Barbary Coast (1935)

The Worst Film Ever

Simply A Masterpiece

Just perfect...

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Even though Barbary Coast came out after the restrictive Hays Code, it is one nasty movie! Imagine what they could have filmed if the censors hadn't been in play! Miriam Hopkins arrives in San Francisco in the 1850s. She thinks she'll get married and start a respectable new life. Instead, her fiancé is dead, and her only option to survive is to accept casino owner Edward G. Robinson's offer. She becomes his mistress and works in the casino to help drum up business. Joel McCrea is honest, kind, and a hard worker-everything Eddy G isn't-and it isn't long before Miriam falls in love with him. Will Eddy G let her go without a fight?The film feels like a pre-code movie, since the entire setting is in an unsavory part of town. There are drunks, gamblers, prostitutes, and criminals. There's violence, sex, and murder, and it's a very exciting ride! Many movies that take place in the mid-1800s are Wild West films, but in this different setting, it's interesting to see the still-rowdy behavior.The famous trivia to come out of this film is that it was one of David Niven's first movies. He plays a drunken sailor, but apparently you'll have to watch the movie a few times to catch him. I knew the trivia and still didn't spot him on the first go-around. If you like a little naughtiness in your classics, you won't mind watching this one over and over to try and see him!

A mediocre Hawks entertainment, on his usual theme of tough, displaced men and women falling in love, with a very strong cast but a rather trite and badly-paced storyline. Miriam Hopkins is the self-consciously tough broad who pitches up in Gold Rush-era San Francisco, and allies herself to casino owner Edward G. Robinson – who has a really funny, ever-present curl trespassing onto the right hand side of his face – only to fall for soppy poet Joel McCrea. To get an idea of just how sanitised the movie is, it's worth noting that Joseph Breen, the head of the Hays Office, thought the original script was the filthiest thing he'd ever read, but regarded the film as absolutely charming. There's some wonderfully poetic Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur dialogue in the opening exchanges ("However soiled his hands, the journalist goes staggering through life with a beacon raised" – just beautiful), but it dries up alarmingly quickly, while the story degenerates into tiresome bickering, before reinventing itself as a gruesome love letter to vigilantism. Breen seemed to espouse a strict pro-death-penalty, anti- double-bed viewpoint that's difficult to get on board with nowadays. (I'm also not sure what the form is on everybody celebrating the arrival of a "white woman" - seems a bit racist.)There are a few atmospheric shots in fog-shrouded San Francisco – though conveying the sweep of the burgeoning town is never even attempted – but the real selling point is the performances. Hopkins gives one of those faintly wooden, sub-Stanwyck, but nonetheless intriguing performances combining genuine, even enrapturing emotional attractiveness with the ability to be a bit irritating, while both Walter Brennan and Robinson make the most of familiar roles: Brennan a hoarse crook with an eyepatch and a quietly-emerging conscience, Robinson a menacingly-mewling tough guy who doesn't really understand how love works. McCrea is cast in one of those parts that can come off as unbearably smug (I'm thinking of Leslie Howard's horrendous role in The Petrified Forest), while the script asks him to swallow some rather questionable plot developments, but he's not bad, playing more fey and sensitive than was usually required. There's also a very funny bit part for J.M Kerrigan, who shines as a drunk judge in an incongruous, inappropriate but riotous comic interlude. Barbary Coast never really manages to clamber over its main obstacle – a disjointed, at times slightly tedious story – but some very nice acting and the odd good line or arty shot make it worth a look, especially for fans of the director.

Walter Brennan plays "Old Atrocity," and he brings a lot of comedy to this lively drama doing his signature old codger (never mind he was 41 at the time). Also fun, of course, is the MacArthur/Hecht screenplay, which actually manages to capture the outlaw feeling of Gold Rush days at the Golden Gate. Moody lighting and foggy sets help.But I enjoyed "Barbara Coast" for something else entirely: the pairing of Edward G. Robinson and Joel McRea. Both are among the most attractive film actors of all time – but for reasons as different as they are.Short (5'5"), dark, raised in Bucharest and New York City, Edward G. (for Goldenberg) Robinson looks nothing like a matinée idol. Nevertheless, he didn't just star in films, he commanded the screen, even when his co-star was Bogart or Bette Davis, James Stewart or Marlene Dietrich, Orson Welles or Barbara Stanwyck. He handled as wide a variety of roles as anyone, ever: He's famous for violent gangsters ("Little Caesar"), but he was every bit as good as a tragic lead ("Bullets for Ballots"); as film noir characters from villains ("Key Largo"), to dupes ("Scarlett Street"), to heroes ("Night has a Thousand Eyes"); in biography (Dr. Paul Ehrlich); in comedy ("Larceny, Inc."); and he was also a spectacular character actor ("Double Indemnity"). The list is almost endless-- except for musicals-- because his career spanned seven(!) decades. I'll watch Robinson in anything.Tall (6'3"), blond and blue-eyed, born in Southern California, Joel McRea is as gorgeous a man as ever faced a camera—but he had very little range. He could affect a few things-- steely determination, boyish charm, and thoughtful confusion were comfort zones-- but his face almost never changed except to smile a bit from time to time. Never mind; he was a precursor to very, very long list of pretty boys who became competent actors, from Valentino through Erroll Flynn and Steve McQueen to Brad Pitt. I'll watch McRea in anything, too.

In Leonard Maltin's movie guide, he gave this movie three and a half stars (a very high rating) and THE FRISCO KID (the Cagney version) only two stars. This is very odd, in that both movies came out the very same year and had a virtually identical plot. Apart from a few minor details, they are almost the exact same film. The biggest difference was that BARBARY COAST starred Edward G. Robinson and was made by Goldwyn International Pictures, whereas THE FRISCO KID starred Jimmy Cagney and was made by Warner. Considering that Cagney and Robinson are very similar actors, I really could understand someone mixing the two films up in their minds.Here are just some of the similarities: --Both are set in San Francisco at about the same time period during the Gold Rush. --Both feature the lead owning the biggest gambling house on the Barbary Coast. --Both men are pretty corrupt and the excesses in their lawbreaking and control of the government resulted in the formation of a Vigilante Committee to take the law into their hands. --Both featured a lady that both men are in love with but just can't seem to win. --Both feature the lead having a major change of heart at the end of the film. One is ultimately hung and the other narrowly avoids a hanging. --Both feature a crusading newspaper editor or owner being killed for speaking the truth.--Both make San Francisco look like Hell on Earth.So, in essence we have one movie, not really two. There's no need to see them both, but which one you'll prefer may depend on your preferences. If you want an almost irredeemably wicked lead who is a bit wooden, try BARBARY COAST. If you want a lead who is bad but you still like him despite everything, see the Cagney film instead.