GamerTab That was an excellent one.

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Neil Doyle The central role in this low-budget crime melodrama really belongs to KAY FRANCIS, and she makes her lady doctor pretty believable. But it's HUMPHREY BOGART who walks off with the show, which is no more than a programmer made on the cheap, by playing up the comic elements of his character.Bogart is an illiterate man who wants his "genius" to be known. He kidnaps a man (James Stephenson) with a reputation as a writer in order to tell him his life story and make him the "king of the underworld." But Kay Francis spoils all his plans when she has to prove herself innocent of criminal charges pending against her due to a prior event. She fools the hoods into believing they will go blind if they don't let her help them.The story has several implausible script problems and never really comes off as credible. Interesting only to see that Bogart was far more worthy of his early material than the studio realized. And Kay Francis has one of her more believable roles in this crime melodrama.

theowinthrop I wonder if the screenwriter for this film had somebody in mind as a model for the criminal Humphrey Bogart plays. In the 1920s and 1930s there was a major war between Joe Masseria and Salvator Marranzano for control of New York's criminal underworld. Marranzano, on the surface, seemed more modern to the younger crowd of gangsters like Luciano, Costello, Siegel, Lansky, and Lepke, and they helped him get rid of the "Mustache Petes" or old style gangsters supporting Masseria (and eventually Masseria himself). But they found that rather than restructuring the criminal world into a model corporate structure, Marranzano had delusions of grandeur. He was intoxicated by the image and memory of Gaius Julius Caesar, and intended to make himself the Caesar of the New York Underworld. Eventually "Caesar" Marranzano was bumped off by the disgruntled young Turks who did not plan for him to be a "Capo di Capo".Interestingly enough he was stabbed to death in his office - one wonders if Luciano and the others purposely copied Caesar's demise in the forum. In this remake of an early Paul Muni film, DR. SOCRATES, Kay Francis is a female doctor who discovers that her late husband was tied to a powerful mobster (Bogart) and got killed helping him with some medical attention for one of his gang. The police and A.D.A. (Pierre Watkins) arrest and try Francis on really weak grounds as an accomplice, but the jury is deadlocked and she is released while the A.D.A. decides whether or not to retry her. Francis is determined to prove her innocence by catching Bogart.Humphrey Bogart played many gangsters in the 1930s, and most of them were quite dangerous types, like Duke Mantee in THE PETRIFIED FOREST or Baby Face Martin in DEAD END. But his gangster boss here is ridiculous. The reason is that the screenwriter created a personality point about this gangster that is never pursued properly in the film. Bogart is enamored by the career of Napoleon Bonaparte, and keeps mentioning this. Never once in the course of the film, outside an occasional reference to say Waterloo or some incident like that, do we see Bogie trying to use Napoleons aphorisms and strategies in his crimes! For example, Bonaparte once dismissed military brilliance and said something to the effect that he preferred "lucky" generals to brilliant ones. He realized that a brilliant general could get so hung up about his own brilliant schemes that he could blow a major battle, whereas a "lucky" general looks quickly at a situation and grabs the initiative. Bogart does not show any inclination to follow that particular piece of wisdom, and does not even mention it.Bogart also is never shown using any of the strategies that made Marengo or Austerlitz or Jena victories that rang down through the last two centuries in his robbery schemes or crimes. For a man who supposedly admires a great figure he doesn't seem willing to learn from him!In the plot Francis hides in a small town and Bogart shows up there to rescue two of his men from the local police (actually similar to an incident involving gangster John Dillinger). Bogart has also picked up a traveling writer (James Stephenson) who he realizes can ghost write Bogies criminal memoirs. Stephenson is arrested in the incident, but he is released into Francis' custody (she is now a doctor in the town), and subsequently kidnapped by Bogie (not quite like the unfortunate Duc de Enghien). Soon Francis is in pursuit, and notes Bogies health as a potential key to undermining his control of her fate and Stephenson's. It involves giving him a peculiar drug that has to be also given to all his men at the same time to disable them all. This part of the script is absolutely unbelievable as Bogie's gangster does not accept the simple solution of selecting one of his men as a guinea pig to test the drug on (Francis manages to browbeat him into taking the drug!).There are elements of other, better films in KING OF THE UNDERWORLD. Most notable is James Stephenson's writer/hobo who resembles Leslie Howard's in THE PETRIFIED FOREST. The acting is pretty good (best are the scenes involving the local bigwig doctor who resents the arrival of Francis in the small town, and starts making problems for her). Stephenson was a fine young actor, whose best role (the troubled barrister defending Bette Davis' "Leslie Crosby" in THE LETTER) was yet to come, and his death in the early 1940s was a true loss to movies. Francis does nicely in her role, even if her victory over Bogie is asinine. Bogie is good - wish I could say the same for his character or the script.

