Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

blanche-2 Edward G. Robin is "The Little Giant" in this 1933 comedy which also stars Mary Astor and Helen Vinson.Robinson plays Bugs Ahern, a notorious bootleg king at the end of Prohibition, who decides to take all his money, quit the mob life, and break into California high society.He's not exactly a slam-dunk for polite society - he talks like a thug, for one thing -- and when he meets a glamorous woman, Polly Cass, from a prominent family, he falls hard. She invites him to tea, and he goes to buy the right clothes. His credit is checked, and word gets around at the tea that he's a millionaire. Polly and her family are at that moment completely interested and invite him back.Ahern visits a Realtor, Ruth Wayburn (Mary Astor), and rents a house she finds him, not knowing that it's her house and that she has fallen on hard times. Impressed by Ruth's knowledge of all things upper class, he hires her as his assistant.Ahern proposes to Polly and also buys into her father's bond business. Little does he know, trouble will follow. Very amusing comedy, with Robinson, overdressed for most occasions, attempts to deal with old money by playing polo and juggling appetizers. In one of the first scenes, he and his buddy who insisted on coming to California with him, Al (Russell Hopton) are in a very high class French restaurant, where Bugs acts like he can speak French as he orders from the menu (and by the way, at this high-class, expensive restaurant, the entrées were $1.50; also his expensive hotel was $45/day).The funniest, however, is the polo scene, and also some scenes toward the end when Ahern is forced to call on his old crowd for some help.Very enjoyable, with Robinson fabulous as a bull in a china shop.

mark.waltz Prohibition has come to an end, and just as fast as Kevin Costner's Elliot Ness was ready to go get a drink, bootlegger Edward G. Robinson is ready to become respectable. He doesn't plan on getting hoodwinked by a bunch of "fags", he says, referring to the wealthy people of Santa Barbara in that term to indicate "well-dressed swells", not cigarettes, bundles of sticks or gay men. This is a sassy pre-code comedy of the snobs versus the slobs, where Chicago meets California elite, where manners meet muscatel. Along the way, Robinson rents a huge mansion from the pretty but broke Mary Astor who hires her former servants out to him but begs their confidentiality in order to pay off back taxes. As for the wealthy family who gets him involved in a business scheme, there's the fickle Helen Vinson, a socialite with candied lips but an acid tongue, pompous father Berton Churchill, horse-faced mother Louise Mackintosh (whom I whinny at every time I see her) and good for nothing brother Don Dillaway. It is clear from the beginning that Astor is more the one to teach Robinson the real meaning of good breeding, and it is also apparent that Robinson will utilize his band of merry dumbbells from Chicago to seek revenge on the family who underestimated his lack of sophistication.This is delightful pre-code comedy, with shots of the reformed mobsters attempting to play polo, and much witty dialog to boot as Robinson tries to fit in an element that perhaps he was better avoiding. He gets to learn that all so-called "decent" people aren't necessarily "nice" people and they find out that he isn't above resorting to old methods in order to cinch a business deal. Churchill, it seems, is bilking clients with worthless stock, and when Robinson gets involved, he is the one left holding the bag. But big business for him is just like his was during the depression, and after a memorable opening where he expresses his fury towards FDR for ruining his business. The cops who used to try to catch him smuggling his illegal beer now jeer him for being a has-been so he sets off to prove he can be legitimate. This gives Robinson a lot of juicy material to handle and two beautiful if different leading ladies to play off of. That makes this one of those pre-code films that remains entertaining and historically interesting, although his Bugs is certainly not as threatening as his Rico was in "Little Caesar".

