The Hoodlum Saint

The idea was interesting, and while it was somewhat odd to see them together due to their performing styles being so completely different from one another William Powell, Esther Williams, Angela Lansbury and James Gleason were highly talented performers and always watchable.

All have done much better work than 'The Hoodlum Saint', both in terms of performances and in films. 'The Hoodlum Saint' has its moments and redeeming values but it doesn't really come together, feeling disjointed for want of a word. It's very nicely shot in black and white, and hauntingly scored. The songs performed by Angela Lansbury (though dubbed very well by Doreen Tryden, though it was a strange decision as Lansbury is a more than capable singer.

While the acting was a mixed bag on the whole, Lansbury really enlivens the proceedings in a charmingly perky performance and comes off best in the cast. James Gleason looks as though he was enjoying himself thoroughly, as does Frank McHugh.

Powell was a great actor but this is not one of his best performances, he has been more engaged before and since and is somewhat too clean cut for a role requiring a rougher edge. Williams is cast against type, but while she is radiant it is a rather bland performance in a one-dimensional role. The chemistry isn't there, and Norman Taurog's direction is often mechanical.

Scripting is pretty witless and dreary, but it is the story that is 'The Hoodlum Saint's' biggest failure. It's dully paced, with a good deal of convolution and situations resolved too easily. Tone is an issue too, starting with a more comedic touch and then abruptly shifting into drama and it feels like a completely different film and comes over as disjointed.

All in all, certainly not unwatchable and worth a one-time watch for curiosity's sake but doesn't really come together. 5/10 Bethany Cox

TCM had "The Hoodlum Saint" on August 8, 2016, the first of a series of movies starring Esther Williams. Williams was 24 when she co-starred in this movie and she looked great. Star William Powell looked like he was just earning a paycheck, he had the most script lines and this script was a disaster area, completely unreal. This movie had fine stars and character actors at every turn: James Gleason, Frank McHugh, Angela Lansbury, Rags Ragland. All try hard but who is really interested in a story that revolves in part on the story of Saint Dismas, the good thief in the New Testament who becomes the "hoodlum saint." Greenlighting movies like this turkey paved the way for MGM production head Louis B. Mayer's dismissal.

Cliff Reid was the producer of this movie, his first and last for MGM. Reid had worked as a producer or assistant producer at RKO from 1934 to 1942, according to IMDb. If the movie was low budget, like RKO movies starring Lee Tracy, Reid was the producer. These RKO movies are mostly unwatchable, badly written and with bad production values. For a bigger budget movie like "Bringing Up Baby," Reid was the associate producer. Reid is the one who deserves all the blame for how bad "The Hoodlum Saint" is, it has a low budget script tagged to the high production values MGM gave its movies.

Further, William Powell was miscast as the star, he sleep walked through most of the movie. You have Esther Williams full of vitality playing against a very dull William Powell. Producer Cliff Reid imbued this movie with "B" movie values. You know, MGM would have been better off making this movie starring Lee Tracy in William Powell's role as a former newspaperman who sells out at first to get rich on Wall Street before the crash.

Terry O'Neill (William Powell) returns home from WWI to find he can't get his old job as writer on a newspaper back because of cut backs. He uses the last of his money to bail out three minor pick pockets out of jail, and so he decides to crash a society wedding so that he can meet a wealthy industrialist. Instead he ends up meeting the owner of a different newspaper than the one he was on and gets a job there. After a successful newspaper campaign against the industrialist he originally wanted to work for, he switches sides and goes to work for the industrialist. Complications and the stock market crash of 1929 ensue, but none of those complications are particularly interesting, and almost all of them are ponderous.

The failure here is not only in the story, that has, at the end, a bunch of con-artists unbelievably being convinced to turn over a new leaf and give back all of the money that they stole from a charity by having to face a bunch of kids who would have been the beneficiary of said charity, but also in the direction. For example, early in the film, Powell's character gets grabby with Esther Williams' character at the wedding he crashed, she gets understandably angry, and then oddly just begins smiling at him. She spends the rest of the film smiling oddly at him while the pair have zero chemistry. Powell, rather than being his normal effervescent self in these kinds of films, at least in the romantic comedy parts, seems completely detached from what is going on. Even so, this film wouldn't even get a 5/10 if not for his talent, along with the always great James Gleason.

It is said that this film was an attempt by MGM to appeal to post WWII audiences by putting Powell in a darker role than normal, but in the end I am not convinced that he is either a hoodlum or a saint. I'd avoid it unless you are extremely curious.

When The Thin Man series was in high gear one of the endearing parts of those films is how Nick Charles would constantly be running into various criminals he'd had dealings with in the past. Usually he'd run into them while out with Nora and it was always fun to see how Nora took to these characters, people she wouldn't in a million years be associated with herself.

I think that MGM thought it was funny too so William Powell was cast as a returning veteran from World War I who as a newspaper reporter before the war apparently had a similar rogue's gallery of friends. It didn't really work here though, Powell is cast in a part that probably would have fit James Cagney or even Spencer Tracy better.

Plus the fact that in 1946 William Powell was 54 years old. Esther Williams in her memoirs thought it was ludicrous to be working with a man twice her age as a romantic couple. She describes in her memoirs the elaborate makeup preparation Powell went through and in fact he had to wear a girdle to keep his middle age spread from showing too much. According to her, Powell thought it just as ludicrous and in fact would be doing the lead in Life With Father the next year, a role far better suited to his age and talent.

Of course any film that utilizes the combined talents of James Gleason, Slim Summerville, Frank McHugh, and Rags Ragland as the four Damon Runyonesque characters in Powell's life can't be all bad.

Powell is a returning veteran from World War I who can't get his old job back as a reporter in Baltimore. So by hook or crook he makes a great deal of money, some of it by tactics this side of a con game. He meets two women in his life, socialite Esther Williams minus pool and nightclub singer Angela Lansbury dubbed in this film.

He's got these characters though who he likes but are becoming quite a burden around his neck. When Gleason gets pinched for bookmaking he makes up a religious yarn about a mysterious St. Dismas, the good thief crucified with Jesus as the one who gets the Deity to move in mysterious ways. Gleason gets sprung and it works too well as he becomes a fanatic on the subject. Powell, caught up in his own chicanery, becomes a big mover and shaker in a St. Dismas foundation.

It's not a bad story, nostalgic for its times as the action starts at the end of the previous World War. It also could have used someone like Frank Borzage, or Henry Koster, or even Frank Capra who dealt better with this kind of material.

Writer James Hill wrote this wonderful story which was directed by Norman Taurog and relates this rags to riches story, staring William Powell as Terence Ellerton 'Terry' O'Neill'. Powell has just been discharged from the Army, after World War One. Finding it near impossible to find employment, he crashes a High Society wedding and with little effort on his part, bumps into just the right people. Shortly thereafter, he is soon riding the gravy train and up towards his first million. Esther Williams and Angela Lansbury are also along with him as are other close friends. Eventually, he finds his second million easier and with it accumulating wealth in everything he attempts. Finding success in all his endeavors, he creates a non-existing Charity fund for the poor and realizes it too is a success. Then Wall Street collapses and Ellerton finds he too is brought low by the Economic Meltdown. As America looks to blame someone, he too is slated for jail or prison. Landing in the streets, he realizes that being poor is lonely at the bottom and wishes he hadn't squandered his life and few friends. The film is a tribute to self reliance and what to do with the wonderful opportunities one is given along the way. Powell is wonderful as are his Co-Stars. Easily recommended. ****