Barbary Coast (1935)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Howard Hawks

Writers:

Ben Hecht (writer)
Charles MacArthur (writer)

Release Date:

1 June 1936 (Denmark)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Romance | Western

Plot:

Mary Rutledge arrives from the east, finds her fiance dead, and goes to work at the roulette wheel of Louis Charnalis' Bella Donna...

Plot Keywords:

Roulette | Gambling | Gold Miner | 1800s | Wilderness

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Miriam Hopkins	...	Mary 'Swan' Rutledge
Edward G. Robinson	...	Luis Chamalis
Joel McCrea	...	Jim Carmichael
Walter Brennan	...	Old Atrocity
Frank Craven	...	Col. Marcus Aurelius Cobb
Brian Donlevy	...	Knuckles Jacoby
Clyde Cook	...	Oakie
Harry Carey	...	Jed Slocum
Matt McHugh	...	Broncho
Donald Meek	...	Sawbuck McTavish
Rollo Lloyd	...	Wigham
J.M. Kerrigan	...	Judge Harper
Roger Gray	...	Sandy Ferguson

Also Known As:

Port of Wickedness (USA) (reissue title)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Wide Range Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

Finland:(Banned) (1936)

Filming Locations:

San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

Samuel Goldwyn Company, The

Quotes:

Chamalis: I'm running this town and there's only one way to run it: my way!

Entertaining if melodramatic

During the gold rush, Robinson runs San Francisco like a mafia boss. Enter Hopkins as a gold-digging young lady, who apparently is just about the only white woman in the whole city, given how the men react to her. The familiar cast also includes McCrea as an earnest young prospector, Donlevy as Robinson's hatchet man, and Brennan as an old guy named "Old Atrocity." Entertaining film has a decent story but is marred by acting that is either wooden or melodramatic, with Hopkins particularly guilty of the latter. It's fun watching Robinson play the heavy. Hawks does a nice job of evoking foggy San Francisco of a bygone era.