Little Caesar (1931)

It is a performances centric movie

I wanted to but couldn't!

A Disappointing Continuation

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

"Little Caesar" is the earliest example of the "Scarface" type of gangster movie that I have seen. Edward G. Robinson, whose intense, nasal voice will sound familiar to anyone who has seen "The Simpsons", is great in the Tony Montana role of the hoodlum who starts small, dreams big, wins it all and then loses it again. He doesn't quite go out in a blaze of glory, though.Robinson has a power in his role that none of the other actors approach. His is a striking, menacing screen presence, which basically carries the movie. He's like the black hole in its centre. There's not a whole lot else to it, really.

From a personal point of view I like gangster movies very much. But there are two things that really appeal to me. 1.1931 years of gangster films actually involve gay. 2.The gangster is still independent fight with environment of American individualism hero.it is sound film at the beginning of the film now looks more rough, based mainly on the film dialogue, gun shots, but still wonderful.Earlier gangster film. In a minimal way recorded a gangster developed to destroy the life is short, after all the gangster film, the main basic not from the film in a simple story. After watching this movie has a lens always stay in my mind, Little Caesar from his pocket and took out his comb hair. Reflects the characters in the film is very lively.

Edward G. Robinson may not have been a real pretty boy or large in stature but he made up for that in a big way by having a memorable mug and a very large presence on screen. When he's talking, you want to listen. Here he takes a juicy part and runs with it, in this prime example of tough and gritty Warner Bros. crime melodramas. Robinson plays Caesar Enrico Bandello - otherwise known as "Rico" - a small time thug who lusts for the power that befits the crime kingpins of the city. He works his way into the mob by offering his services to mobster Sam Vettori (Stanley Fields). Soon, his influence is growing stronger and stronger until Vettoris' underlings are taking orders from him instead of their original boss. He rises to a high enough position that he becomes a popular figure in the media, and comes to enjoy all the trappings of his status. Naturally, after such a rise there must inevitably come a fall, as Rico finds things eventually unravelling; his main Achilles heel is his affection for childhood friend Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), even though he comes to consider Joe a personal liability. Joe has his own problem: he doesn't really want the thug life, and tries to leave it behind and follow his true passion of being a dancer. Director Mervyn LeRoy keeps the action moving right along; one key robbery / murder set piece is particularly well edited. The cinematography is moody and stylish, and the story, based on a novel by W.R. Burnett (and inspired by a real-life Chicago gangster named Salvatore "Sam" Cardinella), is overall familiar but fundamentally well told. The supporting cast also includes feisty Glenda Farrell as Olga, Joes' love interest, William Collier Jr. as regretful mob flunky Tony, who has a change of heart and tries to go straight, Sidney Blackmer, Ralph Ince, and Maurice Black as various mafiosi, and the highly amusing Thomas E. Jackson as Ricos' police detective nemesis. Clocking in at a trim 79 minutes, "Little Caesar" is often credited, along with "The Public Enemy", as successfully kick starting the crime drama craze of the 1930s, and holds up well today as a very solid and believable little film that remains riveting throughout, all the way to its resolution with a stunned Rico wondering how things could have ended up the way they did. 10 out of 10.

Little Caesar is a good example of a film that is historically important but which has dated very poorly. The camera work, by cinematographer Tony Gaudio, is mediocre, the spare soundtrack, by Erno Rapee, is garbled, and the acting very wooden. Even Edward G. Robinson, who became a star in this role, is merely OK. What makes this all the more amazing is that, just a few months later, in 1931, Jimmy Cagney would burst on to the screen with The Public Enemy, a film that holds up cinematically- technically and aesthetically- far better. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, and written by Francis Edward Faragoh and Robert N. Lee, adapted from a novel by W.R. Burnett, the 78 minute, black and white film, limps along, despite being nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award. So unsure of its narrative power is the film that, like its silent era cousins, it makes extensive use of intertitle cards to convey plot points quickly, and also obscure the narrative fact of its indeterminate chronology.That's because there is a general awkwardness to this film that many early talky pictures had, and the acting style is unconvincing. There are scenes which simply make little sense, diegetically or not, and clank along in stereotypes. Aside form The Public Enemy, and the Paul Muni vehicle, Scarface: The Shame Of A Nation, one might also compare it to German Director Fritz Lang's film M, released the same year, which made a star of Peter Lorre, another rather un-movie star-like movie star. In that film, Lorre plays a pedophile child killer done in by a trial brought by local gangsters, enraged that his killings have brought the wrath of the cops down upon them. That film, like The Public Enemy, is far more realistic in its depictions of crime, criminals, and their motivations.