mk_mccln In this theatrical melodrama Humphrey plays a gangster; amazing stretch of the imagination, isn't it? A semi-literate, Bogie (bad guy Joe Gurney) idolizes Napoleon (short guy ego tripper) and quotes le petit emperor on occasion to justify his own actions, such as placing chunks of lead into the physiques of various inconvenient people with the assistance of gunpowder. He utilizes this method of employee reduction to lay off (without benefits) his doctor, who's wife, Kay Francis (Dr. Carole Nelson), who has just won the Isabella Rossellini look-a-like contest, is also a doctor. She scrams Big City to settle down in a small town to start over, and prove her innocence on a charge of consorting with known actors who play criminals. This is considered highly unprofessional by other doctors, who sent in notes of complaint from the golf course.Well, wonders never cease as Bogie and his gang show up coincidentally and quite by chance in that very exact identical same town! Of all the burgs in all the world, why did they have to drive into this one? Additionally, the gang has picked up a hitch-hiking writer (James Stephenson) who has become Bogie's biographer, not entirely of his own volition. Nefarious doings evolve, love blossoms, lots of action and shooting, police persons with tommy-guns are attracted; and maybe, just maybe the gangster wins in a 1930's era movie, by special dispensation of the Hayes Office. Or maybe not. Jeepers, the suspense is killing you, so don't miss this movie if you get a chance! Just remember, the criminals are the ones who use poor grammar and have a tendency to fall down with holes in their bodies. Bogie proves adept at utilizing the vernacular popular amongst persons criminally inclined, as usual. And, I don't mind telling you that there is a modicum of suspense as the fair doctorette bravely faces adversaries on both sides of the law. I actually bit a fingernail. I give this one gun up with a lot of bullets. Hey, it's watchable and it's got Bogie! Xoxox Mike

classicsoncall "King of the Underworld" paces at a machine gun clip, with Humphrey Bogart as Joe Gurney, a crime boss who quotes Napoleon and fancies himself as the last of the public enemies. When doctors Niles and Carol Nelson (John Eldredge and Kay Francis) perform a difficult surgery and save one of his men, Gurney insinuates himself into their lives with money and power. Niles can't help himself, and welcomes the added income to support his gambling habit. Carol feels something amiss, but it's only when Niles is killed in a gang shootout with the police that she comes to understand how entangled her situation has become.This isn't one of Bogey's better gangster films, certainly not on a par with "The Roaring Twenties" or "High Sierra". His characterization of mobster Gurney felt somewhat forced and uncomfortable. He does however take peculiar pride in reaching the top of his chosen profession, taking some delight in author Bill Stevens' (James Stephenson) suggestion for an autobiography - "Joe Gurney - The Napoleon of Crime".For an interesting scene that shows how far we've come from the movie's 1939 year of release, consider how amazed the shopkeeper was to receive a hundred dollar bill from Mrs. Nelson, the first one he'd seen in at least six months! Ultimately, Mrs. Nelson turns the tables on Gurney's gang through a clever ruse using a chemical solution to temporarily blind them, on the pretense that they could actually go blind from an infection caused by a gunshot suffered by Gurney. But she couldn't have done so if she didn't make her way back to Gurney's hideout. When brought there the first time to treat Gurney she was blindfolded, but apparently wasn't blindfolded on the way back - not too clever for the Napoleon of Crime!