NFR Project: 'Little Caesar' (1931)

 

NFR Project: ‘Little Caesar’

Dir: Mervyn LeRoy

Scr: Francis Edward Faragoh, Robert N. Lee, Robert Lord, Darryl F. Zanuck

Pho: Tony Gaudio

Ed: Ray Curtiss

Premiere: January 9, 1931

79 min.

Gangster films were huge throughout the 1930s, and this film, along with The Public Enemy (1931) and the original Scarface (1932), started it all. The stories of tough guys who end up hoist by their own petard – crime doesn’t pay, after all – are miniature tragedies, with guns.

It was the film that made Warner Brothers studio the home of hard-bitten fare. Every major studio in Hollywood had a specialty, and this was its. Here a whole generation of cops and robbers performers would be bred.

The first great gangster film was Josef von Sternberg’s little-seen Underworld (1927), and much of the 1930s crime film style came from that picture. Others cite The Doorway to Hell (1930) as a precursor. However, it is the riveting story of naked ambition that elevates Little Caesar and makes it into a parable about the American imperative to “make it big.”

The central character is a classic antihero, and Edward G. Robinson deserved the accolades and success that accompanied his performance. On the surface, Robinson would not seem to be leading-man material. He is small and thick-featured. But he displays dynamic power as he plays Caesar “Rico” Bandello as a titanic figure driven by the need to dominate the criminal landscape. Robinson is arrogant, intense in the role, a man with a talent for murder and mayhem.

Set in Chicago, the action bears a strong resemblance to the real-life exploits of noted criminals. Rico and his buddy Joe (a young Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) are small-time hoods. Rico dreams of making it in the big city, so off to Chicago they go. There Rico falls in with bad company almost immediately, while Joe leaves the criminal world and performs as a dancer. There is no romantic interest for Rico – he is all action, all the time.

The film then embarks on a kind of Rake’s Progress. Rico takes over the gang he joined, increasing his “territory.” He goes on to larger and better positions, until he is ruling over the whole North Side. However, since Joe had witnessed his murder of the crime commissioner earlier, Rico thinks he needs to rub his buddy out. He tries, but fails to do so. He runs, Joe testifies, and the reign of Little Caesar is over.

We finally find the gangland chief in a cheap flophouse, hiding out and drinking heavily. He hears a news report of a police detective mocking him, and, outraged, he calls the cop to lash out at him. The police trace the call, and Rico is run to ground. Hiding behind a billboard (advertising a show Joe is starring in), he is riddled with bullets from a tommygun. Astonished, Robinson utters the classic line: “Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?” and dies. The wages of sin is death.

If the movie seems cliched today, it’s because it is the original, from which all the cliches descended. With a riveting central perofrmacne, Little Caesar is a classic lets the audience live vicariously through Rico, then absolve themselves with reacting pleasantly to his demise.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Morocco.