GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

vincentlynch-moonoi Even though there are elements in this film that will be familiar to those who enjoy crime dramas of the 1930s, not to mention some similarities with "San Francisco" (starring Gable), this film is a top notch production with superb acting and a very good script.Clark Gable here played...well...Clark Gable. A man who could take it. Even when it meant that his lifelong friend would be the prosecutor who would send him to the electric chair. Even though that friend, later the governor, would not commute his sentence as a matter of principle. I mentioned "San Francisco" (1936); in that film his character was also named Blackie; and there was a conflict between the somewhat bad Blackie there and another man (in that case Spencer Tracy instead of William Powell) and a sort of battle of wills as to what kind of woman she (Jeanette MacDonald instead of Myrna Loy) would become.This is one of William Powell's better roles...and he usually was wonderful! Here he plays a man of principle...even when that principle shakes him to his core. It's a very serious role, and he plays it with dignity. As much fun as he was in films such as "The Thin Man", this was a particular stellar role for him.And, this was his first pairing with Myrna Loy, and -- as usual -- Loy's performance is top notch.The only other performance here of particular note is that by a very young Mickey Rooney. Although hardly as polished as his later portrayals, one can see why he became a star.One thing that really caught my eye...or should I say ear...was a song with very strange lyrics that later was transformed into "Blue Moon" by Rogers and Lorenz Hart.I would guess that MGM didn't realize what a gem they had here. It was extremely popular at the box office. And, it has the distinction of being the film that John Dillinger saw and was subsequently shot to death by the FBI after leaving the theater.This is a superb film, and I'll give it a rare "8". And, I'm going to Amazon now to see if it is available on DVD.

JohnHowardReid Assistant director: Lesley Selander. Music editor: W. Donn Hayes. Sound recording: Douglas Shearer. Producer: David O. Selznick. Executive producer: William Randolph Hearst. Copyright 3 May 1934 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. A Cosmopolitan picture. New York opening at both the Capitol and Loew's Metropolitan, 4 May 1934. U.S. release: 6 May 1934. U.K. release: 27 October 1934. London opening at the Empire, 24 May 1934. Australian release: 19 September 1934. 9 reels. 93 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Two orphan boys are adopted by a kindly Jewish tailor. One grows up to become assistant district attorney, the other a gangster.NOTES: Academy Award, Arthur Caesar, Original Story (defeating Hide- Out by Mauri Grashin and The Richest Girl in the World by Norman Krasna).Shooting commenced 12 March 1934 and finished 3 April 1934 (one day ahead of schedule). Five days of re-takes were then directed by George Cukor and photographed by Oliver T. Marsh.Negative cost: $355,000. Gross domestic rentals: $770,000.COMMENT: Fast-paced, brilliantly directed melodrama. Van Dyke's stylish attention to detail (the way Gable throws the key away; the lights dimming off in the prison corridor), his mastery of crowd scenes (the stairway to the fight — before and after) and expertise with set- pieces (the excursion fire; the two murders) have never been better realized than here. He receives a big assist from the clipped film editing of Ben Lewis. The dialogue is witty ("Thanks for returning my coat. Admittedly, it was a rather roundabout way") and realistic ("Mr. Wade is late. We will start without him."), a credit to screenwriters Garrett and Mankiewicz. The photography of Jimmy Wong Howe is also a major asset, though he tends to photograph Gable and Loy at Powell's expense. The special effects by Slavko Vorkapich are most effective, the sets contrive to look both attractive and realistic. There's also a smart song by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.OTHER VIEWS: It is certainly a melodrama and yet it is put across with a great deal of style and flair, well acted, expansively produced and its implied social comment more the type of film that might be expected of Warner Bros. than MGM. A particularly trenchant attack on the New York police force who are presented on the one hand as murdering conscienceless thugs and on the other as cheerful grifters and grafters. Morally, it's quite daring for MGM too with Myrna Loy's sassy, self-possessed gangster's moll and Clark Gable as the breezy, charming, lying, cheating, murdering thug. One can certainly detect Mankiewicz's hand in the smart dialog. Comic relief Nat Pendleton and his equally unfunny moll, let us hope, owe their existence to the pen of Mr. Garrett. The hokey priest so sententiously played by Leo Carillo (fortunately his part is small) also smells of Garrett's ink, but there is a fine music score. And I love the atmospheric photography by James Wong Howe. Arthur Caesar's original story was to be re-used extensively by Hollywood. He deserved his Academy Award many times over! – John Howard Reid writing as George Addison.

GusF A very aptly named film, this is a fairly entertaining, if overblown, tale. The script, written by Oliver H.P. Garrett and Joseph L. Mankiewicz based on a story by Arthur Caesar, tells the familiar story of two childhood friends, one of whom grows up to be a respectable citizen who attains high political office (two things which are often mutually exclusive in real life) and one of whom grows up to be a career criminal. Admittedly, it was far less familiar in 1934 than it is today. The film is rather well directed by W.S. Van Dyke but it's not on the same level as in the "Thin Man" films. The film earned a special place in history as, after John Dillinger attended a screening of it in Chicago on July 22, 1934, he was gunned down by the FBI.The film stars Clark Gable and William Powell as the gangster and illegal casino owner Edward J. "Blackie" Gallagher and William Powell as the Manhattan District Attorney turned Governor of New York James W. "Jim" Wade respectively. Oddly enough, Powell was Carole Lombard's first husband while Gable later became her second. Both performances are good but neither is on the same level as their best work. Having been orphaned in the General Slocum disaster on June 15, 1904, Jim took the younger Blackie under his wing and attempted to keep him on the straight and narrow. Needless to say, his efforts did not meet with much success. In spite of the fact that he commits murder to ensure Jim's election to the governorship, Blackie is a rather likable character. His eternal loyalty to Jim is quite touching. It does not really ring true but then again I don't think that the developments in any film which actually includes the word "melodrama" in the title are intended to be realistic! A bigger problem is that said developments are not executed as entertainingly as they could have been.Myrna Loy is strong as Eleanor Parker, who starts off as Blackie's girlfriend but later starts a relationship with Jim and eventually marries him. If I were her, I'd have probably made the same choice. At the risk of repeating myself, Loy was likewise better in other films. While she and Gable do not have much in the way of chemistry, her more light-hearted early scenes with Powell are electrifying. This was their first of 14 films together over the course of the next 13 years, most notably in the "Thin Man" film series. They worked so well together that many people though that they were married in real life. Nat Pendleton, another "Thin Man" alumnus, provides much of the comic relief as Blackie's dimwitted henchman Spud while the 14-year-old Mickey Rooney makes an early appearance as the young Blackie.Overall, this is quite a fun film. I hope Dillinger enjoyed it, though it certainly isn't worth dying for. He probably did not have the time to appreciate the irony of the last film that he watched involving the death of a famous gangster, what with the bullets flying around him and all. It's the sort of thing that I would find far-fetched if it happened in fiction, frankly.

robert-temple-1 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.