Little Caesar (1931)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Mervyn LeRoy

Writers:

W.R. Burnett (novel)
Robert N. Lee (continuity)

Release Date:

28 August 1931 (France)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Plot:

The ambitious criminal Rico (Edward G. Robinson) moves from the country to the big city in the east...

Plot Keywords:

Murder | Robbery | Gangster | Mafia | Ruthlessness

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win

Cast

Edward G. Robinson	...	Little Caesar / 'Rico'
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.	...	Joe Massara
Glenda Farrell	...	Olga Stassoff
William Collier Jr.	...	Tony Passa
Sidney Blackmer	...	Big Boy
Ralph Ince	...	Pete Montana
Thomas E. Jackson	...	Sergeant Flaherty (as Thomas Jackson)
Stanley Fields	...	Sam Vettori
Maurice Black	...	Little Arnie Lorch
George E. Stone	...	Otero
Armand Kaliz	...	De Voss
Nicholas Bela	...	Ritz Colonna (as Nick Bela)

Runtime:

79 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Vitaphone (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Canada:PG (video rating) | Sweden:15 (cut) (1976) | Australia:PG | Sweden:(Banned) | Germany:12

Company:

First National Pictures

Trivia:

It is unknown when this movie actually premiered. The AFI states 1930 while other sources say it was 1931.

Goofs:

Continuity: In the diner scene, Rico jumps from reading the newspaper to eating his spaghetti between shots.

Quotes:

Sgt. Tom Flaherty: So somebody finally put one in you.
Caesar Enrico Bandello: Yeah, but they just grazed me though.
Sgt. Tom Flaherty: The old man will be glad to hear it. He takes such an interest in you.
Caesar Enrico Bandello: You tell him the cops couldn't get me no other way, so they hired a couple of gunmen.
Sgt. Tom Flaherty: If I wasn't on the force I'd have done the job cheap.
Caesar Enrico Bandello: Did you ever stop to think what you'd look like with a lily in your hand?
Sgt. Tom Flaherty: No, I never did.

Movie Connections:

Featured in AFI's 10 Top 10 (2008) (TV)

Still holds up very well

Seminal gangster film about the rise and fall of Enrico Bandello, a Chicago hoodlum, based on the novel by W.R. Burnett. The prototype for Enrico was, like so many other gangster heroes, mobster Al Capone. If you know a little bit about his life story, you got your basic gangster plot for practically all films that followed, like Tony Camonte in SCARFACE.

This film was the first of "the big three", together with PUBLIC ENEMY (1931) and SCARFACE: SHAME OF THE NATION (1932) and provided the blueprint for the modern gangster crime flic. It was the first gangster film to reach a wide audience and launched Edward G. Robinson to stardom. The story is simple and straightforward and might feel a little overly familiar to modern audiences, but the film lost little of its power and still holds up pretty well. It's a tough movie, but mostly tough talking with not much violence on screen.

But the film would probably be instantly forgettable without Robinson's superb performance. Whenever he's on screen, his presence is incredibly menacing. The rest of the cast is so so, but Thomas Jackson as Flaherty, Rico's nemesis, gives a wonderfully cynical performance, mocking Rico and all the other gangsters. Like most other early gangster films, it lacks the real emotional depth and complexity that came with later films, like the French gangster films of the fifties or THE GODFATHER and was made primarily as popular entertainment. Pleasant entertainment nevertheless with Edward G. Robinson portraying the first classic gangster role in screen history.

Camera Obscura --- 8/10