The Lady and the Mob (1939)

Memorable, crazy movie

Good movie but grossly overrated

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Don't underestimate this spunky old last (Fay Bainter) when it comes to fighting crime. Disgusted by a quarter protection fee added to her laundry Bill, granny gets her gun. The rich eccentric hires former New York backwaters to take on the ones in her city, and before long, she's got the criminals shaking in their boots as she threatens to take on city hall. She pulls a gun on them, threatens to the expose the corrupt mayor, kidnaps one of the top criminals and dares to escape from the local jail. This feisty granny without the tweety bird is as brave as Jimmy Stewart was as the junior senator framed in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", released the same year. In fact, this is so clues to the types of films that Columbia studios had been putting out ever since Mr. Deeds had gone to town that this could definitely be called Capra- corn with a feminine twist. Just coming off her Oscar winning performance in "Jezebel", Bainter is a delight, funny and feisty and seemingly without fear. She gets a moving monologue that with what was going on over in Europe was certainly timely. Rackateer bullies are as dangerous as Hitler, Mussolini and other dictators, she insinuates without mentioning any names, and it us better to die fighting for your liberty than be living in fear under the thumb of brutality.Not quite a major star yet, Ida Lupino is featured as Bainter's future daughter in law. Lee Bowman is barely adequate as her son, but Warren Hymer adds laughs as the chauffeur with a criminal past whose chums are a cross between Curly from the Three Stooges and various classic cartoon characters. It is obvious how this will pan out, but it is fun getting there.

****SPOILERS**** It's when grandmotherly and bank president Hattie Leonard, Fay Baitner, is charged $2.00 instead of her usual weekly $1.75 fee for dry cleaning that she decides to investigate why all of a sudden her dry cleaning bill rose some 15%! This in 1939 when inflation was on the way down due to the economic downturn in prices & wages of the ravages Great 1930's Depression! Discovering from the person who's been doing and laundry & dry cleaning for the last 15 years Zambrogio, Henry Armetta, that there's a protection racket going on in the little town of Macklin City for years Hattie decides to take matters or the law into her own hands! And thus do the job that the city's Mayor Jones, Brandon Tynan. and the police refuse or can't do. Run the hoods running this protection racket out of town and behind bars!Hilarious crime comedy with Hattie and her cabbie and ex-con friend Frankie Fallon, Warren Hymer, organize a mob of their own to put an end to the laundry and dry cleaning racket in Macklin City. Not quite realizing what he's up against, the little old lady who lives in the big house up the hill, mobster George Watson, George Meeker, send his collectors like Harry the Lug, Harold Huber, out to shake down the local laundry and dry cleaning businesses in town. Harry the Lug instead f collecting protection money ends up getting kidnapped by Hattie's mob and by being threatened, when nothing else would work, with gulping down an entire bottle of yucky & smelly Castor Oil finally spilled the beans. Not only his boss George Watson but the boss of bosses of the entire dry cleaning and laundry protection operation the chief executive of the town of Macklin City the honorable Mayor Jones Himself!***SPOILERS**** With Hattie framed arrested and put behind bars on a phony kidnapping charge, against Harry the Lug, she in turn got the goods on Mayor Jones in having his pay off or protection money marked and put in his personal safety deposit box at her bank! Not realizing that he had unknowingly implicated himself in this city wide protection racket Mayor Jones ends up arrested and put behind bars as the movie comes to an end. That's not after in him being the chief justice officially marrying Hattie grandson Fred, Lee Bowman, and his fiancée Lila Thorne, Ida Lupino, before he's relives of his duties as mayor and driven to jail in a police paddy wagon.

A movie like this with its broad humor is mainly a matter of taste. A refined, uptown lady (Bainter) organizes her own mock mob in order to rid the city of a real mob of extortionists. Bainter's gang is made up of 'deeze' and 'doze' Runyonesque characters like Warren Hymer and Joe Sawyer. The laughs are supposed to come from their silly shenanigans, plus the unlikelihood of an uptown old lady leading a bunch of uncouth characters. Throw in Bowman and Lupino (before her drama queen days) as the required love interest and the format is complete. The movie does have its moments, particularly the castor oil treatment, while the aging Bainter does well in a very demanding role. The movie's pretty much a one-note comedic set-up, so you should know within the first 10-minutes whether to stay with it or not.

Lady and the Mob, The (1939) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Slight but mildly entertaining comedy about an elderly woman (Fay Bainter) who grows sick and tired of the gangsters taking over her city so she forms her own gang to run them out of town. This film runs just 65-minutes and for the most part it moves along pretty good, although the ending gets dragged out longer than it should have. Bainter is good in her role but a young Ida Lupino seems out of place and fails at all of her comedy scenes. Seeing as when this film was released, there's some big speeches about standing up for your country, taking down dictators and other things to that nature. Joe Sawyer plays one of the woman's gang members. Another interesting tidbit is that this Columbia picture also shows off another one of their films, You Can't Take It With You, during one scene.