This was MGM's big hope of getting on the Warner Brothers' gangster film bandwagon. Although this turned out to be a reasonable gangster movie which does look very much like a real Warner picture, there's not much emotion to engage you.
Warner's Mervyn LeRoy was loaned to MGM to give this that gritty underworld edginess he had given to LITTLE CEASAR which he'd made a few months earlier. LeRoy certainly succeeds; again he perfectly encapsulates the shabby seedy and constantly dangerous feel of the era. He further enhances this by contrasting it with the upper class society world Jack, played by John Gilbert believed he was born into. It proves that MGM could also make a WB gangster movie but something is missing: it lacks soul.
That emotional disengagement is what would reduce this from 'great' to just 'good.' This film is however not 'good' but just 'ok' and that's because the acting is atrocious, really atrocious. Being made in 1931 is no excuse for bad acting, the style is deliberate and down to the director. Mervyn LeRoy made excellent films so it's ofd that he was so below par with this - especially considering he had a bigger budget than he was used to at Warners - maybe that was the problem? You also wonder whether Jack Warner might have said to his employee, LeRoy, that it might be a good idea if he didn't make this picture for a rival studio quite as good as he could? What is surprising is how little influence Mervyn LeRoy seems to have over how John Gilbert performs. John Gilbert, who was possibly the biggest star of the silent screen so he knew what his fans wanted...or what they wanted five years earlier. You can't teach an old dog new tricks especially when that old dog thinks what it's doing is what is needed and also when it's being paid $10,000 a week to do it. Long moody stares and even longer dramatic pauses don't cut the mustard anymore! Perhaps Mervyn LeRoy was too nervous to risk changing Gilbert's tried and trusted style?
Watching films from 1929/30 you can tell which actors will succeed in the talkies and which ones won't: John Gilbert definitely looks like one that won't. He comes across very much like an actor rather than a real believable character. He's not a bad actor, he's just not suited for this. Someone who is a bad actor is Louis Wolheim. He plays the brother and although it's sad to learn that he died just a few days after filming this, he still is the worst actor in the world. He's truly appalling - well, he is to us in the 21st century. It's interesting to get a peak into the minds of those who were alive then to see what they considered to be good acting.
Personally I'm not much of a fan of LITTLE CAESAR and I didn't actually find this particularly worse. Those are both massively inferior to PUBLIC ENEMY and the the magnificent lesser known Paramount gangster film of 1931, CITY STREETS. This is still worth watching but if you're a fan of thirties gangster films, it's absolutely essential.
