Little Caesar (DVD)

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"When I get in a tight spot, I shoot my way out of it, why sure. Shoot first and argue afterwards. You know, this game ain't for guys that's soft."
--Edward G. Robinson, "Little Caesar"

By the 1930s most of the major studios were coming to be known by moviegoers for the kinds of films they made. Disney made cartoons, Universal specialized in monsters, MGM had their musicals, and so on. Warner Bros. back then was best known for its gangster flicks. So it comes as no surprise that WB would give us a whole DVD package of their best gangster movies of the thirties, the "Warner Bros. Pictures Gangsters Collection," containing six feature hits.

For those unable to afford or uninterested in the complete set, each of the six movies in the box is available separately, starting with the granddaddy of them all, "Little Caesar." Made in 1930 by Warner Bros. First National Pictures and released nationally in 1931, this classic film pretty much started the whole trend in gangster movies in the thirties and forties. Indeed, we may not have had "The Godfather," at least not as we know it today, without the ball having been started rolling with "Little Caesar."

Which is not to say there is only historical interest in the film. Despite its somewhat antiquated appearance (it was 1930, after all), the movie holds up to present-day scrutiny quite well. It may not be quite as gritty as a couple of films that followed it, like WB's "The Public Enemy" (1931) or the non-WB "Scarface" (1932); but "Little Caesar" is just as unyielding and hard-hitting, making a star of its lead actor, Edward G. Robinson.

Despite Robinson's best intentions and his other fine award-winning dramatic work, "Little Caesar" forever typecast him as the little tough guy, the vicious gangster, an image perpetuated by countless stage comics, voice impersonators, and even by WB's own animated cartoon caricatures. Perhaps it wasn't fair to so talented an actor, art collector, and gentle and generous a man, but that's life in Hollywood.

I first saw "Little Caesar" in a rerelease double bill with James Cagney's "The Public Enemy" in 1954. To a youngster, they were already old-time movies, although they were only about twenty-odd years old at the time. Today, I hardly think of a seventies film as "old time," but I suppose it's the perspective of youth. To a kid of ten, the two films were different from anything I had ever seen before, and they made a vivid impression on me. The main characters were all evil, bad guys, criminals, something I hadn't experienced in the movies or on TV as yet. They were what we might call these days "antiheroes," protagonists who lack the qualities we usually associate with typical movie heroes, qualities like obeying the law, for a start.

In the movie Robinson plays the central character, a two-bit hood named Cesare Enrico "Rico" Bandello, a not-so-masked imitation of Al Capone, who skyrockets to power in the underworld and then falls just as fast. Yes, there had to be a "fall" in those days. The newly established "Code" demanded it.

You see, the "General Principles" of the Motion Picture Production Code, which went into effect shortly before "Little Caesar" was released, stated the following:

"No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.

Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.

Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation."

Furthermore, "Crimes against the law...shall never be presented in such a way as to throw sympathy with the crime as against law and justice or to inspire others with a desire for imitation."

These were the limiting factors in the movie's depiction of a lowlife's rise and fall in the world of crime. There had to be a "fall" in those days to compensate for the rise. We read in the movie, "...for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." --Matthew 26:52. Crime in early gangster films could not go unpunished. The audience had to learn the hazards of wrongdoing, and Hollywood's Hayes Office would see to it that they did.

Anyway, as the movie begins, Rico and his pal Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) are a pair of cheap crooks robbing gas stations. But Rico, especially, is yearning to rise in the world of crime. Joe, on the other hand, just wants to be a dancer, of all things. So he and Joe pack up and "head East," presumably to Chicago, where they summarily get jobs working as gunmen for the mob, a group identified as a hierarchy that includes Sam Vettori (Stanley Fields) as Rico's immediate boss, Diamond Pete Montana (Ralph Ince) as Sam's boss, and the "Big Boy" (Sidney Blackmer) as the top dog of the organization. It isn't long before Rico works his way rather violently through the first two tiers of the outfit and takes over half the city. Meanwhile, his friend Joe also goes to work for the mob but takes a side job as a dancer in a fancy nightclub, too, his dance partner, Olga, played by Glenda Farrell.

The acting technique in this early talkie is typically over the top, with big, broad gestures, long pauses, and pregnant stares. You get used to it; it's neither more nor less realistic than today's more nuanced acting style, just different. Besides, I love Robinson's preening, prancing swagger, with every utterance from his mouth a snarl. "Yeah, sure. See."