davidjanuzbrown If anyone is looking for a great Mob Comedy, that really is a MOB Comedy, this is it. Spoilers: It is about a Bootlegger named Bugs Ahearn (Edward G. Robinson), and his second in commend Al Daniels(Russell Hopton), who decide to go straight after Prohibition ends, and move out to Beverly Hills and find out that the businessmen out there (Such as the Cass Family (Led by Father Donald Hadley (Barton Churchill), and not so sweet Polly (Helen Vinson)), who are far more crooked then the Mob ever was (They have a code of honor). The only person who knows the truth about how they are playing him as a sucker is Ruth Wayborn (Mary Astor), who has to act as his Personal Secretary, but really loves him. Mary knows the truth, because she was once rich, and they swindled her out of her fortune, so she has to rent out her mansion (Which Bugs did not know). When he finds out the truth about how gullible he was (They stuck him and many others with worthless stock certificates) he is so dejected, he gives a $15,000 wedding ring that he bought for Polly to a blind man, begging for money. One of the best scenes occurred in the DA's Office where he was told that not only was broke, but he would be going to jail for the swindle. The only way he could avoid this is get the money back. He asked the DA to let him make a call, and it went straight to the Boys in Chicago, and they could not wait to get back into action (Including boarding planes with Machine Guns). Not only did they got back all of the investors money plus interest, with heavy duty shakedowns (Including torture to a crook who refused to pay up), it was done in a way, that when the Mob took over the crooked investment company, with the assistance of Ruth (Who is good with numbers) they made sure it would be profitable for Bugs, his fellow mobsters, and the people who got their money back. The film ended with Robinson and Astor looking down from the mansion seeing gangsters on Polo Ponies, falling over themselves, and laughing about it. What is interesting is how Pre-Code it was: Including the torture scene, the DA not objecting to Robinson calling in the Mob (Showing gangsters as heroes would not be allowed a year later), Robinson referring to the rich as 'fags', and Al admitting he snorted Cocaine. Like the torture scene, no nos a year later. If you like Warner Bros Gangster films, and Robinson in particular, it should be a must see. Of course, it merits 10/10 Stars.

theowinthrop It is generally conceded that Edward G. Robinson (his memoirs tell us that the "G" was for "Gould", but it was a made-up name, so he just left it a "G") was one of the finest actors in Hollywood history, who repeatedly missed out on deserved "Oscar" recognition, although he did get a career "Oscar" shortly before his death in 1971. But most of the performances he is best recalled for ("Little Caesar", "Double Indemnity", "The Ten Commandments", "Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet", "The Sea Wolf", "Key Largo", "The Woman In The Window", "All My Sons") were dramatic parts. In fact, many were outright villains. He did play comedy, and when the film was intelligent it was usually with good results. In particular his gangster comedies, "A Slight Case of Murder", "Larceny, Inc.", and "The Whole Town is Talking", show him to best effect. And there is this early comedy (I believe it was Robinson's first comic turn).Bugs Ahearn is like Remy Marko in "A Slight Case of Murder". Both are beer baron racketeers from the 1920s and early 1930s, who have made a pile, but face the end of "prohibition" by trying to turn legit - or as close to legit as possible. Remy (sticking to the New York Metropolitan area) decided to continue his brewery as a competitor with now other legitimate beer companies, not realizing (until it's almost too late) how dreadful his swill tastes. Bugs decides he's made enough, pulls up stakes and heads for the West Coast. He will now try to join the "beautiful people" in high society. But while Remy has his loyal gang members and his wife and daughter to support him, Bugs goes it alone. And is taken to the cleaners.I don't think that the view of the rich that appear in these films (and other gangster films of the 1930s) would be as dark again until the last ten years. Although some of the film noir movies showed a seedy side to the wealthy and prominent (notably in those films based on Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett novels), the films of the last decade made in the wake of scandals like EXXON, certainly made the bulk of the public question the rich. In 1933 the same serious questioning was going on. Economic heroes of the 1920s like Michael Meehan, Jesse Livermore, William C. Durant, Samuel Insull, and Richard Whitney became criminals or pariahs in the 1930s as investigations revealed their thefts or skirting of the laws. Even J.P. Morgan 2nd (an uncle of Whitney by marriage) was shown to have made a "mistake" in underestimating his income tax in the early 1930s. Comparatively speaking, gangsters like Remy or Bugs were more openly criminal than their white collar counterparts - who stole millions from small investors, and did not break laws to service a need for mild alcoholic beverages. So it was easy to side with Bugs or Remy when they face these secret villains - like the rest of the population did.Except for former wealthy woman Mary Astor, who finds she likes Bugs, all of the wealthy people in this film are parasites who see Bugs as dirt to use to get rid of worthless stock before they are left holding the bag. The choice of Burton Churchill as the head of the Cass family, as unctuous a villain in the 1930s as you could find, was perfect. His respectable demeanor hiding a wolf-like passion for money at the expense of the gullible - here Bugs, who is smitten by Churchill's equally villainous daughter Helen Vinson.At the end of "A Slight Case Of Murder" Remy found out the error of his beastly beer brew, and snookered the white collared villains (bankers) into giving his loan an extension while he found a new beer formula that worked. Here the ending is more satisfactory, with Bugs asking his pals from Chicago to assist him, and forcing Churchill and his confederates to buy back the worthless stock. The scenes of this were very satisfying to depression America audiences.