The Ruling Voice

This is a super-corny, super-stupid story but just go with it - it's fabulous fun.....well, if like me, you like a cheesy unimaginative but fast-paced 1931 gangsterish drama that is.

Gangsterish? Organised crime crime is the central tenet of this but we don't have Tommy gun totting low lifes. Walter Huston's gang boss operates from a big fancy art-deco office, he has a board of directors and calls and minutes board meetings - the analogy of organised crime to big business whilst not being particularly subtle is strikingly put across.

What perhaps doesn't quite happen is any empathy with Walter Huston's character. As always he's fantastic bringing his unique zealous sincerity and honesty even to an agent of insidious evil. He's just a bit too nice, there's too much contradiction here to make him believable: he's the most loving father in the world and yet also deliberately responsible for dozens of babies starving to death.

I don't think we're meant to examine this that deeply. It's just a good old fashioned mellow melodrama. The story doesn't need to make too much sense, the characters don't need to be authentic or memorable and the direction doesn't need to dazzle. It's never going to win any awards but it's got three things going for it. 1) Walter Huston as always being brilliant, even in a bit of a naff role, 2) Loretta Young as always looking impossibly beautiful, 3) it's just so 1931........if someone asked you what was 1931/32 like in an American city, you'd simply show them this.