The Gangster

Belying the promise of tommyguns and bootleg hooch implied in its title, The Gangster instead unfolds as a patch of doomed urban poetry. Its script, by Daniel Fuchs from his novel Low Company (with, it's said, a hand from Dalton Trumbo), looks down loftily and detachedly at a handful of "little" people in a day-trippers' seaside resort way out in Brooklyn. Each character is a gear meshing precisely with other gears in a clockwork plot perhaps better suited to footlights than the kick-lights of film noir.

But its milieu and aspirations remain decidedly -- ostentatiously -- noir, from the baroque, shadowed ironwork of the El to the nighttime cloudbursts over the littered pavements. A soda fountain serves as the drama's central "set" into which self-styled racket kingpin Barry Sullivan frequently drops to flash his cufflinks. He's unable to confront the fact that his tiny crime empire is under siege and crumbling; he's too obsessed with his stage-struck mistress (Belita). Blind with jealousy and bloated with delusions of his invulnerability, he drifts impassively, almost catatonically, toward the fate that's already been meted out for him (the dramaturgy brings to mind Periclean Athens or Elizabethan London).

An unusually starry cast of noir players inhabits The Gangster, many in no more than walk-ons. Among them: Akim Tamiroff as the drugstore proprietor and Sullivan's partner; Harry Morgan as a soda jerk and Joan Lorring as cashier; Fifi D'Orsay, in an inexplicable role; John Ireland and Virginia Christine as a compulsive gambler and his despairing wife; Sheldon Leonard as Sullivan's predatory nemesis; Elisha Cook, Jr. and Charles McGraw as (what else?) thugs; even an uncredited Shelley Winters, fixing her face.

Plainly, there's a lot to admire in The Gangster, from the stagily constructed neighborhood to Louis Gruenman's melodramatic score. The trouble is that all the admirable bits and pieces don't quite jell into the organic flow of vital cinema, and the purple passages don't ring true as the street lingo of a raffish backwater called Neptune Beach.

Surprising film from a Poverty Row company, an awesome film noir made with great talent and care from the director as well the screenwriters - the great Dalton Trumbo - and a psychological portrait of a gangster, so impressive. Jawdropping photography too. Gordon Wiles, whose this film is the last, shows also his best, even better than PRISON TRAIN, made nine years before. This is a great underrated film noir that should be shown again. The scheme is however everything but new, everything but unpredictable, the fall of a petty hoodlum. But, I repeat, it is very well done, and for crime films buffs, it is far enough to enjoy this little jewel. Barry Sullivan si impressive in such anti hero, a weak gangster who thinks he his strong. Yes, an outstanding performance that we could have found in a major Warner Bros film from the forties.

I'm not convinced that we're seeing a straight-forward crime story with THE GANGSTER. It's practically an opium dream. He goes to the beach in a suit and tie and Elisha Cook comes along with a cohort and Cook keeps yapping about how he's going to knock Sullivan down - the 12-inch disparity in height makes this laughable.

Shubunka, Jammey, Karty - these names are so precious. Note the stylized sets - the hotel just off the boardwalk that seems about six-feet deep, it stops at the boardwalk. Yet when he runs into the lobby, it's as big as The Waldorf.

Shubunka, the gangster with no gang. He apparently gets his mob from Rent-A-Hood and when he tries to recruit, the potential members all laugh at him. He's big time, but has no money to afford out-of-town hoods. Sheldon Leonard anticipates his every move, yet he needs some silly list of Shubunka's operations. If Shubunka has all of those businesses under his control, why is he in the ice cream parlor all day?

Belita thinks she's a dancer, Ireland has a system to beat the races but he's in dutch with the mob - apparently Shubunka doesn't have the gambling concession on the boardwalk so Ireland goes to him for the money he owes since his fool-proof plan didn't work. Harry Morgan thinks he a stud and Fifi D'Orsay thinks she's a Goddess. The only one who knows his place is Tamiroff and he's smart enough to be scared but too dumb to have cut his ties with Shubunka sooner.

Lest you think I'm being negative, I'm not. It all seems as if Sullivan is hallucinating about his life and all of the characters are exaggerated, including himself. It's fascinating to watch.

Occasionally Allied Artists was able to produce a first rate serious film unrelated to their usual formularized output.'The Gangster' is an unconventional crime picture that concentrates on the latter end of a racketeer's career,the effects rather than the causes of his persona,his neighborhood of operations,and the people who have been corrupted by his contact. As the protagonist Barry Sullivan essays a suitably morose,hardened individual driven by desperation to hold onto his rapidly crumbling kingdom.Desperate too are the pathetic bystanders who will be effected if this petty prince of rackets should fall to the machinations of a rival mob.Belita is a fashion socialite whom Sullivan uses but cannot love.Akim Tamiroff is terrific as the owner of a seemingly innocuous ice-cream parlor where Sullivan's influence has set in motion the tragic events that follow.Also well-cast are Joan Lorring as an adoring counter girl,John Ireland as a hooked gambler,Harry Morgan as an amusing soda-jerk,and every film buff's "favorite" New York thug,Sheldon Leonard as the leader of the new mob organization.

Here's a film I wish I could see again, even though it's a little too slow and talky for my tastes. It still was very interesting in spots.

Barry Sullivan and Belita both provide some great film-noir lines and the photography is pure film noir. Henry Morgan has interesting part although his role is minor and Sheldon Leonard (with hair) is notable. The only character who became annoying was Akim Tamiroff, as the scared soda shop owner.

The story, though, centers around Sullivan, who plays a man who doesn't trust anyone but would really like to find a woman he could trust. His outlook on humanity is brutal. It's so bad, it's almost funny. He reminded me of Lawrence Tierney in "Born To Kill."

This movie is an odd combination of film noir, melodrama and character study and is worth checking out, if you can find it.