Really Surprised!

Excellent, smart action film.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

This is a well-acted movie. Gable in particular is at his finest, as you can see most notably in his last scene, the prison cell, before he is led to the electric chair. The difference between his noble refusal to live imprisoned rather than to get it all over with as soon as possible and Powell's presentation of the governor as weak makes Gable look that much more charismatic.But what I found strange here was Myrna Loy's character's efforts to get her husband the governor to pardon Blackie. She knows that Blackie has killed a man - she doesn't seem to know that it was in self-defense. And yet she begs her husband to forget his scruples and pardon Blackie. That's hard to take, and would certainly make me suspect she is still in love with Blackie if I were in the governor's very uncomfortable shoes.The scene in the prison cell with Gable and Powell is wonderfully acted and beautifully photographed. The acting here is of a high level. But the moral issues in this movie are at best very problematic.

Two boyhood friends end up being on opposite sides of the law as adults. At least the film can't be accused of false advertising. This is definitely melodrama, which can be fun if done right; here, however, it starts off as merely uninteresting and ends up as being rather corny. Unfortunately, the star power of Gable, Powell, and Loy can't overcome the lackluster script. The film is mainly of interest for historical reasons. It was the first teaming of Powell and Loy, made just before "The Thin Man," also directed by Van Dyke. More notoriously, this was the film Dillinger went to see at the Biograph Theater in Chicago and was killed by the FBI upon emerging from the theater.

I cannot believe anyone who is a gangster film fan, or a fan of Powell, Loy or Gable cannot love this film. First off, this film cannot be compared to a Warners Gangster Film, because those gangsters are much more hard core, and are unwilling to sacrifice anything to anybody (Except Johnny Sarto (Edward G. Robinson) in "Brother Orchid", and Patsy Gargan (Janes Cagney) in "Mayor From Hell"). It is actually very similar to "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" Where Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) sacrifices everything for the greater good. Blackie is not Rico Bandello, Tom Powers, or Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart in "The Petrified Forest"), totally evil characters, instead he is willing to sacrifice anything for his friend Jim (Totally evil people don't do that), and that includes (Spoilers): his chance for a relationship with Eleanor, when he essentially hands her over to Jim (The cab scene), kills for Jim, and is willing to die in the chair, and talks Jim out of commuting his sentence to life imprisonment, because he knew Jim was a decent man, with the potential for greatness. Powell is the real star of this movie. He is a real hero, who is unwilling to do the easy thing: (Spoilers Ahead) (Which likely would have led to the White House). Instead he resigns, because he got in office because of a murder, and thus knows it is the right thing to do (Unlike Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) in "Liberty Valance", who became Vice-President). What is interesting is how Eleanor reacts to him at the very end, and how it compares to Hallie Stoddard (Vera Miles). Eleanor is perhaps the most complex character in the film. She is one of a number of morally ambiguous characters Loy has played in her career: Evelyn Prentice, "Coco" ("Topaz"), Gertie Waxted ("Penthouse") to name a few. It helps to be familiar with Loy to totally understand her character. This is the middle phase of her career, where she gets what she wants, but has to compromise in order to get it. In the beginning, she has played some of the nastiest women in Motion Picture History such as Ursula Georgi ("Thirteen Women") or Fah Lo See ("The Mask Of Fu Manchu"), and paid the price at the end, before eventually moving on to Nora Charles, Connie Allenbury ("Libeled Lady") & Ann Barton ("Test Pilot"), all characters who get what they want (Particularly Connie), without giving an inch. This film is on my short list of the best gangster films ever made. Easy 10 of 10.

Yes, this is a melodrama all right. Two boys of very different backgrounds are orphaned when a pleasure steamer catches fire and sinks in the Hudson River near New York in 1902. One boy (Mickey Rooney) is a rough and tumble type, while the other is bookish and thoughtful. They are both briefly adopted together by a man who lost his son in the same disaster. They grow up together and then go their separate ways. The rough one, 'Blackie', becomes a criminal and is played by Clarke Gable. The bookish one becomes a lawyer and criminal prosecutor, played by William Powell. Blackie has a girlfriend, played by Myrna Loy, who leaves him for Powell. What is so especially fascinating about this film is that Myrna Loy and Clark Gable do not 'click' at all, and glaze over when they look at one another, despite their best acting efforts to simulate at least some flickers of passion. But as soon as Powell and Loy are on screen together, the fizz begins, and they spark off one another like two cheeky little flints who just can't wait to make wonderful fire together. Powell seems to have been an irresistibly amusing man who was attractive to all the most glamorous gals, despite not being all that good-looking. After all, he was married to Carole Lombard and then was about to marry Jean Harlow when she died tragically. (He paid $30,000 for her funeral and took six weeks off filming with Myrna Loy in another picture because of his uncontrollable grief.) So Powell certainly knew how to interact with women of character. Myrna Loy just had the right kind of wry and whimsical manner to complement the dry humour of Powell. From the moment they first look at each other in this first film together, a unique screen magic was born, and lasted through 14 films. When I knew her very slightly as a youngster, she was 57 and rather uncommunicative, and she seemed depressed, so I never knew the 'lively Loy'. In those days videos and DVDs did not exist, so few people of my age had any idea at all of what she had been like in her films with William Powell, as we had not only never seen any of them but had no way of doing so. Nor was there any internet with a handy IMDb database where you just click your mouse and see the list of her credits. The fact is, Myrna Loy was someone one knew had been a big movie star earlier on, but one had never actually seen her on screen. She was just a name, and someone who had been in films which one's parents had seen before one was born. Well, now we can see them and so many of them are good that we can at last see Myrna Loy in perspective and appreciate just how unique and special she really was. There is a curious thing, namely that her real name was Myrna Williams and she came from Montana. Now who does that remind you of? Why, Michelle Williams of course, who comes from Montana (see my reviews of LAND OF PLENTY and INCENDIARY, where I note that this girl is an actress of genius). I wonder if they could possibly be Montana kith and kin. But I guess the world is full of people named Williams, even in Montana, which has a population of just a few thousand people and a few million cattle, doesn't it? It seems that everywhere you go, there are people named Wiliams. Perhaps it is because they are plural. Oh, back to the story. I always forget the story. Well, you can see it coming, can't you? Powell ends up prosecuting Gable for murder and demands the death sentence. That part of the story is heavily contrived, but it works very well regardless because after all it is a 1930s movie. Loy is distressed because she loves them both. You can see where the melodrama comes in, and they really lay it on, as this is not a film where subtlety is a leading quality. We get the whole thing, death row, the last minute requests for a reprieve (oh yes, Powell is Governor of New York by now and is the one who gets begged to save Blackie's life). Well the melodrama just keeps piling on top of the melodrama like that, so that the film is really a kind of melodramatic club sandwich. There is some cheese and then there's some ham (in fact there is no shortage of ham in this film) and then there's some chicken when certain persons lose their courage and then there's some lettuce to brighten and pretty things up a bit, and then there's the daily bread, it's all there. Take a bite, it's really delicious.