Au royaume des crapules

OK, this ain't The Godfather, and the budget for this film proves that beyond a doubt. However, despite its low production values, the actors give it their best shot, and the storyline is interesting for two reasons. One is the war connection; war connections can be very strong. The second reason it is interesting is because these people have known each other since childhood; those connections can be very strong as well.

When i was 18, I had to choose being in a straight job for less money, or joining a few of my good friends who were in the illegitimate gambling business. I chose the straight job; more because I feared what my mother would have thought, than anything else.

Joe Gray comes to the same crossroads after he gets out of the Army. He chooses to go straight. But sometimes, it is harder to go straight than one might imagine.

There are good performances all around in this one; and it is a nice, watchable crime film. There is a wordy, overwrought committee member, but other than him, the rest is fine.

Loosely based on the Kefauver hearings investigating organized crime, Hoodlum Empire has a good cast that includes Brian Donlevy, Claire Trevor, Forrest Tucker, John Russell, and Luther Adler. Directed by Joseph Kane. Because it was produced by Herbert Yates at Republic, his wife, Vera Hruba Ralston has a role.

The committee, led by Senator Stevens (Donlevy) has served subpoenas on members of an organization run by Nick Mancani (Adler). They cannot at the moment find Mancani to serve him, but they do subpoena Charley Pignatalli (Tucker) and Joe Gray (Russell).

Stephens and Gray have a history as they served together in World War II. At the time, Joe was a racketeer and in love with Connie Williams (Trevor).

However, Joe meets Marte (Ralston) in France and decides to go straight. He breaks up with Connie, who then becomes involved with Nick, though she never stopped loving Joe. Joe promises Mancani he will never expose him or aspects of his business.

Joe and Marte marry and have two children. Joe becomes a legitimate businessman. What he doesn't know is that Mancani has set Joe up, putting his name on several rackets.

Senator Stevens doesn't believe Joe when he claims to have been framed. The Army Chaplin, Father Simon Andrews (Grant Withers) knows the truth and wants it to be told. Meanwhile, the Mancani group is nervous that Joe will tell what he knows.

Fine performances, but there is nothing exceptional about this film. It has way too many flashbacks. For Republic, this is an ambitious production.

Good but not great.

John Russell was in the rackets, working for his uncle, Luther Adler, and Claire Trevor was his girl. Army service in the Second World War changed him, and he wants to go straight and marry French girl Vera Ralston. But the mob is expanding its grip and they come to the small city where he, his wife and two children live. So is a U.S. Congressional hearing under the control of Senator Brian Donleavy, Russell's former commanding officer.

This is an ambitious movie for Republic Pictures and director Joseph Kane, about a thinly disguised Kefauver Commission, and mobsters like Forrest Tucker. Although it has the violence of an exploitation picture, it's more in the lines of an expose film. It's also edited with frequent flashbacks that makes the story tough to follow at times, and despite the Italian names of the mobsters, the actors are anything but Italian in appearance or behavior. Even so, it's an honest effort, a lot like the 'small guy fights the crooks' movies that the independents turned out in the 1930s, but with superior production values and actors.

Hoodlum Empire was Herbert J. Yates and Republic Pictures way of cashing in on the Senate Rackets hearings that were chaired by Senator Estes Kefauver. A forgotten figure today, Kefauver almost rode the publicity of those hearings all the way to the White House.

Yates put together a competent company of players to tell this story. I wish he'd given them a better story. John Russell is the nephew of a Lucky Luciano type mob boss played by Luther Adler who has an attack of conscience and gives up his rackets inheritance for a gas station in some town in middle America. Of course other associates of Adler's like Forrest Tucker aren't so keen on Russell just walking away. He knows too much.

As Hollywood coincidence would have it, Russell's company commander from World War II rises to the US Senate and he's the Kefauver figure. Crusading, crimefighting Senator Brian Donlevy has a subpoena out for the big crime bosses and Russell's on his witness list. So is Tucker, Adler, and so is Claire Trevor. One of the highlights of the Rackets hearings was the appearance of Bugsy Siegel's gal pal Virginia Hill and Trevor's character is modeled on her. Claire Trevor is as usual, the moll with the heart of gold. Russell's dumped her for a war bride from France played by Yates's wife Vera Hruba Ralston. She was queen of the Republic lot, like Norma Shearer was at MGM when she was married to Irving Thalberg. Of course Republic wasn't exactly MGM and Ralston didn't have quite the talent of Norma Shearer.

So Trevor's got her own agenda and its mixed in with this stew of a story which I will not further elaborate on. She and Adler are the standouts here if one can stand out in this. Adler was one of the best character actors in Hollywood at that time. He was usually a villain and played all kinds of ethnic types. He did a much better gangster portrayal later on in The Brotherhood.

Today's audiences won't find this appealing, especially if they don't know who Estes Kefauver was.

This film noir story is told mostly in the form of flashbacks. It begins to drag a bit in the second half and one gets a little antsy waiting to find out how the good guy gets off in the end, which we assume he does.

Oddly, the main actor in this film, John Russell - the hero of the movie - is not listed on the back on the video box, in critics reviews or even in the film! The most interesting character in "Nick Mansani," played by Luther Adler. Meanwhile, Claire Trevor plays her normal film noir role of the unhappy woman, in this case the "scorned woman." Forrest Tucker was pretty good as the hot- headed hit man, too.

However, overall this was just fair as film noirs go; nothing special to make it stand out. In truth, too many flashbacks ruined this film.