Smart Money

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By the time the 1930s rolled around, a lot of moviegoers came to know Warner Bros. for its gangster pictures. Real-life gangsters were thriving during Prohibition, some of them attaining a kind of cult-hero status among Depression-era folks who appreciated that somebody was sticking it to those in authority. So, with hoods in the news, the movie studios did their best to capitalize on the popularity of gangsters. By 1931, WB's two biggest tough-guy movie stars were Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney, thanks to the success of "Little Caesar" and "The Public Enemy" earlier in the year, and the studio was eager to get them both in front of the camera again. What better route than to pair them up in "Smart Money" later in 1931. Even Boris Karloff has a bit part in the picture, which he made just prior to his becoming a star in his own right in "Frankenstein."

Then comes the "however." I chose to watch "Smart Money" from a box set of Warner gangster films because I had never seen it before and because of the attraction of the Robinson-Cagney pairing, apparently the only film in which they appeared together. However, "Smart Money" is not really a gangster picture, per se, and Cagney is hardly in it. After the stars' debut in "Little Caesar" and "The Public Enemy," this one must have been a letdown for fans. It was for me.

Directed by Alfred E. Green ("Disraeli," "The Jolson Story," "Top Banana"), "Smart Money" is not, as I say, a typical gangster movie at all. Instead, it's about gamblers and gambling. Robinson stars as Nick "The Barber" Venezelos, a fellow who owns a barber shop in the fictional burg of Irontown and runs a gambling den in the back room. Nick is uncommonly lucky in games of chance, and his pals decide to stake him to a big game in the city. They put up $10,000 for Nick to sit in on a high-stakes poker game. But when Nick does so, he gets suckered, cheated, and taken for all his money. He decides to get even.

The story starts to wander from this point on, with the second half finding Nick and his pal Jack (Cagney) on top of the world, Nick a celebrated man-about-town running a string of gambling houses throughout the city and Jack his right-hand man. Nick is also a sucker for blondes, and there is always one hanging around getting him into trouble. The females include Noel Francis as Marie, a cigar-counter girl, and Margaret Livingston as Irene, an attempted suicide.

I tell you, Robinson's character is so arrogant and cocky, it's hard to sympathize with him, except at one point late in the film when we see he's got a heart. Mostly, he's just a pain, and viewers may be happy with his comeuppances. At least Robinson as an actor is fun to watch, even if his character here is not.

As for Cagney, it's as though the studio wanted simply to exploit his name after "The Public Enemy" (or maybe this film was in production before "The Public Enemy" became popular) because his role is really quite small, and for most of the movie he doesn't even show up. When he does appear, he practically steals every scene with his facial gestures and body movements, reminding us once again that he was a great song-and-dance man as well as movie tough guy. In any case, this is an Edward G. Robinson film all the way, and it wouldn't be for another year or two that the studio would figure out what to do with Cagney to make him an absolute star in his own right.

Two points of interest: We find the film filled with black and Italian stereotypes of a kind we wouldn't consider appropriate in movies today. Yet the film takes no chances in another area by never mentioning the actual names of any big cities in the story (Robinson's character simply goes to "the city") for fear that the censors in those cities might interpret the movie as looking unfavorably on their police or their politics. Times change.

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