Sarentrol Masterful Cinema

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

JohnHowardReid Produced on a very low budget, this movie does contain two or three scenes that are mildly effective. But both script and direction are static. The script is weighted far too heavily with dialogue, and it comes across like a cheap television play. Worse still, Luana Patten and Dayton Lummis ineptly contribute a lot of nauseating sentiment. And the characters are always exclaiming what a luxurious apartment the hero lives in -- but, boy or boy, is it a drab dump! Further economies are made by using lots of stock shots of the New York skyline while the narrator DESCRIBES most of the action! In all, this a movie that can be safely ignored -- even by the actors' most rabid fans!

MartinHafer "The Music Box Kid" is a decent crime film. In many ways, it's a 1960s rethinking of classic gangster films like "Little Caesar" and "The Public Enemy"--with slightly different sensibilities. However, the film occasionally is hampered by some heavy-handed and preachy narration. Fortunately, there isn't a lot of it--but it's particularly bad at the end of the film.Ron Foster plays Larry Shaw. It follows him as he quickly rises up through the ranks in the mob. He's a big advantage over other mobsters in that he's even MORE sociopathic, violent and brash. So, it's not surprising that soon the mob he was working for wouldn't be big enough for him. So, he starts up is own mob--a group of freaks who specialize in contract killings and kidnappings. What's to come of him? See the film and find out for yourself.For the most part I enjoyed this movie-more so that its sub-5.0 score on IMDb would suggest. But the narration is just too much and the film suffers a bit, as the movie was violent and exciting and the narration was anything but.

bkoganbing Because of the popularity of TV's The Untouchables, the late fifties early sixties saw a revival of the gangster film genre. Not the stuff that Warner Brothers put out with its stable of gangster stars, but allegedly true life stories of real life gangsters. Al Capone, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, Legs Diamond, Arnold Rothstein all get biographical films of a sort around this time. Even movie gangster George Raft who hung around a lot with the real deal got one.One of the poorer ones has to be The Music Box Kid where the names were allegedly changed. Of course anyone who's familiar in the slightest with gangland lore recognizes protagonist Ron Foster as Dutch Schultz, boss of the Bronx in the Twenties and Thirties.Ron's married to Luana Patten who at the beginning of the film actually thinks her hubby is a most successful insurance salesman who pays for everything in cash because he doesn't believe in credit. Poor Luana spends most of the film dealing with her priest, Dayton Lummis, who's no doubt telling her to stand by her man even though he is a killer. Otherwise she'd be running from this guy. Stories of Dutch Schultz's temper tantrums are legendary. But even he wasn't as crazy as this guy who was busy extorting fellow mobsters and starting Murder, Inc. which Schultz did not do. When Carleton Young is appointed Special Prosecutor and Foster decides he ought to be hit, the other mobsters see their duty clear. But that's not the end, although in real life it was the end when Lucky Luciano and company thought too much heat would be brought down if Schultz ever assassinated Thomas E. Dewey. Luana in fact gets the last word and the last word is quite unbelievable.The title refers to the carrying case where Foster packs his Thompson submachine gun, favored weapon of gangland back in the day. I'm sure many people got fooled with that title and asked for their money back.

GUENOT PHILIPPE Once is not usual, this little Eddie L Cahn flick is rather effective, but very cheap, not a surprise...The tale of a petty hoodlum in the 20's New York, prohibition era and gang wars. The rise and fall of this ambitious, ruthless and greedy happy trigger fellow. We already have seen this a thousand times, especially during the early 60's, with features such as Pretty Boy Floyd, Purple Gang, Pay or Die, Murder Inc, Portrait of a Mobster, Mad Dog Coll and so on...So, the "mighty" Edward L Cahn wanted to contribute to this kind of movies, very in fashion.Of course, the appearance of a priest in the film, and the theme of the redemption with religious ethics reminds Warner gangster movies of the 30's and early 40's...One scene of this little feature is taken from William Wellman's "Public Enemy". And it's not the grapefruit one !!!I did not expect so much from an Edward L Cahn movie. Even produced by the usual Robert Kent.