The Racket

Like TWO ARABIAN KNIGHTS and THE MATING CALL, this film has now been restored by UNLV (which found the prints of these films once thought lost in an archive of producer Howard Hughes' possessions) in cooperation with Flicker Alley.

Lewis Milestone, who had just directed TWO ARABIAN KNIGHTS for Hughes, brought much of the same sense of friendly rivalry between the two leads to this picture, as well as the same co-star, Louis Wolheim. All the elements of many a subsequent gangster picture are here: The close personal relationship between the antagonists (gang boss Wolheim and cop Thomas Meighan); the kid brother whom the gangster wants to shelter from the rackets (George E. Stone, soon to appear in LITTLE CAESAR and many another gangster flick), but who runs afoul of a tough little chanteuse (Marie Prevost). Mob bosses cavorting in lavish nightclubs, overwrought gangland funerals, crooked politicians, a wet-behind-the-ears reporter with two old pros as a chorus: it's all here.

Enough of the action takes place in a run-down precinct house to belie the story's stage origins, but there's plenty of action, including a shootout between two rival gangs, to keep things hopping.