mark.waltz
Prohibition has come to an end, and just as fast as Kevin Costner's Elliot Ness was ready to go get a drink, bootlegger Edward G. Robinson is ready to become respectable. He doesn't plan on getting hoodwinked by a bunch of "fags", he says, referring to the wealthy people of Santa Barbara in that term to indicate "well-dressed swells", not cigarettes, bundles of sticks or gay men. This is a sassy pre-code comedy of the snobs versus the slobs, where Chicago meets California elite, where manners meet muscatel. Along the way, Robinson rents a huge mansion from the pretty but broke Mary Astor who hires her former servants out to him but begs their confidentiality in order to pay off back taxes. As for the wealthy family who gets him involved in a business scheme, there's the fickle Helen Vinson, a socialite with candied lips but an acid tongue, pompous father Berton Churchill, horse-faced mother Louise Mackintosh (whom I whinny at every time I see her) and good for nothing brother Don Dillaway. It is clear from the beginning that Astor is more the one to teach Robinson the real meaning of good breeding, and it is also apparent that Robinson will utilize his band of merry dumbbells from Chicago to seek revenge on the family who underestimated his lack of sophistication.This is delightful pre-code comedy, with shots of the reformed mobsters attempting to play polo, and much witty dialog to boot as Robinson tries to fit in an element that perhaps he was better avoiding. He gets to learn that all so-called "decent" people aren't necessarily "nice" people and they find out that he isn't above resorting to old methods in order to cinch a business deal. Churchill, it seems, is bilking clients with worthless stock, and when Robinson gets involved, he is the one left holding the bag. But big business for him is just like his was during the depression, and after a memorable opening where he expresses his fury towards FDR for ruining his business. The cops who used to try to catch him smuggling his illegal beer now jeer him for being a has-been so he sets off to prove he can be legitimate. This gives Robinson a lot of juicy material to handle and two beautiful if different leading ladies to play off of. That makes this one of those pre-code films that remains entertaining and historically interesting, although his Bugs is certainly not as threatening as his Rico was in "Little Caesar".
ferbs54
Most lovers of classic Hollywood film know what an outstanding and versatile dramatic actor Romanian-born Edward G. Robinson could be. In a career that stretched over four decades, Robinson appeared in an astonishing number of quality films, and even the lesser of his pictures were made interesting and watchable by his mere presence. Fewer viewers, I have a suspicion, may recall how adept Robinson could be at comedy, but for proof of this, one need look no further than one of the actor's pre-Code efforts, "The Little Giant." Released in May 1933, this was not only Eddie's first comedic role, but indeed, the very first gangster comedy ever made. Produced by First National Pictures, which had been taken over by Warner Bros. in 1928, the film's mash-up of genres was successful enough to pave the way for later gangster comedies featuring Robinson. John Ford's "The Whole Town's Talking" (1935, and featuring Jean Arthur in her breakthrough role) was perhaps the best of the bunch, followed in 1938 by the borderline screwball "A Slight Case of Murder" and 1942's very funny "Larceny, Inc.," and even some "serious" gangster pictures featuring Robinson, such as 1938's "The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse" and 1940's "Brother Orchid," would contain a goodly leavening of humor. In short, the gangster comedy, as initially proved by "The Little Giant," was a very viable entertainment.In the film, Eddie plays a Chicago mobster named Francis "Bugs" Ahearn. When Prohibition ends in 1933 (the film was most certainly timely!) and booze is suddenly made legal, Bugs decides to call it quits, pay off his boys, go legit, get some culture and move to Santa Barbara, CA. He's got "a million and a quarter salted away," and with that filthy lucre and his childhood buddy Al (Russell Hopton, very funny here in his straight-man role), he arrives at a posh hotel by the sea, ready to crash high society. After falling in love with a glamorous "skirt" named Polly Cass (Helen Vinson), Bugs decides to buy a ritzy 20-room, 14-bath mansion to impress her, and makes his pretty Realtor, Ruth (a very appealing Mary Astor), both his house manager and social secretary. But what Bugs doesn't know is that Polly is a con artist, from an entire family of con artists; indeed, a family that makes Janet Gaynor's family of crooks in 1938's "Young in Heart" seem perfectly angelic! It seems as if Bugs might be learning polo and buying a wedding ring in vain....Featuring wonderfully snappy dialogue, well-drawn characters and big laffs, "The Little Giant" is an absolute delight from start to finish. The film is remarkably