The Beast of the City
86 min. / B&W / 1.373:1 / Dolby 2.0 / SDH
Warner Bros. Blu-ray $24.99
Available from Movie Zyng
If you think Little Caesar, Scarface and The Public Enemy are the last word in Pre-Code violent gangster pictures, wait’ll you get a load of THIS one, one of the great shockers of its era, and quite a discovery.
Walter Huston is the honest cop after cast-against-type mob boss Jean Hersholt; Huston’s zeal gets him reassigned to an outer borough where he won’t be a nuisance, but an heroic act on his part and the continuing problems of crime in the big city have him recalled and installed as the new Chief of Police. So far so good, except Huston has a little brother, Wallace Ford, who is involved with a very, very bad girl indeed, Jean Harlow, who is pumping him… uh, for information… because she’s part of Hersholt’s mob. By the third reel, she has Ford so twitterpated that he’s not only feeding her info but actively taking part in the illegal goings-on, leading to the death of an officer. What will happen when big brother finds out? Bullets will happen, and plenty of ‘em.
While renowned for their family values and tow-the-line Americanism in their later films, MGM in the early 1930s could demonstrate an over-the-top streak in such films as Freaks, Mask of Fu Manchu, and this corker that you’d almost think they had no idea how to make exploitation pictures without blowing up all the mores and morals their ‘straight’ films demonstrated. The cops are good guys, but the kind that beat confessions out of suspects and who act like the only bad bullet is a bullet unused. The finale is one of the ages, as violent and appalling as anything we’ve seen in any movie of that era.
Huston is terrific, Ford is fine, Hersholt is excellent, but.. c’mon, it’s Jean Harlow vamping up the screen to such a degree that you’ll be surprised the nitrate film doesn’t burst into flames right then and there. Hot stuff, folks.
The Beast of the City is based on a story by W.R. Burnett, who also wrote the novel Little Caesar, and who tops it with this one. Director Charles Brabin was at the tail end of his long career, but he also gave us Mask of Fu Manchu and Rasputin and the Empress.
The Warner Archive Blu-ray is up to their usual stellar standards, and includes a pair of cartoons of the era, Goopy Gear, with an unpleasant character soon forgotten, and Bosko and Bruno, a rather good cartoon with Bosko and his dog, although mostly it’s about the dog, which is okay with us.
The new Warner Archive Blu-ray is highly recommended; if you haven’t seen this film, you’re in for a treat, it’s a violent, hard-hitting delight.
