CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 31 October 1932 by Universal Pictures Corp. New York opening at the Winter Garden: 18 December 1932. U.K. release: 29 April 1933. Australian release: February 1933. 69 minutes. NOTES: The stage play opened on Broadway at the Avon, after a sensational off-Broadway debut on 22 April 1932 at Provincetown where it attracted record-breaking crowds and an unusually large volume of press attention. It ran 56 performances before transferring to the Avon where it lasted five weeks. It tells of a hotel bellboy (Elisha Cook Jr) who witnesses a murder by an influential crime czar (Harold Huber), who has the witness imprisoned and finally killed by the policemen who are supposed to be guarding him. Walter Hart and Michael Blankfort produced. Hart also directed. COMMENT: An exceptionally hard-hitting drama of judicial and political corruption, directed with surprising verve by Edward L. Cahn some years before he became a dreary director of inescapable, low-low-budget "B" movies. The cast is unusually strong, with stand-out performances from Tully Marshall as the cowering District Attorney, Louis Calhern as his corrupt assistant, Berton Churchill as the shifty mayor, Frank Sheridan as Police Commissioner Garvey, and Edward Arnold in the Harold Huber part. Superbly photographed by Karl Freund, Afraid to Talk is an excellent example of the socially-aware Hollywood movie of the early 1930s. One's only quarrel with Hollywood is the substitution of a happy ending for the play's more effectively dramatic downbeat curtain.Fortunately, it now appears that two endings were filmed. A happy one for American release and a version close to the stage play's for the European market.OTHER VIEWS: For some reason, this brilliant film noir has not made anybody's must-see list. Why? Too old? Hardly. Underworld (1927) is frequently cited as a classic example of the genre. Does this movie lack an appropriately noirish mood and atmosphere? Again, no. In fact cameraman Karl Freund is often quoted as a master of film noir lighting

kidboots The nominal stars were Eric Linden and Sidney Fox but the ones everyone will remember are Edward Arnold as head racketeer Jig Skelli and Louis Calhern as the cool and callous Assistant District Attorney John Wade. The movie was based on the controversial play, "Merry Go Round' which only ran for about 40 performances but was all about blatant municipal corruption.Eric Linden excelled in another of his "tragic boy of the screen" roles. He plays Ted Martin, a bellboy in a big city apartment. When he answers a call for room service he gets caught in the cross fire of a gangland shooting. Ted is shot and left for dead but he lives and identifies Jig Skelli as the assailant - even though his young wife Peggy (Sidney Fox) has already been threatened - if he talks!!! Of course the local council is completely corrupt and in the racketeer's pockets. When honest judges and councilors quit in disgust, they are replaced with stooges. Ted becomes embroiled in a nightmare world where the only other trustworthy person is his wife. After being persuaded (by being given police protection) to identify Skelli, Wade "through the kindness of his heart" sends Ted and his wife to another city to start over, but before they can leave, Ted is hauled off to the police station where he is given a massive beating to persuade him to confess to the crime as it will get everyone of the hook!!The scenes of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" must have been a real eye opener for the public. The municipal meetings, not being able to start until the real "civic leaders" - Jig and his boys - arrive, to give their orders. The Mayor (Berton Churchill) is a silent partner in "Skellis" speakeasy and Louis Calhern is a standout with his icy coolness that never deserts him, even at the end. There is always a gangster's moll, this time played by Mayo Methot and she is suitably slinky, warbles a tune and even manages to switch allegiances to Wade - or does she?? It was also the end of the line for Sidney Fox as well. It was her last role for Universal and it was a part that any young actress could have played. Her complicated love affairs had ruined her career. Eric Linden had a few dramatic moments as the innocent bellboy, but unfortunately only had another year of outstanding roles left. His sensitive boy next door style was being replaced by rugged he man types, such as Clark Gable etc.Highly Recommended.

GManfred Like Gangster Pictures? "Afraid To Talk" may be the best of this genre ever made. It tells a story of corruption in which traditional ethical guidelines are erased, in which there are no 'good guys' or 'bad guys'- they're all bad. It was directed in breathtaking and expert fashion by Edward L. Cahn, who directed many crummy B's of the 50's and 60's, and this must be his best picture.This is a pre-code gangster picture and by my reckoning better than "Public Enemy" or "Little Caesar" and despite the fact that there is no big name gangster-type star here.In addition, this is a Universal production, which goes against the 30's Hollywood slogan that, "If it's a Universal it's a Horror". Somehow this backwater studio produced this taut, well-acted, hard-hitting movie and did it in 72 minutes worth of film. The baddest of the bad guys is Louis Calhern, doing his dastardly best (or worst) as a treacherous Asst.District Attorney. In this corner, as a hapless hotel bellhop, is Eric Linden, who is married to munchkin-like Sidney Fox, in a thankless role as a housewife. Other career crooked politicians in the cast are Berton Churchill, Edward Arnold and Robert Warwick. Look for Mayo Methot, Bogie's first wife,as a gang moll.Afraid To Talk has never, to anyones or any publications knowledge, been shown on TV, and is not available in any format except 35MM. Do not miss it if the opportunity ever arises. I was also impressed to learn of the existence of political corruption elsewhere - I'm from N.J. and I thought we invented it.

django-1 This 1932 Universal feature, directed by action-crime specialist Edward L. Cahn, is a powerful study of urban corruption that is still timely today. Although only 72 minutes long (what a lesson today's filmmakers could learn in that department!!!), the film presents a complete urban society--law enforcement, judiciary, city administration, Mayor's office, organized crime--and a completely corrupt system. Eric Linden plays a bellhop at a swank hotel who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time his life to be destroyed although he has done nothing wrong. He's simply not "well connected." Simultaneously, corrupt cops conspire with a corrupt DA and a corrupt judge to keep graft-paying mobsters from suffering any harm. The society depicted in the film is corrupt, although there are honest and well-meaning individuals in any particular department who do their best to fight the corruption and to stand up for honest working people--however, those individuals are either destroyed or ignored or frozen out and they have little effect. As a pre-Code film, Afraid to Talk does not pull any punches, and its ending is something you'd never see in a corporate product playing the multiplexes here in 2002. The film moves at a fast pace, and the last five minutes perhaps move at TOO fast a pace, but in its own way the pacing helps to create the feel of inevitability that gives the film its unique fatalistic feel. I watched this with a group of 30 people, all of whom were speechless, realizing the sad, painful truths the film depicts. Afraid to Talk is a forgotten classic that packs a powerful punch, and still does today, 70 years after its initial release. If you ever get a chance to see it, don't miss it.