The Star Witness

Inexpensive but carefully made, this story of a New York family threatened by gangsters is sharply etched and engrossing. Good acting and great camera work enhance this quickie with a topical slant. The overacting by Chic Sale is outrageous but a lot of fun. A thriller with many comic moments, it displays ample amounts of William Wellman's directorial style. A pulp masterpiece that matches Wellman's "Public Enemy" from the same year.

This film, an early William Wellman, has an important message, particularly today. It posits the notion that sometimes there are things more important than your own personal safty or well-being. The film, which has Walter Huston as the lead, is stolen by the performance of "Chic" Sales as Grampa. He's the most completely drawn character in the film and a joy to watch. You'll recognize some familiar faces if you watch many movies from the '20's and '30's. Wel worh your time to watch if you get the opportunity. Recommended.

...Our the grandpa's hour.

More than the gangsters ,it's a detailed depiction of an American family circa 1930:the father,proud of his job who worries about his son who's given up high school,the mum everyone would like to have ,the daughter who forgets dinner time in her squeeze's arms,and the twins who are absolutely lovable ("Don't go to sleep first ,please!").

And there's the grandfather ,playing the Yankee doodle on his flute .Have you noticed that this tune plays the same role as Doris Day's "Que Sera Sera" in Hitchcock's "The man who knew too much" (1956)?And there's this grandpa who is finally the most courageous person of the family .So old he does not even tell you his age ,but proud of his country and resisting to the gangster's hateful blackmail.

A good film by Wellman.

This is one of those films that looks so "dated" that being that way is part of the fun. You see and hear things you would NEVER see or hear on the silver screen today. Some of that is good; some it too corny for words, some of it bad (depending on your viewpoints on certain cultural issues.)

For instance, in this short (68 minutes) 1931 film you have:

The grandpa of the family that is featured in this story extolling the value of patriotism and why one should speak up against criminals for the good of the United States (picture that in today's films!)

A district attorney (Walter Huston) almost begging for death penalty sentences and the populace shown as supporting it 100 percent (once again, picture that in modern-day movies.)

Along the way you have some shocking violence, such as a young boy being picked up a few times and literally thrown head first into a closet, and his father being picked up and swung repeatedly head-first into a wall. This is a tough stuff, to say the least.

Yet the film is dotted with comedy, mostly by the patriotic grandpa, memorably played by Charles "Chic" Sales. There are a bunch of laughs for all those who view this unique crime film. And, for soft touches, there are the two young boys, one of whom - Dickie Moore - went on to become a pretty famous child actor in his day. Here, he is just a little tyke of about 5 years of age who, understandably, is far from being a polished actor, but you can see stardom for him on the horizon. In fact, he did just that the following year with a solid performance in "Blonde Venus," starring Marlene Dietrich.

Anyway, this is an entertaining film because of an effective mixture of violence, comedy and sentimentality....and it has a nice feel-good ending and a thought-provoking message. It was up for an Academy Award, too, for "Best Writing, Original Story." I am sorry to say it is only available for viewing on cable TV as it has never been put out on VHS or DVD.....and that's a shame.

In The Star Witness gangster chief Ralph Ince makes two big mistakes. One is that he does commit a murder. The second is that in escaping he did a brief home invasion of your average American family who are now mostly witnesses to the crime he committed. But getting them to tell their story is the subject of this film and it's what District Attorney Walter Huston has to do.

You can't get much more average than the Leeds family. Father and mother Grant Mitchell and Frances Starr, children, Sally Blane, Edward Nugent, George Ernest, and Dickie Moore. And they have their maternal grandfather Chic Sale living with them as well. He's the only one that wants to do his civic duty and hence he's Huston's Star Witness.

Sale has a really great part as the feisty old Civil War veteran and he steals every scene he's in, even from Walter Huston. He also speaks some of the more ethnocentric lines that mirror the view that The Star Witness takes about foreigners coming in to ruin this country. That was not an uncommon view of what Middle America thought of the urban gangsters who seem to come up from nowhere during those Prohibition days.

The Leeds family endures a lot, a beating to one family member and a kidnapping of another. The film earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. And the shootout with the gang and law enforcement is one of the best that Warner Brothers did at the time. Of course this having been directed by William Wellman who did The Public Enemy that year, you would expect the best.