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Little Caesar
1931 Crime / Drama
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Credits
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Director: Mervyn LeRoy
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Script: Robert N. Lee, Francis Edward Faragoh, Robert Lord, Darryl F. Zanuck,
W.R. Burnett (novel)
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Photo: Tony Gaudio
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Music: Erno Rapee
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Cast: Edward G. Robinson (Caesar Enrico Bandello),
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (Joe Massara),
Glenda Farrell (Olga Stassoff),
William Collier Jr. (Tony Passa),
Sidney Blackmer (Big Boy),
Ralph Ince (Pete Montana),
Thomas E. Jackson (Sergeant Flaherty),
Stanley Fields (Sam Vettori),
Maurice Black (Little Arnie Lorch),
George E. Stone (Otero),
Armand Kaliz (De Voss)
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Country: USA
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Language: English
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Runtime: 79 min; B&W
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Summary
Caesar Enrico Bandello - Rico to his friends - arrives in Chicago with
his friend Joe Massara to make his fortune in the criminal
underworld. Rico joins a gang run by Sam Vettori, whose position
he quickly usurps. It is just the first step in Little Caesar’s
determined climb to the top tier of a crime empire. Meanwhile,
Massara has met a dancer, Olga, and decides to give up his career in
crime to start a new life with her. Fearful that Massara will
betray him, Rico has no choice but to kill him...
Review
Whilst it may not have been the first gangster film that was made in
Hollywood, Little Caesar is
certainly one of the most influential. Its success resulted in a
spate of similar films - beginning with William A. Wellman’s Public Enemy (1931)
and Howard Hawks’s Scarface (1932) - which made
the 1930s the decade of the American gangster movie.
With its low budget sets and bland cinematography, Little Caesar looks dated even for
the standards of its time, but an extraordinarily intense performance
from its lead actor, Edward G. Robinson, makes it a classic of its
kind. The 37-year old actor, an East European
émigré, was a virtual unknown at the time he made the
film, but his portrayal of Rico Bandello brought him instant celebrity
and effectively typecast him as the cruel yet sympathetic gangster for
most of his career. The character that Robison plays in this film
is the antithesis of his real-life persona. In his private life,
he was an amiable and sensitive man, possessed with great charm and
intellect. Robinson’s inability to fire a gun without
blinking wildly led director Mervyn LeRoy to fix strips of transparent
tape to his eyelids to keep them up - something which made the actor
appear even more menacing and inhuman.
Robinson was chosen for the part of Rico on account of his striking
resemblance to the notorious Chicago mobster Al Capone, on whose
exploits W.R. Burnett based the book of which the film is a close
adaptation. Clark Gable was originally considered for the
role, but was rejected because his ears were too large. The part
of Rico’s likeable sidekick Joe Massara was given to Douglas Fairbanks
Jr, the son of the legendary actor of the silent era, Douglas
Fairbanks.
Made before the Hollywood Production Code came into effect, Little Caesar manages to portrays
its central character in a generally positive light. Although a
deeply flawed individual - brutal, vain, ignorant and treacherous -
Rico Bandello still manages to retain our sympathy, mainly on the
strength of Robinson’s exceptional performance, which combines
viciousness with pathos. After the Code came in, in 1934,
the film was (along with others) deemed morally corrupting and was
withdrawn, not seen again until the mid-1950s.
Interestingly, Rico’s famous line "Mother of mercy, is this the end of
Rico?" was originally intended to be "Mother of God, is this the end of Rico?", but
was changed as it was felt to be blasphemous.
Unlike many later gangster films, Little
Caesar has the essence of a morality play, with some serious
messages for contemporary American society. The most important
message, which is underlined in the last shot of the film, is that
crime doesn’t pay and that, if you want to succeed in life, there is no
alternative to honest hard work. Whereas Joe’s ambitions
ultimately succeed through patient commitment, Rico’s end in
spectacular failure, with him falling back to Earth just as quickly as
he rose to the stars.
The film has also been interpreted as a wry comment on the notion of
the American Dream. When the film was made, at the height of the
Great Depression, the American Dream was looking distinctly sour and so
the rise and fall of Rico Bandello would have struck an instant chord
with a great number of people. In the eyes of many,
gangsters and greedy businessmen (the perceived culprits of the Wall
Street Crash) were seen in an equal light, and so the success and
failure of Rico was, for many, an expression of the emptiness of the
so-called American Dream.
© James Travers 2008
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