The Big Shakedown (1934)Racketeers flood the market with counterfeit cosmetics and drugs, causing some tragedies. Director:John Francis Dillon |
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The Big Shakedown (1934)Racketeers flood the market with counterfeit cosmetics and drugs, causing some tragedies. Director:John Francis Dillon |
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| Complete credited cast: | |||
| Charles Farrell | ... | ||
| Bette Davis | ... | ||
| Ricardo Cortez | ... | ||
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Glenda Farrell | ... | |
| Allen Jenkins | ... | ||
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Henry O'Neill | ... | |
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Dewey Robinson | ... | |
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John Wray | ... |
Higgins
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Philip Faversham | ... |
John, the New Salesman
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Robert Emmett O'Connor | ... |
Regan, the Bartender
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Renee Whitney | ... |
Mae LaRue
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G. Pat Collins | ... |
Gyp
(as George Pat Collins)
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Adrian Morris | ... |
Trigger
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Ben Hendricks Jr. | ... |
Spike
(as Ben Hendricks)
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George Cooper | ... |
Shorty
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Former bootlegger Nick Barnes pressures neighborhood druggist Jimmy Morrell into making cut-rate drugs. The money makes it possible for Jimmy to marry Norma Frank, a pharmacy clerk. Expecting a baby, she wants Jimmy to quit the racket. Beaten by the mob, Jimmy works on, diluting the medications still further. Norma is rushed to the hospital for a premature delivery and given bogus medication. Written by Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Although this is typical of the low-budget quickies that Warners churned out like hotcakes in the Thirties it offers Bette Davis in her most youthfully appealing "down-to-earth platinum blonde girl" phase. You can find the same character in THREE ON A MATCH, THE GIRL FROM 10TH AVENUE, THE PETRIFIED FOREST and others. She exudes an innocent but intelligent, unaffected femininity that seems to have evaporated by the time she hit her stride with JEZEBEL, so it's good that this phase of her career is preserved - if only to track her evolution as an actress. Note the energy and vitality she injects (perhaps effortlessly) into a supporting role as the girlfriend-wife, stealing every scene she's in - without relying on conventional beauty. It's kind of fun also to see how the scenarists managed to leap from one implausible, contrived plot development to the next - but that's a secondary matter because most of these films were beyond belief. The point was to make a moral point, not to be narratively convincing. The point here being: evil gangsters, beware of the authorities because they'll get you!