Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

JohnHowardReid For his second feature as an actor-director, Lowell Sherman hogs the limelight in the very stagily written, directed, acted, photographed and set, The Pay-Off. Based on a stage play which never made Broadway, little has been done to open it out for the screen. However, director Sherman has an advantage over the rest of the cast which be exploits to the hilt, hogging the camera unmercifully even when he is seated in a two-shot or a grouping of four or five. He also uses his penetrating voice to draw the audience's full attention his way and is the only actor to use such a generous amount of black-ringed eye make-up on his pancake-powdered face, so that you and I can easily pick him out in a crowd. The other players do what they can to upstage actor Sherman, but as he was also the director, they face a losing battle. I can't even remember what the chief villain looks like, but have no trouble recalling Sherman's image. I also remember Marian Nixon, who was one of the very few silent stars who had no trouble at all converting to sound, although she did retire after making her 73rd movie in 1936, after marrying director William A. Seiter in 1934. After Seiter died in 1964, she married Ben Lyon (of all people) in 1971. This was certainly news to me. I grew up with Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels and when Bebe was forced to abandon "Life with the Lyons" for health reasons, the nation went into shock. So Ben returned to the U.S.A. and married Marian Nixon? The things you find out on IMDb! Anyway, getting back to the stagily directed "Pay-Off", it does admittedly hold the interest for its 71 minutes, despite Sherman's constant on-camera thesping. The only time he relaxes and throws a bit of meat to a fellow thespian occurs when he shares a scene with George Marion. Available on a very good Alpha DVD.

classicsoncall Unbelievable and convoluted story elements make this a tough one to struggle through. It looks like I might be in the minority on this board, but I don't see a lot here to recommend the picture. Lowell Sherman provides about the only competence the film offers in his portrayal of crime boss Gene Fenmore. He has a great comeback to would be challenger Rocky (Hugh Trevor) for kingpin status - 'jealousy implies equality'. That's the way to put a guy in his place, and I think Rocky pretty much knew it too.As for the young couple at the heart of the story (Marian Nixon and William Janney), how clueless would you have to be to try and rob some high rollers in their own apartment? OK, they were trying to get their own money back, but Tommy (Janney) recognized the goon who robbed him, so why not just go to the cops? On second thought, that didn't always work out in these era stories either. Especially with an idiot District Attorney like the one here.With the old lights out trick used not once, but twice in the story, this one sort of muddles along until it finally peters out with Fenmore's confession. Which sort of defies credibility, because even though he was ultimately behind the jewel store robbery, a good lawyer would have gotten him off scot free with the inept Rocky calling the shots. But then again, he shot Rocky with no witnesses, even if it was self defense. Like Rocky said - "You can't be in this racket and have a code of ethics".

Matthew Kiernan (mateox) This early RKO Radio talkie begins with a scene introducing two incredibly naive juveniles whose unfortunate task is to present the exposition via some of the most obvious dialogue imaginable. Later scenes reveal better dialogue and acting, especially from director Lowell Sherman, a Broadway veteran whose polished, dandified, debonair character uses his big eyes to punctuate his lines. It's all unbelievable and frightfully innocent, but there's some good fun to be had. The women's frocks are particularly unfortunate. But Sherman's performance saves this from being a complete throw-a-way. His performance reminds one of Warner Baxter or William Powell.The film is based on the play CRIME by Samuel Shipman and John B. Hymer. It had a good run of 186 performances at the Eltinge Theatre in New York from February to August 1927. Among the cast were Sylvia Sidney as Annabelle and Chester Morris as Rocky. In 1938, Morris starred in a new film version called LAW OF THE UNDERWORLD essaying the role of Gene Fillmore (Fenmore in the play and first film version).

sbibb1 This film tells the story of an well bred and mannered man (Lowell Sherman) who happens to be the boss of an underworld racket. When one of his henchmen robs a young couple about to get married, he feels sorry for them and takes them in as his family, only to have other henchmen in his crime unit make them stooges in robberies.An early sound film (1930) directed by Lowell Sherman, the stand out performance here is by Sherman himself. He has a very natural and easy going style of acting, making me curious to see other films in which he starred. The plot of the film, though not very believable, still makes for interesting viewing.