly in the last reel things perk up immensely. First, we have a beautifully designed and psychologically poignant scene explaining the chief villain's desire to back an up-and-coming fighter. This is followed by the movie's real knock-out punch -- Florence Rice, up to this point the stereotypical pretty-and-loyal girlfriend, agrees to help infiltrate the mob by auditioning as a chorus girl at their club. She adopts the guise of a sexy champagne-swilling dame keen on seducing the crime boss. Although she expresses slight reluctance at first, one surmises that she secretly revels in being such hot stuff in her sexy new togs. Soon, a couple of sips of bubbly have her diving into her role so enthusiastically that the sequence is absolutely jaw-dropping (she flashes a lot more cleavage and leg than you would expect in a post-code movie.) These two scenes turn the movie on its ear, revealing a fascinating subtext of perversity and hidden desire.

Afterwards, the action climax is hurried and sloppy, but it uses a plot device that would later turn up to much more nerve-wracking effect in an Anthony Mann noir.

A dark movie that, had it been made a few years later, would have been a film noir. It begins with Robert Young's looking for a job. He can't get one because gangsters insist that he pay protection money that exceeds his potential salary.

He hooks up with the appealing Florence Rice and her boss, who runs the company where he'd been looking for a job. Her father is released from prison and all become involved in a crime-busting plan.

Nat Pendleton as a loyal boxer is at his very best here. He is portrayed as likable, strong, and attractive. The goofiness he was asked to assume in almost every other movie I've seen him in is absent here.

There is a gay undertone to the story as it involves the crime boss. He is a disabled man with an obsession for fighters. We see a frieze of Greco-Roman athletes in his apartment. And when Rice tries to turn his head a little, he tells her sourly that he has no real interest in legs. Maybe this is because of his own disability. Maybe it means women's legs.

The movie packs a wallop and is undeservedly obscure.

Robert Young, Florence Rice, and Lewis J. Stone star in "Sworn Enemy," a 1936 MGM B movie.

Though not a superstar in films, before he became one in TV, Robert Young played a variety of roles in movies. His likable personality served him well, and he is very good here as Hank Sherman, a young man who goes undercover to get evidence against Joe Emerald, the head of a protection organization (Joseph Calleia). His first effort fails miserably when instead of a shooting a cop, he shoots his partner and is thrown out of the group. So he tries again, this time by replacing his brother, killed by the mob, as the manager of a fighter (Nat Pendleton).

Very good and exciting film, with a gay undertone that possibly went over the head of the 1930s audiences. The mob boss, Emerald, is crippled and, from his treatment of Florence Rice's character, has no use for women. When he brings Hank into his deco steam room, it's filled with Greco-Roman friezes of nude men. He more or less tells Hank that he lives vicariously through fighters, which is why he wants Hank's client. An interesting twist on what could have been just a formulaic mob story.

The excellent finale takes place in said steam room, where detectives are searching for hidden files.

Dark film, noirish, albeit before noir, and intriguing. Recommended.

Hank Sherman (Robert Young) gets a job moving vegetables. When gangsters demand a monthly cut, he fights back. Dr. Simon Gattle (Lewis Stone) and his daughter Peg (Florence Rice) stop to help him. Simon fires his driver for not helping and hires Hank on the spot although he's not a driver. He does learn and falls for Peg. His boss is going up against the mobsters led by Joe Emerald (Joseph Calleia).

The opening is a little clunky. It does achieve two things. It shows that Hank is a fighter and there is corruption everywhere. It's just weird that this is how he got hired. It's a little clunky. A lot of the story is a little clunky, but it works good enough. It's a middling crime drama.

"Sworn Enemy" could have been a very good film, but the script is a bit rough. With a small re-write it could have been very good.

When the story begins, Hank Sherman (Robert Young) is doing what many men were doing during the Depression...looking for work. He finds a job working for a produce company loading trucks but his excitement is shortlived when a group of thugs from 'the Protective Association' demand he pay them $10 a month...or else. When he refuses, they beat the snot out of him. The owner sees this and chases away the thugs...and offers Hank a job as his chauffeur. The pay is good and he'll be able to go back to night school to get his law degree...and so he's a happy guy.

What follows is long, complicated and confusing. First, Hank's out of work, second he's a chauffeur, third he's working on becoming a lawyer, fourth he's an undercover agent for the District Attorney, fifth he's a boxing promoter. Do you get my drift? Good writing could have streamlined this and made Hank more realistic.

On the positive side, the film has plenty of action and some exciting moments. But they aren't enough to make this exactly a must-see picture.