NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Micransix Crappy film

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

marym52 One of the funniest movies I've seen in ages- featuring:Edward G. Robinson as a genial bootlegger going legit after prohibition with a brewery making horrible beer.Ruth Donnelly as his wife, trying to be teddibly refined.All the great character actors who played mugs in the 1930s playing it for laughs.A wild party4 corpses in the guest room closetA stuffy prospective father-in-lawAnd, best of all, Bobby Jordan as the beer-swilling Douglas Fairbanks Rosenbloom, the worst orphan in New York.Try it-- you'll like it!

AaronCapenBanner Lloyd Bacon directed this gangster comedy that stars Edward G. Robinson as Remy Marco, a bootleg beer baron who decides to go straight after prohibition ends, but there is a problem: his beer is no good, tastes awful, but no one ever told him!(He never drank it himself...) Later on at a rented Summer home in Saratoga, Remy's wife Nora(played by Ruth Donnelly) throws a big party that becomes crazy when their daughter Mary (played by Jane Bryan) announces that she's engaged to a state trooper, then a gang of robbers descend on it, only they kill each other first, leaving multiple bodies in one of the upstairs rooms, where a hidden loot they stole is also kept! Amusing but slight comedy has good performances to keep it afloat.

mark.waltz This is a great spoof of the Edward G. Robinson crime dramas, first given laughs in 1933's "The Little Giant" (a forgotten gem.) He is a former bootlegger who can't believe that no one will buy his beer, which he later discovers is disgusting. Ruth Donnelly is his low-class wife living a high-class existence, and is hysterical. It's great to see this wonderful Warner Brothers character actress from the early 30's finally getting a part to sink her teeth into. She is what Helen Broderick was to RKO. I would have loved to see them play sisters. (Think Elaine Stritch and Eileen Heckart, or Joan Blondell and Ann Sothern together....Similar enough to be siblings, but different enough to be individuals.) Ms. Donnelly gets more to do than the top-billed female lead Jane Bryan, then being groomed by Warners to take over the type of parts that Jean Muir used to play. The basic premise has them moving to the country with orphan Bobby Watson (their guest for the summer) and dealing with other gangsters who have hidden a stash of cash in the mansion. Watson, unfortunately, isn't seen enough; It would be like one of the Dead End Kids interacting with the veteran gangster (as the DE Kids did with Cagney and Bogart), and the passing of the torch. Still, the dialogue is typically Runyon-esquire (think "Guys and Dolls" and "The Big Street" set in the country), but not quite "Capra-Corn" either. Allen Jenkins is typically amusing as Robinson's major sidekick. Willard Parker is the police officer engaged to Bryan whom Robinson keeps trying to get rid of. Margaret Hamilton has a great part as the principal of Watson's school. Toss in character names like Sad Sam, No-Nose Cohen and Blackhat Gallagher, and you've got a period comedy that they don't make anymore. Warners later remade this as a musical "Stop! You're Killing Me!" with Broderick Crawford and Claire Trevor in the Robinson/Donnelly roles which isn't bad, but catch the original first.

bkoganbing A Slight Case of Murder had its origins on the Broadway stage where this play by Damon Runyon and Howard Lindsay flopped miserably with only 69 performances in the 1935 season. It certainly adapted better for the screen when Warner Brothers bought it for one of their gangster stable, in this case Edward G. Robinson.The story concerns a gangster Remy Marko who is trying to go straight and get out of the bootleg beer racket now that Prohibition has been repealed. It was a problem faced by any number of people who were not Lucky Luciano or Meyer Lansky.In Robinson's case he's decided to go legitimate and brew beer legally. Of course no one has the heart to tell him that the stuff he's been peddling for years has been nothing but swill, not even his family, Ruth Donnelly and Jane Bryan, nor his closest associates Allen Jenkins, Harold Huber, and Ed Brophy. While all this is going Robinson and the family and friends go to his summer home near the Saratoga racetrack where a big robbery of the bookie's money has taken place. This was in the days before the para-mutual machines and track bets were taken at the sight by legal bookmakers. The gang decides to hide out in what they think will be Robinson's deserted home.Daughter Jane Bryan is romancing state trooper Willard Parker, a prospect the going straight Robinson still finds appalling. No less so than Paul Harvey, Parker's nervous blue-blood father. All these elements mix well for a very funny screen comedy. Robinson who was really getting tired of all the gangster parts, seems to be enjoying himself, referring to himself constantly in the third person, and earning quite a few laughs and keeping up with some of the best scene stealers around. Ruth Donnelly keeps up very well who most of the time remembers she's now supposed to be respectable, but every so often slips back to her familiar background.The guy who really is funny here is Paul Harvey. He's mixing with people he's not used to and it's putting quite an evident strain on him. One of the running gags in A Slight Case of Murder is how bad the beer Robinson makes. He never drinks himself so he doesn't know and no one is brave enough to tell him. Damon Runyon who probably sampled every kind of illegal liquor available during Prohibition, knew well the kind of rot gut that was peddled. The classier places imported stuff from across the border, but the dives used whatever they could get. Marko's lousy beer was something drinking people during Prohibition knew well from. A Slight Case of Murder is one of the few films that ever dealt with that fact albeit in a comic way.Though the plot situations are certainly dated, the talent of this very good cast is timeless.