compact, and manages to pack quite a bit of yucks and story into its brief 74-minute running time. Indeed, director Roy del Ruth never lets the pace flag; he would not work with Robinson again, but would reunite with Astor the following year for a picture called "Upperworld," one that I have not seen but which has a good reputation. Robinson and Astor have some definite chemistry on screen, and the viewer wonders what Bugs sees in the comparatively homely Polly when Astor's Ruth is so much brighter, sweeter, prettier...and certainly more honest. Astor's face in the early '30s seemed a bit softer and rounder than the more angular look she boasted in the '40s, and her Ruth Wayburn here is ever so much more attractive than the Brigid O'Shaughnessy that Humphrey Bogart would encounter in 1941's "The Maltese Falcon." Robinson and Astor had apparently appeared together once before, in the little-seen 1923 silent "The Bright Shawl" (also starring Richard Barthelmess, Dorothy Gish and William Powell--what a cast!--and with Astor playing Robinson's daughter), and would also appear together in 1934's "The Man With Two Faces." Being one of the last of the pre-Code films, "The Little Giant" sports some lines that modern-day audiences might not be prepared for, such as the reference to giving someone "the finger," and when Bugs refers to the upper-crust snobs as a bunch of "fags"! And then there is the startling early scene in which Bugs shows Al a piece of abstract art (Robinson, it should be remembered, would, years later, own one of the largest private art collections in the world, and one that he had to sell in 1956 to pay off a divorce settlement) and asks his buddy, "You ever seen anything like that before?" Al's response: "Not since I've been off cocaine"! You've gotta love these pre-Code gems! Anyway, Robinson seems to be having a ball here, turning his 1931 "Little Caesar" role of Rico Bandello on its head and squeezing it for laffs; he even gets to look straight into the camera once, hilariously. And yet, this tough guy with a decent heart manages to arouse the viewer's sympathy, too, as he haplessly mingles with the snooty society folk and chases a girl who is waaaaay wrong for him. How satisfying it is, then, when Bugs uses some Chicago strongarm tactics toward the film's finale to rectify the wrongs done him by the Cass family! And what a sweet little ending, too, to wrap things up with! An enormously pleasing entertainment, it's no wonder that "The Little Giant" opened up a whole new genre of film!
kidboots
Part of Edward G. Robinson's longevity in movies was his ability to choose the occasional film that showed he could laugh at the tough characters he created. In "The Whole Town's Talking" (1935) and "A Slight Case of Murder" (1938) he successfully kidded his own genre but he did it first with "The Little Giant" (1933).He plays Bugsy Ahearn, a Chicago beer baron and the film begins with the election of President Roosevelt. That spells the end of prohibition but O'Hearn has already started making plans - reading books on ancient Greece by Plato (Pluto!!!), buying modern art, taking up golf, in other words getting "cultured"!! - he is determined to "crash society"!!! His gang is like one big happy family but after he and Al (Russell Hopton) go out to California, he finds he is swimming with sharks when he becomes entangled with the fortune hunting Cass family. He falls instantly in love with Polly (Helen Vinson) but each of the family fleeces him in different ways until the father sells him a worthless company. Of course they don't realise he has made his money bootlegging and when they do that is the only excuse they need to break Polly's engagement, flee the country and leave him holding the bag - but not before he sends for his old cronies to dispense some Chicago rough justice of his own.This movie is just so much fun - Edward G. Robinson almost over- powers the whole cast and he really struts his stuff and gives the movie going public exactly what they expected from him in 1933 but with the added bonus of laughs!!! Mary Astor is as usual gorgeous and fully up to Robinson as Ruth. She plays a once wealthy girl, whose father has been financially ruined and she is now reduced to renting out the family mansion to Ahearn. She becomes his unofficial teacher, showing him how to act, how to give dinner parties and also that not everyone is as horrible as the Casses. Helen Vinson played the fortune hunting Polly to perfection but, strangely, I found her not as attractive as she usually is. Berton Churchill had also perfected roles like the conniving Father Cass and he was excellent. Shirley Grey was another example of a pretty, talented actress who just didn't make it big - she played Ahearn's cast off mistress, Edith. It was nice to see Russell Hopton with a decent part in a grade A film. He has one of the best lines in the movie. When O'Hearn asks him if he has ever seen a painting like that before, he replies "Not since I stopped using cocaine!!!!!"Highly, Highly Recommended.
