Truly Dreadful Film

Crappy film

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

SYNOPSIS: Ex-convict buys a luggage shop next door to a bank. NOTES: The original stage play opened on Broadway at the Morosco on 10 April 1941. Following very unenthusiastic reviews, it closed after only 22 performances. George Mathews, Ruth Weston, Forrest Orr and Phyllis Brooks starred, whilst Shelley Winters made her debut. Romney Brent directed, Courtney Burr produced. This was Robinson's last film for Warner Bros. under his million dollar contract. Thereafter he freelanced.VIEWER'S GUIDE: Despite the censor's "Parental Guidance" rating, I can see no reason to prevent children from seeing this film. Admittedly it's a very noisy farce, but since when have kids been afraid of noise.COMMENT: Plenty of Warner Bros. gloss, including a fine support cast, has gone into this somewhat over-verbose, more than a trifle over-frantic farce. One feels, however, that Robinson is miscast in slapstick comedy. Crawford is also too heavy-handed. The best of the leads are Edward S. Brophy and Jack Carson, both naturally funny men - though Brophy has the lion's share of comic opportunities here. Miss Wyman is okay in the thankless role of the voice-of-conscience, romantic lead. It's a minor but at times reasonably amusing little comedy - "little" in the sense that its one joke is stretched rather thin and doesn't amount to very much. But the director keeps it moving at a commendably brisk pace in order to disguise the film's obvious stage play origins. Too many of the scenes are still set in the luggage shop, but it's an interesting and novel setting nonetheless. The cast is great. What we don't like about the movie is that the plot runs off the rails in the third act. Anthony Quinn's gangster is suddenly introduced and though this does give rise to some amusing scenes and an action-filled climax with lots of extras milling about, the conclusion is both abrupt and unsatisfactory and the Wyman, Carson characters are completely dropped. At this stage in his career, Robinson was heartily sick of straight gangster roles. He had already spoofed the genre in A Slight Case of Murder (1938) and Brother Orchid (1940), both with rather more humorous results than on this occasion.

I often think that comedy is a perishable commodity, that in many instances it has a short shelf life. Times change, attitudes change, people change. So it is with 'Larceny, Inc." a good-natured comedy film which must have been much funnier in the 40's than it appears now (although it only ran for 22 performances on Broadway, according to another contributor).It was interesting to see Edward G. Robinson doing comedy; I had only seen him in one other comedy, "A Hole In The Head" (1959), and also Broderick Crawford, who was more of a gangster movie-type. There was also a bigger role for Edward Brophy than he was used to, and Jane Wyman was pretty but with little to do. (I don't do plot synopses; see another reviewer).I don't think this picture would be received very well by today's audiences - as was noted, its brand of humor is somewhat dated. But it's still good to see an example of what passed for comedy many years ago, before TV made the world a closer, coarser place.

An absolute entertaining surprise with Edward G. Robinson, Broderick Crawford and Ed Brophy as 3 crooks who try to go straight after the first two are released from prison.Failing to secure a loan, they manage to buy a failing luggage store owned by Harry Davenport. The store is right next door to a bank that the 3 plan to steal from by digging a hole through the floor.Of course, the business takes off under their leadership along with the help of Jane Wyman, a dead-mobster's daughter who Robinson regards as his own. She falls for Jack Carson, a luggage salesman who has ideas to build up the business.The guys actually want to go straight until Anthony Quinn, the guy who had originally planned the heist from prison, breaks out and forces the trio to go along with his intentions.Even with his usual tough persona,Robinson shows a comic gift and is even outmatched by the hilarious portrayal of Crawford, who does an excellent job in fracturing the English language. We'll be typhoons is one of his malapropisms instead of tycoons!Even though at the very end, we don't know if the 3 can ever go straight, but this comic romp is truly a marvelous adventure inspiring the business spirit in us all.

While Warner Brothers' forte was gangster films, occasionally they went in for comedy, and "Larceny, Inc." is one of their creative spoofs of the genre. Quite coincidentally, Edward G. Robinson could turn his wise guy persona on a dime to deliver a hilarious performance here as the leader of an inept gang consisting of Broderick Crawford and Edward Brophy. You really have to keep an eye on the opening scene when Jug Martin (Crawford), on the mound for Sing Sing, gives up a homer to an opposing Dannemora Prison batter after catcher Pressure Maxwell (Robinson) tries to have him go low and away. Jug tries to convince Pressure that his finger slipped, but he's really giving Robinson the bird - and they left it in there! Two years earlier in 1940, Robinson also did a comedic turn trying to go straight in another WB flick, "Brother Orchid". In that film, it's his one liners and staccato delivery that dominate, but here he's more engaged in slapstick and son of a gun, he makes it work. You'd be hard pressed to see him in a more hilarious scene than the one where he wraps a customer's bag in deadpan earnestness while blowing him off at the same time. No wonder they called him the luggage czar of Sixth Avenue.One of the surprise appearances in the picture for me was a young Jackie Gleason doing a soda jerk routine, and it was amazing to see him using the mannerisms that would be perfected by Ralph Kramden in "The Honeymooners" and the Born Loser character of the Jackie Gleason Show. The only downside was that his time in the picture was so short.Also on hand is a very pretty Jane Wyman as Denny Costello, sort of an adopted daughter to Robinson's character. She was Mrs. Ronald Reagan at the time, who along with Crawford and Anthony Quinn, were all just starting out and trying to make a name for themselves in the business.The picture pretty much moves at a mile a minute pace with plenty of amusing situations. It's one of those stories where every attempt at lemons turns into lemonade for Robinson and his larcenous pals; they never get a chance to be the bad guys they thought they were.